To captain one of the boats, you had to be the first born. I was not the first born. You also had to be eighteen. I was not eighteen. The fact was, I had just turned fifteen and I was the third born. A cold that was greater than any cold recorded in the Scrolls of Origin had descended upon our settlement. Word had passed through the few travellers who dared to go beyond, that the glacial weather extended far and wide and people were calling it The Gelid Time.
Kaz and I met before first light at the boat yard by the River Eliin with our rucksacks filled with bread, nuts, dried fruit and water. The only way to cross was by rowboat but we were not going to cross. We jumped over the low wooden fence and wandered through the boats that were huddled close together and covered with thick grey tarpaulins. The masts rose in criss-crossed mazes of white painted poles and ropes that were barely visible against the blue frozen fog of the dawn. We had agreed to sail downstream to the estuary, out to sea and along the coast to the foothills the Anatase Mountain range. Somewhere in the foothills, Great Gram Agate lived near the caves, disconnected from all who knew her as well as those who did not; some say she had become unhitched, living a truly wild existence unyoked from reality. But Gram Agate knew things. She knew things that no one else living or dead knew. She might be disjointed, but her knowledge about this land, the beyond and the between was better than anyone around. Everyone said that I would be just like her. Not just because I looked like her, tall with sharp green eyes, but because I had the same sense of the land and the water.
“Celeste, we shouldn’t be here.” Kaz, a fellow third born, whispered. His black parker coat was a hand me down and far too large; his head was barely visible through the thick fur of the hood. His voice seemed to emanate in a magical and ethereal way as his words floated through the fur on frozen breaths.
“Come on.” I said pushing my hood back a little to get a better look at the boats. “The Legend is here somewhere.”
“Of course it’s here. Where else would it be? We’re going to get out there, follow the Eliin to the sea and then – that’s it. It’s going to become a ghost ship because we’ll be frozen, drown or overrun by pirates.”
Kaz always had a tendency to lean towards the dramatic, always thinking of the worst-case scenario with an obvious catastrophic ending – if there was a spark from the fire he insisted it would turn into a blaze, if it rained he said it would flood and if the earth shook he insisted we would be buried under a mound of earth to slowly suffocate, unless we were knocked unconscious, then we would be dead instantly.
“Help me look.” I pulled his coat sleeve towards the next section of boats. “If we all stay here the food will run out before the thaw and we all die. If we all leave, the food will run out and we will all die. It’s what’s called a no-win situation.” I was sure there was a between and Gram Agate would know what flows betwixt staying and going.
“You hear about ghost ships all the time. What about The Bowhead? It went adrift, the crew froze to death and the captain was sat at his desk writing his account, logging all of the information, as you would expect a captain to do, and then he just froze pencil in hand, mid word and all. Or what about The Tiger Tooth? It came a ground empty of its entire crew, including the captain. The food, gold and all its cargo were still on board – so where were the crew? Pirates would have taken the gold and cargo. If the crew had evacuated, they would have taken their possessions surely. Maybe they killed each other? A wild mutiny! Or maybe they were all poisoned and dove overboard?”
“Stop. We’re not going to become a ghost ship and we are not going to kill each other, unless you don’t stop talking.”
I started to regret convincing Kaz to come along. He was the best navigator our age by a long shot and could easily navigate up and down the high seas of the coast. He just needed to talk a bit less so I could think.
An iron gate at the other side of the boat yard clanged shut and two hushed voices came closer and closer. Kaz and I huddled under the nearest boat and waited for them to pass. Kaz started to speak but I shook my head and he shrank back further under the boat. As they grew closer, I realized that it was Dad. Dad and someone else. Someone I did not know. I nearly stood up when Kaz pulled me back under the boat. I thought I knew just about everyone in the settlement. But Dad was being just as secretive as we were.
Dad and the man moved towards the boat house and then disappeared around the other side. We slipped around the boat and there in front of us was The Legend. Kaz took one side and I took the other, we quietly unhooked the tarpaulin, folded it and placed it in the stern of the boat. I unlocked the break on the boat trailer and together we pushed The Legend to the ramp. Kaz took the rope and tied it to the dock while I backed wheels the water. I unhitched the boat and pushed it into the water and watched it float off the trailer. Kaz pulled the rope and the boat moved in towards the dock. I looked back towards the boat house. Dad and the man were still on the other side. I pulled the trailer out of the water and positioned it near the other empty trailers so that it would be less obvious that the boat was missing.
“Quickly!” Kaz whispered.
I locked the trailer in place, returned to the river and boarded the boat with Kaz. Dad appeared and walked towards the river with his hands behind his back – he always did that when he was thinking deeply. The man was slightly behind and flipped through a folder of papers. I locked eyes with Dad just as we drifted into the current; startled, he turned the stranger away from the river before he could see us. Dad spoke emphatically and put his hand on the stranger’s arm as if to stop him from moving. Dad did not shout at us or call out as I would have expected. He did not even seem angry. What was Dad doing? I was an underage captain. I took the boat without permission. I was not even a first born. Why didn’t he stop us?
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The Gold Shoe Writer 