2. Take Me Away

The cold Atlantic water quickly worked its way through my layers of clothing and pulled me under. I struggled to a dock post and began to haul myself up and out of the brine. One benefit of Izzy pushing me off the dock was that much of the blood from the tavern rinsed off me. I’d still be dyed a nice period-pantie brown for a while until I could clean the clothing thoroughly. Great.

 

The cold water also had a chilling effect on my fevered brain, still marinating in its adrenaline cocktail from the fight. I had killed before. It wasn’t something I’d made a habit of or anything, but things happen on the sea when you travel alone. Taking the journeys I do required a level of risk and commitment. The eerie part was how easy it was to lose the ego in myself that vowed, “Oh, I’d never!” and become cozier and cozier with the aspect of my id that whispered, “See, we move on, we are whole, we are here.” After the first few (by accident or design), their lives had left my thoughts and my heart as fast as their souls had left the earth.

 

Today was a different story. Today was a massacre. I felt the blood on my hands stronger than with others. Their souls passing quickly through my body left me nauseous and revolted. I had not planned this massacre, and it gained me nothing. I had not come there for blood. I did not want their blood, did not want to know the feel of their souls on mine. I felt cheated, robbed, raped, wrong. I scraped my hands extra hard on the barnacles encrusting the dock, feeling too much the Lady Macbeth inside me.

 

They are ghosts, I counseled myself. They are all simply ghosts. They were dead long before I was born, and no one will remember them. I took a few steadying breaths while I tread water. Ghosts didn’t matter. Their blood, their souls were irrelevant, brief impressions on this planet, now blown away like sand.

 

I had learned a valuable lesson today: traveling with Izzy was going to be dangerous and costly. I thought I had prepared. I thought, I really had thought, that I was prepared. God laughed at me through the stars. I began to pull myself up the dock post, hand over hand, with my eyes on those laughing stars. Laugh, God, go ahead and laugh! But I had been born pulling myself up and damn it all if I was going to stop now. Finally on top, I stormed down the weathered planks, kicking at seagulls along the way. I swung onto my boat and sought out the cake sack and a bottle of rum.

 

Against a backdrop of moon and stars, I watched Marco put his newly-acquired ship out to sea. “Fuck you!” I hollered after him, mad for mad’s sake and with a dash of my remaining blood lust. He was too far and too busy tacking to hear the epithet. I threw a snack cake at his departing ass. 

 

Then I threw another tiny cake at the closest seagull. “Fuck you too, you stupid sea rat!” 

 

I shoved one of the treats in my mouth. It actually complemented the taste of the brine that still lingered on my tongue. I ate another one. Threw another one at a seagull that had just landed on the prow, cream exploding everywhere, and I cursed again, knowing I’d just have to clean it up before it corroded the varnish. 

 

I took a swig of rum. “Dammit!” I shouted and took another gulp. The sugar in the rum competed with the artificial sweetness of the cake, but I chugged it down anyway.

 

I had five hard and fast rules while traveling. Rule number two was to avoid alcohol. Fuck it. What the hell was another rule broken? 

 

“Fuck it!” I hollered out loud to the gulls chowing down on the cakes now littering the dock and rocks.

 

The raging adrenaline from the massacre on my hands, mixed with the rum, mixed with the burning realization that all my plans were fucked sent me into a fit. I pulled off my wet and bloody clothes until I was in nothing but my birthday suit, threw the lines into the water, and mooned the island goodbye before I was too drunk to navigate away from the rocks. Just needed to get out to sea and then the winds could blow me where they may. 

 

“You hear that!” I hollered to the winds. “Come on down, Zephyrus! I dare you to make a better plan, you breezy bastard!” I chugged more of the rum and relished the numbness seeping into my sickened heart. I cackled and coughed and screamed until the souls from the tavern quieted in fear of my madness.

 

I stumbled down to my cabin and found dry clothes. Who had left all this blood on the wall? On my door? On my drawers? Huh. I pulled my hand away from my shoulder glistening with red. Guess I was bleeding a little. 

