Emmeline and the Ice-God, Chapter 13

In this week’s thrilling instalment, we catch up with Emmeline and Thing after they’ve fought their way out of one sticky situation, only to end up in another, rather stickier, one. They’ve been rescued by some people who may – or may not – be friends, and they’ve been told to make themselves scarce while a battle is fought over who gets to kidnap them next. So, they flee the fighting, searching for a ‘high place,’ in which they are to rendezvous with their rescuers once the dust has settled… but, of course, because we’re talking about Thing and Emmeline here, nothing really goes to plan.

Image: savage-tide-campaign.obsidianportal.net

Emmeline and the Ice-God

13

‘What have I got myself into?’ Thing muttered as they hurried down the corridor. ‘Well done, you clever feller – see a young girl, all on her lonesome, figure she’d be good comp’ny on the way to Paree, bit of fun maybe.’ Emmeline felt the bones in her hand crunching as Thing tightened his grip on her fingers. He threw her a look, too, one that was full of ticking clocks and pots boiling over.

‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ said Emmeline, her breath catching and clacking in her throat. ‘It’s not like any of it is my fault!’

‘No? Oh, right. Sorry. Maybe it was another kid they were lookin’ for back there, then. My mistake.’

‘Oh, shut up.’ Emmeline’s feet hurt, and her head was still ringing from the explosion. Her dress was utterly filthy, and her stomach was threatening mutiny at any moment. ‘Where are you dragging me, anyway?’

‘Somewhere high, or didn’t you hear what Edgar said?’ They were approaching a corner, and Thing flattened himself and Emmeline up against the wall before peeking out, very carefully, and checking in both directions. Satisfied, he yanked her forward and on they went.

‘Yes, I heard,’ snapped Emmeline, trying to drag her fingers out of Thing’s sweaty grip. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it!’ Thing snapped his head around to face Emmeline, and they ducked into a wide doorway.

‘What? Why ever not, pray tell?’

‘Who says I have to explain myself to you? Let me go, will you!’

‘No chance. Now, tell me what your plan is, seein’ as it’s bound to be so much better than Edgar’s.’

‘You met him ten seconds ago!’ cried Emmeline. ‘How do you know you can even trust him?’

‘Well, let’s see. First, he saves my life by draggin’ me up out of a threatenin’ situation. Then, he saves my life by throwin’ me out of a threatenin’ situation. Then, he promises to come an’ help later, once the threatenin’ situation, the one he saved me from already if you remember, is over and done with. That enough savin’ for ya?’

‘But how did he even know I was on this boat?’ said Emmeline, her voice an almost-hiss.

‘Well, he – obviously, he –‘ Thing stuttered to a halt, looking confused.

‘Exactly. So, maybe he’s in on it?’ Emmeline watched as this thought settled in Thing’s mind like a stone settling onto the sea floor. After a few minutes he frowned at her, like she was a jigsaw piece he couldn’t find a place for.

‘You have some serious trust issues, y’know that?’

‘Yeah. Well.’ Emmeline sniffed, trying to straighten her dress and settle her satchel with her one free hand.

‘Explains a lot, actually,’ mused Thing.

‘What is that supposed to –‘

‘Never mind. Look. So what do we do, then?’

Emmeline bit her lip as she thought. ‘I suppose we could go to that high place, and wait for Edgar there. Be ready for him, if you know what I mean. Take him by surprise and then make him – I don’t know. Confess, or something.’

‘Right, yeah. And Plan B?’

‘We’re on a ship, Thing,’ said Emmeline. ‘It’s not like we’ve got a lot of choice about where to go.’

‘Fair point, fair point. Right.’ Thing’s eyes grew alert again as he stuck his head out of their hiding place. ‘Highest place I know of on a ship is the crow’s nest, right? ‘M sure that’s what Edgar was on about.’

‘This is going to involve climbing, isn’t it?’ asked Emmeline as they started jogging down the corridor. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was someone right behind her. The satchel would give her a bit of protection, of course, but not a lot. If someone shot at her, she wondered if she’d even know they’d done it before she’d be dead, and then she wondered about how strange her life had become – a couple of days ago, she’d thought it was only her parents who were trying to make attempts to disrupt her continued existence. Now, it seemed, everyone was at it.

