Chapter 5: a thread

The net comes back up from the water; inside, a hundred tiny, silver fish wriggle in the air, their scales catching the sun. Sabine hauls in the net and tips the fish into a cooler bin. Then the cargo ship moves on. 

 

At first, Jackie wobbles around the deck, unaccustomed to the way ships bob on the water. She takes one step forward and the floor seems to meet her step. It’s as if the ship is living, breathing. Sabine hides a laugh behind their sleeve and says something about “sea legs.” Soon the sky burns orange and the sea glows with black and red.

 

Jackie hangs her arms over the railings, Ignorance hovering by her side. She is still picking the bones out between her teeth from dinner when Sabine comes to her side, their hands nestled deep inside their pockets. Jackie does a double take.

 

“Aren’t you meant to be driving the ship?” she asks.

 

“All by myself?” Sabine snorts. “That’d be impressive, but no. A ship needs a crew—or, at the very least, a couple of hands around the deck.”

 

Confused, Jackie blinks. “Then how?”

 

Ignorance says, “A curious use of demon magic, though how a minor demon managed to create multiple entities to work a ship is beyond my knowledge.” When Sabine’s biker helmet turns to face Ignorance, it amends itself. “That was not a snide remark regarding your status. On the contrary, your efficiency is most impressive.”

 

At this, Sabine raises a finger to their lips—or at least, where their lips should be. “Come. Follow me.”

 

They lead Jackie and Ignorance down a lengthy corridor peppered with circular windows. At the end of the corridor is a metallic, ridged door. Sabine waves the two over.

 

“Listen,” they say softly. “Put your ear to the wall. Hear that?”

 

Jackie does; Ignorance stays where it is. Someone is talking on the other side, giving out mechanically dull orders about bilges and hulls and direction. Boots click against the ground: tap tap tap. Someone coughs twice.

 

Jackie stumbles back. “People? So you’ve got a crew after all—”

 

Ignorance shakes its head. “No.” It turns to Sabine. “May we enter?”

 

Sabine shrugs. “Sure, but not for long.”

 

The door swings open, and the room is empty. 

 

“Now shut the door again,” says Sabine.

 

Confused and unnerved, Jackie obeys. The door shuts with both a squeak and a thud. 

 

They nod at the door. “Listen again.”

 

An ear to the door—bilges and hulls and direction. Click click, tap tap tap. Someone coughs twice. Now the sound is hollow, like an empty oil barrel adrift in the ocean.

 

“How about it? My very own, self-sustaining crew.” Their tone is drenched in a little bit of self-mockery, a little bit of humour. “A crew I can’t interact with. It’s a remnant from my human side’s navy days, I think. The clicks and movements are always the same, rolling back and forth like an old recording, so long as we keep the doors shut.” 

 

“How are you able to sustain this?” asks Ignorance. 

 

Another shrug. “It only takes me a little bit of effort to keep the crew up and running. Maybe the human side of me’s got a bit of magic in him. Maybe all humans do. All I know is that these memories, they've been here forever, kept chained to this ship by some unknown thread. And all it took was a little demon magic to activate it, I guess.”

 

“It’s awful,” says Jackie, shuddering. “All those dudes, just stuck in limbo.”

 

“They’re not real,” says Sabine. “Just memories.”

 

“Just memories,” Jackie repeats, but the words feel like air in her mouth, far away from real syllables, real words. 

 

That night, Jackie does not sleep well; she hears the shuffling of drunken sailors, but they remain in the distance like a faraway churchbell’s peal. She looks outside into the humid darkness, but there is nothing. She covers her head in the blanket, and the ship begins to sing again.

 

—

The cargo has moved from starboard to portside by morning but Jackie does not point this out. In the corners of her mind’s eye, she sees the faint ghosts of men and women working the engines and scrubbing at invisible filth on the deck. At the break of dawn the ship’s horn breaks out in full roar; she knows that it is neither Ignorance or Sabine at that horn. 

 

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She is becoming accustomed to the gentle bob and duck of the ship’s movements now. Take a step forward—wait for the ground to meet your stride. Sway with the waves when they tell you to. Sometimes she’ll misstep, and she’ll crash shoulder-first into a polished wall, or careen two steps over. This is good. Tripping reminds her that she does not belong on the ocean, or on this ship. Where the ghosts of humanity past yet linger.

