Chapter Seven:

The Boat Bottom Book Club

…

Caleb spent his entire watch shift that night leaning over the edge of the boat, peering into the darkness. Heavy thoughts churned inside him in a cocktail of alcohol and regrets. A thick yoke of humidity weighed down on his shoulders, draining him of the will to swat the mosquitoes away.

Staring into the murky dark he thought about the man sleeping a deck below his feet.

Their circumstances ran parallel, but they split so far at their respective conclusions.

What would it be like if they swapped places? Swapped lives?

He couldn't say if Molly would burn his childhood home down, but the man wouldn't spend the rest of his life trying to bend reality on the off chance he could fix it.

And if Caleb clawed his way out of a grave? Well, he certainly wouldn't join the circus.

Caleb beat his fingers against the wooden railing to drown out the roar of the toads.

No, if he crawled out of a grave, he would've gotten himself killed within a week searching for answers.

He shouldn't have told Molly.

In hindsight, the timing was terrible.

He'd meant to be comforting, but it probably seemed like he took out a measuring stick to compare their pain.

'Sorry, Molly, I know you have it bad, but this was what I had to endure. '

Brilliantly done, Caleb. Turned misery in competition. Another in a long line of social blunders without an end in sight.

As the sliver of moon hit its zenith, a crew member relieved him of watch, and Caleb retreated into the depths of the barge, mind still whirling.

Molly was resilient and probably one of the more emotionally stable of the group. He'd be fine.

Right?

The reoccurring encounters with Lucien's cronies rattled the man, and Caleb wasn't sure how to assuage those fears.

'Sorry your past keeps coming back to haunt you. Have you tried going back in time to change that?'

Caleb huffed a frustrated sigh and pulled himself into his hammock.

Reassuring Molly was a task that better suited Yasha, or Jester, or Fjord even. Even Beau and Nott would have more success.

It'd probably better to let someone else handle the Molly situation, but he just couldn't shake the weight of guilt that nagged at the back of his mind and soured his stomach after having made the situation worse. He should at least try and do something. Anything.

Caleb rolled the problem around in his mind like a lozenge—working on it, dwelling on it. How would one properly console Mollymauk Tealeaf?

Sleep crept upon him, and the logic to his thoughts unraveled. Still, a particular shade of lavender lingered in his mind long after unconsciousness stole him from the waking world.

…

Clear skies cut through yesterday evening's humidity, and the breeze carried the stinging edge of fall. The chill sought out and lingered in Caleb's fingers and nose—making him sniffle. Black conifers replaced the tangle of banyan trees and dotted the sloping hills surrounding them. The lazy rolling hills pushed against the river banks and cast cool shadows over the dark water.

It was starting to look like home.

What used to be home.

Caleb crossed his arms, warming his hands in his coat. He leaned back, sitting against the railing as he watched the crew perform their daily dance before him. Everyone performed in their understood role, and the few words exchanged between them were in a slang beyond his comprehension. It was beautifully coordinated. Mechanically efficient.

In the middle of deciphering their unsaid tasks, the sound of claws clicking against hollow wood drew his attention.

"Good morning," Caleb said, glancing up at Nott.

"Morning," she said, breaking off into a yawn that flashed rows of jagged teeth. Her sleep-mussed hair hung in strands before her eyes, and her clothes wrinkled at the joints.

"I shouldn't have left you asleep on the barrel. I'm sorry," he said, swallowing another pang of guilt.

Nott shrugged. "I've slept in much worse places. So have you," she added.

"That doesn't change anything."

Nott frowned, and for a moment they stood in silence, watching the crew scurry across the deck like beetles. "So Beau and Fjord are still below deck, huh?" she finally asked.

Caleb couldn't stop the smile from flickering across his face. "Not everyone can hold their liquor like you, my friend."

She puffed up at that before pausing as a thought occurred to her. "How are you feeling this morning, Caleb?" she asked and stepped in front of him to force him to meet her owlish gaze.

"Just a headache is all," he said. He reached out, brushing the hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ears, letting his coarse palm ghost over her cheek. "I'm fine."

Nott watched his hand as he withdrew it before her eyes flicked back up to meet his gaze. "What did you do after I fell asleep? Did you guys talk about anything interesting?" she asked, never blinking.

"I..." Caleb paused. Should he tell her? It was a private exchange, but it might help assuage some of her recent suspicions. "I told Mollymauk what I told you and Beauregard."

Nott cocked her head, ears twitching as her pupils roamed his face. "You trust him, then?"

Caleb frowned at the thought. Did he? He trusted that Molly was a good man. He trusted Molly on the battlefield. He trusted that Molly wouldn't share that terrible knowledge or use it against him.

