Lunars of the Caribbean

The Departure (21)

The priestess climbed onto the ship with ease. Most of the crew were sunbathing on the beach or gathering more food and water for themselves. Winter danced across the deck, smiling, laughing,

and crying.

Winter's eyes were waterfalls that couldn't stop. Her tears could have been of joy or sorrow. Cinder and Scarlet couldn't tell. All they knew that seeing the woman this way was heartbreaking. Like a little girl who was alone and afraid, but free all the same.

"I love you mama," Winter said to the wind. "I love you papa." She went around the ship, stroking the helm, the rails, one of the masts, and the Captain's Quarter's door. "I miss you," repeated over and over.

Returning to the wheel of the ship, the priestess crumbled to her knees and cried against the helm. Still laughing, she hugged it with all her might, making sure the wooden wheel would not escape her grip.

Unsure of what to do, Scarlet climbed the steps and placed a gentle hand on Winter's back. "Winter, what's wrong?"

Her grip on the wheel tightened. "My papa used to be the Captain of this ship. He named it after my mother." She layed on the blanks below her and eyed the base of the helm. "He carved her name into the ship, right there." Her fingers grazed the markings of on the ship.

Cinder bent down to see, and Winter was true to her word. In the most beautiful carving Cinder had ever seen, the word Solstice was layed into the ship forever.

"My parents were married on this ship, just before my papa became a Captain. And my mama went on all of his voyages with him. She gave birth to me on this ship." Winter's eyes were dazed and unfocused at the discussion of her mother. "She .. she even died on this ship. So did my papa."

Scarlet sat at Winter's side and rubbed her back. "What happened to them."

Her tears doubled and poured out faster and faster. "My mama died giving birth to me. But my papa ... Levana had him killed when I was a child."

A cloud of rage enveloped Cinder. She knew that tyrant was cruel. But to rip a little girl away from her father was a new evil Cinder could only being to imagine.

Scarlet winced, then asked, "Didn't .. wasn't your father married to Levana?"

She nodded. "She made him marry her. She said she would kill me if he didn't, so he married her to protect me. When she ran out of use for him, she ... she had him killed."

The priestess was a heap of sadness and misery and pain. Her parents were both dead, one of the murdered by a woman who tortured Winter and her father. Cinder never met her father, and didn't even know if he was still alive.

Winter, she had to grow up with that monster. She had to endure years of torment because Levana forced her father to marry her. As if she wasn't damned enough. She made him live with her, be her slave, then killed him when he lost his usefulness. What a monster.

She climbed to her feet and clutched the helm as though she were the captain. "My papa used to let me steer the ship, and helped me up to the Crow's Nest, and taught me how to tie down the ropes."

"He sounds like he loved you, very much," Scarlet said. She kept her hand on Winter's shoulder, assuring her that she wasn't alone.

"I reminded him of my mama," she added. "I looked so much like her, and it hurt him to know I did. That everyday, he had to see the wife he lost in his daughter."

Without warning, Winter pulled a pouch of green dust and threw the dust into the air, letting the wind carry it across the ship. As the dust fell to the ship, it gathered in one place, at the bow. Winter rushed down the stairs and stopped abruptly. The dust mounted itself higher and higher, forming bodies. Bodies that were undeniably a woman and a man.