Drowned Wednesday(17)

As Arthur opened the box, something shrieked overhead. It sounded like a cross between a train whistle and a terrified parrot. Sunscorch looked up, then muttered, ‘They’ve got powder! That’s a ranging shot!’ and started to shout more commands to the helmsman and crew. The Moth lumbered and rolled to port as the wheel spun and the crew hauled on lines to trim the yards (the horizontal spars on the mast that the sails were attached to).

Arthur knelt down on the deck and put his hands in the box. Though all he could see were pieces of coloured cardboard, he recoiled as he touched them.

‘Ugh! They feel like raw mince or . . . or worse!’

‘Ignore that!’ instructed Scamandros. ‘Pick them up and cast them on the deck! Quickly now!’

Arthur shuddered and hesitated. Then he heard the whistling again, and a huge plume of water exploded just behind the Moth, showering them all with freezing water.

‘Over and under,’ said Sunscorch grimly. ‘They’ll have the range inside a minute.’

Arthur took a deep breath and plunged his hands into the box. Picking up the pieces was like picking up handfuls of dead worms. But he got them all, raised them up, and threw them at Scamandros’s feet.

As before, the jigsaw came together as it fell. But this time all the pieces joined to make a perfect rectangle. The colours ran and shimmered like spilled paint, then formed into lines and patterns. In a few seconds, a picture appeared. A picture of a rocky island, a mound of tumbled yellow stones, surrounded by a sea of curious colour, more violet than blue.

Scamandros looked at the picture, muttering to himself, then he rolled up the chart at his feet and immediately unrolled it again, revealing a completely different map.

‘Forlorn Island, Sea of Yazer, on the planet we call Gerain,’ said Scamandros. ‘That’ll do!’

‘Err, Mister Concort . . .’ said Catapillow.

‘Ah, Mister Sunscorch . . .’ said Concort.

‘Prepare to Cross the Line!’ roared Sunscorch. ‘Idlers take a hold!’

Catapillow and Concort rushed to the rail and gripped it. Sunscorch joined the two Denizens on the wheel. Scamandros picked up the jigsaw, which didn’t fall apart, and stood by them.

‘Grab hold of a rope or the rail,’ Ichabod instructed Arthur. ‘When the Doctor shouts, look down and close your eyes. And whatever you do, don’t let go!’

Arthur did as he was told, taking a firm grip on the portside rail. He looked back at Doctor Scamandros, who was holding the jigsaw and muttering to himself, with occasional instructions to Sunscorch.

‘Port five, steady,’ he said. ‘Starboard ten and back again amidships, hold her as she goes, port five, port five, starboard ten . . .’

The Moth rolled and tilted first to one side and then the other, but didn’t seem to change its actual direction very much for all the turning of the wheel this way and that. But Doctor Scamandros kept ordering small changes of direction.

Arthur heard a muffled bang come from behind them and looked astern, just in time to see the flash of the Shiver’s bowchasers, followed by that same whistling screech. This time, it didn’t end in a waterspout or a pass overhead. Just as Doctor Scamandros shouted something unintelligible and threw the jigsaw in the air, Arthur heard a terrible splintering, crashing noise that momentarily blotted out all other sounds.

But he didn’t look. He closed his eyes and bent down as instructed, hoping that whatever the cannonball had hit wasn’t going to fall down on his head.

There was a moment of silence after the terrible sound of some major part of the ship breaking, immediately followed by a flash so bright Arthur’s eyes were filled with white light, even through shut eyelids. That flash was accompanied by a crash of thunder that shook the whole ship and stirred a vibration so strong it made Arthur’s limbs and stomach ache.

Arthur knew what was happening at once. His hand went to the invitation card in his pocket and he hunkered down as low as he could, still clutching his pocket.

They were about to pass through the Line of Storms again!

The thunder was so deafening that its echoes lingered in Arthur’s ears and head, so even when it ceased it took him awhile before he stopped trembling and his hearing started to return. The afterimage of the lightning remained in patches, and dark spots danced around his eyes.

Arthur opened his eyes to a scene of destruction and wonder. One of the huge horizontal spars from the Moth’s mainmast had been struck by the cannonball and broken off. Half of it was sprawled over the deck, and half was in the water, a tangled mass of timber, ropes and canvas.

Arthur only glanced at that. His attention was drawn ahead of the ship. There, extending upward from the sea into the sky, was a huge gilt picture frame, easily four hundred feet long and three hundred feet high. It bordered an enormous, brightly glowing version of the jigsaw picture Arthur had made, with the yellow stone island and the violet sea. But this didn’t look like a picture. The sea was in motion, there were purple-tinged clouds drifting above the island, and birds or birdlike things were flying around. Arthur could still see the jigsaw piece outlines — much narrower and more wriggly pieces than in a normal jigsaw — but the lines were very faint.