"I do, yeah. I trust him," he said, brow furrowing in his own surprise.

Nott went silent for a moment, nodding slowly as she mulled over her own thoughts. "I'm proud of you," she said at last.

The words made Caleb swallow hard.

"I know it can't be easy for you—to keep talking about it—but I'm proud of you. You remember what I told you after you told me, right?"

"Yeah." Even though it happened sixteen years ago for him, he could still hear her radical words burned into his memory, ringing with a fiery and dangerous forgiveness.

"I still believe that, Caleb."

"I know."

"And I think the more people you let in, the more people are going to believe in you too."

What a terrifying thought.

Again, his mind refused to provide him with the words to respond, and another silence passed between them. They watched the lazy clouds float past, tugging their fat shadows across the deck. In time Nott withdrew her alchemy supplies and began to tinker. Her various bottles and flasks glinted in the mid-morning light.

Caleb settled for watching the scenery slip by, rolling his transmuter's stone between his palms, lost in thought.

Sometime later Elijah stumbled up the stairs, looking appropriately haggard with dark circles beneath his eyes. He cast a nervous glance around the deck before hurrying to his post.

Nott's stomach growled. She glowered at it before returning her attention back to the flasks of amber liquid in either hand. With a skilled flick of her wrist, she let three drops fall from the first beaker into the second. Steam hissed off the concoction.

"Perhaps it's time for lunch then," he said.

Nott bit her lip, looking from her flasks to her stomach and back to her flasks. Her brow crunched as she weighed her options.

"You know what, I will go get us food," Caleb said and Nott visibly relaxed. "I'll be right back."

"Okay, I'll be here," she said, already refocused on her alchemy.

In time Caleb found his way back to the makeshift kitchen, pocketing an apple for himself and a handful of dried mystery meat for them to share. He poked his head into the crew quarters on his way back to find Beau and Fjord still collapsed in their hammocks.

"Caleb?" Fjord asked, blinking at him with weary eyes. "What time is it?"

"Noon," Caleb answered with a little grin.

"Mmm, shut up," Beau moaned, turning over and swinging a muscled arm over her face to block out the filtering light.

Wincing, Fjord swung his legs out of bed. He put his weight on them for a moment, swaying dangerously. "Nope nope, that's not gonna happen," he managed before crumpling backward into the hammock.

Sighing, but unable to stifle his grin, Caleb stepped forward. He handed the apple to Fjord, who took it readily.

"Appreciate it," he said, before taking a massive bite.

Caleb stepped to Beau, who still had her arm slung over her eyes. He withdrew some of the jerky and waved it in front of her nose. "Beauregard. Meat."

She lifted her arm enough to crack open an eye and snatch the meat from his hand. After stuffing it inside her mouth, she mumbled something that sounded like "thanks" amidst the chewing.

"How's everyone else this morning?" Fjord asked after he'd stripped the apple to its core.

"Afternoon," Caleb corrected before continuing, "Well, Nott is up on the deck and…I haven't actually seen the others," he said. Maybe he should check on that and find out where Yasha disappeared to. Hopefully she hadn't left the boat without telling anyone, but that behavior certainly wasn't beyond her.

"We'll be up in a minute," Fjord said, "Isn't that right, Beau?"

Beau groaned and rolled onto her stomach.

"Alright, shout if you need anything," Caleb said and walked back towards the cargo hold.

What if Yasha had left? This upcoming mission seemed dangerous, and the idea of charging in without her extra brawn didn't sit well with him. Bad things happened when they separated.

Those squirming anxieties lifted as he rounded the corner to the sick bay to see Yasha sitting next to Molly, back braced against the boat's side, with her eyes shut. Molly had an arm slung around her wide shoulders, massaging lazy circles in her upper arm with his thumb. He still reclined back in his pallet with his injured ankle stretched before him. Jester napped on her pallet with Frumpkin curled up on her stomach.

He could still smell the traces of spiced wine lingering on the wood.

Molly glanced upwards as Caleb stepped in and shot the man a quick smile before looking to Yasha. He nudged her with his elbow and she started awake, looking around with wide panicked eyes.

"You're fine, you're here," Molly murmured, voice barely carrying to Caleb over the creaking boat and sound of footsteps above.

Yasha took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders, looking from Molly to Caleb.

"Have you been here since your watch shift ended?" Caleb asked. Even beneath her dark smeared makeup he could see the puffy bags beneath her eyes.

Yasha nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Somebody needed to—"

"I keep telling her we're fine by ourselves," Molly said to Caleb with a helpless grin. "It's not like either of us plan on going anywhere," he finished, directing a pointed frown at Yasha.

