Chapter twenty-six
“If the wind doesn’t change, we’re not going anywhere.”
Elanor looked up at the sails from where she stood on the deck. Caspin and Derek were having a discussion not too far from her. The rain had slowed to a soft drizzle of misty drops and the wind a gentle breeze that blew now and then.
But in the wrong direction.
“If you drop the sails, I can-” Elanor started but a sharp bark from Derek cut her off.
“No. I’m not taking you back to your Father half dead.”
“If we don’t move faster, it’ll be my Father who is dead.” Her lips pursed. “Take down the sails and I can use waves to move us. It will be just like rowing I think.” The hood of her cloak lay heavy on her head now from the rain having time to soak it. She pushed it from her head letting it flop to her shoulders. Leaning against the rail, she gauged the water. There wasn’t much for waves but a simple lap of water that spiraled now and then against the ship’s side. Maybe it could be a blessing that the sea wasn’t tossing and turning wildly anymore. It had worn her out completely trying to make the ship go in one direction before. She’d have to be smart about this time because it wasn’t a quick fix. This would be distance.
“You do know that it’s possible they’ve already been taken.” Derek said coming back from giving the orders.
“No,” She insisted. “I have time. The volcano has already happened. What the vision showed me was in time.” She said pulling her wet long sleeves up towards her elbow and the twisted wood of her wand pulled from her waist. “The next thing I was showed was the ocean and my Father’s ship coming this way. The last thing…” She let the words fall between unable to speak it with her worry. “It’s the last thing. So, I have time. I just don’t know how much.” He gave a nod, making a motion to leave and then stopped. “You were able to control this vision? What makes you think you didn’t create it?” Derek didn’t wait for an answer to the bitter questions, leaving then. Her concentration ebbed for a moment; the odd disconnect between them affecting her ability to ground herself. She’d never felt a wall between them before. They’d had arguments and didn’t agree but never had she felt the true sense of disconnect before. Not even when he took her Father’s ship to drag her to the Island. And she’d never felt the hard coldness he showed her just now.
She could do this and when she prove that, maybe he wouldn’t be so… angry at her. She had to focus and solve how to use the water to get them going.
Elanor needed help again from higher powers. This time though- as she focused she knew instinctively that she’d needed to call onto the masculine.
“Earth, fire, air, water, spirit…” She said each of her sister’s elements, leaving the last to be Maegan, deeply hoping her baby sister felt the connection still where ever she had gone. “I call to you dear sisters, please hear me and answer my time of need.” Deep breaths inhaled she felt the invisible lines of connection one by one. All four. All four were alive and well, even Maegan. Renewed energy tingled through her tired limbs. At least Meagan was alive somewhere and could still feel the call of her five fold sisters.
That’s what matters. Meagan’s safe.
Her arms still raised she opened her eyes to look to the soft gray clouds. “Hail, Nodens, God of the sea! Please grant the strength and ability to work with the water this day!” Elanor continued to speak the words over and over so that the message would reach the God and if it be his will, might grant the plea. Warmth and a feeling of comfortable embrace made her eyes close, needing the blanket of warmth and healing that the God had given her just then. When she opened her eyes, a soft whisper of thanks feather light passed her lips. Going to the rail she called down the side of the ship, “Water, my friend, the only thing I ask of you is to allow me to change the direction of your flow. Let me control where you begin and you can move in wild abandon after!” From behind the ship a wave started to swell upward lifting the vessel with a steady drop it pushed the ship forward. With increase came larger drops down the waves.
Elanor felt the tickle of her belly with each time they rose and fell.
“I don’t know if I can take moving like this!” Stepp had both hands crossed over his stomach looking a bit green.
“Don’t you think about getting sick up here.” Caspin said pointing to the rail. “Over there.” Derek didn’t speak; his eyes tranced forward. He didn’t have anything funny to say which wasn’t like him. The stone expression did worse things to her stomach than the ship dropping fast now and then. She couldn’t let it go. She wanted to convince him that she had been right and why. But again the words failed to come and she stayed silent as well.
Caspin and Stepp passed her on the stair, the cabin boy still looking queazy and green. She gave a compassionate small smile. The few steps it took to make it to the wheel felt like a mile.
“I’ll have to do this every few hours but we should be alright for now.” She started with small talk, unable to draw the bravery up inside her to actually talk to him about what they were both thinking.
“It’s possible the wind will shift as well.” His answer short, to the point. He didn’t look at her and the grip he had on the wheel said more than any words exchanged would. She couldn’t stand it.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you that to hurt you.”
