VESTMEN'S GALE - Chapter Three
Oyster Rocks
All words are my own, not AI -David McCaleb
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Deck boards rattled as Halfdan pounded toward the front of the ship. Toward me. He smiled, but his gait was even heavier than Dad’s when he’d picked me out of the back of Sheriff Jacobs’s cruiser after he’d clocked me thirty miles per hour over the limit. This gorilla-sized man stopped in front of me, one foot on a plank, the other against the gunwale. His fist flew in an uppercut that caught me below my sternum and lifted me from my feet. My legs slipped between boards, and I dropped onto an oak plank at the end of my bench. I’d tensed my stomach at the last second, but now it cramped and I struggled to draw a breath. Couldn’t this guy say anything without hitting me first?
“That’s for calling me useless as pearls on a boar!” he shouted.
I hunched, arms crossed over my belly, trying to inhale. He lifted me by the hair, just as he had before. That’s it. I’m shaving my head. He plopped me next to him and I braced for another blow. Both his arms wrapped around my back and he raised me in a bear hug, squeezing until my spine popped. “And that’s for saving our boat.”
Each of the crew raised an arm. “Fram!” they shouted. Forward!
He dropped me to my feet, and the cramp in my gut subsided. I wheezed and the sound of the wind filled my ears again, as if I’d been deaf. The head of the gray wolfskin that draped over Halfdan’s shoulders stretched down an arm. The dark skin of his biceps peeked through the animal’s vacant sockets. He gripped my chin and put his nose to mine, staring into my eyes as if trying to peer through them. His breath was earth and oak. “How’d you know of this cliff, witch-boy?” He rapped a knuckle on my scalp. “Your mother’s spirits rattling around in that skull?”
I must be this feral ape’s beating toy. Was I going to have to endure this till I found a way out of this body and woke from this nightmare? But now his insults held an edge. Personal. My stomach soured with anger despite that I didn’t even know this body’s mother.
My mother! Only an hour ago, I’d sat on a barstool as she leaned over a hickory cutting board, dicing onions and chopping tomatoes for her seafood paella that she made every year up here. Scents of paprika, thyme, and steaming shrimp had filled the cottage. The welcome aroma of her cooking transforming the vacation cottage into our home, though hundreds of miles distant.
Dad had stood at the sink, one gloved hand gripping an oyster, another a shucking knife, grumbling how Mom had forced him to pay four times the price up here than we got at home.
He’d raised the short, blunted blade in the air, to emphasize his point. “And look! Their meat is lean! Like they’ve been raised in some back bay.”
Mother had pursed her lips into a twisted smile. She’d tucked a straight brown strand of hair behind her ear and pushed a red pepper slice into Dad’s mouth. “But they’re worth the price tonight,” she’d said, patting his belt buckle. I’d laughed then, though it was always disgusting when they flirted.
Now, since I was here, I’d be missing from my own world, wouldn’t I? If I were gone long, she’d worry, scared to death thinking she’d lost yet another child. Gabby’s death had been such a blow. I had to get back quickly. But how?
Halfdan flicked his thumb against my forehead. “No witchy mother to protect you out here, Matok.”
My fingers balled into a fist. But I couldn’t fight this man. He was strong as a bull shark, and I’d never hit anyone in my life. Not only did I need to keep myself in check, but the urgings of this new body as well. As if pieces of the prior owner’s personality remained. This monster staring into my eyes could crush me. And Little Finger had said he was looking for a reason to kill me.
I clenched my teeth, willing myself to remain silent.
He turned to the crew and pointed up the Nonesuch River. “We’ve outrun the Mi’kmaq. We’ll head inland and make camp. Cut the little savages off.” He pounded toward the stern. Heavy steps must’ve been a Viking virtue.
Most summers up here, we’d borrowed a friend’s twenty-six-foot Sea Fox, moored in the Nonesuch, and gone fishing after pollock. That waterway quickly broke into several smaller tributaries that didn’t really go anywhere.
“We should sail south a little farther.” The words left my lips before I’d realized my mistake. I’d addressed the guy that threw punches just to clear his throat. I was always saying stupid things, speaking without thinking. Seems some of my faults had followed me.
Halfdan ducked below the boom and froze. His eyes narrowed, as if considering the thought.
Maybe I should smooth it over. Explain. “My father and I’d go fishing from—”
At the mention of father, Halfdan’s lip curled into a sneer. He shouted, “You’ve got no father, witch-boy!” He stretched his arm toward the river. “That’s as big as any stream we’ve seen.”
I tapped the side of the cliff with my oar. “I got us here. Trust me. A couple more miles and we’ll be at the Saco.”
“You named it!” He tugged on his beard, as if the gesture were an insult. “Now I know you’re crazy. You caught that wave with your paddle and your oar knocked your senses loose. You thought you were talking to Freyja in Fólkvangr when I picked you out of the bilge. We’re heading up that river.”
I opened my mouth but held my breath. Mom would always clear her throat before I further incriminated myself, and I imagined her doing so now. I pursed my lips and tapped the blue granite cliff with my oar once again.