"Something could happen," she insisted, "You or Jester could get worse."

Molly opened his mouth to protest further, but Caleb cut in. "You know, Fjord and Beau are finally awake, and so are Nott and myself. I can take the first shift down here if you want." So much for trying to give Molly a little space.

"Finally, a reasonable suggestion. Thank you, Caleb," Molly said, looking back to Yasha, eyebrows raised in question.

Yasha frowned and then sighed. She reached a heavy arm behind her and used the wall to help pull herself up then stretched the sleep out from her limbs.

"Oh, can you take this to Nott?" Caleb asked and dropped the last of the pocket jerky in her hand.

Yasha nodded, and after a few more assurances unpeeled herself from Molly's side and vanished into the cargo hold.

"Thank you for that," Molly said. "I'm afraid this whole situation has turned her into a bit of a mother hen these days."

Caleb shrugged and bent down to pick up some of Jester's items that yesterday evening's festivities scattered across the floor.

Caleb knew Yasha. Probably better than Molly did at this point. He knew of the thick jagged scar Molly's death left on her that both future pleasures and pains couldn't erase or overwrite. Caleb had been intimate with grief for his whole life. It was like a phantom limb. An omnipresent ache defined by absence. It bound them together in their darkest days. In this timeline, without that choking thread to bind them, would he and Yasha ever grow so close?

What was he thinking? It was irrelevant. He wouldn't, shouldn't, be in this timeline long enough to find the answer.

"She cares for you," Caleb said at last.

Molly hummed in agreement. "The circus does that to you."

Caleb finished cleaning in silence until the only the empty wine barrel sat in the middle of the space. He bent down, wrapping his arms around it, and then threw his back into it. With a loud groan, he pulled it off the ground.

"Hey, Caleb, wait, I can—" Molly started, and tried to push himself up.

"I've got it," Caleb wheezed, stumbling backward under the weight of the barrel.

The moment Molly tried to put weight on his injured ankle, he winced and fell back just as Caleb slammed the barrel down on top of a nearby crate.

Molly plopped back down on his pallet and leaned forward to massage his ankle. "Maybe we wait for Yasha next time?" he suggested.

"Yeah," Caleb said, taking a moment to catch his breath.

"Caleb?" asked a sleepy voice from behind, followed by a large yawn. "What was that? What's going on?"

"Our wizard was just in the middle of throwing out his back," Molly said, and Caleb heard the smile in his voice, but before he could turn around the nearest crate caught his attention.

"What happened last night?" Jester asked. "Did I miss anything fun?"

"Just the usual drunken shenanigans," Molly said.

He heard Jester pout but stepped forward to run a hand along the crate's edge. Bright, fresh dents marred the wood. The lid had been resecured with several bent nails. He tried to worm his fingers in the gap between but couldn't get enough leverage.

Caleb frowned then cracked his neck.

"Something wrong?" Molly asked.

"We shall soon find out. Cover your ears," he said, giving the two tieflings a quick glance over his shoulder. As soon as they obeyed, Caleb turned to the crate, letting his magic bubble up and holding it in the center of his chest.

"Open."

A loud knock echoed through the boat and the lid popped off.

"Caleb that was really cool!" Jester said, removing her hand from her ears. "Can you maybe do it without the sound though next time?"

"Not without having to cast an additional spell," he said, eyes trained on the entrance to the alcove. He stood still, listening for footsteps. After a moment passed and no one came, Caleb sunk to his knees and plunged his arms shoulder-deep into the crate full of bruised apples.

"Maybe he was just really hungry?" Jester whispered to Molly.

"You know I bet that was it," Molly whispered back, holding back a chuckle.

Caleb's fingers found the edge of the bottom, working their way under the wood to find purchase. With effort, Caleb managed to pry up the false bottom, pulling it through the layers of fruit and setting it down by his knees. He dug his hands in again, feeling out for his prize. The tips of his fingers brushed something leather. Something rectangular.

With an excited smile pulling at his lips, Caleb worked his prize free, holding a worn, black leather book aloft.

Molly started to clap slowly. "Incredible. Simply incredible."

Jester gasped. "Caleb, how did you know that was there? Was it magic? Do you have magic that can find you books?"

"It's gotta be some sort of sixth sense at this point," Molly said.

Caleb rolled his eyes. "I noticed there was a false bottom yesterday," he said as he dug his hand in again. After a thorough search, Caleb found five books in total and spread them out before him so the tieflings could see.

"What are they, what are they? Let me see, Calebbb," Jester said, bouncing up and down on her pallet.

