The Mariner

The Mariner slowly nodded, “She couldn’t guess my name because I don’t even know it, so when she took the memory of Claude having killed Isabel, she thought it safe to tell you. There was no Claude in the room. No danger.” He shook his head and coughed out a brief chuckle. “She was a trap, Absinth. A lie. When we met, I told you I was looking for an island, circled by a protective force, on which all the answers could be found. You’re the one who spoke of an Oracle. I think now, that was all bullshit. That woman up there, the coral, the eels around it, even that whole island, all just a decoy, another distraction to keep me from the truth.”

“What truth?”

“I don’t know.”

The Mariner got up and went for the door.

Absinth was afraid, no worse, petrified. He was sure the man meant to leave him in the darkness, alone with the ghosts and the rats. “I’ve seen the way you look at drink! You need it don’t you? It was the reason you let me on board. You leave me and I won’t help you find any more. You won’t see another drop for years!”

“I deserve to go thirsty. And that’s not the reason you’re aboard this ship.”

“You’re going to keep me captive down here?”

“Everyone I get close to, I end up hurting. Even poor Grace. I hurt her because I couldn’t take back the pain you’d caused. I couldn’t tell her everything would be alright.”

Absinth trembled, seeing for the first time how horribly he’d hurt the man by killing his pet. “Listen, I’m sorry I killed your rat. Okay? I’m sorry!”

But the Mariner didn’t hear. “I used to think I was being punished, put on this ship as some sort of penance for past sins. I no longer think that’s true. The Neptune is being punished, just as I. We’re stuck together, two monsters in the same cell. The punishment’s the world, not the boat. I can’t remember the horrors I committed. Does the Neptune, I wonder?” He looked around the room with haunted eyes and now Absinth was sure the Mariner could see ghosts, even if just in the confines of his own demented skull. He focused back on Absinth and gave a weary smile, in a strange way intending comfort. “I’ll take the blame Absinth. Let the fault lie with me.”

The Mariner opened the door and half stepped through.

“Then let me go! Take me back to my ship, I’ll be gone, you’ll never see me again. Listen, you crazy fucker, don’t leave me alone down here!” Absinth looked about nervously, terrified at the notion he could be left down in the belly of the Neptune, alone but for the ghosts of murdered convicts. “Let me out!”

The Mariner paused. “I’m sorry Absinth, but no. This ship is like me. I have demons within. The eels made that perfectly clear. I don’t know where those demons came from, but they’re there. This ship has some too. We’ve a lot in common, her and I. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, and her devils need to eat.”

“Devils? What devils?” But the Mariner was already gone.

And in the darkness, it were not ghosts, but a dozen furry bodies that began to emerge, hunger overriding their cautiousness.

Absinth screamed and kicked as best he could, but he’d been secured tight. The Neptune was, after all, a prison ship. In her time she had ferried convicts and slaves, monsters and madmen. Those who sailed within her soon learned that their journey was not one of geography, but misery.

And Absinth Alcott embarked upon his own voyage as Grace’s brood began to feed.

PART II DOCTOR TETRAZZINI & HIS LIFE-AFFIRMING THEORY

A time-line burnt into a stone
I carve up myself when I’m alone
I’ve got a tiger arm

10. EVERY STORY HAS A BEGINNING

LIKE RAINWATER CASCADING THROUGH A filthy gutter, shame flushed out all other feelings from the boy’s system as he lay prone across the bed. As usual that night he’d snuck into his parents’ bedroom, aware they wanted him to sleep in his own, yet determined to feel that closeness supplied only by theirs. Being a toddler, he had little understanding of an adult’s needs for privacy, nor did he have any concept of right and wrong, other than a rudimentary instinct instilled during the few years he’d been alive.

After complaining and whining he’d eventually won his way into their nest. His father was away, out of town for work, an absence that had weakened his mother’s resolve to keep him out. With a warm feeling of safety he’d climbed into the bed, pulling the thick duvet up over his shoulders.