Unfurling the Sails

Ahoy there, young pirates. Welcome to your first lesson in sailing!

History of Sailing in Bosch

The Bosch come from a strong sailing heritage. When New Earth was born—after the great fires, floods, pandemics, and famine destroyed Old Earth in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries (please review pages 213–217 of Vazquez’s History of the Seventy-Year Horror)—there was a shortage of workers. Thus, as New Earth rose, so, too, did the practice of keeping people as thralls to be worked as their owners saw fit.

People from all lands who had survived The Horror were now captured and sold into thralldom. Our ancestors were forced to work aboard fishing and cargo ships under terrible circumstances.

Our forebearers were stronger and smarter than their captors, and they arose from their bondage, taking over the very ships that had been their prisons and using them to feed themselves and their families, and later, to free other thralls both on the sea and on land. The first recorded thrall revolt at sea took place in 2168. In 2184, Dr. Ahmed Qusay, in his book This is New Earth, made the first mention of a pirate fleet marauding on what had been known on Old Earth as the Atlantic Ocean, now referred to as the Eastern Sea.

Over time, more ships joined the fleet of freed thralls, and in the early part of the twenty-third century, this impressive armada ruled the Eastern Sea from the North Country to the Horn of Africa and the Horn of the Southern Lands. However, around 2263, the powerful traders on both sides of the sea grew determined to strike back, and together, raised a navy to attack the pirates.

However, the ten-ship fleet was led by the great Hizir Bosch, its commander over the last ten years, and it was through his leadership and cunning that the fleet was able to both win in battle and escape to peace. By consolidating his people on five ships, which he sailed north while sending the remaining five empty ships south as decoys, Hizir Bosch reached freedom, settling his people on this island we now call Bosch.

Though the Bosch Pirate Force now conducts its business in elite flying vessels, we have not forgotten our past. It is in honor of the brave sailors who ruled the seas that all Bosch young people learn to sail. Be proud of who you are and get ready to join part of the history of Bosch.

Chapter 1: The Storm

“Shima! Grey Shima! Get your skinny butt up here and man the tiller. The waves are getting big, and the air’s getting heavy. We need to get farther away from the shore.”

Shocked at hearing Darvin use my actual name, I toss my reader on the shelf in the Fascination’s tiny cabin and watch it slide as the boat rolls. I lean and make a quick grab before it falls and tuck it beneath one of the storm straps, where it sits securely. Scrambling up and out from below, where I was using the small head—really just a bucket with a seat and a curtain—I appear on deck; sea spray slaps my face, and I give my head a quick shake in response. The salty water blown up by the wind stings my squinting eyes as they try to adjust to the dim lights on deck and the intense dark of the sea at night.

The sky is squally, with clouds roiling and folding like some giant’s clay on a table. The waves are cresting and turbulent in deep shades of purple and black. The ocean winds sing that magic that makes my skin tingle and my heart swell. There are so many voices and songs that swirl over the waters—sometimes they sing gentle, whispering lullabies; sometimes crashing symphonies; and other times, a raucous blending of tympany and horns so that a sailor has to listen closely to even find the hint of a melody. It is this tune that catches my long, dark ponytail now and whips it into my face. I take a moment to tie it into a quick knot.

“Skinny butt” indeed, my mind grumbles. While he technically isn’t wrong—my butt’s not big; in fact, nothing about me is—it annoys me that Darvin takes every moment, even in a storm, to remind me that I am small and look like a kid, which I am not. I turned fourteen in April; so, hardly a kid, even though I am minus much of the bumps and curves other girls my age sport. But I do as my captain has ordered and direct my skinny butt to my place at the tiller as the boat rocks and bucks in the waves. Apparently, Captain Darvin’s critique of me doesn’t extend to my arms since I have managed to navigate the Fascination, our blue, twelve-meter sloop, across the Great Sea from Ohlone Bay to the Drowned Islands for the past two weeks.

The next wave threatens to topple me as it smashes over the stern, where I stand attempting to hold the tiller steady. The air is August warm, but the sea is chilly as the water soaks my leggings and hair. The jacket that Matt, my bonus dad, gave me before the start of the race is working its own brand of magic, so my chest is dry and fairly warm. I look forward.

