The Voyage of the Sea Wolf by Eve Bunting

head.
    Was it an emergency, one of the crew needing to get to the captain?
    No, because there was no calling of her name, no heavy knock.
    Or could it be William? My heart leaped. William!
    I swung out of the hammock and tiptoed to the door through the path of moonlight. “William?”
    From the captain’s bed came the undisturbed snores, as even as breathing.
    â€œWilliam?” I whispered again.
    But there was no answer. The doorknob was still.
    I stood, staring at the painted wood of it. There was a drawing of a cross in the center, a cross with a faded green circle round the top. A Celtic cross. I had seen drawings of it before. Protection, I thought. Or superstition?
    All was quiet. Whoever had been outside was gone.

Chapter Nine
    I was up early with Sebastian, sewing on the sails, ready for the sunrise that didn’t come. The sea and sky were covered with a gray fog that lay across the deck like a winding sheet. It was in my hair. It chilled my bones and I realized that my aches ached worse with the cold and wetness of it.
    Around me the crew was already at work. The guns were polished and checked, the boards scrubbed, the railings rubbed.
    â€œWe keeps the
Sea Wolf
rubbed up even in fog,” Sebastian said.
    â€œSeems like time wasted,” I said.
    â€œWe has our duties. If’n we slack, the cap’n’ll be on us. There’ll be punishment, ye can lay to that.”
    I stole a glance at him. Skelly had told me that Sebastian liked to talk. I chanced a remark.
    â€œI find it strange that a woman captain can control a crew as she does.”
    â€œMay be.” Sebastian pulled himself another strand of hemp and threaded his needle. “They respect her and fear her. Ye have not had time to see her in battle. She is a wild beast. Or when she is angry. I seen her chop off a finger when it went a place it should not have gone in her presence.” He paused. “There’s not another captain can smell out a treasure like she does. There’s greed in the crew. It’s worth being ruled by a woman if’n the rewards are good. They be’s grateful for that, and more.”
    The sail I was stitching was fog damp and the needle slippery. I struggled with it. Sebastian leaned across me and gave it a last push through the wet canvas. He went on.
    â€œAye, they gots a lot to be grateful for. No other cap’n would have a one o’ them. They be’s half blind, half crippled, one handless, one footless. One can’t talk, one can’t hear and Gummer, he be’s older than the ocean. And who but Captain Moriarity would a’ taken me, me, a dwarf?” He gave a small chuckle. “I tole her a dwarf was luckyon a ship. Good news for me that she be’s superstitious. I tole her I had the Light of Foresight and she believed me. ’Twas true. I have. We be’s all loyal to her. There’s not a man would fail her.”
    I peered in front of me.
    A sailor was leaning overboard, lowering a leaded weight through the fog and into the water, calling out “three fathoms,” then “four fathoms,” then three again.
    â€œWe be’s extra careful when the fog lies on the sea,” Sebastian said. “There be’s hidden dangers hereabouts. Ye can run up on shoals or break yer hull on a sunk wreck. Like the
Isabella
.”
    â€œShe broke her hull?”
    â€œAye, but she made it to shore. Cap’n has informers. We know where she be’s lyin’ and what’s aboard her.”
    â€œThe informers will be rewarded?” I asked tartly.
    â€œOh aye. Ye can be sure o’ that.”
    We sewed for a while without talking.
    By noontime the fog lifted and the sun appeared.
    I found myself secretly examining every pirate that passed us by. Who was it who’d tried to get in the captain’s cabin last night? Had it been that one with the limping leg? Or this one, with the pustules, red and oozing on his cheeks?