“This whole time I’ve been telling your Father, no, I would never work for him. All these years I held a grudge against someone who didn’t do a damn thing to me.” His gray eyes finally looked at her, piercing. “I thought if we got a legal licensed marriage it would show him. And remind you that we lived in this realm for years without trouble. If I could just show you both… I shunned my whole life in Inglid because I thought your Father and Grandmother had destroyed everything I had wanted out of life. Taken you out of grief. I thought of him as a second Father, Elanor. Your family, was my family too remember? And I abandoned him when he lost everything.”
Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. “I didn’t know what to do. I knew that you wouldn’t understand why I was going so I thought if I said Father had told me to go…” Her hands went to her cheeks cupping the flushed skin. “I thought you would accept it because it was my Father’s wishes. That’s what women do after all….”
“I would never would have accepted that being away from me was right.” He said tightly. Derek took a deep breath and blew it out, staring at her with the intensity of the sun.
“I’ve always fought for you. And you gave up on me. On us.”
“I didn’t… when I left for the country side, I thought I was protecting you from the trouble I have. Just look at what’s happened now that we’ve been together again!” Elanor said dropping her hands from her face. “Pirates, dragons, bounty hunters, and wild magic! All of it could have killed one of us!”
“Trouble? There will always be trouble!” He shouted.
“But not my kind of trouble! I’m to be one of these great elemental casters and I barely am able to do any of it! I know nothing! But trouble is attracted to me!”
He gave her a screwed expression of his right cheek and eye. “We’ve helped countless people who will live out their lives on that Island without fear of being discovered. We’ve met every trouble head on and made it through. I don’t know what you expect from your powers, Elanor. It’s not saving the world but it means the world to them.” He pointed to his men moving about their stations. “If you weren’t there when the dragon came on board, we’d be a sea tale. If you weren’t there for the bounty hunters, Caspin would likely be dead from stabbing and the Island would be discovered and all of our friends living peacefully there would be dragged back to hell.”
“But none of it would have happened in the first place, I-”
“What the hell are you talking about? The dragon was getting ready long before you were on the ship to defend it’s food source. The bounty hunters have been trying to take half the people on the Island for the entire two years I’ve lived there.” He slammed his hand down on the wheel; frustration making his body rigid. “How can you not see you are blessed and not cursed!” He glared at her with a deep frown. “What happened to the girl I knew? I saw her a little here and there on the Island but the woman you’ve become- she’s suffocating her.” Her chin started to quiver, large tears started down her cheeks. He was tugging so hard on her heart strings she thought it would rip from her chest.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid all the time because every single moment I find true happiness- something horrific happens around me!” Saying it out loud even scared her as though saying it too loud would bring more terrible things upon her head. She forced the emotions down again, straightening her own body to turn on a heel back to the rail. “We have to keep on course. I have to reach them in time.”
“You can’t save everyone every time life goes wrong.”
“This time, I have to. I shouldn’t have left Port like I did. Alone and without any plan what I was going to do.” She admitted. “It was careless and I should have listened to Araminta and Teagan. That it would be pointless to try to get there before it did.” Earth and fire knew better than water about such things but she wanted to be the one who found Maegan, to redeem herself for not being there. And that was the truth of it. Why she had been so determined to go on a trip out of the safety of the country side.
“My Father and Grandmother wouldn’t be searching for me now, if…” The tears had dried on her cheeks, tight and itchy. Her insides felt raw and her limbs were so tired she just wanted to sleep for a few days. But it wasn’t the physical that bothered her most. The mental anguish that always seemed to take over; she didn’t want to feel like that anymore.
“And if you hadn’t, we would never have seen each other again, right?” His face was still stone like but his eyes flashed with raw anger. “What if we don’t make it in time? What will you owe then?”
“We are going to make it.” She said determinedly, missing the obviousness of his statement. “I should get the waves moving again.”
Determination reached once again up past the pain of the conversation. The waves had eased but they were still going at a clip. The conversation pushed her to get the waves going larger. She had to fix this. Raising her arms she encouraged the water to spill up and start rolling again. The increase of movement brought the ship rising high and then dropping low quickly. Everyone on the ship sounded off their surprise of the drop making their stomach and insides do a funny tickle. Loud wretching echoed over the crash of waves. She winced.
“Sorry, Stepp!”
“This is insane, Elanor.” Derek grounded out as a spray of water came over the rail soaking them both. She put her wand back into the fold of her waist and frowned at him.
“Why can’t you understand how important this is? Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
“I understand how important it is to you.” He nearly spit. “I do listen to you. What I have never done and will never do is agree with you every time you get yourself going and do some impulsive thing out of fear. You know, I couldn’t bring myself to forgive your Father for pulling us apart and now- I’m not sure I can forgive you. Not that you give a damn.” Cold shock trailed up her spine hearing that. She stood frozen where all reasonable responses and emotions were out of reach.