Darvin stands on the bow, chest out, the wind blowing his dark, straight hair back from his face. He looks how I envision the stuck-up hero from my newest book, Pheidon Duan and The Sword of Transformation, does. Pheidon, the crown prince of Brinada, is on a journey to restore magical power to the kingdom. Darvin, on the other hand, is apparently on a journey to be the most annoying person from the Central Continent. I had hoped the race would transform him into someone less irritating, the way I hope the sword will for Pheidon, but as of this moment, it hasn’t happened for either of them.

I swear, Darvin is using the storm to strike a pose. He fancies himself quite the sailor and ladies’ man. Just like Pheidon, he is always bragging about all the girls who fall in love with him. I snort to myself. Darvin doesn’t need a magic sword to make that happen; he needs a magic toothbrush. He is nineteen and, while not completely hideous, has such foul-smelling breath, it rivals the damage the dragons from The Obsidian Shore can create with their fire. I try to stay upwind of him at all times.

Still, nasty breath and improbable tales aside, the Great Sea Cup folk decided that his five extra years on the planet was sufficient reason to make him captain once they paired us. At first, it seemed like a reasonable call; after all, Darvin spends four days a week on the sea in his regular life, crabbing for his uncle’s fleet. But there’s a catch. His uncle’s boats are motored, not sailed. Clearly, Darvin over-inflates the stories he tells about, well, everything. I mean, sure, he’s a decent sailor, but he has crappy judgment.

For example, we would have come close to being first in our division two days ago if he had listened to me. We had a nice puff and were heading for the mark. But then the Blue Whisper came up tight on port. We should have headed up to go behind and maintained our course and speed. Instead, he just had to get into drama with the Whisper’s crew, insisting on his starboard rights. Darvin and the Whisper’s captain got into a tangle, with words and gestures exchanged; so, we lost the time we had made over the four days previous, and that cost us the Cup in my estimation. Sure, third place is decent, but it sure ain’t first.

I yell forward, hoping some of my voice won’t be carried away by the wind. “Darvin, we should heave to and get the storm sails up.”

“Nope. You worry too much, Little Edo. We can just reef the jib and the main,” he hollers back.

He’s an idiot. And not just because he has called me “Little Edo” since the race began. I mean, I’m proud to be half-Edoan, but he could have just as easily called me “Little Bosch.” But his brain is not large, and he couldn’t see beyond the shape of my eyes and my face, the shade of my skin, or my slight frame. So, “Little Edo” it was, and the more I protested, the more he laughed and called me it. But his idiocy extends beyond his vague skin-bigot comments to his sailing judgment. These winds are picking up fast. We need to heave to, get a sea anchor out, and put the storm sails up. And we needed to do it an hour ago.

While I won’t say it to Darvin, I’m actually a bit surprised that the storm developed as quickly as it did. If I had known it would blow in with such intensity and speed, I would have stayed on deck. But I wanted to finish the chapter I had begun last night at bedtime, and I really had to pee. Another swell strikes the boat, and water rushes over the deck. I reposition the tiller, trying to keep the bow pointed toward the waves, but we are moving too fast with both sails up.

I mutter to myself, my words slipping into the wind, unheard, “I’d have been ready for this storm. The sky was red this morning, and the pressure’s been dropping.” It’s not the first squall I’ve managed on the Fascination in the past two weeks, and it won’t be the last before we make port back in Haida—that’s just part of sailing the ocean.

Lots of people like to take a boat out on a nice day when there’s just enough breeze for a pleasant sail. Those folk never lose sight of the shore. And that’s fine–for them. Me, I like the wildness of the open ocean, its unpredictable character, the way it spreads in every direction as if there is nothing else on the planet except for blue water and you on your little boat. To be sure, the sea is unforgiving, but it is fair. If you respect it and have the skills and understanding of how it functions in all its moods, you’ll do fine. But there are no guarantees and that’s the thrilling part. To sail the open ocean, you have to be prepared for storms, for rogue waves, even for sea life, like whales. All those things can upend your ship and drop you into the depths.