 

My leg collapsed under me and sent me sprawling. Shit. I reached into a drawer and pulled out a fresh wrap. There was an entrance and an exit wound in my right calf, leaking blood steadily down to my foot. The rivulets captivated me as my cabin spun and blurred. The shower turned on in Izzy’s cabin and brought me out of my haze. I wrapped my calf as tight as my numb fingers allowed and put on loose pants, an oversized shirt, and slippers. The rum was waiting for me in the galley. I took another swig as I looked at Izzy’s closed door.

 

Izzy.

 

Izzy was the important thing. I had vowed that if she came with me, she’d never know harm. First journey out and I’d almost gotten her killed. I had to be better. I had to do better. The damned souls melted away in the heat of that vow. 

I returned to the wheel. Someone had left blood on the wheel too. And blood in my slippers. Rum is delicious. I drank more of it. The current grabbed the ship and the winds pulled at the sails. We were away.

 

Cold air rushed through my hair.

Warm rum inside my body.

The moon on my skin.

Take me away.

Take me away.

Take me away.

 

I calmed as the rum blurred my vision, and the open ocean swells rocked me in a familiar lullaby. I made soft corrections at the helm and sipped at the sweet anesthesia in my hand. 

 

“What are we to do now?” I mumbled as a chill wind caught my breath.

 

“I was just about to ask the same thing.” Izzy appeared on deck, dressed and showered.

 

“Great minds…and all that.” I slurred a little and turned my face up to feel the moon. I really did just love rum. Snack cakes were also good too. Rum was good too. And cake. And rum.

 

“You’re bleeding,” she announced. “Where are you injured?”

 

“Yes.” I was definitely bleeding in places. “Some places.” She didn’t need to know all the places. It would scare her.

 

“It’ll be fine. I’m always fine. Tiny cake?” 

 

Izzy did not take the tiny, sweet, little handheld cake I offered. I raised my head back to the sky and offered the cake to the spinning moon. She’d love this snack. I chucked it as high as I could and watched it plunk back into the waves. That’s fine. The waves were her children. Sweet little wet babies that kept my ship moving. It took me a few tries, but I got a few more sips of rum. I loved rum. This was good stuff too. 

 

“You know, say what you want about that rat bastard thief, but he has good taste in rum.” I took another swig. “Ha! Say whatever you want about him because he’s dead!” I felt again the beat of his heart through my sword, saw his eyes looking straight into mine, calling my sister a witch, smelling of smoke and char. 

 

“Hear that!” I shouted to his specter. “Dead! You bastard!” My right arm failed me as I tried to drink again. I switched the bottle to my left. The better to drown you with, my dear. “Fucking dead. All dead. Lucky bastards.” Sitting atop the crates were all the ghosts of the men I’d taken out of this world. They smiled as I choked on their vapors.

 

“Sit down, Anne. You’re drunk.” She pulled me off the wheel and took over steering. Good. Probably less chance we’d die. I reached for another snack cake. Slap.

 

“Hey!” I reached for another. Slap. “Dammit, Izzy!” 

 

Izzy tried to throw something over me, but I threw it off. I cackled and collapsed on the port bench. When I rolled over, the bench was covered in blood. Who shot my ship??! My poor ship was bleeding. I pulled a blanket over the ship’s wound and patted it. There, there, I’ll take care of you, Ship.

 

Izzy was a kind soul just like my ship. For some reason she liked me, cared for me. She dug out an old orange life preserver and clipped me into it, pinching my skin in the clasps. “Ouch.”

 

The little pinches joined a multitude of other ouches, and I began to realize that I hurt. I hurt all over. I think I might have gotten shot a few times. I looked at my hand. Yup. That hurt. Rum would probably help that. I drank some rum. Then another rum. Probably I should get my special flask out. But one does not drink from that Fountain willy-nilly. I really did hurt, though. Yeah, it was time for Fountain. 

 

“I need to go get a drink.” I tried to take a step. I didn’t succeed. 

 

“For fuck’s sake, would you just sit your ass down so I can bandage you up?” Izzy and her cake-slapping hand, poised for more cake-slapping, pulled me back to the bench, and I had no ability to fight her. I was out of fight. “I don’t imagine there’s any point in attempting to call anyone for medical assistance."