‘Right. Here y’go,’ said Thing, as they pulled up beside a narrow metal staircase which led, as far as Emmeline could see, into pitch black darkness and not a lot else.

‘What’s this?’ He shoved her onto the rungs with bony fingers, his quick eyes keeping careful watch.

‘’S a stairs, stupid,’ he said, only half-listening.

‘Where does it go?’ snapped Emmeline, already three or four steps up. She realised her footsteps made a faint clang as she walked, so she tried to step quietly. The darkness was getting thick around her, like someone wrapping her up in strips of soft, suffocating cloth. She focused on breathing calmly, trying to ignore her heart, which was drumming out a fast rhythm on the inside of her chest.

‘Upper decks, I reckon,’ said Thing, out of the gloom. ‘Hurry up!’

Like stretching out your aching muscles first thing in the morning, or feeling an unexpected breeze on an unexpected place, Emmeline realised that she’d reached the top of the stairs. It was still dark, but not quite as bad. Up here, a giant deck spread for miles and miles. Lights were spaced out regularly on the waist-high barrier all around, and muffled shapes in the gloom were probably benches, or places for the well-heeled passengers to take a rest and some shelter from the wind while they were up here getting the sea air. It was sort of peaceful up here.

‘This way. Come on!’ Thing jerked her out of her thoughts by pulling on her hand like a dog straining at a lead. She took a few uncertain steps toward the centre of the deck, where – as Emmeline feared – a very tall, very spindly-looking structure was to be found, lashed to the deck by a multitude of wires. A light burned in the tiny-looking cabin at the top of the narrow ladder they’d have to climb. Emmeline tasted sick in her mouth as she stared up at it.

‘Ain’t got time to waste,’ muttered Thing, jumping onto the lower rungs. ‘You follow me, yeah? Or d’you wanna go first?’

Emmeline’s stomach rolled over. ‘You go first,’ she said. Thing stopped climbing, and leaned over the side of the ladder to peer down at her. Emmeline was glad of the darkness.

‘You’re not scared, are ya?’ he asked, coming down a rung or two. ‘Not with that box o’ tricks on your back, and a brain like yours in yer head, surely?’

‘I don’t – I don’t like heights, really,’ said Emmeline, coughing to cover up the wobble in her voice.

‘No problem,’ said Thing, cheerfully. ‘I mean, it’s so dark up ‘ere you can barely tell it’s up so high.’ She could hear the grin in his voice, even if the darkness hid it. Like an athlete, or a monkey, Thing scampered up the ladder without a second thought.

‘I don’t like darkness, either,’ muttered Emmeline, wrapping her fingers round the nearest rung and taking three deep breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. ‘Emmeline Mary Widget, you can do this,’ she told herself in a stern tone. ‘The secret to why you’re even here and where your parents are lies – more or less – at the top of this ladder. And if Thing can climb it, so can you! Right?’ She nodded decisively, and grabbed another, higher, rung. She found footholds, and started to climb, telling herself that her knees weren’t wobbling – it was merely the movement of the ship. Slowly, slowly, she ascended.

‘Will you get a move on!’ Thing’s voice fell on her like a handful of iron filings dropped from a height. Shivering, she felt his words trickle all over her, poking and prodding and nipping at her skin. She clung to the ladder like a baby clinging to its mother’s finger, and allowed a rattle of terror to skitter through her whole body before she trusted herself to answer.

‘I’m coming!’ she whispered back, her voice hoarse.

‘Yeah, well – come quicker!’ insisted Thing.

Just then – like his voice had summoned it – a huge, searing light switched on a few feet away. Emmeline got such a shock that she almost lost her grip on the ladder.

‘Ems!’ she heard, through the pounding of the blood in her ears. ‘Now, now, now! Get up here now!’ Fear had made her hands and feet numb, but Emmeline moved.

‘Hands then feet,’ she muttered, trying to keep calm. ‘Hands then feet.’ The light was nearly as wide across as she was tall, and as she watched it started to sweep over the deck in great arcs, like it was searching for something.

It was searching for something, she finally understood. Her.

