Chapter Eleven: Little White Lie (Edited)

The Sandcutter lay on nearly the opposite side of the island, so we took a route through the dead woods in the center of the island. None of the trees were particularly massive as far as trees or old growth forests would go but were remarkable for the fact that, to date, I had not seen one living tree. Smaller shrubs, grasses, and other brush flourished on the island in warmer months, but something had well and truly killed off the trees long ago, leaving most of their gray trunks straining towards the sky like gravestones.

I shuddered a little as we walked through the thickest portion of the trees, feeling almost like I was violating some sacred ground.

It really said something about how small our island home was. Between helping Mom pack up her tools and walking across the island to reach her place grounded in the estuary only took about half an hour, give or take. I trailed behind Mom, helping as much as I could by carrying our lunch for the day.

Actually getting to the Sandcutter at its grounded position in the shallow part of the estuary was something of an endeavor. While most of the interior of the island was lightly wooded with dead trees and light vegetation, the estuary the Sandcutter had grounded in was absolutely piled high with jagged rocks and even boulders whose origin I couldn’t even begin to identify. They looked as if they’d just been dumped there, but beyond that I would hesitate to even try to guess an explanation.  Regardless, the combination of boulders, the huge rocks forming the estuary, the loose sandy soil everywhere else, and of course having to drudge through the water made getting to the ship a pain. However, aside from a bit of exercise, we weren’t delayed too long before we got to the ship.

Up close, the Sandcutter cut a different image than when viewed from afar. She was still by far the biggest ship I’d ever been close to in person and reminded me of a deadly dagger with her sleek profile and pointed bow, but when viewed up close I saw clear signs for why she was grounded and abandoned.

While she still stood strong and recognizable, the elements had clearly continued their eternal siege. Time meant an accumulation of dirt and smudges over the ship, yet despite the lack of cleaning or even just a good new layer of paint, most of her metal was, if not gleaming, at least tolerable. Unmistakable patches of rust were beginning to dot her.

Most of her hull looked intact, yet there were definite tears in some areas of the ship’s skin, exposing further metal beneath. Yet even these were surprisingly small given she must have been here for years, since I was born at the least.  I knew very little about seakeeping in my old world, but even I knew a ship not maintained for years by an active crew in anything but a dry-dock would be in bad shape, much less grounded on a seabed and exposed to the elements. Yet, the rust was the least of Sandy’s worries.

Scattered across the ship were huge gouges and massive indentations in the metal of Sandy’s hull and superstructure. Sometimes multiple meters across and trailing along the ship as if something had grappled with the ship, although I had no idea what. They reminded me of the time in my old life I’d watched a bulldozer systematically break down an old, run-down building coated in rusted sheet metal.  The bulldozer’s blade had first merely dented the slides before they split, tearing and screaming jagged arcs of metal echoing a cursing operator as he slowly but surely tore the building down.

The ship had five turrets, technically. I had no idea what these turrets were called, their caliber, or even if that term would apply to them given they seemed like a fusion of naval artillery meets metal ballistas given the large, bow-like apparatus at the end of each barrel, but I was pretty sure the jagged mess of scrap metal making up the foremost turret of the ship wasn’t normal. Two others looked knocked out of place, as if something had wrenched them upward or otherwise smashed into them like the fist of an angry giant.  This left only two seemingly intact, although I would be shocked if they could remotely turn after so long or would even be safe to fire.

I remember asking, “Mama? What happened to the ship to do all, that?” I asked, gesturing vaguely and at a loss to describe the damage I saw.

Her little white lie stayed with me. “It was a bad storm.”

As my father in my old life would have said, “As-fucking-if.”

We sloshed across the sandy banks of the estuary toward the midships, where a precarious composite rope ladder had been thrown off the side. I paused, and couldn’t help lifting my head, sniffing the air. Something permeated the air now that I’d gotten closer to Sandy’s wreck, and for the life of me I had no idea what the heck it even was. It even overpowered the omnipresent mint smell!

Every time I’d come here before, the ship always smelled vaguely of rust, oils, and the omnipresent waft of sulfur from all the smellyweed growing around around the island’s shores. Yet now, I smelled something I struggled to define and hadn’t been here before. It wasn’t any scent I recognized, artificial or otherwise. The only real description that came to mind was that it reminded me of the charged feeling of stepping into an old classmate’s machine shop with a distinct oily tone, but even there it was off in the same way someone saying a plastic sandwich from a toy set is identical to a real sandwich sold in a cafe.

My inability to accurately pin down what I could smell was seriously perplexing. “Mom? What’s that smell?”

Mom paused in her ascent. “What scent? Everything’s normal to me. Sea, salt, seaweed, the usual.”

“Never mind,” I muttered. Mom looked around despite my comment, clearly trying to find what had my attention before shrugging. The scent only grew stronger as we got closer to the hull but seemed to peak at a tolerable level around the ship.

“Okay, I’m going to climb up first with the supplies, then I’ll come back to get you. Sit tight, alright?” she said, before leaping up and scaling the ladder alarmingly fast with an oversized toolbox, pack, and shard thrower over her shoulder.

I waited patiently, idly kicking at a patch of water weeds nearby. At first, Mom would always keep me locked up at home when she came out here, but I eventually got confident enough about moving again to escape through the windows. Evidently, my escape was enough to make her reconsider, as she took me with her ever since. Although, while I think I could climb the ladder with difficulty now, Mom had a different method to get me aboard.

Soon enough, Mom was blazing back down the ladder. She knelt before me. “Hop on!” she said, looking over her shoulder with a bright smile.