Halfdan turned with a jerk and hopped atop his perch. We all sat and readied our oars. Halfdan nodded to the two rowers closest him, and they made a preliminary exaggerated stroke. The rest of the boat followed their lead and we pulled away.
“You OK?” Little Finger asked.
My neck was cramping from craning backward to speak with him. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“You sure? Halfdan’s killed men punching them like that.”
I glanced at my belly. A red welt the size of a saucer swelled below my rib cage. “Killed?”
“You know. Their heart stopped.”
I shook my head. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
“You took a nasty blow when your paddle caught that wave.”
“What does that mean, caught a wave?”
Little Finger breathed deeply for a few strokes, as if an asthmatic, though our pace was much more relaxed now. “You know, your oar digs into the water on the return stroke. Launches the grip straight at your head. You haven’t paddled a wave since you were a kid. A bad omen.”
We passed by the mouth of the Nonesuch. I guess Halfdan isn’t completely close minded. The wide opening was clogged with piles of rocks protruding from opposite shores like fingers, knitted together until only a narrow waterway remained that zigzagged between the banks. At Halfdan’s nod, One-Eye and his skinny companion jumped up and hoisted the sail. It billowed out in the stiff breeze, shaking a mist from the damp fabric that drifted across my face and chest. The scent of wet wool filled the boat again, and strokes came easier. I shivered. A tan rough-woven bag, like a burlap sack, was strapped to the leg of my bench.
I caught Little Finger’s gaze and pointed to it. “That mine?”
He smirked. “Yes, that’s yours. Either by oar or by Halfdan’s fists, your memory’s been beaten from you.”
Rowing with one arm, I reached in with the other and pulled out a collarless linen shirt, embroidered in swirls of red and turquoise beads on the chest. A brown cross ran down the back. I shrugged it on and fiddled with string loops over pewter-colored buttons carved with swirls and dots. The stiff, rough fabric cut the wind. I’d anticipated it would itch, but it didn’t. Bow spray beaded upon its surface and ran down the seams in streaks, as if the fabric had been oiled.
Oil. That was the stench I’d been smelling. The wood of the boat had been rubbed with a greasy substance, probably for waterproofing. Even when I’d gripped the gunwale it had been slick under my palms. What would a Viking use? Seal fat? If so, no wonder the vessel stank like a slaughterhouse.
The rocks piled on the beach as we passed were smaller and less hostile than the ones earlier. I studied the forest, anticipating a flash of Gabby’s red hair, or hearing her laugh over the splash of the bow. But the next few miles passed without such evidence. The woodland grew darker as we continued. Still, the sky was bright, though the sun sank lower. In her absence I sensed another spirit, unfamiliar, that chilled my skin. Maybe this was why they called me witch-boy. Was I now some sort of shaman who could sense such things? When I’d glimpsed her red hair, my body had been light and arms strong. Now, though our pace had slowed, the oar was dead in my grasp, as if a darkness had pushed her aside. Was I losing my mind? I’m not asleep, I reasoned. Not dreaming. I was physically in another man’s body, same place, different time, ruled by a fist-happy, white-haired Neanderthal. Or had my old life been a dream? I startled at the thought.
I scanned the coast again, but no Gabby. The bow plowed through a wave, its spray chilling my neck and stinging my ears. All my senses seemed twice as intense. But none were bothersome. Reassuring, in fact, that I was alive. As if for the first time. Pain seemed an ordinary part of me. Like the last mile in a cross-country race, maybe I needed to push through the wall.
Make fast and ride it through.
Halfdan pulled on the tiller and steered toward the mouth of the Saco. Now that we were headed across wind, the sail was dropped again. Slack tide had passed and the rising current carried us toward the mouth of the river, as if to swallow us whole. The boat accelerated the closer we traveled, drawn like a hooked fish. We barely had to paddle, though I wouldn’t have had the strength, so oppressive came the shadows. Once inside the channel, we were a slave to its powerful flow. The current carried us so swiftly no amount of struggle would’ve gained our release.
Just like the Nonesuch, the entrance was constricted by low rock shoals. We slipped between them at what must have been fifteen knots. Approaching the first cutback, Halfdan shouted, “Reverse!” Each man leaned against his oar as if doing a pushup. I locked my feet beneath the bench in front of me and mimed the strokes of the others on my side. We slowed, but our momentum carried us zipping past the cutback toward the rocky shore. Like a tugboat easing a barge to a standstill, our rowing slowed forward progress and we stopped mere feet from slimy granite boulders. The current pulled us along once more, carrying us backward in the opposite direction.
If I’d been navigator, I’d have tried to steer the vessel around the sharp turns. That would’ve just blasted us onto the bank. I’d worked on the water since I was six, but still would’ve wrecked trying to navigate this channel myself. I needed a guide. Gabby…
Is that why she had called me here? Was I to learn something from this world? If so, what? And from whom? Hopefully not the white gorilla.
