Evan rings the bell and the ship stirs in response, the mere trickle on the deck ebbing into a puddle and soon enough it'll be more of a stream or some such. He glances back at the spot where he'd left Pietro and the gypsy stands there blankly, an eddy in the increasing crowd. It is a wonder he has even as much meat on him as he does if he can't figure out "breakfast."
Not that he hadn't been acting odd earlier -- pick-pocketing is a ridiculously dangerous profession at any time. To do it in a full hold -- where it's hard to sleep deeply and a large amount of patrons are awkwardly rousing at fifth hour or earlier (if they've slept at all) -- borders on the insane. It baffles Evan how Pietro could not have reckoned on being seen by a passenger and reported.
The only bit of luck Pietro had was he'd been reported to Evan. Evan snorts and wheels toward the captain's cabin.
He doesn't finish his first knock -- the captain jerks the door open before Evan's knuckles have pulled away from it. "Good mornin'!" he says cheerily. "What's on yer mind?"
Captain has obviously had a good night. "Could I talk to you a moment?"
"Any time." The captain scoots to one side and motions him in. Evan eyes the chair in front of the captain's desk with unusual wariness as he steps over scattered piles of clothing and maps. He's sat on it so many times, it should have given him no reaction, emotional or otherwise, but the sit-down instinct. But he waits until the captain has sat down before sitting himself. The captain favors Evan with a look of concern and he flinches.
"Captain," he says hurredly, "I'll be going on shore when we land at Olnack -- just for a day or so."
"Oh!" The captain smiles. "That's no trouble, Evan. You don' 'ave to ask 'bout a little thing like that."
Evan smiles back, a little strained. "You won't leave without me?"
"'Course not! I was plannin' on harborin' for a while there anyway."
"Oh, good, then. That's all, really." Evan moves to get up, but the captain motions him to stay.
"Evan, maybe you should stay a-ground a little longer."
Evan blinks. "Sir?"
The captain taps his desk, his expression troubled. "Evan, I bought you so you'd have a 'ome and a childhood. But I wonder if this ain' gonna be where you want to live and work all yer life."
"I'm fine with it."
"You don' know any other life."
"I'm fine with that, too."
"Evan, I don' know the age precisely, but yer over twenty, I'm sure. It's time to leave the ship fer a while."
Evan shifts, weighing whether to look the captain in the eyes. He can feel something weak quivering under his lungs and has no particular desire to expose it. "How long?" he finally asks quietly, ducking his head.
"Just fer this voyage. You know how long they take -- just be in Olnack then and we'll take you back. Consider it a vacation."
"What if I'm not there?" Evan asks, more a challenge than a question.
"We'll wait fer a week," the captain says gently. "It'll be fine, Evan."
"It won't be safe," Evan barks. "It won't. Not like I'm thrilled to bring it up again, but you did buy me, not adopt me, and that says quite a lot about how safe it is to be me and out and about."
The captain reaches over to tough his arm lightly. "I think you'll be fine. You're not so very young now and you've seperated more brawling patrons than sailors older and more experienced'n you would care to admit. And that without havin' to lay anyone out. You're very capable . . . "
"I know my place on the ship." Evan scowls at his knuckles. He's insulted that the captain immediately resorts to stroking his ego.
"You'll be fine. Just try it out."
"All right."
"Good."
"I'll also be escorting the gypsy off the ship," Evan adds, trying to give the sentence the casual tone of an afterthought.
"Oh? I thought 'e was stayin' on 'til America?"
"He changed his mind. But he's even less of a city grunt than I am, so."
"Very well, then. He may prove good company for you." The captain is staring at him intently as if to belie his words. "Evan, has he been actin' . . . weird, the gypsy?"
Evan freezes. Theiving counts as deviant behavior, but not necessarily weird. Besides, he'd promised Pietro it wouldn't come up, therefore, it wouldn't. "Well. He stands absolutely still at inoppurtune times and he sometimes acts like he's completely alone in a crowd, but," he ticks the factors off on his fingers, "that might just be a combination of seasickness and nerves."
The captain exhales. "Have 'im talk to me before you leave. 'S nothin' important, but . . . see, the main thing about lone gypsies that's trouble ain't got nothin' to do with stealin', listen." Here he lowers his voice and Evan leans forward to catch it. "It's that some o' 'em, the rest of the gypsies want to leave. Don' wanna have to deal wit' 'em at all. Nobody 'cept them knows exactly why, but I'll tell ya, the lones ones are bad luck. An' I mean in the way ravens is bad luck, not in the way black cats an' ladders is, if you catch me." He eases back, smiling slightly. "You jus' watch out fer yerself. But if you wanna take 'im on, do it! Generosity never 'urt no one . . . well, 'alf the time it don'. I trust yer judgement."
