Chapter 2 - 2

Chapter two



I cautiously step onto my windowsill and peer downwards, as the wind whips my extensive chocolate locks around and flaps my long nightdress crazily. The ship is floating beneath my window, next to the wall above my parent's bedroom window that is ridden with colourful and strong-smelling ivy, at least 12 ft below me. I have a major case of intense vertigo before the so-called `Captain' pokes me with his spyglass and I topple through my smashed window. Soaring through the air, I reach up to try and grab an ivy leaf or stem but instead find myself grabbing old and empty cobwebs and small, fluttering bugs that squash right into my hand and splatter guts, puss and blood every where.

My skin rips against the hard twigs and sticks that are randomly sticking out of the ivy curtain, making me squeal in agony as the knobby bits carve huge, bright red groves in my bare arms. A huge spider scuttles across my face and I scream louder than life itself. My hands latch onto a stiff ivy stem that just holds me, and I try to stop flailing, try to stop falling. It simply scolds my hands, splitting the skin, and makes tears burn at my eyes. The captain is above my head, slyly swinging down a makeshift ivy ladder with the grace of an elephant. I land on my side with a thunderous thump and a screech on the stiff wooden floor underneath. A small gap in between the planks of wood nips my skin as I land, and the whole world goes wobbly, spinning, and my eyes flicker between the colour black and the view in front of my eyes. My wrist snaps underneath my weight but I don't feel anything as I'm far too cold and I wouldn't notice if a cannon, like the one that landed on my bedroom floor, landed right on my head and balanced there for a moment. Hail splatters over my defenseless body, pounding my head. For one second I'm seriously paranoid that The Captain can see my bum underneath my nightdress, but the next minute he's whipping me up sharply and tugging on my spindly arm so I can't worry about tiny trivial matters.

“Oh great, The Captain's got another one,” a voice out of the unfathomable darkness mutters sarcastically. I'm about to ask what on earth the voice means by `another one', but The Captain yanks me harshly again and leads me to a small gap in the floor. He climbs down a rickety ladder, into a dimly lit cabin, dragging me along uncomfortably across the floor.

“Sit,” his rumbling voice demands. I swivel around and spot a small, wobbly stool. Sitting on it, I study The Captain as The Captain studies me back warily. He has a long mass of graying, jet black hair that is held up in a half-ponytail, which flows over his well built shoulders. There is also a bit of a moustache growing, along with a slight lump of hair beneath his mouth and then a whole heap of hair attached to his rounded chin. His large, tufty eyebrows are furrowed in a stern expression above an innocent, almost-black eye, but his flawlessly-chiseled cheekbones seem softer and calmer. A large gold earring hangs in one of his ears and a black eye patch is covering up one of his amazing eyes that are seemingly enchanting me away to a faraway land. Around his head is wrapped a red and black striped bandana-thing. His filthy shirt is ripped at the sleeves and chest, but around his neck dangles a large golden key.

“Um...” I break the silence awkwardly and he inwardly glances at me before sitting down on the other side of a posh, oak desk, sticking his bare, grimy feet up onto it with no shame. Disgusting.

“You want to know who I am, don't you?” he asks knowingly in his stiff, slightly-drunken English accent. I half expected him to have one of those sailor accents, like in all the movies. But no. Obviously not. He pockets the rusty spyglass as I nod shyly and he chuckles. “Well, nobody other than my very own daughter knows that most valuable secret; none at all other than her know my true name, so it's not in me to simply tell one of the new `uns.”

“Oh.” I mumble. He draws a sword from some secret pocket in his ripped, mud-coated trousers, and examines it thoroughly for a moment.

“The Captain, they all call me, just for the record. That's what you'll be calling me too, if you want to see your thirteenth birthday.”

“I'm thirteen already.” I remark indignantly.

“Well ... your fifteenth birthday then. It's a very explicate name,” he adds with a smirk.

“Yeah,” I agree, not too sure of just what I'm supposed to be saying. I pull my sleeves over my hand and fiddle with one of the pens on the desk. I try to lift the other hand but my wrist doesn't want to do as it's told. I gaze at it carefully, and nearly faint with horror. It is coated with drying blood and I can see a little bit of the bone sticking out of the skin. It looks just a little worse than The Captain's feet.

“Um...” I mindlessly say over and over again, trying to get him to focus on it.

“Um? You want to know where you are, I'm guessing.”

“Damn right,” I mumble, suddenly feeling a feast of fierce fiery flames building up inside me like a volcano waiting to explode. Suddenly my wrist doesn't seem as important as the family - excluding my mother - that I'm leaving behind against my will. I mean, how will little Jodie and Billy cope when they realise I've dispappeared? It'll be like when I found out that dad had just abandoned us with no income and no news of where he was. I was only twelve, so it was only a year ago (practically), and it was the most horrible feeling ever. I felt like a giant part of my body had amazingly gone missing and it was never coming back. I stayed cooped up in my bedroom for a month, not talking to anyone unless I had to ask them what they wanted for tea or something. That is, until mum found her new bloke, Matthew. He's a little jerk. They're always all over each other and yet they're both about 50 years old. It's disgusting. Minging Matthew will never replace my father, no matter what he does or how hard he tries to win over Jodie and Billy. He'll never be able to play football like my dad could. He'll never have as much imagination as my father had. Most of all, he can't steal away my dad's soul and personality, as he tries so hard every day to do. “And I want to know why you stole me away from my home!”