Frumpkin gave a low, irritated 'mrrowow' and picked himself up, stretching and arching his back before retreating to safer pastures—Molly's lap.

"Give me a moment," Caleb mumbled, picking the books up one by one. "This one," he said, showing them a small, green tome tied shut with twine— the only one with a title in Common— "Says it's about Chauntea—who is an agriculture goddess."

Of course it would be Chauntea.

"Not an approved goddess, I'd wager," Molly said, giving Frumpkin absent scritches behind his ears.

Caleb nodded and put the book down. The second, an amber book with curling vines embossed on the cover, was titled in Sylvan. Caleb flipped through it, trying to blow the mental cobwebs off and decipher the elusive, curling script. Illustrations of elongated figures with pointed features and teasing grins decorated the pages. "This one, I think, is mostly about the fey and their pantheon," he said.

"I'm sensing a theme here," Molly said.

The final three, two thin brown volumes and the thick black one, were all illustrationless and filled with a cramped, angry script Caleb couldn't read, but he did recognize.

Xhorhasian.

He could seek out Yasha for help deciphering them, but she was likely sleeping by now. After a moment of deliberation, Caleb reached into his component pouch and withdrew a pinch of soot and a pinch of salt, letting them mix in between his fingers. He murmured the incantation and drew the correct sigil in the air. Cool magic washed over his head, soaking into his eyes and lungs. The foreign words peeled off the pages, rearranging themselves into more familiar symbols.

"Okay," said Caleb, picking up the two brown ones, "These ones are in Xhorhasian. This first one is…records. About weather patterns and the effect on farming."

"All of these sound really boring," Jester said with a frown.

Caleb ignored her and continued to the next, "This one is a bunch of lists. Oh, it's a recipe book," he said as realization dawned. A Xhorhasian cookbook. Imagine that. Half the recipes he saw involved rats—maybe Yasha would want to have a look?

Finally, he turned his attention to the last book. A single word marked the plain black cover, but the letters hovered above the page, bumping into each other and tangling together in a shifting mass. Caleb narrowed his eyes, leaning in close.

"Something wrong?" Molly asked.

"My spell is having a hard time translating the title," he admitted, chewing his lip.

"Maybe there's no good translation for it?" Jester offered. "Infernal has a lot of words like that, I think. Like, there's a different word for pain depending on where on the body the pain comes from, did you know that?"

"I didn't," Caleb mumbled, flipping through the book now. Several more words hidden amidst the pages existed in the same jumbled blur, but an overwhelming majority translated well. "It's a story. Fiction, I think," he said, surprised to find himself equal parts happy and disappointed at the revelation. After the magical censorship, he'd hoped for something useful, or at least informative.

"Oooh, is it another romance?" Jester asked, eyes hungry and sparkling.

Caleb carded through the pages, and upon finding no erotica or romance at all, shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Well, what's it about then?" Jester asked.

Caleb sighed and gathered the books. He stood, walked over, and handed two to Jester and two to Molly before plopping himself down between them. He cracked the black book open in his lap. "Give me an hour and I can tell you what it's about." And with that, he settled down to read.

'A long time ago, there was a small farming village in the valley of the Ash Mountains. In—'

"Hey, Molly look at this," Jester said, holding the fey book up to showcase a full-page illustration.

'In a house near the edge of the village lived a husband and wife. The wife—'

"How do you think she keeps her clothes on?" Molly asked, cocking his head and rubbing his chin.

'The wife once belonged to a powerful noble family, but—'

"I don't know. Magic probably," Jester said. "I wonder if I can learn that. Hey, Caleb, can you—"

"No."

"Oh…Have you ever tried?"

"No."

"Oh."

'The wife once belonged to a powerful noble family, but when her husband, a common foot solider—'

"Hey, Caleb," Molly called.

Caleb swallowed hard, dragging his eyes off the page to meet Molly's. "Yes?"

"If you're going to mumble like that you might as well read it aloud for us," he said, smiling just enough that the tips of his pointed teeth ghosted over his bottom lip.

He paused, blinking at that. "I—really? I mean, I can, but…"

"Do it, do it, do it," Jester chanted, letting the fey book fall to her lap.

"I don't think it's going to be a very good book," Caleb warned.

"Oh, bad books are the only kind I'm interested in," Molly said, shooting Jester a cheeky grin.

"Come on, Caleb. Pleaseee. Were so sick," Jester said and faked a cough.

"Don't forget bored out of our minds," Molly added.

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah," Jester said, nodding rapidly. "That too."

Caleb fought down a smile. "You two are incorrigible."

"Where's the fun in being anything else?" Molly asked, grin widening.

"Okay, but this spell only lasts for an hour," Caleb said, relenting. "No more after that, understand?"