"But you still want to talk to him," Evan ventures, unsettled.
"Yes. Jus' to say bye. See, 'e didn't sit well wit' me when he came on, not at all, but I'd be an idiot to turn 'im away once 'e's 'ere. Can't avoid bad luck by kickin' it out on its tail and throwin' its bags out after it, can we? Jus' make it worse. But, see, maybe I was wrong. So let me say bye to 'im."
"I wouldn't stop you." Evan fiddles his fingers briefly in his lap. "Um. When you say he's bad luck in the sense ravens are, you don't mean his prescense foretells death?"
"Nothin' so specific. It's more like they're 'arbringers. I talked to some folk from a caravan once and they didn' tell me much, but 'parently they'd just lost their 'arbringer. 'Parently that 'appens a lot, that 'arbringers will just disappear like that and it makes the gypsies real antsy if they do. 'Parently sometimes that means somethin' particular awful's comin' up and the 'arbringer is runnin' from it. See, that's why I wanted to know why 'e's leavin'." And here he stares hard at Evan again.
He swallows. "It's not that. You should see him tossing up over the side -- practically every fifteen minutes. He's just not built for the sea."
"Well, tha's nice to know. I'll talk to 'im anyway, but tha's nice to know." He creaks loudly in his chair, his expression turning glassy. "I think I'll wait on breakfast. Just worn myself out thinkin' about this nonsense. You go ahead."
Evan nods and slips out, his pace quicker than is seemly.
It is nonsense. He knows very well that Pietro is only leaving because he's forcing him to and although Pietro has plenty of brooding looks, they are more the looks of a self-pitying, self-ruined teenager feeding off his own darkness, less the looks of a prophet viewing imminent doom with practiced horror. He seems mildly oblivious (if quite driven in his ignorance!) more than dreaming pre-cogniscant dreams and Evan believes his story -- there was too much sour joy in his retelling for it to be a quick fabrication, something to disguise his visions and further doom the ship.
His pick-pocketing can be explained away to fierce addiction and the tenacious awkwardness he'd shown at scrubbing the deck. And there, no visions, no prophecies, nothing for Evan or anyone else to worry about beyond losing a purse.
The captain's tone still worries at the back of his mind, though. All his "it's nonsense" aside, there had been a hopeless quality in his voice and a general dread and that didn't seem to fit. The captain is not a superstitious buffoon or a cheerfully pessimistic scholar chap who cries dangerous new trends ahead! every other week, right? He is the captain, solid, educated without feeling the need to use large words or pretty dialects, and really quite a happy man. Yes, quite happy.
Maybe, Evan tells himself, the whole thing is just misplaced sadness over losing me. Awww. That would be so sweet.
But that doesn't fit either. General friendly affection aside, Evan has always been more a capable and well-liked hand than a son and the captain could never be said to be protective about where he went and what he did.
Well, maybe he was just burying his love for you all these years.
No, it doesn't fit. Maybe if he really saw him as a father, it would.
It makes him feel callous, as he walks to the mess hall, at his own pace, own time now, that he can't dredge up great wells of family feeling toward the man who'd raised him and had always been kind to him. It is wrong to be more attached to the ship's haven than to the captain who gave it -- a great ingratitude.
Perhaps it is true what too many of the sailors and patrons had talked and whispered. Like cares for like. The end. Which leaves Evan alone and untouched.
Ah well.
Pietro is perched at the end of a table in the deeper shadows of the mess hall, looking harried. His expression might have derived from his partners on the bench, all sailors and all, as Evan remembers, prone to general rowdiness. I.e. they are young, male, and powerful in their own minds, which somehow immediately transfers to them also having the sort of great wit and humor that everyone can appreciate, even if it is at everyone's expense.
Evan despises them. Not hates them, that's too much energy to direct toward overgrown kids who might grow out of it and might not and are mostly harmless. He just despises them for being annoying and ever-present, like flies. The old despising feeling is intensified today because at the rate they're leaning in toward the gypsy, they might literally end up overwhelming him in a very physical manner. Evan huffs and lengthened his stride.