I knew better than to hesitate.  She might take that as cause for concern and take things hideously slowly instead. First time she’d slowed her climbing down, I thought she was trying to defeat my fear of heights through sheer unrelenting boredom. I was wrong, but at least I knew better now.

I made my best impression of a monkey and grabbed onto my mom with all my might. I even wrapped my tail around her belly to try and anchor myself more firmly.. kinda. My tail wasn’t fully flexible enough for that, but, well, the attempt was made. Once Mom further secured me with a rope harness binding between herself and me, she then proceeded to race again as if the time away from the ship had personally insulted her.

I did my best not to think about the experience as it was simultaneously exhilarating and utterly terrifying bouncing on my mom’s back with wind rushing through my curls as she ascended at an insane speed. I don’t think a marine could have gone faster if he’d tried. 

One mildly terrifying climb later, and we were on board. The most immediate thing to first take in were the guns. One was right near our position, still aimed into the far distance. Up close, I could see its barrel actually cut off at the tip, revealing a deep groove something would travel through.  Thick metal with deep scratches marred the turret casing’s surface, while the turning wheel was an orange red with rust. The runes on the gun’s bow were similar to what I’d seen on Mom’s shard thrower, albeit just as incomprehensible.

I breathed out, trying to calm my nerves as my tail swished side to side.  It was one thing to see them from the island, but to see them up close was oddly exhilarating and terrifying in their disused state. They almost looked like ramped up models of Mom’s thrower but scaled to be bigger than multiple grown people. What really got me was that Sandy was small, apparently. Just how big did these guns get?

Outside the rusting bridge and numerous, only mildly terrifying turrets bigger than Mom and I put together, the main deck was dominated by two enormous chains traveling much the length of the ship. Here and there the deck was littered with places for machinery. Some reminded me a bit of what almost looked like clockwork binoculars and others were vaguely antenna like, but still more I couldn’t begin to say.

Yet, a certain feeling remained. This was far from my first time on board. We came out here multiple times per week so Mom could work on the ship. Yet, while I’d gained more and more familiarity with the ship,  the feeling of emptiness never left.

It would be one thing if the ship was covered in coral and sea life, if everything was crumbling away to dust with the harsh passage of time. Yet, that is not what was happening here. To be clear, the ship was not in a good state. Just from our place in the midships, it was very evident to see rust everywhere, some debris littering the decks and superstructure, obvious and severe damage, and of course ubiquitous amounts of peeling paint. Yet, that, at least, just made the ship feel rundown.

What struck me about the ship was the sheer feeling of emptiness about it. Everywhere I looked, whether it was the conning tower, the half bent and shattered cable wrench, or the scattered other bits of machinery everywhere. In some ways, it looked like everything had just been abandoned, rather than this being some old decrepit wreck from a war my grandparents hadn’t even lived through.

In spite of this haunting feeling, I felt a deep rooted, nigh instinctual need bordering on biological right to go snooping around the ship. It was a nearly abandoned ship straight out of an adventure novel — it was my right as a child to go snooping! “What are you doing today?” I asked, innocently as I edged toward a hatch left slightly open courtesy of the metal frame being bent out of place.

Mom gave an unimpressed stare. “We,” Mom said in emphasis, “are going to be patching up some of the piping system, and I expect you to stay with me to hand parts and tools.”

I didn’t give her the privilege of a pout, but some of my disappointment must’ve been evident because Mom rolled her eyes. “Maybe if there’s time today, we can go into a deeper part of the ship, but I really need to do some repairs. We’re running behind as is.”

That caught my attention. If there’s anything we’ve had an abundance of on this island, it’s time. “Why?” I asked.

“It’s nothing,” Mom obviously lied. I gave Mom my own unimpressed stare, which only resulted in her patting my head and petting my fuzzy ears which made them twitch.

Mom wrenched open an entry hatch, revealing a dark passageway beyond. A draft of faintly musty air with a slight undercurrent of rot came from the passageway, but it was no worse than wandering a shoreline covered in smellyweed. Light strips lined the ceiling but they were fainter than the ones back at the citadel. Mom looked at the faint strips and frowned. She tapped one, to little avail. “Looks like lighting’s failed. Will have to redirect mana flows again,” Mom said, which I think I understood but was absolutely not sure of at all.  She pulled a lantern out of her pack and flooded the passageway with light.

“This way,” Mom said, stepping into the ship’s confines. As always, I felt a brief surge of trepidation mixed with curious excitement. In this life, I saw better in the dark than I ever did in life, but if Sandy’s lights were off-and they usually were-then her interior was shrouded in absolute darkness.

Yet, I was used to the feeling by now. It was hardly the first time I’d been here, after all. I easily shrugged it off and padded after Mom deeper into the Sandcutter’s depths.

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Chapter Eleven Author’s Note

There’s a certain appeal to the abandoned places that you know, and feel should be busy, active, that clearly had people there living, laughing, struggling, loving, etc., and yet just aren’t anymore. Sometimes it can be as simple as a place being closed like a major store and the lack of people being unnerving, and other times it can be more like this, a place that should be a bastion of ordered chaos instead of being disturbingly still.

This chapter, incidentally, got me to chat with a guy who spent time in the navy and on warships and he politely informed me that there was no way in Hell a steel ship would be doing this good under these conditions. His conclusion was it’d be a ‘heaping pile of unusable rust’ by this point, so I am taking artistic liberties with a healthy dose of ‘magic!’ here. So there’s that.

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