 

“Not unless you like leeches.” I imagined trying to call for anyone out here on the ocean. It would just be me yelling off the deck into the vast nothingness. It was a funny image. Maybe a porpoise would jump up on deck and say Dr. Porpoise here, looks like you’ve been shot. My prescription is fish! Then it would jump back into the ocean and disappear.

 

My stomach hurt.

 

The heat of the fight still burned ember-like beneath my skin. I took another swig. Sobriety was for the birds. Tonight, rum was for me. Mmmmmm. Rummmmmm. Rum and after-school snack cakes. 

 

Slap. “What the hell!” How did this keep happening? I focused on my sister – both of them – nope, three of them. That’s how she kept getting my snacks: six arms. I’d show those arms. Come at me, arms. Want to fight, arms? Slap! I tumbled to the deck. After finding my own arms, I managed to haul myself back up. Rough ocean tonight, everything was swaying so much. I hurt in a lot of places. More rum would help that.

 

I lay back against a barrel and looked up at the stars. It was only partially cloudy tonight and I held up my hand to sight the distance between the Little Dipper and the horizon. Not too far off course. As my hand was up I contemplated the gash the lead ball had left between my fingers. The flesh was ragged from my wrist to between my thumb and pointer. The gun mustn’t have had much charge. The furrow was not terribly deep but stung like a mother and was bleeding profusely.

 

“Anne!” Some basic bitch clapped her hands in front of my face. Oh! It was Izzy. Right. I remembered her. “Do we have a heading to follow?” Izzy asked from so high above me.

 

“Yes. That way.” I pointed away from Tavern Rock…tried to point. My arm wasn’t working well. “Not that way.” I pointed backwards towards where all the blood and bodies still littered the crappy shack’s floor. I felt again the pulse of that rat bastard’s artery beating through my blade. He couldn’t just leave well enough alone. I’d need to clean that sword really well, it was my favorite.

 

“Just how drunk are you?”

 

I looked up at Izzy. Oh yeah, I forgot she was here.

 

“I don’t drink on duty.” I did my best Marco impression. He just had to be there today. He just had to be right exactly there to ruin everything today. “Fucking Marco. It’s rule number…uh…three…no, two. Yeah. No alcohol. Rule number two.” Marco. That fucker. “Damn him straight to hell. He did that on purpose. I need a drink.” I swiped some cream off the deck and stuck my finger in my mouth. Not bad. I went in for a second swipe. Where’d that rum go?

 

“No! You’re the captain, you have to captain.” Awww, she was scared we’d drown. So cute.

 

“Captain!” I laughed. It was my very favorite name. I loved it when people called me captain. It’s what I did. It’s what I was. It’s all I’d ever be…till the unlikely day I died. Looky there, another tiny cake!

 

“That’s great. I need you to let me look you over.” Izzy made a move towards me.

 

“Here I am.” I struck a pose on the bench. All I needed was a big blue necklace to complete the look. My body couldn’t stay stretched out, and I quickly curled in on myself. My leg seized up, and I hissed at the pain. I threw the bottle across the deck where it skittered into the ocean. I’d have enough trouble tomorrow without the rest of that rum in my system.

I needed to drink something else. I needed to drink the Fountain, and I really needed to shower. Izzy had already showered and changed. She was in shorts now. No longer Lady Isabelle, she was back to being my sister. She had looked so regal in Tavern Rock. Just as I’d envisioned her to look in that outfit. 

 

“You looked good in that dress. I liked that dress. Shame about it now. Probably need to burn it.” The blood had detracted somewhat from the regality.

 

“Yeah. I did.” Izzy fingered the latches on the kit, itching to sink them deep into gauze and antiseptic goo. “Anne, please? I’m really tired, and I need to make sure you’re not about to bleed to death.”

 

“I’m not.” She was worried for nothing. I wasn’t going to die. “You can go to bed. Ocean’s calm tonight.” 

 

Izzy finally sat and released her hold on the first aid box. As soon as she went to sleep, I could drink the Fountain and put this day behind me. She said she was tired, but more words kept pouring out of her like an unstoppable spigot of verbs and adjectives.

 

“You have a cut on your forehead.” She sat down like she was going to war and chose her weapons: alcohol swabs and gauze. “I’m going to clean it and put a dressing over it. And I’m going to stay calm and not think about how Stockholm-y this feels. Because it really feels like I’m being a medic for my kidnapper. But that’s crazy, right?”