Upon closer examination, Pietro's expression is more terrified than harried and there doesn't seem to be any justification for that. The nearest of the sailors, a twip Evan calls Bone-Head due to an inability to remember his name, is trying to offer Pietro something to drink, doubtlessly wired with alcohol strong enough to make any novice puke his guts for hours, but he doesn't seem to be offering very hard. Or even persistently. He keeps looking over his shoulder at his buddy Log-Nose (there are honestly too many names for Evan to remember) and chatting about grog and girls while his flask of spirits dangles disregarded in the hand nearest Pietro.
Pietro still stares at Bone-Head like he's sprouted six inch claws and is advancing for his soul.
Evan clears his throat as he reaches the table. The slight noise is enough to make at least half of the rowdies glance up at him -- it's nice to have some authority.
"Boys," he says, "scoot away from the gypsy, if you'd be so kind. I'd like to sit down."
No one moves and Bone-Head sniggers. Evan silences him with a firm glare.
"Clear off, children. I hear that Little Jimmy Farter left his lunch and the contents of his bladder down in the hold. Last person to scoot gets to clean it up."
They scoot. Although they know as well as he does that there is no Little Jimmy Farter, they also know that Evan can and will cheerfully find a stand-in for the poor sick lad faster than a boy can blink.
Evan promptly sits down next to Pietro, who has finished staring at Bone-Head and is now staring at him.
"Good morning, sunshine!"
Pietro's eyes roll back into his usual smoking squint and the face around it softens into relief. Only, it is the kind of relief that drapes over a person's face after a particularly wretched bout of "illness of pain" has subsided into a general throb -- his skin is still ghastly pale with shock.
"Hi," he says, and his voice quivers.
Evan's forced smile slips. "What happened?"
"He's gone?" he asks, disbelieving. He inclines his head, trying to look around Evan's shoulder.
Evan feels a brief flash of rage, lowering his voice into an angry hiss. "Who, Bonehead?" he snaps without thinking.
"That's his name?" He keeps straining, his squinted eyes flicking back and forth uncertainly.
"Close enough. Listen, what happened?"
"Nothing!" He shifts hard until his rear is flat on the bench. "I mean, I don't see him any more."
Now Evan is confused. "Who?"
"He was this giant and he was sitting right where you were."
Evan knows that there isn't anyone taller than the captain on the ship (he keeps careful track of important things like that). "Oh? What was he doing?"
The doubt must have dripped through his voice, because the gypsy gives him a sidelong, suspicious look. "You don't believe me."
"I can't exactly tell that until you tell me what you saw."
"He was sitting where you were and sharpening a blade on one of those flat black rocks. He didn't seem to see me, but he was talking to himself. About drinking blood. And he had," the gypsy swallows, "he had these things tied to his belt and . . . "
"All right, all right." Evan puts his hands up. "All right. Pietro, there's no particularly large people on the ship and we wouldn't let someone with that description on. Understand?"
Pietro nods, but his eyes flash resentment.
"That doesn't mean you didn't see something. But, really, you didn't see Bone-Head at all?" He points at the sailor.
Pietro leans around him again, peers, and shakes his head. "I don't see anybody."
"Oh." Evan isn't quite sure how to respond to that right off. "No one?"
"No one but you. I haven't seen anyone else all day 'cept for those sleeping in the hold."
"Oh." Evan has part of his lip between his teeth and almost gnaws before he catches himself. What? Frightened? The kid's cracked, that should be obvious. Gonna attribute babblings to prophecy? Prophecy of what? "That's unusual."
"So there's people all over the place and I'm not seeing them and no giants and I'm seeing giants?"
"Looks like."
"Then I'm crazy!" the gypsy spits and smacks a hand against the table -- which he promptly withdraws, shaking.
"Don't hurt yourself like that. It's not going to help -- all right, Bone-Head was trying to offer you something to drink. Did you sense any of that?"
Pietro starts to shake his head, then stops, scratching the back of his neck, his brow furrowed. "I remember there was something cold and wet kinda leaning against my arm, but I couldn't see it. It was like the feeling came out of nowhere. Like, like someone invisible throwing ice at me."
"That's a start. Um, Pietro? Has something like this ever happened to you before?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You mean, you've never seen images or visions completely unconnected to anything that should be happening?"
"I can't tell the difference."
Evan groans and presses his fingers against his forehead. "Can't you, I don't know, think about what would be logical and what would not be logical and gauge based on that?"
"It's all very easy when you're not seeing it!" Pietro growls. "And what good would it do me anyway? I can't make it go away!"
