Siren looked so peaceful. Ellis
gazed down at her as she lay in her hammock, the mark on her forehead - cleaned
and already clotting up - the only sign of the night's trauma. I love her so much, he thought, wondering
that he could feel something so strongly, wondering how he had been created
that that could be the case.
"We've landed."
It was Rockspark. He stood in the
broken doorway to Siren's cabin, his head and shoulders dusted with snow like
the world's weirdest Christmas cake decoration.
"Acting Captain Harker requests you on deck."
Ellis glanced across at Miss Barkcastle, who sat in a chair near the
corner, tinkering with a small mechanical device the way other old women Ellis
had known would work on their knitting.
She gave him a nod and a smile.
She would watch.
"Okay," he said, "lead the way."
It was like a different world above deck. At first Ellis thought they were outside,
gazing up at a pale, blue-grey sky, but then he realised it was just the softly
luminous ceiling of the cavern. Snow was
falling around them, although he could not tell from where and over the gunwale
he could see white islands dotted across a lake of turquoise blue. The island they had docked at was the most
intriguing, however, for here and here only was the forest covered in an array of
multi-coloured fairy lights. A gentle
melody seemed to dance, distant, upon the breeze.
"I know that tune," Ellis said, half to himself, "it's a
Christmas-"
"We've begun assessing the damage," Harker said as soon as he
saw Ellis approaching, "and it's already clear that we're going to need to
do a little patching up. The Absolution
may be made of iron, but we can make do with wooden patches until we reach a
proper harbour on Lake Nightglass, but for that we'll need wood." He paused and glanced meaningfully towards
the mysterious forest. "I need to
send a party out to look for serviceable timber and it'll have to be a big
one. Pretty much anyone who isn't needed
in a specialist role on the ship. ...I'm sorry, Ellis, but that includes you. Miss Barkcastle and Rockspark can look after
the Captain whilst working on one or two things for me-"
"-For me, actually," the Former Baron interjected, "I
thought, after this last encounter, that the Absolution could be improved with some defences and, since we're
gathering materials anyway..."
"Anyway, I need you to head ashore with the others
immediately. Gulliver will be going with
you, also, in fact, I’ve put him in charge, just to see if it does him any
good."
"And what about me," came a quiet voice from behind them,
"can I go too?"
They turned to see Annabella standing at the top of the gangway, staring
at them with wide eyes.
"I'd quite like some time off the ship, if that's alright,"
she said softly. Ellis wasn't sure, but
he thought she might be scared.
"Where have you been?" he asked, gently.
"I stayed in my cabin whilst everything was rocking and
shaking. I didn't want to leave my
bed..."
"But now you'd like to get away from the ship for a while. That's okay." He turned towards Harker and added,
"I'll look after her. She'll be
fine."
“Very well, just make sure she’s not in the way. The others are mustering on the shore. Take her with you.”
Ellis took Annabella’s cold little hand and together they walked down
the gangplank and onto the wooden dock.
The others Harker had spoken of, everyone else in the crew who was
deemed expendable with respect to the repair effort on board the Absolution, was waiting just a little
way in land. They were an unusual bunch,
all ages and genders, from many different backgrounds, as Ellis had learnt in
conversations over the past few weeks as they worked together in building the
ship. He wasn’t really close to any of
them, but he admired many and it brought a smile to his face to see them there,
in the snow, doing those things that, it seems, all people, no matter how
different, or from which world, seem compelled to do on a snowy day. There was a snowball fight occurring between
some of the younger men and boys, watched on with interest disguised as disdain
from one or two of the older men. One of
the younger women was trying to build a snowman and a young man, obviously
interested more in the girl than her creation, was doing his best to help. There were already three snow angels
decorating the ground and, as Annabella reached the group and saw what they had
done, a fourth progressed quickly.
Despite what they had just been through – or perhaps because of it –
everyone had a smile on their face.
Everyone, that is, except Gulliver.
