Moon night,
white fortune,
sail, sea and sky, the boat.
Moon night.
Fly and sail
haunts and blinds,
calm grief, the boat.
Noche de Luna,
blanca fortuna,
vela, mar y cielo, la barca.
Noche de luna.
Vuela y navega,
embruja y ciega,
calma desconsuelos, la barca.
—Caleuche, Quilapayún.
When Harry died, the sea seemed to have burst into fire, as if hell were trying to emerge from the deepest abyss. One moment before, everything was fine, and the next, the powder keg of the Jolly Roger, his father's ship, had blown everything to pieces, wood splashing the water, the smell of burning tar, and the wounded flesh, all on fire.
It was not uncommon. Ships exploded all the time. Sailors always lived the moment. In the future there was nothing to see, nothing to look for. That was the life of a pirate.
That didn't stop the pain from coming, sharp, unbearable, it made him want to scream. If he screamed, his bruised and wounded lungs filled with water, his ribs split open in endless agony.
But there was the sea, with its salty voice, powerful, soothing his wounds, licking his blood, and the torment subsided, or Harry surrendered to it.
Harry always knew that he belonged to the sea. He did not hold on to life with anchors and ropes. He allowed himself to be carried away because the roar of the waves was attractive and suggestive. He let himself be carried away by the impulse of the ocean, by the lacerating drag of the swell.
Surrounded by water.
Surrounded by the sea.
In the endless immensity, in the waves of vast cracks.
In the moonshine foam...
The ancient songs of the sea were full of force. Its dance, attractive as the skin attracts the cool breeze. He thought he heard the voice of the sea, demanding and eager, calling him. Saying his name. Harry. Harry.
He woke up on the deck of a ship.
He was sure that he was dead. He remembered the fire, and he remembered the screams. The smell of burning meat. Yet his body felt placid, light.
"He is awake", he heard say a voice. When Harry opened his eyes, he saw a sky of starry blackness. He felt the rocking of the waves as the sea rocked, and he calmed down. Dead or not, he was still home.
"Take him to my cabin," ordered another voice from somewhere on the ship that he couldn't see; It was strong and feminine, and Harry was sure he'd heard it before, in his dreams. His first impulse was to follow her, meet her, but he found his body so relaxed that he couldn't move enough to get up and look for her with his gaze.
He breathed in the cold night air, filling his lungs.
"Am I dead?" He asked and thought his voice would be scratchy and that talking would hurt, but it wasn't.
Many people laughed, loud, harsh sounds that he knew well. Laughter of sailors, of pirates.
"Don't worry about that," a young man, perhaps his age, replied, and everything about him was both kind and rude at the same time. "My name is Gil. Gonzo and I are going to take you to the captain's cabin."
Harry closed his eyes again, relaxed. The ship gave him a strange feeling, as if it were known, as if that one and not the Jolly Roger had been his home for his entire life. He felt how they carried him down to the lower deck. He did not fight.
Maybe he had survived, after all.
The next time Harry woke up, he was home. Well, he was in an unfamiliar cabin, but everything in it, from the salty smell of shrimp to the creaking of wood, told him he was safe.
The smell of shrimp… Harry remembered it. Sometimes, while he was sailing, a strange breeze would caress his face, and that breeze smelled the same way. He loved that smell more than anything else in the world.
He got up from the bed, surprised that his body did not hurt, surprised that he had no visible burns on his skin, because he remembered the tar burning him with more ardor than was humanly possible to bear. Voices were heard outside the cabin.
He glanced at everything in the cabin, trying to figure out exactly where he was. On the floor were a carelessly thrown pair of boots, too small to belong to a man. There was also a dresser, a large mirror, and a toilette. There were different objects on a ledge at the top of the bed, but one caught Harry's attention more than anything, because he recognized it.
It was a crystal ball, full of shades of blue, turquoise, green… when he was younger, Harry managed to get hold of another pirate's treasure and take it to the Jolly Roger, for which he was awarded by his father. James Hook allowed him to keep only one thing from among all those in the loot.
Harry had chosen the crystal ball because it seemed to him that it had a small part of the sea inside. And then, a couple of years later, he had thrown it into the sea as an offering so that a storm that had hit the Jolly Roger for several days would subside.
How had that gotten here?
Someone opened the door, and when Harry turned around, he could see the one called Gil, smiling calmly.
"I see you woke up, Harry," the young man commented, "come on, it's time for dinner."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"I don't remember telling you my name."
Gil laughed out loud, the sound of someone who has surrender to the sea and has no regrets.
"We all know your name," he told him. "She has been waiting for you."
She.
Harry's heart pounded, not quite sure why.
"Can you tell me where I am? I'm still alive?"
What if he wasn't? If Harry was dead, there was only one place he could think of that looked like this. It was an old legend that circulated among sailors, among pirates, and although few claimed to really believe it, everyone was afraid of encountering that ship. The cursed ship, some called it. The magical ship home to the dead at sea.
"Sorry, mate. Your place is no longer among the living, "Gil replied, confirming Harry's suspicions. He didn't know exactly what he was feeling in that moment, but for some reason, he was sure it wasn't fear. "You are in the Lost Revenge."