 

“Not crazy. I did do that. Kidnapped you a little bit. Yes.” She was not gentle with the gauze. I shied away from her, but she was a wiry little bitch and I couldn’t escape. “But I had a good reason. I swear,” I protested.​

 

“Right.”

 

I don't think she meant that. I don't think she believed I had a good reason at all. Well, I did. So there. 

 

“So you’ve been time-traveling.” She kept swiping me with cotton. “And now you’ve dragged me back to the Dark Ages with you. Why?”

 

“It’s more like the late Renaissance.” The clothing in the Dark Ages had less shape and shine. Also, there was that plague.

 

“That’s not the fucking point and you know it. Why? How could you bring me here?” Once again with the yelling. The whales were going to start complaining soon.

 

Because I couldn’t leave her again. Because I couldn’t lose yet another person. Because I was a chicken shit loser. “One, it was written.” I was such a coward.

 

So tell her.

 

“And two—”

 

Tell her why you stole her.

 

Rule number four: no goodbyes.

 

Tell her you need her.

 

She’ll be scared.

 

Tell her anyway.

 

“And two, I didn’t want to say goodbye. So I just took you with me a little bit.” I should not have said that. She wasn’t to know yet that this was my farewell tour with her. When I brought her back home, it would be the last time we ever saw each other. “But mostly the written one,” I mumbled. “Yeah, let’s go with that.” The rum churned in my stomach, and I gritted my teeth against the pain.

 

“It was written? What the hell is any of that supposed to mean? I want answers, and I want them now!”

 

“Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I’ll be right back.” I shoved her hands off my head and limped my way down to her cabin, banging into the stairwell and ship walls as I went. 

 

Blood followed me wherever I landed. Blood always followed me. I hurt all over. In her cabin I pulled the false front off her dresser to find the books I stashed there, books that did nothing but gather dust and be more useless than our father’s old suits. I hadn’t used this cabin for a long time except to store overflow cargo. I tossed the false front aside and grabbed a stack of loose papers that were terrible photocopies of the matriarch’s journal. I hoisted myself up and felt a new rivulet of blood run down my leg. That was going to be a problem. 

 

I limped back up the steps to the deck and shoved the papers at Izzy. “Here.”

 

“What the fuck is this? Just tell me why you dragged me here!” She kept screaming. 

 

My head pounded in time with my heartbeat. I wouldn’t be upright for long at this rate. I tried to get the papers into her hands but kept failing. My triple vision was down to just double, but I kept choosing the wrong Izzy hands.

 

“I believed our bastard father’s stories. Yes, I did. And this is what he read to us at bedtime. The journal. The only piece of our inheritance worth a damn. Our family matriarch’s journal.”

 

Izzy was altogether too coordinated and fended off the papers. “If I read a story about a black hole sucking down a spaceship and found out it was real, I wouldn’t fucking take you there!”

 

“What if you were really, really lonely? Maybe you would then.” The words escaped me before I could wrangle them back into my throat.

 

It’s the truth, but do you want her to know the truth?

 

Shut up, you stupid annoying voice, and go back to hell.​

 

“What does that have to do with why you brought me here?” She was steadfastly refusing to look at the pages I’d brought her. The numbing rum was beginning to wear off, and I was starting to feel my wounds.

 

“Oh my god, so many words. All these words.” God, my shoulder was going to fall off. 

 

Sea spray launched over the port side, and I shrieked as the cold water hit my body and the salt stung my open wounds. The water woke me up, and I began to get upset. We were not supposed to exit the portal into a massacre. We were supposed to be learning about time travel together and enjoying a new aspect of our inheritance. 

 

My sister was asking for answers and refusing to acknowledge the proof I was placing right in front of her eyes. All she had to do was extend herself a little and read. 

 

“Look at the damn pages! Look! Look at them! Do you see? I couldn’t believe it when I saw. Jesus, my leg hurts. Look at the pages, Izzy! Look!” The sea water brought pain to the foreground of my brain. My body was screaming now that the rum had loosened its gags on my nerve endings. “Look at the writing. Do you recognize it? It’s your handwriting, Izzy. These pages, you wrote them. It’s all you.” I pointed again and again, trying to will her to see what I saw, but she wouldn’t even look at the words. She knocked them all out of my hands, and the wind scattered the papers all over the boat and out to sea. I sighed as I watched them fly away. Some landed on the deck. It didn't matter. I only needed one for evidence.

