Fire Night (Devil's Night 4.5)

“They’ll find Pithom,” I told her. “Don’t worry.”

She nuzzled in again, closing her eyes. “They won’t find it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s what I wished for on the basil leaf,” she explained. “A ghost ship.”

A ghost ship. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to burst her bubble.

Pithom was a yacht with a tracking system. It wouldn’t stay lost for long.

“I’m going to find it someday,” she declared.

Yeah, okay.

I gazed down at her, her black lashes draping over her pale skin, and I almost wished it could happen for her. Her imagination was full of wonderous things, and I didn’t have any imagination at all. I didn’t want her to be like me.

The adventures in her head sounded like a different world.

I lifted my hand to move away the lock of hair on her cheek, but I stopped, putting my arm back down.

I forced down the lump in my throat as I stared at her. “Can I come?” I whispered.

“There’s nothing you love at sea, landlubber,” she teased with her eyes still closed. “No birds.”

I turned away. There are some birds.

I didn’t ever really want to go anywhere or see the world. I liked being home, anywhere I didn’t have to face people or meet new people.

But if she was going…

“Can I come?” I asked again.

She nodded, yawning. “Mm-hmm. But I’m captain.”

I bit back my smile, watching her drift off to sleep.

Ship or no ship, she was the captain of everybody, and she knew it.

Standing up, I pulled the covers tighter over her, tucking them under the mattress to keep them in place.

Rising up, I looked down at Octavia, the origami dove still tucked under her chin. The purple bruise on her arm from one of the men’s hands stood out, dark and visible, even in the dim moonlight coming through the window.

I flexed my jaw, tightening my tie and smoothing back my hair again.

Do you have any bad feelings about tonight? he’d asked.

I had bad feelings all the time. When music was too loud. When my mother’s dogs got hair on my bed. When Marina made a dish differently that I relied on her always making it the way I liked.

I watched Octavia sleep.

I had bad feelings when things were taken away from me.

Not about other things.

I brought up my hand, inspecting the dirt under my nail.

Using my thumb, I picked it out, noticing it was red.

I exhaled, my heart thumping in my chest.

Taking out my handkerchief, I wiped off my hand and walked to the window, reaching into my breast pocket and pulling out the basil leaf from earlier.

I hadn’t burned it.

Slipping it between my lips and into my mouth, I chewed the leaf and swallowed it, the tickle down my throat reaching my stomach as the pungent taste coated my tongue.

I turned to sit in the chair, content to sleep there for the night and keep an eye out, but something glinted above me, and I looked up.

A key hung from the lock on the window, a small scroll of paper tucked in the chain.

I looked around the room, wondering who it belonged to.

Reaching up, I unhooked the chain from the lock, holding the skeleton key in my hand and pulling the paper out of the link.

Unrolling it, I read black handwriting. “The chords of the heart need to be touched to be played.”

I narrowed my eyes, reading it again. I wasn’t sure what it was telling me. Maybe it wasn’t even meant for me.

I inspected the rusty old key and the keychain, what looked like a thurible hanging off the end.

I paused. Thuribles were used to spread incense at Mass. The cathedral in the village had a huge one.

My face fell. That was a clue. Thoughts and theories swarmed my brain.

I looked over my shoulder at Octavia, knowing how she would love an adventure. A hunt. This key went to something. Maybe a treasure?

“The chords of the heart need to be touched to be played,” I recited again, trying to figure out what it meant.

Then it hit me. No one is immune to emotion when those chords are pulled.

No one.

I closed my eyes, feeling the blood under my nails as I wrapped my cold fingers around the key.

One night soon.

While everyone was asleep.

We’ll find out what the key unlocks, Octavia. We’ll own the night.

THE END