CHAPTER 4

Here There Be Pirates

I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Ardent confessed. He was clothed in a white dressing gown with big purple slippers, and the wind whipped his beard through the air behind him. His robe and hat, still drying from washing out the Belolow funk, fluttered above their heads on a line strung up special by the Ropebone Man.

Fin snatched the silver bracelet back before the wizard could forget where he’d gotten it. “You must have seen that symbol somewhere,” Fin pressed. With his thumb, he traced the raised outline of the dragon, the arcs of the circle above it.

The Enterprising Kraken skated across the Stream, surrounded by clouds. This branch of the magic river spouted up through empty air, like riding on a rainbow. Fin had no idea why they weren’t currently falling, and he liked it that way.

Ardent shook his head. “The Stream is a large place. Endless, really. Do I know most of it? Possibly. More than nearly anyone else who ever lived? Obviously. But even I can’t know all of it. Wherever this came from, it is either obscure, or isolated, or very, very secluded.”

Fin nodded, pretending he knew what those words meant. “Soooo…” he said. “How do we go about tracking it down?”

Just then, a flat wobbly creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and a flying pancake swooped straight toward them, hissing and chirping as it came.

“I said we don’t want any!” Coll shouted from the ship’s wheel. He waved at it with a long wooden pole they’d brought out for just this purpose. The creature gave a disappointed chirp and swooped back into the clouds.

Fin shook his head and turned back to Ardent. The wizard looked at him suspiciously. “How do we track it down?” Fin repeated.

“Track what down?”

Fin threw up his hands. “The symbol! We have to track down the symbol and find my mother!” Ardent opened his mouth, but Fin cut him off. “Before you ask, my name’s Fin.” He could already tell the wizard had forgotten him. Again.

Ardent frowned. “We’re not accepting stowaway applications, I’m sorry to say. We’re full up at the moment.” He rolled an eye toward the Naysayer, who was slouching down toward the lower decks.

Frustration tightened the muscles along Fin’s shoulders. “It’s me,” he said. Ardent stared at him blankly. “There are posters all over the ship to remind you?” Fin snatched the nearest one from the mainmast and thrust it at the wizard. It was tattered and torn from exposure, the ink smeared where he’d misspelled something and tried to cross it off. A circle-face smiled a big thick swoosh of a smile beneath two misshapen eye-dots.

Ardent squinted at it. “Is that you? I thought that was supposed to be Ropebone!” He laughed. “Coll, guess what?” he shouted toward the quarterdeck. “Those signs are pictures of this boy, not Ropebone!”

Coll came closer and squinted at the image. “I thought it was a dinghy. I really thought you made this to remind me to haul in the dinghies.”

Fin scowled furiously. Okay, so he wasn’t a good artist like Marrill was. But there were still her originals. “Also the drawings pinned to your sleeves,” he reminded them. For the umpteen millionth time.

They both looked down. Only dirty scraps of sail clung to Coll’s shirt. “Oh yeah,” he grunted. “Must have lost it back in the Skeleton Garden.”

Fin’s eyes whipped to Ardent, who was licking his. The entire thing, Fin realized, was stained gray. “Toadbutter,” the wizard said with a scowl. “Definitely toadbutter. When did I have toadbutter?”

Fin ground his teeth. “It says I’m part of the crew. That I helped defeat Serth, and I’m Marrill’s friend, and—”

Ardent’s expression softened into a smile. “I wonder how Marrill’s doing. I miss her, don’t you, Coll?”

“She definitely livened things up,” Coll agreed. “Remember that time she threw the pepper shaker into the Stream and it turned into a kraken?”

Fin closed his eyes. It was like he’d never existed to them. As if he hadn’t been the one who’d thrown the pepper into the Stream. As if he hadn’t rescued Coll from the Gibbering Grove, or tricked Serth into diving into the Stream and saved the whole world.

As if he didn’t miss Marrill way more than they did.

“You guys are never going to help me, are you?” he asked.

Ardent frowned and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re on a quest to find a dear friend of mine, young man. A friend who may be in grave danger. I’m afraid we can’t just stop to help every stowaway, no matter how much we might like to.”

“But—” Fin stopped himself. It was no use. He could convince them to help him—remind them of Marrill and of what the scraps said, and that he wasn’t just some stowaway. They would believe him. And they would want to help him. They really would.

And then two seconds later, they would forget all over again. It wasn’t their fault. Everyone did. Because he was no one.

“Never mind,” he whispered. He turned away and headed quickly for the stern before the tears could form.

Back by the rumor vines again, Fin let the emotion well up in his chest. If only Marrill were still here. She would have helped him. She would have made Ardent and Coll stay on track.

