"You're Bluejam?" she asked in an unnaturally quiet, hoarse voice.
The captain slipped a hand beneath his coat and wrapped his fingers around the grip of his revolver.
The woman laughed softly. Mocking.
"I wouldn't recommend that," she said. "But it would be polite to introduce ourselves before we begin."
With a theatrical gesture she removed her hat.
She did not bow. She did not curtsy.
She simply stood there—long katana in one hand, hat in the other.
"I am Emeral D. Ralagan," she said. "Captain known as Pebble. The Emperor."
A faint smile crossed her lips.
"And I believe I've come to the correct ship."
She tilted her head slightly.
"I see the vermin there…" she added, nodding toward the first mate, who was now barely conscious with terror.
Bluejam suddenly realized his mouth had gone dry.
When he spoke, his voice sounded almost as hoarse as hers.
"You can take him," he muttered. "I don't need trash like that."
"Oh."
That was all she said.
Then she struck the kojiri of her katana against the deck.
A dull, unnatural sound echoed through the cabin.
The ship lurched.
Not like a vessel riding waves.
Like something being lifted.
Bluejam could have sworn the sea itself had seized his ship and was dragging it out of the harbor.
Everything swayed.
Up.
Down.
Up again.
"What do you want?!" he barked.
The woman sighed.
Disappointed.
She took several slow steps toward him.
Bluejam drew the revolver and aimed it straight at her.
One more step.
He would pull the trigger.
He had killed women before.
This one would not be special.
He didn't even see her move.
One moment she stood several paces away.
The next she was in front of him.
The revolver flew from his hand.
A second later his wrist snapped.
Bluejam screamed.
He collapsed to his knees, cursing through clenched teeth as pain flooded up his arm.
Pebble placed her hat back on her head.
"That's it?" she said with a faint laugh. "Nothing original?"
She stepped past him and sat casually in his chair.
"Your little gang beat my son half to death," she said, lighting a cigarette.
Smoke curled slowly into the dark cabin.
"I came to collect payment."
She inhaled deeply.
"To be honest, I expected you to run as far from Goa as possible."
Bluejam clutched his broken wrist, hissing through his teeth.
He knew now that none of his crew would help him.
Ralagan exhaled smoke lazily.
"But that's fine," she continued calmly. "I'll escort you away from this island myself."
Her eyes glinted in the moonlight.
"And if anyone ever finds you on the ocean again it will be the crows, Captain Bluejam."
I returned to the treehouse two hours later, entirely satisfied with the eternal voyage now awaiting Bluejam's crew.
My coat was sticky with blood. My mood was grim enough to hang a man with. I could already imagine the newspaper panic in a few days—assuming anyone bothered to investigate the ghost ship drifting somewhere out at sea.
Frankly, I didn't care.
All I wanted was to change out of my clothes after the long day and go back to the hospital.
The boys were waiting for me.
They paced nervously in circles around the clearing but did not dare break my order. When I arrived, they silently waited while I changed, washed the coat, and finally sat down with them to deliver the inevitable reprimand.
Sabo's face was swollen.
Ace kept rubbing his eyes and refused to look at me.
This was shaping up to be one of the most difficult conversations of my entire career as a mother.
I gave up on cigarettes immediately. They would only distract me.
Instead I poured myself a glass of strong wine and drained it in a single swallow.
"I am disappointed in you," I began gravely, letting my gaze move from one to the other.
"You insisted you were grown enough to sail beyond the Red Line."
I leaned forward slightly.
"But apparently not grown enough to watch your younger brother."
"Pebble… we didn't… we didn't mean to…" Sabo sniffed several times and pulled his top hat down over his eyes.
Ace remained stubbornly silent.
"If you had asked me," I continued calmly, "I would have given you any ship in the world. Instead you stole. And you dragged a seven-year-old into it. A child I left in your care."
Their misery was breaking my heart.
I wanted nothing more than to end the conversation quickly.
But something inside me insisted that I had to see it through properly.
If there were no consequences now, they would learn nothing from this.
They already know. They understand they were wrong.
No, the harsher voice in my head replied.
They need to understand exactly what I'm trying to teach them.
And to achieve that I would have to punish them.