Of course, during the race there were always watchers sailing near–especially for the under-twenty crews. Now, the watchers are gone, and we are on our own. Adrenaline pulses through my body making me vigilant and somewhat anxious. I glance up. The mast stands firm. The storm will likely only last a couple of hours. Maybe Darvin will be proven right, and we can sail out of it sooner. Maybe.

Darvin reefs the sails, and I find the tiller a bit easier to handle as the boat slows a bit. He turns and points a See? I was right finger at me and grins. He starts to say something, then turns his head toward starboard, his face wrinkling and his mouth dropping open to yell, but I don’t hear whatever he is going to say. Instead, there is a groaning and crunching that fills my ears, and the huge hull of a yacht slides in front of my face. The smooth, white side looms at me like some behemoth of the deep, and I know for certain I am going to be crushed and killed until I feel my feet come up, and I am tossed backward off the stern into the churning, foaming waters of the Great Sea.

* * *

The darkness envelops me as I plunge backward into the chill and choppy saltwater. At first, there is the noise of the crash, then the sudden silence as water fills my ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Everything is so dark, I don’t know which way is up, and I am so scared. All I can think is Mama. And somehow, this thought calms me a little, and I open my eyes ever so slightly and blow out a tiny bit, like I used to do in the tub when I was little and would stick my head under for fun, knowing all was well because Mama was sitting nearby, saying, “Follow the bubbles, Baby.” So, now, I follow the bubbles, pushing with my hands and kicking with my feet to chase them until my face breaks the surface. I pull in a huge breath of sea air with an audible gasp before I start to go under again. I liberate myself of my boat shoes and start rotating my legs like an eggbeater while sculling my arms forward and back to stay afloat. I turn my head and raise my chin from the breaking foam to catch some breaths. The rain from the deep, gray clouds spatters on my face, and the waves have lost their musicality and now sound angry as they roar. I am lifted with a swell and then down again, over and over. While I can tread calm water for quite a while, I won’t be able to for long here.

My thoughts are coming fast and none of them are good: It’s so dark. The watchers from the race are docked. I can’t see land. How will anyone know what happened? Am I going to die? At this thought a voice in my head says, Probably, and I feel my stomach drop with fear. Will I drown? Will a shark get me? Will it hurt? Panic starts to tighten my chest and it’s getting hard to breathe. Mama’s voice comes to me– “When you get scared, let go of the What ifs and stay in the present. Find a mantra to keep you focused and work the problem. Oh, Mama–this is a really big problem, but I’ll try.

My mantra is I will live. I say it over and over and as I do, I start to believe it. I will stay calm. I need a plan.

I decide to roll onto my back to float, and almost immediately, I am hit in the face with a mouthful of seawater. Roll over. I take a deep breath, roll onto my belly, and bob face down, consciously making my arms and legs relax. When I need a breath, I lift my chin up, pull my arms in, and give a kick, taking a breath and then settling back. This is how I pass… I don’t know—minutes? Hours? I develop a pattern, which keeps me focused so that the part of my brain that is freaking out and scared can’t be heard: I tread water for a count of five hundred and then float for fifty breaths. I repeat this at least four times.

While part of my brain is engaged in counting, I keep the rest of it entertained and distracted by imagining and remembering. I imagine I am Beverlee, the hero of one of my favorite books, The Queen of the Marsh. Beverlee’s mother had been a mermaid, and though Beverlee was born with legs and was cruelly bullied for it, she could swim almost as fast as her merfolk kin. Next, I remember when I first met Darvin, ten days before the start, when I was eager to get onto the water and practice, and we selected the Fascination as our racer. Then, I imagine that I was captain, and we won the Great Sea Cup, and everyone I know is cheering for me. “Hooray for Grey!” they all say, and, “Her mama never did that!” I see Mama’s face, and it is glowing with pride.

I doubt she would look proud if she knew what had just happened. She’d be in a panic and mobilizing the Force to rescue me. It’d be “No more sailboat racing for you, young lady. You stay on land where it’s safe.” A bit rich for someone who pilots her own air vessels and used to go on raids with weapons. It took everything I had to convince her to let me run this race. I had to promise the moon and stars and that I’d be okay about a million times. And that was after the evening of the big fight.