                ‘Please, Ems! Hurry up!’ Thing’s voice seemed closer, and she looked up to see him, just barely, hanging off the top few rungs of the ladder like a flower on a long, narrow stem. She could see the terror in his face, and his outstretched fingers were just too far away for her to reach…

Then, the light finally found her. It flicked in her direction, making her freeze in terror and making her eyes sting and water as she struggled to focus. Thing was yelling at her, and she felt the ladder shudder as he started to descend. Her brain screamed as it tried to understand what was happening. Then, something slapped Emmeline’s face, and grabbed at her outstretched arm. Almost like she’d been picked up by a huge, rough-fingered hand, she felt herself being plucked off the ladder and then, sickeningly, she was falling, right toward the deck, what felt like miles and miles below…

At Base Camp, Looking Up

When I was a kid, one of my favourite Aesop’s fables was the one about the tortoise and the hare. You remember it, I’m sure. I loved the idea that the ‘underdog’ – the character who everyone expected to lose – actually managed to win, and that determination, not speed, was what took the prize. That appealed to me.

Arthur Rackham’s illustration for ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’
Image: childhoodreading.com

I wasn’t a very sporty child, and so running races was something I really detested – I never won, in the sense of ‘I never came first’. I loved swimming, but the only time I ever thought – just for a second! – that I’d won a race in the pool, I’d actually ended up coming so far behind everyone else that all the other kids were out of the water and already half-dressed by the time I made it to the finish line. When I touched the wall at the far end of the pool, I looked around and didn’t see anyone either side of me, and just for those three seconds before I worked out what had happened, I felt like an Olympic champion.

Even though I never won at anything, though, I understood what the fable was trying to say: take it slow, take it steady, and you’ll get there in the end. Finishing a race became, to me, almost as good as coming first. Knowing I had done it, that I’d met the challenge and proved to myself that I could do it, was as good as a gold medal.

It’s amazing that I seem to have forgotten all those hard-earned childhood lessons when it comes to the race I’m currently ‘running’ – the race against time, to get all my words down before my NaNoWriMo challenge ends.

I haven’t gone anywhere near my NaNoWriMo project since Saturday morning, when I half-heartedly added a few hundred words to it, and then gave up; I didn’t even think about it all weekend. I haven’t opened the file yet this morning, and I’m – can you believe this? – a little bit afraid to. I worked very hard at it all last week, including one day when I wrote more than five thousand words because I felt like I wanted to keep going until I’d reached a certain point, but when it came to the next day – well. I couldn’t even manage two thousand words without bottoming out. I constantly do this – I race too hard one day and end up knocking myself out of the running for the days that follow. I haven’t run out of story for the NaNo project, and I haven’t run out of love for the characters – but I’ve just burned through so much mental and physical energy over the past three weeks that I’m beginning to have doubts that I’ll make it.

I have a shorter NaNo than most other people, insofar as I have to submit my words by this Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, at the latest. I will be away from my computer – indeed, any computer – from Thursday afternoon, and so my challenge will have to end early. If I don’t submit my words for counting and verification by Thursday morning, I won’t be submitting them at all. So, I suppose that’s adding to the worry – I don’t want to ‘lose’ this race. I want to finish it; I set out with the intention of finishing it, and that’s what I want to do. But, if I’d remembered the plucky tortoise from my favourite tale, and if I’d taken things slow and steady, I might not have just over 42,000 words done right now but I’d probably be a lot more enthusiastic about tackling the remainder.

I feel like a person setting off to climb a mountain, even though – when I think about it – I’m actually quite near the summit already. However, getting through these last 8-10,000 words will, I fear, be the hardest part of my NaNoWriMo journey. I’m tired, I’m cranky, my brain hurts and I just don’t want to do it – and that, my friends, is a place that no writer should ever allow themselves to end up. Writing is what I love, and putting myself in a position where I really can’t face the task of sitting down and putting one word after another due to exhaustion or burnout caused by a shortsighted inability to pace myself properly is really, really stupid.

Image: heidelscorner.blogspot.com

So. I think, perhaps, it’s time to stop allowing panic to drive my NaNo train. I’ll take it slowly today and if I get a thousand words written, great. If I get two thousand written, great. If I start going over that, I think I’ll have to rein myself in and let my common sense – my inner tortoise, if you will – take over.

Slow and steady wins the race. I should just print this out and put it up over my computer – or, get it tattooed on my forehead. Whichever works, right?

Good luck with your day’s challenges. Take it steady – or, as we say in Ireland, ‘take ‘er handy.’