"What, you still see the giant?"
"Yes," Pietro says firmly. "You're sitting in him. It took me a moment to find him again, because he went faint when you sat down, he was little more than a shadow. But now that I'm used to you, it's like you're sitting in his lap."
Evan has to fight down a sudden impulse to jump away. Don't let it get to you. He's just crazy, poor kid. "Can you still hear him?"
"You keep talking. I keep talking. While we're talking, he whispers."
"Then I'll shut up. Just listen and tell me exactly what he's saying."
He tilts his head quizzically, then his expression goes intent and the hall seems, for the moment, to be perfectly still, the chatter of conversation muted to dust mutters.
Then Pietro blinks and looks solemnly at Evan, his gaze flicking away almost immediately. "Now he's leaving."
"Leaving?"
"Just stood up and left -- or, no, someone was calling him. Yeah, he's out on the deck, now."
"All right, all right. What did he say?"
He squints harder, his eyes blue slits. "Someone was dying, I don't know who, and the giant didn't like him much and I think that was the blood he was gonna drink."
"Exactly what he said," Evan repeats, folding his arms.
"Um . . . " His eyes practically disappear under an even harder squint, but can't quite classify as closed. "Um, 'Fadin' like a shadow, 'e is, not withstandin' who 'e was, don' much matter now, does it? Too bad 'e went this fast, could've 'ad more fun wit' 'im, but guess I got what I came for, didn' I? Can sleep well tonight and me thirst'll be quenched besides.' I think he might have been a little drunk, blabbering on like that."
It's strange. The gypsy's voice shifts entirely when he quotes the vision. Not that Evan hasn't played a mimic many times himself and he isn't too bad a showman as far as imitations go, but there isn't much doubt he himself is always lurking under the surface of any impromptu role he puts on. Pietro's voice simply changes, intonation, nuance, tone, depth and his expression swerves darkly to match it.
There isn't anything of old superstitious tales of possession to it, and if Pietro is mad, he has a good handle on madness, making it come and go as conversation would dictate. Evan quietly decides he either has a practiced charlatan on her hands or . . . perhaps . . . although he's loathe to admit it . . . Pietro is something else, perhaps exactly what the captain was afraid of. It stinks of myth to him, but, again, the captain is no hysteric and Pietro's oddness is starting to take on a horribly eldritch factor.
Either way, he is a remarkably good actor. Evan has a brief, silly impulse to ask Pietro for an imitation of himself.
Instead, he leans toward the gypsy, drumming his fingers urgently against the table top. "Pietro, I'm going to try this again. You must have noticed if you were staring at one scene and someone like me intruded like it wasn't even happening, right? Has that ever happened before?"
"Um . . ." Another nervous scratch at the back of his neck. "I can't say I've notic--"
"You must have!" Evan snaps, pounding the table. "It's impossible not to notice something like that!"
"You're speaking from experience?" Pietro stubbornly counters.
"Are you trying to be difficult or what?"
"Why is this so important?"
Evan grits his teeth and lets it out. "Pietro. Is there any kind of tradition in your clan about people who can tell the future?"
Pietro blows out his breath scornfully. "Sure! Everyone tells the future! It's like my hobby, cross-my-palm-with-silver, why doncha?"
His abrupt dismissal sets Evan back a couple of paces. So. If there is any merit to what he is seeing as far as the future goes, he either doesn't know, or isn't about to tell. Or he's faking. Or he's mad. Evan isn't getting anywhere. He sighs, nearly poking himself in the eye as his fingers automatically search for his forehead again.
"You still can't see anyone else but me?"
"No." He shrugs. It doesn't seem to matter to him and that niggles angrily at Evan's brain.
"That doesn't even worry you?"
"Hey, as long as I'm just seeing you, I'm happy."
Evan blinks, groaning internally. "You'd better snap out of it before we get to Olnack, kid. It's going to be very hard to conduct business dealings with invisible people."
"Understood."
"Great. If you're not going to eat, then," and there isn't so much as a spoon in front of him, "go swab. We only have a few hours before Olnack, so you might as well be useful."
Evan leaves him as quickly as he can after that, confused and not liking the feeling at all. If someone has to be something so inconvenient as a seer, what ever happened to vague and pretty-sounding epigrams? How do you interpret giant-men-of-pure-evil roaming the ship?
He pauses and curses himself for an idiot. There is only one way to interpret that.
The captain's door is being pounded fit to break less than a moment later.
Evan is fast when alarmed.