He reminded himself, again, that she was gone forever. That it was a good thing she was back home with her family, and a good thing that she had taken the Map to Everywhere with her to keep it safe, no matter how much he needed it.

His hand strayed toward the familiar weight in his hidden shirt pocket. The Key to the Map, the piece that controlled it, safe where he’d stashed it. But what good was it without the Map itself? He forced his fingers into a fist, then dropped his arm to his side.

Fin closed his eyes, feeling the earlike leaves of the rumor vines waving across his knuckles. “I wish Marrill was here,” he whispered to no one.

the vines softly whispered.

After a long time, he opened his eyes again. That was when he noticed the other ship.

She was dark and low-decked and racing up the arch of glowing water behind them. And if she had been just a bit larger and a touch better made, he’d have thought for sure that she was Stavik’s old ship, the Black Dragon, risen up from where they’d sunk her so she could chase the Kraken once more.

Then he caught sight of the black flag flapping from her mizzenmast gaff, and he understood why she looked so familiar. “Pirates,” he mumbled under his breath. Then the thought hit him harder.

“PIRATES!”

the rumor vines cried, the cacophony of their shouts almost deafening.

In moments, Coll, Ardent, and the Naysayer were all beside him. The ship was coming straight for them. And the narrow ribbon of water they were sailing left no way to escape.

“Maybe… we could… just let them pass?” Ardent offered.

“Sure,” said the Naysayer. “Just find us a nice stable-looking cloud to pull off on and I’ll lean out and wave ’em around.”

Coll’s voice broke the moment. “Prepare to be boarded!” he barked. “Get the nets ready, Ropebone! To arms, you pirats! Ardent, get your best wizarding ready. Looks like we’ll need a healthy dose of it today.”

The rumor vines took up the call.

Ardent cracked his bony knuckles as the pirats scampered back and forth, sealing hatches and securing lines. Fin saw one strapping an empty can on as a breastplate. He swallowed and looked back to the pirate vessel.

As she drew closer, the ship looked even more like the Black Dragon. He squinted. Sure enough, the man at her bow moved with a familiar swagger, and his leather tunic bore a familiar cut. Apparently, Stavik had found himself a new flagship.

She was lower than the Kraken, and he couldn’t quite get a good look at the men on her deck. But he could tell from their voices that they were preparing to board.

He stroked his chin, considering the situation. Being boarded by pirates was bad, as a general rule. Even if those pirates were your friends. And especially if none of your friends ever remembered you.

On the other hand, it occurred to him that getting Ardent and Coll to follow the forgettable girl’s ship would be near impossible; they had their own leads to chase, their own quests to fulfill. Stavik, meanwhile, would track a ship like a sweathound on a deer with perspiration problems, so long as there was the slightest hint of loot involved. And Fin was very good at hinting.

Fin grinned. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. He’d have to talk the pirates out of taking the Kraken, sure, but that was another thing he was good at. And talking his way onto Stavik’s ship would be twice as easy.

This was it, he decided. He was leaving.

The thought came suddenly, but surely. He had to go. As the pirate ship came abreast of the Kraken, Fin took one long, last look at the ship that had been his home for the last six months. It hurt to leave, especially remembering the good times he’d had there with Marrill. He wouldn’t see her again, he knew, but maybe one day he could come back, after fixing whatever was wrong with him and finally becoming memorable, and rejoin the crew of the Kraken.

But until then, it looked like a pirate’s life for him. As the boarding hooks clinked onto the railing and the pirates drew to jumping distance, Fin raised his hand in the traditional thieves’ greeting. “Hello, fellow shady-fellow,” he began. But the words caught in his throat.

Because one particularly small pirate stepped forward. A small pirate wearing a backpack and clutching a big, one-eyed orange cat.

“Fin!” she cried, waving.

His jaw dropped. He blinked, rubbing at his eyes. It couldn’t be real. “Marrill?” he whispered.

“Fin!” she shouted again. Without hesitation, she thrust her cat into Stavik’s arms, grabbed a rope, and swung between the two ships. Before he knew it, Fin found himself face-first in an enormous hug.

Deep inside Fin, all the frustration of being forgotten, all the fear of never knowing who he was, all the sadness from being alone—all of it just exploded and disappeared in a single moment. A lone tear rolled down his cheek. For the first time in what may have been his entire life, he felt like he had come home.

“You came back,” he whispered. He threw his arms around her. “You came back!”

Marrill pulled away from him, a huge grin plastered on her face. Her eyes were bright and watery. She squeezed his hand. “I came back,” she said.

Fin just nodded. They were riding a rainbow of magic across an endless clear sky. Flying manta-pancakes warbled all around them, and the sun shone bright on the deck where his best friend now stood beside him.

Maybe wishes came true after all.