 

Emmeline and the Ice-God, Chapter 8

Last week, we read about Emmeline and Thing’s first meeting; after this initial encounter, Thing returns to Emmeline’s cabin and convinces her to run all over the ship in search of adventure (and, more importantly, food.) When they return to her cabin they find men – large men – ransacking it and throwing all her things overboard.

So, there’s nothing for it but to make a run for it, this time to Thing’s ‘cabin’ (really, a long-forgotten junk room way below decks), where they are hiding out…

Image: linda-hoang,com

Emmeline and the Ice-God

Chapter 8

Emmeline woke up to find the candle reduced to a mere disc of wax on an old cracked saucer. Thing was gone, but he’d tucked the rest of the blanket over her before he left. With a jolt, she remembered her satchel, and flipped herself over so she could check on it – but it was there, all right, and looking exactly the same as it had the day before.

Check it, said a little voice in her head. Check that everything’s in it that should be in it. But she told that voice to shut up, and busied herself getting herself and their corner tidy, ready for Thing to come back.

As it turned out, that didn’t take very long.

Emmeline had just finished folding away the blanket when Thing came barrelling back into the room like Genghis Khan was on his heels. He slammed the door closed behind him, and with fumbling hands he replaced their security mop.

‘Hey! Is everything –‘

‘Sssht! Whoop!’ said Thing, putting a finger to his lips.

‘But – ‘

‘Ssssh!’ He strode over to her and put one hot, sweaty and filthy hand over her mouth. His eyes were huge, the brown pupil surrounded by a sea of white all around, and Emmeline didn’t think she was imagining the trembling she could feel in Thing’s fingers. He turned back toward the door, whooping quietly, trying to catch his breath. After a few minutes of silence, he ushered Emmeline back toward their corner, where they huddled.

‘The whole – whoop – ship is looking for you,’ he said. ‘Everyone.’

‘Me? Why?’ Emmeline couldn’t imagine an entire shipful of people caring one way or the other about where she was.

‘A missing kid? On a Northern Jewel cruise ship? Whoop? It’s big news.’

‘But I’m not missing! I’m here!’

‘Yes, idiot. But nobody else knows that.’

‘I’m not an idiot.’ Emmeline’s lower lip started to wobble a bit, despite her best efforts to control it.

‘Sorry. Whoop.’ Thing’s breaths were calming, but they still sounded thick and gloopy.

‘Do you have asthma, or something?’ Emmeline asked, wondering if it was catching.

‘Somethin’,’ replied Thing, enigmatically. ‘Forget me. What are we goin’ to do about you?’

‘What about me?’ Emmeline reached for her satchel, absent-mindedly, but it was just out of reach. Thing grabbed her hand.

‘Pay attention, Ems,’ he said. ‘This is important.’

So is my satchel! Emmeline thought, the words lashing across her brain like a whip. ‘Should we go to the captain and tell him –‘

‘Are you out o’ your tree?’ whispered Thing, his voice sharpening to a squeak. ‘The captain? He’d announce it to the whole ship, and then, d’you know what’d happen?

‘People – people would stop looking for me?’ Thing rolled his eyes at Emmeline’s words.

‘Yeah, that. An’ those two brutes who were wreckin’ your room last night would know exac’ly where you were. Right? Not a lot of places to run, on a ship.’

‘Oh,’ said Emmeline, in her littlest voice.

‘Yeah. Oh. So, we got to keep you hid, at least until we reach Paree. After that, well…’ Thing rubbed at his face with a grubby hand. ‘After that, not even my brain power knows what t’do.’

‘I have to meet someone in Paris,’ said Emmeline, quickly. ‘I have an address to go to, and a person to ask for, a person who’s going to… who’s going to…’

‘Who’s goin’ to what?’ Thing’s eyes were glittering in the dim light.

‘Who’s going to look after me, now that my parents… now that they’re gone.’ A few seconds passed, and they were silent but they were very, very full.

‘Right,’ said Thing. ‘Well, we gotta get you off the ship in Paree without anyone seein’ ya, and without anyone shoutin’ for a copper. We can do that.’ In the silence that followed this, Emmeline’s stomach rumbled as loudly as a round of applause in a packed theatre.

‘Gosh, excuse me,’ she said, clutching at her middle.

‘Got just the thing for that, right here,’ said Thing, reaching into one of his many pockets. When he withdrew his hand, it held two small croissants and several miniature chocolate rolls, which were covered with a dusting of icing sugar. Emmeline’s mouth watered instantly, and Thing let her have first choice.

