Pirate Talk or Mermalade Read Online Free PDF

cane laughed at you.
    Strange, I don’t hear the ocean when I am beside you, the deck does not roll. I’ve been onboard for over a year now and nothing like this has ever happened.
    Night brings its own confusions. I will instruct you on the history of the night sky, as I have your brother about the sea. Four poles cut from saplings are given out at the world’s edge next to its furious wind, the one that enjoys whipping such poles when they are still barked and leafed. When the two ends are pushed into the earth, the wind rips so hard at the spaces between the curve they make with the other poles that the skin of the earth comes up at the edge like a rug upturned. This underside glows with the iridescence of underground creatures who have crawled by their own light inside the ground. Now they smolder in the night sky. Not everyone believes their light is made of fire because they’re so cold but lay your hand on ice and pull it up fast—it too burns.
    All the night talks when you talk, even with such a gash.
    Together we will tell Father you have been found.
    I know nothing about this father.
    Yes, you do.
    Stop grabbing at me, stop it. The water is fearsome, the ocean is death. I am alike in this with my brother—we do not enter the water.
    That is one truth you will have to pierce for yourself.
    I am a pirate now, and know only my own intent.
    Best for you to hold fast to the whale’s eye then, for luck.
    What kind of luck is that—it’s drowning you’re offering.

    I heard Cap’n Peters went under a fortnight after we sailed, swallowed up by a cup of tea, his heart crushed, losing you.
    He was in want, after your Ma departed, telling stories about her so even the sea could hear.
    Watch your bleeding mouth. Ma did not know his wants after you arrived.
    That’s what your brother says. Who can know the heart of a woman, especially one like your Ma?
    Perhaps it is my brother’s heart that is unknown.
    Tell him you’ve seen me treading the waters, go ahead.
    I would rush up the mast and shout your name but he’s not onboard, he didn’t take the oath, not seeing the pirate life for what it is, a port a’glitter at every call, swords a’plenty and no landholder taxing every tomorrow. My brother continues his oath against all water by staying off it.
    A sea of tears, perhaps.
    His letters are smeared, it’s true, but someone else writes them. Quiet, it’s Shanks abroad.
    A night catch! What a fisherman you are. I see from all the blood you’ve stuck it well. I’ll finish the gutting and offer you the liver if it’s of a size. Keep your hand on it while I fetch my good knife.
    Over now, quick.

9
    1722 Caribbean
    Give that back—it is my only shawl, it is the shawl you married me in.
    I haven’t had a watch to do for months—we can’t eat a shawl. We must trade it for bone so I can triple our profits.
    Go to the ends of the earth, and sail to where the serpents lie. To sell my shawl for an inch of whalebone—bone that’s no good even in a pot!
    People pay well for a picture on it—but there won’t be much left after I settle the chits you’ve written clear across the island.
    Better than written across my tombstone. How I rue offering you my timepiece for your improvements. For just a look, I said. And you looked and looked.
    It was you who took the glass off the works, who pulled the stem.
    You said I needed a minute hand, I said there were too many hands already.
    Gladness fills me to know those works have stopped. Now I will be cutting this bone, and people will like it. The port is a’swarm with new folk off the boats, and overseers who need to know when to quit the slaves. It’s busier here than London, it’s the center of the world in commerce—and in fashion too.

    You thought people would like a feather stuck on the works to brush off the flies.
    There are few who appreciate my timepiece thus far, with or without the flies, but with my improvements—
    Only fifty-three here keeping the