“I supposed you can’t blame the girl. She put a whole lot of hours into that contraption. Like the rest of her creations, it’s one of a kind. Like the rest of them, it’s bound to blow up in our faces. Eventually.”
Gabriella giggled.
Magpie gave an impish grin. “You laugh, but you haven’t been here long enough to appreciate just why we call her Calamity Jayne.”
“The navicom seems stable enough,” Gabriella said. “In a way, it does what it’s supposed to. What could go wrong?”
“Ah, famous last words.” Magpie grinned. “I don’t understand how it works, but she says it does, so it must. I’ve known the girl long enough to trust her instincts. I just don’t trust her inventions. Know what I mean?”
“Is there a difference with her?”
“Point taken.”
Gabriella toyed with the longitude lever before she heaved an exasperated sigh. “I don’t think I’m operating this thing right.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because it says we are out in the middle of nowhere.” She paused to look overboard, at the water that roiled beneath the ship. “But we’re flying so low it suggests we’re preparing to land.”
“Well ain’t you the observant one?” Magpie laughed aloud. “Naw, girly, you’re doing it right. I’ll bet the farm your readings are good.”
“I don’t see how. What business could we have all the way out here?”
“I don’t rightly know myself. I reckon the captain will tell us when she’s good and ready.”
“I suppose so. Do you have any idea why we’re flying so close to the water?”
“Maybe that has something to do with it.” Magpie pointed over Gabriella’s shoulder. Gabriella turned once again to face the vast ocean.
To the tropical coastline moving steadily toward them.
In the excitement of the view, Gabriella forgot her homesickness. If the navicom hadn’t lied, then the coastline in the distance wasn’t just another familiar port. The land she was squinting at was someplace new. Somewhere she had never set foot on before. The thought of it was terribly, terribly exciting. After all, she hadn’t ran away from home, not to mention the altar, only to be tethered to some foul smelling port, waiting around for someone to trust the crew enough to hire them.
Yet that was just how she had spent the last six months.
When she’d first joined the Widow, the captain explained that employment was few and far between for the all female crew. Gabriella thought she’d understood. She appreciated that a freelance shipping crew had to take what work was offered, when it was offered. She imagined the crew’s downtime was filled with exciting trips to foreign countries or distant islands.
Shopping in Paris. Lunching in Madrid. Relaxing in Timbuktu.
It turned out there was no downtime. When they weren’t on a legitimate job, the girls trolled the lowest, filthiest ports of the East Coast looking for work. Gabriella felt like a common streetwalker, passing out pamphlets or hanging flyers. Even worse than that was her turn at standing watch. All day confined to the deck of the Widow just to ensure no one unwelcome boarded. Which was ridiculous because the crews of the other ships gave the Widow a wide berth with or without a guard.
“Good morning, ladies,” Jax said.
Gabriella turned away from the promise land of beach when the tall blonde joined her at the railing. “Morning, Jax. We’ve arrived. Somewhere.”
“Yes,” Jax answered. Her voice pulsed in a thick, foreign inflection of rolling consonants paired with throaty vowels. “I see that for myself. I wondered why no one showed for the breaking of the fast. I thought I was to eat alone.”
Magpie cleared her throat. “That would be my fault. The captain requested that we gather on the deck. I imagine the rest of the crew is on their way up.”
To say that Jax frowned was quite the understatement. Jax’s mouth seemed set in a permanent frown, so when she deliberately frowned, it was dramatic. Like a scowl with a healthy side of grimace and just a touch of glower.
“So you fetch rest of crew? Did you forget Jax?”
“No, no.” Magpie laughed for a moment. “Lordy, how could anyone forget about you, woman? I was just about to mosey down to the kitchen and tell you, but I got waylaid by Guppy here.”
Jax turned her scowl on Gabriella. “I am first mate. I should be given messages before fledgling recruits.”
Gabriella shrank while sky blue eyes bore down on her with burning hatred. Gabriella didn’t know much about Jax except that she was a top rate scowler and a professional sneerer. Her exotic accent placed her origin in or around Romania, yet her blond hair and blue eyes belied this. The fact that she was first mate made sense because she was shrewd, strong, and deviously clever. Her position in the kitchen, however, was a mystery. Jax was the worst cook Gabriella had ever seen in action. Maybe it was the very qualities that made her an excellent first mate that also kept folks from telling her how horrible her cooking was.
“Don’t take this out on her,” Magpie said. “I tried to raise you on the tubes, but you bang them pots and pans so loud you never hear me. Guppy here just happened to be on the way.”
“Maybe,” Jax said. She narrowed her eyes at Gabriella, switching from glare to glower in one smooth move. “Maybe I will remember this when lunch time returns. Guppy is allergic to the fish with shells? Yes?”
“Maybe,” Magpie said in a sterner voice, “you should just let it go.”
Jax turned her gaze back to Magpie. The two women locked stares. Gabriella worried her skirt between her shaking hands.
The big blonde puffed out her chest, drew herself to her full height, and put on her best sneer. “Maybe, you would like to argue with fists?”
“And maybe,” a younger woman said, “Guppy should fight her own fights.”
“Girls,” a much older woman added, “that’s enough of that.”
The first voice belonged to the ship’s tinker, Jayne Octasept. She was just a tiny slip of a girl, all freckle-faced and blue-eyed, with a surprising shock of snow-white hair. Jayne reminded Gabriella of her own father—genius, yet socially inept. Yet unlike her father, Gabriella just couldn’t seem to get along with Jayne, no matter how much she tried. Gabriella loved and missed her father more than anyone else...but that life was over. These people were her family now, and she had to make it work.
The other voice belonged to the resident medic, Dorothy Johnson, or Dot as she preferred to be addressed. The gray headed, stooped at the shoulders, porcelain doll, frail matron looked like she should have been home knitting socks for her grandchildren instead of sailing around the world playing the part of an airship’s surgeon. Dot wasn’t just the ship’s medic. She was the crew’s moral compass too. One of Dot’s severe looks would set your blood cold, forcing you to consider the difference between right, wrong, and whatever it was you thought you were going to do.
The appearance of the rest of the crew snapped the tension of the moment. Jax stepped away with a sharp snort, stalking a few feet down the railing. She turned her back, pretending to ignore the others.
“What’s up her nose?” Jayne asked.
“I’m afraid I might have offended her sensitive nature,” Magpie said.
The women paused for a moment before breaking into a wave