“Very well, little lady,” The Captain grins, showing of a mouth of rotten, yellowing teeth. I wince as I pull my wrist onto the desk, deep in thought about dad. Tears are brimming at my eyes and they're burning up as if a fire has unexpectedly appeared. The Captain pauses, and looks at my wrist. Pulling out a large wad of bandages and sorting it all out with the exact touch and softness that dad often had, he continues: “You are on a famous sky ship known as The Midnight. We take away little children and teens that are not asleep by the edge of night: midnight. Now, before you go totally berserk on me, Eliza, we take them away,” he quickly includes before I can shriek an outraged cry of pain and indignity, “Because if we didn't, the evil and completely unpredictable midnight horses would ... well ... come and feed on all of you teens and kids awake at midnight.”

“Midnight horses?” I question, withdrawing my hand which is now covered in an untidy bandage. The word `dad' totally exits my mind as the words `midnight horse' and `sky ship' enter it.

“Oh, yes, they are terrible creatures, you know,” he leans across the desk so that I can smell his putrid breath, as he says with a hoarse whisper: “They come at midnight, blending in with the dark night sky, and they knock their hooves on your window. If nobody answers or even looks up, they go to the next house. But, if you merely shudder or tremble, they smash their way through and-”

“Like your cannon did to my window?”

“Well ... yes, I suppose that's precisely right. And then if they see you awake or whatever, they gobble you right up; only after piercing you with their fiery horns that glow a vivid orange, of course. Then they swap you with the worst changeling they can find.”

“The worst WHAT they can find?” I ask, horrified. The word 'changeling' sounds slightly disturbing and I'm not too sure if I really want to know what it is.

“Changeling,” he repeats with an irritated sigh.

“Which is?” I demand.

A faery replica of you - only bad,” he grimaces with a totally straight face, “The midnight horses take the worst one that they can find and make sure it is absolutely identical to you. Then the next morning when your family wakes up, the changeling starts attacking them and worse.”

I stare at him worriedly and tap the pen on a large, round, dusty globe that spits filth and dirt at me. Maybe being eaten and replaced by a changeling would be worse that being on this floating ship. I mean, imagine poor Jodie and Billy being attacked by a `changeling'. I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if the Minger and the Mum got attacked, but I would hate it if my siblings got hurt.

The ship is slowly tipping from side to side, making me guess we're `sailing'. That could be part of the reason that The Captain is slurring his words now and swaying around: although I'm guessing that it's also because he's slurping down some wee-coloured stuff from a transparent bottle and going more crimson by the second.

“Ok, ok, let me get this straight,” I begin, trying to understand and coughing through the cloud of dust and grime - and the smell of booze. “These ... midnight horses ... they come at midnight without anyone seeing them, and eat anyone that is awake, and then swap them with evil faeries which will attack the eaten person's family? And to stop them from actually killing and replacing kids, your sky ship, called so originally: The Midnight, snatches the children away instead?”

“Exactly,” he nods, beaming broadly and picking a bit of grime out of his tooth with the huge, shiny sword. “But we only take the kids that are near to where we are. Otherwise it means traveling hundreds of miles every night and our ship can't do that. It would also mean that the ship would get a lot fuller more quickly than it already does. At the moment there are only ten or so kids on board, including you. The midnight horses don't kill everyone either. They too only kill the ones only in the neighborhood. We could see a whole group of them heading your way, meaning that you were particularly energetic still, so we had no choice but to-“

“Right,” I mutter, frowning. He chuckles again and stands up, swaying a little bit drunkenly.

“The eye patch is just for show, by the way,” he suddenly mentions, lifting it up and showing off another hypnotic eye that winks happily at me. It's outlined with thick black eyeliner and, as I look closer, so is the other one.

“Oh.” I mumble, as if I'm discovering something incredibly amazing. Then I consider something that I've been wondering curiously about for most of our conversation. “What exactly is a sky ship?”

He sighs ignorantly and rolls his eyes at me like I'm a total idiot. Hello! I'm in the top sets at school! Idiot = not me!

“It ... is ... a ... ship...” he declares slowly, “that ... sails ... in ... the ... sky!”

“O ... K ...” I reply sarcastically, and then roll my eyes exasperatingly and turn away with my arms crossed angrily. The Captain, who isn't so sinister or amazing as he appeared at first, sniggers and starts to clamber back up the rickety ladder, proving my theory that our little conversation is over.

“Oh, by the way - the other children will be in the mess room,” he adds, popping his head upside down through the trapdoor, which the ladder evidently goes through, and dropping his bandana by accident.

“But I -” I start, but it's too late: he's already gone.

“Want to go home.” I mumble into the silent, thin air.

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