‘Where did you get these?’ she asked through a mouthful of sweet dough.

‘Found ‘em, just lyin’ around. Funny, that,’ replied Thing.

‘Hmm,’ said Emmeline, but she didn’t stop eating.

As soon as she’d swallowed the last crumb, Emmeline realised she had a problem that needed her immediate attention, and it wasn’t something she felt she could discuss with Thing.

‘So, ah. I need to go out?’ she said, hoping he’d understand what she meant.

‘Go out?’ he repeated, raising his eyebrows. Without warning, he brought his face right up beside Emmeline’s, causing her to pull her head back, whacking it painfully off the wall. ‘Hold still, will ya,’ he muttered. ‘I’m tryin’ to look down your ear’ole, figure out if somethin’s blockin’ the words I am sayin’ to ya.’ He took her head between his hands and angled it back and forth, peering into her ear like some sort of make-believe doctor, until Emmeline shook herself out of his grip. Thing grabbed her chin and forced her to face him. ‘Looks clear, but there must be somethin’ not gettin’ through. I’ll say it again, then: the whole ship is lookin’ for ya. Right? So, goin’ out is not really somethin’ you should be considerin’, all told.’ He let go of her chin and sat back a little, grumbling to himself.

‘But I have to,’ she said. ‘I have to – you know!’

‘You have to what?’ Thing’s attention was already wandering. He slouched over to where Emmeline had neatly folded the blanket and shook it out again, before settling himself on the floor and tucking it around his legs.

‘I have to attend to something,’ said Emmeline, through her gritted teeth. ‘Something private!’ Thing’s frown gradually smoothed out as he thought about this, and Emmeline watched as his eyes opened wide. A small grin tickled the corners of his mouth.

‘Oh – right!’ said Thing, in an over-loud voice. ‘That. Well – yeah. I hadn’t considered that, right enough.’

‘What do you do when you want to – you know?’

‘When I want to go to the toilet, you mean?’ said Thing, pleasantly. Emmeline felt her cheeks tingle, and was glad of the semi-darkness. ‘Well, I just pick a corner and have at it, me.’

‘Well, that’s not going to work for me,’ said Emmeline, in a voice as crisp as a freshly laundered sheet. ‘So, what do you suggest?’

‘I can go out and liberate you a chamber pot,’ suggested Thing. ‘That any good?’

‘But I need to go now,’ said Emmeline. Her tummy was beginning to ache, and that was a bad sign.

‘All right, all right,’ sighed Thing, flinging the blanket off and hopping to his feet. He paused, and then looked at the blanket again, lying in a heap on the ground.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said, carefully. ‘O’course, it might be doomed to failure, but all we can do is give it a try. Right?’

‘Right,’ said Emmeline, getting to her feet. She stumbled as she rose, and Thing reached out a hand to steady her.

‘Woah, there! You all right?’

‘Fine,’ said Emmeline, dusting herself off. ‘You just have better sea legs than me, I suppose.’

‘Somethin’ like that,’ grinned Thing. ‘Now – you ready?’

Four minutes later, the door to their hideaway creaked open, slowly as a spoon through molasses. A curious-looking creature stuck out its head, and looked first up the corridor and then down it, and then up it again, and finally crept out on steady feet, heading for the stairs to the upper decks.

It was a short and bent-over creature, with what looked like a misshapen hunched back, dressed in a strange tartan robe with a fringed edge. It clutched an old walking stick (pilfered from the store room) and it wore a thoroughly odd top hat (also pilfered.)

‘What’s the point of goin’ out there in disguise,’ Thing had said, ‘unless we do it so over-the-top that nobody even dares to question it?’ Emmeline had looked dubious at this, but had said nothing. ‘Plus,’ Thing had continued, ‘if you walk with a cocky step an’ yer head held high, and you give off this air, right, this air that says ‘I know exac’ly what I’m doin’, mate, so what are you doin’ getting’ in my way?’ you can pretty much do anythin’ and go anywhere. Fact.’

‘If you say so,’ Emmeline had sighed, before clambering up on his back, her satchel tightly fastened to her front, and holding fast.

‘Let the adventurin’ begin,’ Thing had whispered, with a grin.

And so it had.