Chapter 116: Side Quest: Portia Sets Sail

It was a bright, crisp morning in Junonia as Portia and her father, Emilio, trekked down from the house to the sailboat. Portia swung her steps wide, attempting to fit into the footprints left behind by Papa. She hoped one day her feet would be the same size. Just like their hair was the same color. He was so tall and strong and smart. She wanted to be just like her dad.

Once they reached the beach, the task of following his footprints became impossible. The imprints formed, then quickly vanished—filled in by the constantly shifting sand. Frowning, Portia trailed behind for a few steps until she could make out his shadow in the dim light. Filled with new determination, she switched to the challenge of staying inside of his tall silhouette.

“What’re you doing back there, love?” Papa chuckled, glancing over his shoulder.

“Catching your shadow!” Portia replied, hopping back into the center of the dark, faint outline. She recalled a fairy tale he’d once told her about a little girl who lost her shadow once. Stolen by an evil Encroacher. “Careful! I’m gonna catch it!”

Papa readjusted the thick coil of rope over his shoulder. “The sun’s barely out yet. You’ll have to work hard to take what’s there.”

“Oh, I’ll do it, alright! I can do anything!” Her tail twitched happily behind her as she carefully tiptoed in the center of his shadow.

“That I believe,” Papa said with a grin.

They’d stirred before dawn, tiptoeing through the house to avoid waking Mama. He’d packed a few hardboiled eggs, bread, cheese, and fruits to eat once they were out on the boat, but Portia was so excited that she’d forgotten she was even hungry. Each day spent sailing with Papa was the best day ever. And now that she was a big girl—the longest eight summers any girl ever had to wait—he’d started to quiz her on the anatomy of the boat and the basics of sailings. Once, he’d even let her steer. 

She really hoped she’d get to steer again.

They reached the dock, and Portia’s silent steps on the sand transitioned to hollow clicks along the wood. Second Chance patiently waited for them in the shallow ocean water, rocking along the humble waves. She struck a noble silhouette against the rising sun, her sails closed against the mast.

“Alright, in you go.” Emilio scooped Portia up beneath the arms and set her carefully on the boat’s deck. He followed soon after, setting the rope aside before pulling their breakfast from his [Cat Pack]. “What’s a jib?”

Portia knew this one. She beamed as she replied, “That’s the sail forward of the mast!”

“Very good.” Papa smiled and handed her an egg. “What makes it different from the mainsail?”

“Hm.” Portia picked at the shell of the egg, then tossed the pieces overboard. Glistening fins breached the surface before their owners gobbled the floating white pieces. “The…the boom, right?” she asked cautiously. She was half-sure, but there was a lot to remember.

“What about the boom?”

She squinted up at the jib. The memory of Papa standing on the bow while pointing to the long pole extending from the mast resurfaced. “Um, it doesn’t have one?”

“That’s my girl.” Papa ruffled her mop of identical teal hair and passed her a slice of bread coated in a thin layer of nyapple jelly.

Portia grinned and took one bite of bread and one bite of egg. Mama had made the jelly just that week, and the sweetness of the nyapples tickled her tongue.

“Where’s the keel?” Papa asked.

That was an easy one. “That’s the fin on the bottom of the boat! Like a fishy fin!”

“That’s right. Like a fish.” He nodded, then took a bite of cheese. Between mouthfuls of breakfast, he asked, “What’s a cleat?”

Portia chewed the inside of her cheek and peered around the boat. She always had trouble with this one. For some reason, she mixed it up with the winch. Maybe because they both had to do with ropes. “Is…is that the one that you use to tighten or loosen the tension of a rope?”

“Close, sweet. Try again.”

Darn! That’s the winch! She huffed a sigh of exasperation. “It’s where you tie the boat to the dock. Right there.”

“There you are. What’s the part you were talking about before?”

Portia rolled her eyes, frustrated with herself. “The winch.”

“Hey, you’re doing great. I’d gamble that you know more about sailing than any of the other girls on this island.”

“Really?” Portia asked, wide-eyed. “That can’t be.”

Papa lowered his voice and shielded his mouth with one hand. “Well, it helps when you have the best teacher in Nyarlea.”

Portia giggled and finished her bread, licking the remnants of the jelly from her fingertips. “I bet you’re the best sailor in the whole wide world, Papa.”

Papa laughed, a deep, resonant sound that Portia dearly loved. “Now you’re just sweet-talking me.” 