After extracting solemn nods from both of his patients, Caleb started to read from the top. Much like 'The Courting of the Crick', the first chapter dwelled far too long on genealogy, reviewing the imagined lineage of the main family back for six generations. Caleb wondered if any of the lofty names thrown around would mean anything to a Xhorhasian reader. Something else to ask Yasha, he supposed.

The extended talk of bloodlines and old power structures in time lulled Jester back to sleep. Mollymauk, to his credit, fought off the drowsiness by petting Frumpkin. He let his sleepy, half-lidded gaze drift to Caleb with a warm smile that Caleb could see out of his periphery.

He fought back the urge to fidget under the weight of Molly's gaze, feeling a tingle of embarrassment prickle at his neck.

"And so, during the fall after a prosperous summer, Aun and Tarin were blessed with a pair of twin girls—Phyrna and Phaerna," Caleb read. "Lots of names in this one, huh?" he said with a nervous chuckle.

"Hmm?" Molly asked, raising his eyebrows but maintaining that soft smile. "What was that?"

Caleb looked straight down back at the page. "Nothing. Sorry. Anyways," Caleb cleared his throat and continued.

The book went on to mention how strong and healthy the twin girls were, and that the eventual thirdborn, a boy, instead had a sickly willowy constitution, and showed an aptitude for the arcane. Once it was clear the book would follow the budding wizard, Caleb's interests piqued and it became easier to drown out Molly's smiles with the literature. They dove further into the wizard's childhood, and just as his mother began to teach him cantrips the words blurred and scattered across the page like ash in the wind before settling back into Xhorhasian script.

Caleb scowled and dug his hands back into his component pouch, throwing the ash and salt back into the air. A light dust landed on Jester, and she sneezed herself awake.

"What happened? What did I miss?" she asked, wiping her nose on her handkerchief.

"There's a wizard who doesn't want to be a wizard. And he's got two sisters with swords," Molly informed her.

"That's it?" Jester asked with a frown.

"It is a little…verbose," Caleb conceded. "But he's learning cantrips now, Jester, and I think you'd like this." So he continued on, Jester chiming in now whenever a spell she recognized came up, the two of them occasionally breaking off and going on magical tangents while Molly watched, petting Frumpkin all the while.

Just as the main character dipped his toes in more advanced magic, a pair of heavy footsteps heralded a visitor. Caleb looked up from the book to find Fjord leaning in the entryway with a smile and an eyebrow raised. He held a bundle of food in his arms.

"Where'd you find those?" Fjord asked, nodding to the pile of books.

"Caleb found them in a box full of apples," Jester said.

Fjord's face crumpled in confusion and he looked to Caleb for confirmation.

"They're part of the cargo being smuggled to Ice Haven," Caleb said, "I was going to put them back before we got there."

"This isn't going to get up in trouble with the captain, is it?" Fjord asked, smiling falling. "We've already given her enough trouble as is."

"Don't be such a worrywart, Fjord," Jester said. "They're all really boring mostly anyways."

"I'm not saying you can't read them," Fjord said, directing his attention back to Caleb. "I'm just saying be careful about it, so we don't get ourselves thrown off and having to walk to Ice Haven."

"Yes. That I can do," Caleb said, nodding slowly.

"Alright, well, it's my turn on nursemaid duty," Fjord said, gesturing to the food he carried. "Figured you'd want a break."

Caleb blinked for a moment then shut the book. "I, uh, yeah. Thank you, Fjord."

"Nursemaid duty? Did you hear him say nursemaid duty?" Molly asked Jester with false indignation as Fjord helped Caleb off the ground.

His stomach growled, making Caleb keenly aware he hadn't actually eaten since breakfast despite his attempts, so he started for the hall.

"Caleb," Molly called.

Caleb paused, looking over his shoulder to meet his gaze. "Ya?"

"Same time tomorrow?" he asked, nodding with his head towards the stack of books.

Caleb rubbed his neck, "Um, yeah, sure. If you want."

Molly's lips widened in a blinding grin, tail flicking beside him. "I look forward to it."

Fjord and Jester shot each other looks, and Caleb spun around and strode off as he heard Jester break into giggles.

He wove through the crates, hands in his pockets, trying not to think about what any of that was about.

…

Caleb, moping on the boat at night: How would one properly console Mollymauk Tealeaf?

Me, reclining on a beach chair a yard away, wearing sunglasses at night, and taking a long swig of a strawberry watermelon smoothie: Tenderly. Romantically. Lovingly even.

Commenters are my green lights on my commute to work, my favorite song playing when I turn on the radio, my 50% off Papa John's coupon.