 

Izzy looked in bad shape. I had promised our mother that I’d take care of her, and here I was doing the shittiest job of caretaker in the universe. I was not a mother; I would never be a mother. I only had to look at Izzy to know how terrible a job I’d do attempting to raise and keep a separate life safe.

 

“Would you please just sit the fuck down and let me help you?!” She held up one of the first aid kits I’d packed for her as tears started flowing.

 

“Izzy! Don’t cry!” I was the worst sister ever. Dragging her here, getting her in a bloody fight, and now making her cry.

 

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?” I couldn’t stand Izzy in pain. I patted her down, looking for any wincing or tell-tale signs of pain. “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay.” My hand came away from her shirt bloody. She’d been hurt! “Oh my god! You’re bleeding!” I touched another part of her shirt and saw blood there too. And blood on my hand. I touched a third area of her shirt to confirm my hypothesis. “Oh, that’s me.” Now I’d need to burn her shirt along with her dress. We were really working our way through her wardrobe.

 

“Sit the fuck down or I’m going to tell Mom every sordid detail about how you brought me to an oceanic nightmare,” she threatened. 

 

Ugh, I did not want Mom to know this. Mom enjoyed thinking of me as the screw-up daughter who had finally stopped embarrassing her in public. Getting confirmation from her favorite daughter that I was a screw-up beyond her wildest nightmares was not how I wanted to be remembered.

 

“Mean.” I sat and pouted. It was cold out tonight. I pulled the blanket around myself and shivered.

 

“Thank you. Will you let me take a look and make sure you’re not about to die? I really, really can’t handle that right now.” She looked tired and young. I remembered seeing her bloody and young in the hospital bed after the crash that stole her parents.

 

“I’m not going to die.” I offered her the blanket; she needed it more than me. The air blew around me, and I shook as I held the blanket out. My shoulder was killing me, and I was afraid if I stood my leg would give out.

 

“Famous last words, Anne!” She did not accept the blanket.

 

“I’m fine.” Blood clots, wounds heal. I just needed Izzy to lose steam and go to bed already. One swig, some god-awful consequences, and these wounds would leave me in peace. She continued to look young and small and tired. I was tired. I was so very tired and so very lonely. 

 

“I stole you. I’d do it again. Our time was almost up and…I couldn’t say goodbye. So I took you along with me.” I had had nothing left before Izzy stepped on this boat. I’d have even less after she left. Izzy almost put a hand on my leg, but I pulled it aside. She would never see these scars, never touch them. It was bad enough I had to look at myself on a daily basis.

 

She would have noticed sooner rather than later that I was a time traveler. I had, at the outside, ten of her years left before she put the clues together. Part of this trip was planned so I could explain to her, gently, the direction my life had taken. I wanted to explain so that when she outgrew me, and she had already outgrown me in several ways, she wouldn’t be left wondering why I wasn’t with her anymore. She would know that I hadn’t wanted to leave her, but that I couldn’t stay. When I brought her back home, I would not return for her. I would let her go. That thought haunted my nightmares.

 

“Anne?” Izzy’s voice pulled me out of my reverie. 

 

I was shocked to see her sitting close to me. Carefully, she put an arm around me, and I froze. The touch and proximity were more than I’d experienced in years. I was captivated at the sight and feel of her arm wrapped around me in a loving and non-hostile manner. 

 

“I know that right now, you’re not feeling so well. You’re in pain, and you’re tired, and probably a bunch of other things I don’t even know about.” My sister put her hand on my head, and I thought I might fall into that gesture and live there forever.

 

I’d started this day with promise and hope and ended it covered in gore and sin. But Izzy was still here and still wanted to care for me. Tears burned down my cheeks as I watched my sister stay by my side.

 

“All I want to do is to make it a little better. Please, Anne, will you let me help you?” My wounds were screaming at me and I’d lost track of where the rum bottle had skittered off to on the deck and I’d dragged my sister back in time and traumatized her and everything sucked.