“Nuh-uh! I bet you could sail those big merchant ships we see sometimes! You’d get to the other islands twice as fast as those girls.” Portia recalled the gigantic, lacquered schooners that stopped by Ni Island once a month for sale and trade. Papa had purchased her a wonderful set of silver hoop earrings from one of them, both of which went straight in her left ear. He said they brought good luck aboard the ship and would keep her eyesight sharp—much like the single small hoop around his left ear.

“Maybe. But then I wouldn’t be around for you and mom as much.”

Portia’s ears and tail drooped. “Oh. I wouldn’t want that.”

“Hey, now. No sad faces on my boat.” He moved to sit beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere, love.”

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Portia snuggled her head into his chest. He smelled like salt and ink. “Good.” Taking another bite from her egg, she looked to the sails, then the deck, silently naming every piece her eyes drifted across. “You were a sailor, right Papa?”

Papa kissed her head between her ears. “All my life. My father before me—your grandad—was a sailor, too.”

“Did you see the whole world?”

“Just about. From one edge of the Earth to the other.”

Suddenly panicked with this new information, Portia drew back and stared at her father. “The world has edges?”

“No. No, sweet,” Papa chuckled. “It’s just a saying.”

“Ahaha. Of course.” She blushed furiously and fingered the rings in her ear. “Is that how you found Nyarlea? At the edge of the world?”

“Hm. Something like that.” Emilio watched the sunrise and chose his next words carefully. “There was a bad storm. Thunder, lightning, swells as tall as ten men stacked on each other’s shoulders.”

Portia tried to imagine waves as high as ten Papas. She was about half his size… So, that would be like twenty of her! She shivered. “That sounds scary.”

“It was. The crew was all over the place, doing their best to keep the boat from capsizing. We tried every trick in the book—and a few more we’d learned along the way. But, when it was over, I woke up here on the beach.”

Her brow furrowed, and she looked up to meet his gaze. Something vital was missing from his story. Had the storm just stopped? What about the boat? If they tried their best, does that mean it did capsize? “What do you mean, ‘when it was over’?”

Papa sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’ve a sharp ear like your mother.”

“Did the storm stop? What happened to the boat?” Portia gently gave a voice to her questions, hoping she wasn’t pushing into something he didn’t want to talk about. Papa always got real quiet when she tried to ask about ‘sensitive topics,’ as Mama called them.

“...The boat went down,” Papa admitted after a time. “The water was cold and dark and quiet. Next thing I knew, I was here.”

Sensing the tension coursing through his shoulders, Portia snuggled closer to her father. “It was a lucky storm, then.”

“You think so?”

“It brought you to Mama. And me.”

Papa’s muscles eased, and he finished off a second egg. He tightened his grip on Portia’s arm and nodded. “A lucky storm, indeed.”

They shared a comfortable silence, listening to the breeze play in the nearby pawm trees and along the water’s surface. After a time, Papa reached for the length of rope and pulled it into their laps. “Can you tie me a bowline knot?”

Portia grinned. She’d been secretly practicing knots into the early hours of the morning from diagrams she’d sketched based on Papa’s example. Whipping the loops into place with dexterous fingers, she completed a bowline knot in mere seconds.

“My stars, you’re faster than me,” Papa said, eyes wide as he studied the perfect bowline in the rope. “How about two half hitches?”

She untied the bowline and grabbed Papa’s hand, guiding his arm to point straight in front of him. “Can I use this, please?”

Papa laughed. “Of course.”

She looped the rope around his wrist, then looped the hitches around the dangling cord.

“When’ve you had time to practice these, love?”

Portia blushed, then carefully loosened the cord from Papa’s arm. She didn’t want to lie, but admitting the truth may interrupt her late-night studies. “Um, well… When you and Mama are sleeping.”

“Portia—”

“Please! I love practicing! I want to be a great sailor just like you!” Portia begged before he could say another word. “I still do my chores and get plenty of sleep. And I work on my reading and writing like Mama wants. Please don’t tell me to stop.”

Papa hugged her tightly. “I won’t tell you to stop. I was asking if you’d like to be the captain of the Second Chance today.”

Portia’s heart soared, and she glowed with pride. “Really?! You don’t mind?”

“Not at all. But if you don’t remember something, it’s important you ask me. Understood?”

“Yes, Papa!” Portia leapt from her seat and rushed to the mast as her father moved to raise the sails. “Mainsail, then jib!” she announced, waiting for his ascent once he’d finished pulling the anchor up.

“Ready, love.” He saluted and tied the anchor off. “You are your father’s daughter.”