We passed one shoal close enough for my oar to touch. The rocks stood upright and sharp, like blunt arrowheads the size of dinner plates. “Oysters,” I whispered. I never knew they could grow so huge! These were the oyster rocks the old-timers talked about. Except these monsters were bigger than even Granddad’s wildest tales.
The sun began to paint the sky in strokes of orange as it disappeared behind the towering pine forest. Something shimmied in the river, and I leaned my head over the gunwale. The water was clear as a crystal, but waves distorted my view. The bottom snaked only feet below us in iridescent silver and black stripes, as if the mud were a leviathan shaking its scales. I struggled to understand. Then I gasped. We’re floating atop a school of striped bass. Must’ve been thousands of them, many a yard long. They writhed and slithered just beneath the surface, as one. I squinted, amazed, as an oval opened in the glimmering mass. The fish parted around what appeared to be a floating boulder. My chest froze as it waved a knife blade tail. A gigantic great white, or maybe a bull shark, at least twelve feet long, lollygagged in the water. Its pointed snout was gouged with brown scars.
“Want to take a swim?” It was Little Finger, sticking his head between the shields and staring down along with me.
“You first.”
“An omen, your mother would say.”
My mother. “You know her?”
He flashed a grin, his pale face glowing orange in the setting light. “The shark, or your mom? Oh, same thing.” He laughed.
“Reverse!” Halfdan yelled.
We sat upright and pulled a stroke. I glanced ahead. The moon was already up and many more cutbacks remained before we’d break into open, navigable waters.
My stomach growled. I’d never been so hungry. “When did we last eat?”
Little Finger grimaced as he pulled on his oar. “I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten all day. You already finish your fish? You packed a dozen.”
I stuck a hand into the sack below my bench. I wriggled fingers past fur and leather, linen with metal buttons, and finally brushed against a solid mass. I pulled out a tan bag with a drawstring and spread open the top. Several foot-long filets of a white-fleshed fish were stacked inside.
Little Finger’s eyes cut to the food. His tongue pressed against his upper lip. “Enough to share?”
Why not? I peeled off a stiff layer, like days-old pages of a book after being left in the rain. The meat was light. Dried, I suspected. No smoky odor. The skin was gray with rusty spots. Cod. I passed it back over my shoulder, and a maggot dropped onto the deck board. Little Finger curled up the meat like a burrito and shoved half of it into his mouth. Chewing, he puckered and pulled out needles of bone. I copied him, though no maggots dropped from mine. It would’ve made no difference, though. If it had been packed in horse manure, I was so hungry I’d have brushed it off and still gobbled it down. Only a hint of fishy taste came from the fat layer between the skin and meat.
I cinched the pouch and stuffed it away. No telling how long I was going to be aboard. Where was Gabby? Why’d she seem to only allow a peek before she shot away? She’s got to be the key for me being here. Find her, and I’ll figure this thing out.
Though I was still famished, my body no longer felt heavy and cold. Had the evil presence from earlier simply been hunger pains? No, there had been much more to that darkness. It had been alive. Curious, but with sinister intent. Like a search party, probing for weakness.
The remaining cutbacks took a half hour to traverse. The sky was pink and fuchsia when we broke free from the oyster maze. Trees grew even taller as we rowed farther inland. Buoyed by the incoming tide, we stroked another mile before Halfdan steered us toward a clearing where the shoreline scooped away from the river, forming a pool. As soon as the keel touched, Little Finger leapt from the bow with a line in his grasp. One-Eye did the same from the stern and splashed into waist-deep water. The two lashed the lines to trunks, stringing the vessel such that it bobbed out of danger of striking rocks.
Halfdan stomped down the deck and gripped my arm. I covered by stomach with my free one as he took a breath. He pointed to Little Finger. “You and Tryfing scout a half mile each direction, then take first watch.”
Tryfing must’ve been Little Finger’s real name.
Men shipped oars and pulled on coarsely woven shirts similar to my own. Lines were strung and the boom was turned to support the sail so it draped across the boat like a tent. Gripping the gunwale with one hand, I jumped over and planted my feet on the side of the vessel, hanging like a monkey from a branch. My fingers never threatened to slip. I leapt onto a near boulder and drew a long knife with elk horn handle from a sheath strapped to my waist. I hadn’t noticed it lashed there, but my hand was somehow familiar with it, just as my body knew how to move in this world. I stabbed several huge oysters at the base of the rock. One popped off, and I thrust the blade between its halves and twisted, wedging the creature open. A quick slice of its muscle and it floated freely in its juices. I cut it into quarters, lifted the shell to my mouth, and slurped the pieces. Briny liquid ran down my beard and wet my throat. Great. Now I’m thirsty. But the heavy meat tasted just like the ones I raised, though less salty. Most importantly, it sated my hunger.
I popped open another and passed it up to Halfdan. His scowl faded, he raised it to his lips and tipped his head back. A lock of copper-red hair dangling from his neck on a string of leather trembled in the breeze.
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Hope you enjoyed chapter three! Subscribe (free or paid) to read chapter four next Tuesday as Matok (Michael) learns about his Viking mother, and why Tryfing and the others fear her.
-David McCaleb
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