“Right, that’s everyone ‘ere then, is it?” he called out grumpily. Cheers and laughter faded to awkward silence
as everyone turned to look at him.
“’Arker put me in charge of this ‘ere group, and made it very clear that
we need to be as quick as possible. They
don’t want us ‘angin’ around ‘ere too long.
Remember that we’re on a mission and that this stopover is very much
unscheduled!”
Ellis wasn’t used to seeing Gulliver taking command and the sight was
somewhat incongruous, so much so that, when Gulliver gestured his way and told
him and a number of the other young men to carry a pile of crates containing
the tools they would need, he was completely taken aback and didn’t move until
Gulliver glared at him.
“Aren’t you listenin’ to me, Ellis?
We don’t ‘ave time to ‘ang around!”
Unsure how to respond, Ellis saluted and hurried over to the pile of
crates, picking one up and marching with it as quickly as he could towards the
treeline. Annabella ran up beside him,
the back of her dress still covered in snow.
“He’s not being very nice today, is he?” she asked, although, in many
ways, it wasn’t really a question.
“No, not really.”
“Why, do you think?”
“He hasn’t been happy for a while now,” Ellis replied, admitting it to
himself for the first time also, “I suppose he’s trying to compensate by doing
what he thinks is a good job for Harker.
He’ll be wanting to prove himself.”
“Bossing people around isn’t a very good way of doing that.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is, but we shouldn’t let it get to us. We’ll just do what he says and try to be nice
to him even if he’s not to us and, maybe, he’ll realise what he’s doing wrong.”
Annabella nodded thoughtfully, then continued along beside him in
silence for a couple of minutes. Ellis
let his gaze and his mind return to the trees, and the colourful, twinkling
fairy lights that decorated them. They
reminded him so much of Christmas, which was odd, given that he had only just
been thinking about Christmas before the attack on the ship. He could also see the thin trial of smoke
rising up over the forest and, for just a moment, as the wind changed
direction, he thought he could smell gingerbread.
“This place is so strange,” he said, mostly to himself.
“How so?” Annabella asked, looking up at him curiously.
“It just reminds me of something from home… I mean, from my time on Earth,
or, at least, my memories of it.”
“Can you tell me about it?”
“Well, it’s a sort of festival we have every year - in the middle of
winter where I lived, so sometimes it snows and often hope it will - and there
are presents and lots of food and we have trees lit up with lights just like
the ones in that forest. We call it
Christmas.”
“Oh,” Annabella replied, “and does it commemorate some historical event,
or are there sacrifices to some god, or…”
“No, not at all,” Ellis replied with a laugh, then paused, “well, I
suppose for some it’s a time to remember a religious event, but most people
don’t believe in that any more.”
“That seems kinda sad,” Annabella replied, staring off into the trees.
“I suppose it’s only sad if what they don’t believe in is true.”
“And is it?”
Ellis thought for a moment, then replied, “I don’t think so.”
They were silent for a few moments and then Annabella added in a small
voice, “I still think its sad.”
They reached the edge of the trees a few minutes later, by which point
Ellis had realised that the trees were not just covered in fairy lights, but
were also decorated with baubles and tinsel and each one had a star, or an
angel or some other Christmas symbol perched on its top.
“This is uncanny,” he said as he came to a halt before one of them and
saw, buried in the snow underneath, boxes wrapped in Christmas paper, each
topped with a bow.
The others were no less surprised than he and one or two were already
digging in the snow to remove the parcels.
“Hey,” one of the older women called out to a friend, “I think this
one’s for you.” She was holding up the
tag on the parcel and pointing to the name written upon it. Her friend hurried over, glanced at the tag
and let out a gasp. “That’s my mother’s
handwriting,” she cried, sounding on the edge of tears. “She died twenty years ago!”
Everyone was rushing to the base of the trees now and, as they dug
through the snow, sure enough, everyone was able to find a present for
themselves, each with a tag with their name on it, handwritten by a loved one,
alive or dead, but all far away and missed.