 

Jackie is thankful when Sabine announces that they will arrive at the new landmass before sundown. Brunch is swift; a charred fish garnished with crumbled salt. But the meat is tough, and the scales wedge between her teeth, and somehow the sea has soaked into the flesh to the point where her mouth burns with the bite of salt. Ignorance similarly only nibbles at its dish. Sabine does not eat.

 

In the corridor, Ignorance asks, "Is something the matter?"

 

"I'm just not hungry," says Jackie.

 

"You did not inform me that you had already made the decision to disregard your humanity."

 

Jackie steals a glance through the kitchen door's porthole. Inside, Sabine is elbow deep in soap foam, scrubbing away at a grease-ridden plate. She motions for Ignorance to follow her to the deck. The S C Clemency moans.

 

"I don't have an appetite," Jackie admits.

 

"Are you ill?" Worry flecks over Ignorance's eye sockets. Jackie recalls Sabine's warning from last night, and suddenly that worry is gone. Had she imagined it?

 

Instead she asks, "Are ghosts real?"

 

Ignorance is silent for a moment, as if thinking. "Souls are, but they cannot exist outside of a functioning body for any longer than a scant few minutes. What Sabine has made is neither ghost nor soul. The crew is an effigy. An emulation of a memory."

 

"I know, it's just—" Jackie presses her lips together, keeping the dreaded words from spilling out. They're dead. She tries again, "So these souls, do they say how much life they have?"

 

"That is different. Human life encircles the soul like a thread—the thinner that thread, the less time they have. Demons—and by extension Sabine, I suppose—do not have this thread." Ignorance shifts as it watches Jackie. "Now you understand why we demons covet human souls. That thread is untapped power."

 

"Woah," says Jackie. She flexes her arms. "So I'm actually really strong?"

 

"No. Human magic is…" Another pause, another contemplation. "Human magic is akin to a battery. With the appropriate apparatus, a thread can empower any creature that has the ability to channel magic, but the thread will disappear."

 

"That's a bad analogy." Jackie pouts. "With the right machinery, a battery can use itself."

 

"I have yet to meet a human who has found such "machinery,"" Ignorance responds dryly. 

 

"But you're on the Council or whatever, shouldn't you know?"

 

"An amendment: I did not have a seat on the Council. My motives for retrieving the Catalyst lie elsewhere, of which I will not disclose." Ignorance shuffles back from the railings, away from Jackie. "Additionally, the Council was to only record information pertaining to demonhood. Unless an event involved the presence of humanity, it is highly unlikely that a human capable of invocation was noted in the Catalyst."

 

"You demons really only care about yourself, huh?"

 

"Not at all. That is just not what the Catalyst was intended for."

 

Somewhere beyond the horizon, a hot wind blows; it carries with it the scent of new beginnings, car fuel, and eucalyptus trees. Jackie says, "We're getting really close. Think the Catalyst'll be here?"

 

"If it is not, then we shall continue to scour the world," says Ignorance. "Time is on our side. And, perhaps, if you wished to make a detour, it would not so much as interfere with our goals for the moment."

 

Jackie beams, and for a moment her dark skin appears to catch the sun. "Ok. I wanna go to a mall. Or maybe we could go find that huge red rock in the middle of the desert. Or maybe…"

 

The waves part; the ship grumbles like an old beast. When they arrive at port the sun has yet to set, and the seagulls cry in sequence.

 

—

 

On land, Ignorance watches Jackie skip ahead on the wharf. It reaches forward with one malnourished, fisted hand, into that familiar pocket of magic. When it unfurls its hand again, a hair-thin thread lays curled like a child in its palm. The thread is so small that it cannot determine what colour it is. 

 

The thread likely has under a year. But so long it stays nestled inside that pocket, untouched, unused, it will likely last forever. A modicum of freedom for Jackie, a reprieve from their pact, should she be willing.

 

Jackie wafts up a puff of white sand with her foot; Ignorance pockets that sliver of untapped power, prays that it'll never have to use another human's thread again.

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