 

“My shoulder hurts,” I mumbled. Giving a name to the beast brought the pain to the forefront and I could no longer think around it. My other wounds lined up behind it, vying for equal attention.

 

“Okay.” Izzy hugged me and looked like I’d given her a lifeline. She always was a sucker for the weak and pathetic, and right now I was queen of the pathetics. “Thank you. I can stop the bleeding and I have pain medicine. Will you let me move your shirt so I can start with your shoulder?”

 

I shrugged off the life preserver and hesitated only a moment before removing my shirt.

 

“Thank you.” She sighed and moved closer to examine me with her cut-rate medical certifications. 

 

I probably should have cared more that my shirt was off and Izzy was looking over my bloodied and beaten non-corpse, but I was empty. I kept my eyes on the waves. I couldn’t look at her. She had seen some of my scars before; we’d shared a room for most of our formative years. She knew I had a tattoo on my arm and a brand on my neck, but some of the marks would be new. I prayed the moon wasn’t bright enough for her to register some of my more offensive disfigurements.

 

“Jesus, Anne. If I had known it was this bad, I would have wrestled you to the ground to bandage you up,” she rebuked. 

 

I shrugged and put my head in my hands. I’d been in worse fights. 

 

The rum rushed through my system. I’d passed the point of floating on the surface of the alcohol, now I was drowning. Breathing was a chore. Judging by the amount of blood in my boot, on the bench, clotted in my clothing, smeared on the deck…I might be experiencing blood loss. 

 

“Sorry. This is going to hurt,” she warned, a millisecond before jabbing me with cold, pointy metal.

 

“Son of a motherfucking bitch! Get that out of me! Are you trying to kill me?!? Fucking hell!! My god! Stop!” I tried to jerk away from her, but Izzy was strong tonight and I was an oozing pile of rum and stale adrenaline.

 

“It’s a good thing you’re current on your tetanus shots.” Izzy blithely chatted in a bedside manner that would put a patient into a diabetic coma. Finally she pulled away the awful tools but kept me in a vice grip. “I can’t imagine what’s in these disgusting little things. And you’re definitely going to need a course of antibiotics. “Can I look at your hand?” She slathered lidocaine cream over some of the bruising, and I started to breathe easier with the slight reprieve from the pain.

 

“Here.” I shoved my hand into hers and let her have her fun. Maybe it would distract her enough that she’d stop looking further.

 

“Ooof. This is going to sting. A lot.” Izzy brandished those forceps again. 

​

I swore to the very strands of her DNA that I would seek my vengeance upon her for this. She wrapped my hand tightly, and I guessed I’d lose feeling in the fingers by morning. I ought to be grateful; the rest of me would be feeling plenty tomorrow morning. 

 

“Alright. Nothing looks too serious.” She packed up her kit. “I guess you got lucky, if you can believe that. We’ll need to keep an eye out for infection. I’ll take a look in the morning when I change your bandages.”

 

“I need a drink,” I grumbled and stuck my wrapped hand under my other arm to both keep pressure against the bleed and hide it from my sister and her instruments of torture.

 

“What about your leg? You said it hurt.”

 

“Everything hurts!” I shouted to the stars and looked around for my rum. I couldn’t let her see my legs. Hide. Hide the scars. Hide your life. Hide the danger.

 

She would want to help you.

 

Leave me alone.

 

I wanted Izzy to help me so much it registered as physical pain greater than the musket balls, but Izzy’s life was hard enough without me piling on. She’d spent her childhood recovering from the car crash that took both her parents away. I could still see, clear as day, her little, broken body in that hospital bed. My job was to take care of her, not the other way around.

 

Let her help.

 

I spent too much time alone on my boat. That voice was becoming too corporeal for its own good.

 

Didn’t she do a good job? Don’t you feel better?

 

Even my sister, brandishing her forceps with heavy-handed schadenfreude and alcohol swabs, was better than taking a dose of Fountain. Maybe if I explained the scarring just right it wouldn’t scare her too much. She should know the consequences of taking technology off of the ship. She should know about the scars. She should know everything. I firmed my resolve to reveal my leg scarring and wounds and made up my mind to tell her everything.

 

“You should—” The deck of my ship flew into my face as my legs and brain gave out.