Page 2 of Her Creation

“Hands to braces!”

“Clew up the courses!”

The sun had already set, and darkness had covered everything in a sheen of navy blue and silver. We would drop anchor tonight and take the longboats to shore in the morning when the golden safety of daylight rose.

This was the last night that I would feel as I did. Unsuccessful and forgettable. I was hours away from changing the course of history. I had known we would be approaching land, and my tools had been ready for the past week. My leather satchel sat by the door, eager and waiting to be flung on my back. The steadiness of my hands surprised me while I pulled the brown sack on top of my trunks and checked through it again, for the last time. Theodolites, measuring chains, the sextant my grandfather had gifted me before the journey, my ruler and protractor in their leather satchel, all waiting to be pulled for use. My finest graphite pencils and black chalk for backup, gouache and watercolors for rendering landscapes, all lay under my fingertips and itched for use. I inspected every item before replacing it and the bag with methodical calm. I felt the strain of muscle in my shoulders as I pulled a trunk over and lifted my portable drawing board, tacked down a piece of paper, and prepared to practice my sketching until the morning.

My heart lodged in my throat as a knock slammed abruptly on my door, startling me.

“Clara, come up top. Cap said it’s okay tonight, you can leave your quarters.”

I hurried to the companionway, stopping Snowflake to ask if he knew what was going on.

There was a coldness in his eyes that wasn’t normally there when he replied. “They spotted a man at the shore’s edge who looked half dead,” he answered, shaking his head.

I gasped, and it felt like I’d swallowed a chunk of ice. “A man? On the shore?” The remote land looked untouched. How could this be?

Snowflake nodded with a wary look. “There’s a skiff.”

The air had crawled into every limb and was making its journey to my head; my thoughts were suddenly too erratic yet still in slow motion.

A man on the shore.

There had been no evidence along our way of an abandoned ship or any wreckage. Whaling boats were within a reasonable vicinity, but to travel this far in a longboat would be foolish.

My feet hit the wooden rungs of the ladder through the hatch as someone gripped hold of my wrist with bruising force.

“The man is still alive,” Captain Sheamus shouted before he dropped my arm. “He is still moving. I am sending the crew out to fetch him and bring him aboard. You will tend to him in the sick bay tonight.”

Painful air filled my mouth as it opened in shock. “Me? Why on God’s earth would I tend to him? I’m disembarking in the morning.” I knew why. It made me so angry I heated to where I forgot about the chill for the moment. “Dr. Brox—”

“Dr. Brox will also see him after he settles. Miss Bulkley, I have been beyond lenient with you being aboard my ship despite the others believing you are a bad omen.”

“Captain,” I protested.

“Miss Bulkley.” His loud voice buzzed past the cold wind. “You will do your womanly duty and tend to the man for God’s sake. The sooner you do so, the sooner everyone can rest tonight.”

My mouth clamped shut angrily. “Know that I will go ashore tomorrow and begin my proper work—the work that I am here to do, Captain—and nothing is going to stop me. Whether the man lives or dies tonight, I will chart that land tomorrow if I have to row myself out there.” I glared at him. The cold had eaten away at my uncovered head and throat, and they felt as hurt and as raw as my insides.

The captain shook his head slowly before walking off. My dignity shrank until it was so small and weightless that it could have slipped between the planks on the floor.

I hurried down the stairs until I reached my quiet, tiny space. Just when I felt I was making progress on this ship, I was forced into the matronly role of nursemaid to some man who shouldn’t even be here. I wasn’t the motherly type, to man or children. Men were quite capable of taking care of themselves, and to the distaste of all of society, I never wanted children. There are plenty of well-kept lieutenants aboard that would look after a wounded man far better than I, but no, it is my task as a woman. He could certainly be up to no good; why else would he be all alone? Where was the rest of his crew? I supposed we would find out soon enough, or I would, since I was to be his nanny. Perhaps he would die before arriving, and we could still get a decent night’s sleep before disembarkment tomorrow. I was so eager to begin on the maps it was getting hard to keep my tools neatly in their specific cases, as if they called to me to get them free and use them.

I dressed with speed, thinking for a moment that I should put my petticoat and skirts on for more proper attire with a stranger present, before I quickly and angrily decided that this stupid, half-dead man could get accustomed to seeing me in breeches just as everyone else had. Dr. Brox would tend to him soon enough. I imagined the minor comforts of the ship would soothe the man enough without my help, and then we could all get on with the mission with no further interruptions.

I hurried back to the dark of the top deck to watch with the rest of the men.

They sent four men out in the longboat. As it lowered into the black and icy water of the night, I watched the faces of the crew that watched. There was something devastating in the air that told my intuition they weren’t coming back; the feeling bottomed out my stomach.

It wasn’t far to shore, and they made it across quickly; no doubt the silent black water mere inches below them added to their rapid progress to the shoreline. It was difficult to see without a looking glass, but they appeared to be fighting about who should get out of the small boat to wade ashore. It seemed they elected George, an enormous young laborer, who bravely leaped from the boat and brought it to a stand while two others followed his lead and leaped from the boat after seeing that their friend’s ankles remained intact and the invisible beasts lurking beneath the water hadn’t pulled him down. They all glanced around as they cleared the distance and came upon the fallen man.

I begged to know what upon that land they saw and promised myself I would ask them once they returned; my initial wariness of their return had faded. It occurred to me how odd a thought it had been to assume they would not be returning from such a brief excursion. The feeling felt like poison in my gut. Was the rest of the land as eerie and wrong? What horrors did it hold? What if it hadn’t been a stray landing that left this injured man destitute upon the shoreline? What if the land were cursed like the men mumbled?

Stop it, I commanded myself. This was not one of the fanciful stories that waited in my trunk to be read; this was a serious, real endeavor.

Soft gasps and murmurs from the crew drew my attention. The injured man rose with the others’ help, after having been slumped half out of the boat. He was coherent enough to walk, but that wasn’t what caused the shock. Despite his state, slumped and limp, the man’s stature was incredible. Even at my distance, I could see how much larger he was than the others, not only in height, but in the thickness of his neck and the width of his shoulders and limbs. Something about the man’s appearance infused my body with fear. Even from where I watched, I swore I could see scars littering his face and neck.

“It’s the land.”