Ellis found Annabella’s parcel, a tiny little box wrapped in shimmering
pink paper and topped with a thin red ribbon.
She glanced at it and frowned.
“Who is yours written by,” he asked her.
“Tiberius,” she replied softly, “I don’t suppose there was anyone else.”
Ellis own parcel was somewhat larger and the tag on his was written by
the woman he had known as his mum back on Earth. The message read, ‘Merry Christmas, Ellis, I
know this is what you’ve always wanted, lots of love, Mum. XX’. He gave the parcel a shake, but could feel
nothing inside it but a sense of unusual weight. And there was a feeling attached to it, one
of great sadness. He suddenly felt a
deep revulsion for the object and dropped it, letting it fall with a soft thud
back onto the snow.
Nearby, Gulliver was watching, his face a confused mess of sorrow and
anxiety. He held a small, heart-shaped
present in his hands, wrapped in sparkly paper and frothy swirls of ribbon.
"Who is yours from?" Annabella asked, approaching to take a
peak and apparently oblivious to the pirate’s turmoil
"Siren," Gulliver replied distantly, "it says, 'All my
love, Klarise'."
And then Ellis was sure this wasn't right. He turned around to the others who were
examining their gifts - shaking them and holding them to their ears - and
called out, "Whatever you do, don't open-"
But it was too late. One of the
younger women, not much older than a girl really, whose name Ellis recalled as Sophie,
had already torn a piece of her Christmas tree patterned paper away from the
present. There was a jingle of bells,
the sound of distant music and then Sophie fell straight backwards into the
snow, her eyes glazed over.
Most of them rushed over to her at once, those who weren’t already too
engrossed in their presents to notice and someone shouted out, ‘She’s alive!’,
but almost at once two more crew had collapsed, partially unwrapped gifts
falling beside them.
“Nobody else touch a present,” Ellis called out, trying to work out what
on Shadow could be happening.
“These two just seem to be unconscious as well,” came another voice.
“Their eyes are moving, like they’re dreaming.”
“What’s happening to them?”
Gulliver was still staring at his present. As Ellis glanced his way, hoping to get their
so-called leader to rally everyone together and bring about some element of
calm, he seemed to be considering opening it, playing with the ribbons.
“What are you doing?” Ellis
asked, marching over.
“It’s such a beautifully wrapped gift,” Gulliver replied, still sounding
distant – like he wasn’t really there at all, “I just want to know what’s
inside.”
“It can’t be from Siren, you know that, and you’ve seen what’s happened
to the others who have opened their gifts…”
“Yeah, I ‘ave, and yeah, I know it can’t really be from ‘er… and yet… I
just want to know what she would ‘ave got me.”
Ellis was right beside him now, so before Gulliver could tease the
ribbon away from the parcel any further, he snatched it from his hands and
threw it across the snow.
“It’s not worth it, Gulliver.”
Suddenly
the melancholy pirate seemed to come to life.
He whirled around towards Ellis with a look of such anger and hate that
Ellis could only take a step back, stumbling in the thick snow and almost
falling.
“’Ow do you know, eh? Those
others, they look like they’re dreamin’.
‘Ose to say they aren’t ‘appier? ‘Ose
to say it wouldn’t be better, when all is said and done, if I was dreamin’ with
them?”
He took another step forward, fists clenched and Ellis stumbled back
another step.
“It’s alright for you, you’re already ‘appy – you got what you wanted,
you got the girl, but for some of us….”
“Some of us don’t even know who we are, Gulliver!”
That seemed to do it. Gulliver’s
clenched right fist flew through the air towards Ellis, who took another
stumbling, awkward, snowbound step backwards, but it wasn’t just snow behind
him, there was a box, a parcel and, as he tripped over it, he caught a glimpse
of it, sparkling wrapping paper glinting in the unnatural daylight, just as his
boot snagged the edge of it
And it tore.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please let me know what you think of this episode!