The ship gave another creaking groan before sliding down the slope of water the giant waves were creating. Wind created by the force of it whipped her hair painfully about her head as she tried to gage his expression. She’d never seen him like this.
“I do care, Derek! You know I do.”
“Don’t you lie to me!” He shouted over the roaring waves and wind. “Don’t tell me again that list of yours why you walked away. Why you hid in the country side! It had nothing to do with your Mother dying or what happened to your sisters or bloody magic! You didn’t believe I could protect you. You didn’t believe together we could face anything. You didn’t believe in us.”
“Derek!” Caspin and Stepp were trying their best to move up the steps towards them. Stumbling and pulling on the rail until they reached the top. Elanor didn’t realize how much force she’d put into that last wave spell. She was caught up in the swirl of emotion within herself that it manifested outwardly.
“Take the wheel, Stepp.” Caspin said before shouting over the sound of water crashing all around them. “ Derek, the mast is getting weak, we need to support it before it snaps.” Stepp took the wood spokes and looked as though he was wrestling a large animal. She’d over done it even in her worry to get there fast; the ship breaking apart wasn’t her intention.
“No more magic!” Derek shouted as he passed. “I see those hands raise back up and I’ll lock you in the cabin!” She didn’t argue with him or even try to explain that she hadn’t meant for it to be this rough. Instead she moved closer to where Stepp was trying to keep them steady. She helped some to keep the wheel from bucking out of place. She’d created such a fierce ripple that it didn’t show signs of slowing down for a long while.
“Is the ship really falling apart Stepp?” She asked.
“Just a few spots Miss.” He kept his eyes trained ahead, his arms locked. Signs of being motions sickness still making his skin look pale but he hadn’t vomit while at the wheel.
“The crew?”
“We’re sailors, Miss. They’re used to rogue waves making it hard.” He shrugged. It was the shrug that made her finally pay full attention to him. His usual sweet outgoing nature dimmed. Was he angry at her too? She’d grown very fond of Stepp over the past few months. She saw him as a younger brother that she’d never had.
“Are you alright? Still sick?” She asked.
“I’m alright.”
“Are you upset with me?”
“Captain said you were going back to your family.” He gave a few side glances at her. “I thought… we were your family too. I don’t have anyone else and, you’re...” Stepp looked straight ahead embarrassed.
It occurred to her right then that she hadn’t thought about it. Yes, she’d been pressed to go and help her Father and Grandmother. But like trying to find Meagan, she didn’t think of the people around her or what would come after her impulsive act. She just knew there had to be something done about it. If she were truthful to herself, the Island had become more of a home than her Grandmother’s countryside veil. Yes, she’d felt safe at the country side, and, there was no danger with practicing magic because she never had. The moment she’d got to Sweetlace she hadn’t done a single spell or practiced any of her water craft.
There had always been a feeling of something missing while there as well. She had withdrawn. But she hadn’t felt that way at the Island. She’d made more friends there then she’d ever made in her life in fact. And Derek- his words had sunk in deep and harshly rattling everything she’d thought about what had happened that night and after.
Never had it entered her mind that he couldn’t protect her or anyone else. The truth, the raw truth was she didn’t think she deserved his protection or love. She should have been with her family that night instead of with him blissfully unaware of the tragic accident happening the same time she was bonding with her soul mate for life.
The young man before her had only shoved the knife of reason into her heart further. She wouldn’t just be leaving Derek this time. She would be leaving a whole community of people who accepted her and were friends.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Stepp.” All the fear and confusion welded together in one upsurge of devouring yearning for answers. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I just want to do what’s right….that’s all.”
His face soften in sympathy seeming to want to comfort her but unable to find the right words either. The sea had calmed enough that the ship wasn’t rocking and dropping any longer. It’s glide at a clip that was usual for when the wind was in the right direction and the sails were up. Still Derek didn’t return to the wheel and she suspected he was now avoiding it. She debated in her head whether to go and find him to talk to him. She didn’t want him to believe that she’d left for the reason he’d come up with. It bothered her more than she could say. Elanor touched Stepp’s shoulder indicating she was leaving him and made for the stairs. A call from the crows nest came down causing her to look up with her hand shielding her eyes. She hadn’t heard the call so turned to the young man at the wheel.
“Is it my Father’s ship?” A few more calls were floating from one station to the next.
“Yes, and another ship next to it.” He winced visibly. “ Pirates.”