Page 24 of The Pirate Queen

Eóin yanks open the door to his cabin and pushes the children in—not gently. Gráinne is silent, her gray eyes large and filled with an unnerving light as she stumbles forward. Donal, too, is wide-eyed, but his are glazed with fear. Red-rimmed. Swollen. It had not occurred to Eóin that this would be his first storm as well. The poor boy looks stricken. Eóin had only Gráinne in mind, and now he could curse himself. Donal, an afterthought, as always.

“ ’Tis dark,” Eóin says. “And you will not leave this cabin. There is bread and fruit and water. Leave a loaf for me, but you have the rest.” He nods to the corner where a hammock sways with the rocking of the boat. “Donal, you take the hammock. Gráinne, the bed is yours. Either of ye steps one foot outside this cabin and I’ll whip ye within an inch of your life.”

If they know the threat is idle, neither of them lets on. He’s only swatted Donal a handful of times and then only as a tachrán. He’s not so much as laid a hand to Gráinne in all eight years of her life. He couldn’t. But she cannot know that.

So he shuts his children inside the cabin and leans against the door. Even if he has to stand here all night calling orders from the stern, he’ll not let them leave the cabin.

There are three loaves of oat bread on the sideboard, along with a bag of apples and a skin of water. Donal tears off half of one loaf, grabs an apple, and climbs into the hammock.

“You drink,” he says, “then I’ll go.”

Grace doesn’t argue.

Her lips are chapped from the salt and she is thirstier than she’s ever been. She takes several long gulps, then wipes her mouth and hands the skin to her brother. The children stare at each other for a moment, each realizing this is the first time in their lives that they have ever been left unattended.

She is startled when he laughs at her.

“What?”

“The wind has given you elflocks, hasn’t it?” When she only looks at him with confusion, he tugs at a piece of his own hair and adds, “Tangles. Like it’s been plaited by fairies. You look a fright. Next time, tie it back.”

Donal is dark like their father, hair black and skin tanned from long hours on deck, but his eyes are different. A younger version of the same green. Brighter. Less hardened by time and circumstance, and always ready to smile. She feels that he is trying not to smile at her now.

Grace doesn’t know what to do with this boy they call her brother, doesn’t know how to speak with him—if she’s even allowed. So she surveys the small dim cabin instead. Wood floor, walls, and ceiling. Two small windows that reveal nothing but darkest night. A map of Ireland hangs on the portside wall, and a blunderbuss sits in a wooden rack on the starboard side. She has never seen a firelock before, so she moves to the wall and reaches for it.

“Don’t touch that!” Donal shouts, nearly tumbling out of the hammock as he tries to swat her hand away. Her face must show hurt and alarm, because he adds, “ ’Tis loaded. Da always keeps it loaded. Could kill us both.”

Her cheeks burn as she lets her hand drop. The cabin is swallowed in silence again and she finds herself wanting to flee. So Grace says the first thing that comes to mind.

“I don’t hate you.”

Donal blinks at her. “Why would you? I’m the one who’s supposed to hate you.”

“No one hates me,” she says, certain it’s the truth.

“Of course they do.”

“Name one person.”

“My mam,” he tells her.

Grace has never met Donal’s mother—has never even seen the woman, in fact. So he may as well be saying that his frying pan hates her. Or the chimney stack. It makes no sense.

“Name another,” she demands.

He shrugs. “My granny also hates you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Tá, it is.”

“Why does your granny hate me?”

Grace doesn’t have a granny. Both of hers are dead.

“Because our da married your mam and not mine.”

“That isn’t my fault.”