Part 7 (1/2)

Gretchen seemed unable to speak, so Cecil responded. ”Hey there, have we met?”

”Name's Remy,” said the dog happily. He was tall and muscular, with floppy ears and long, rippling fur. Cecil noticed that he wore a red headscarf tied around his neck. That looks so stylish, thought Cecil, though in the next moment he realized that some human must have put it on him. Then he thought the dog just looked like a clown.

”Are you being traded?” Cecil asked.

Remy woofed a short laugh, causing Gretchen to flinch. ”Not a chance,” he said. ”I'm with him,” and he gestured with his black nose back over his shoulder toward the market master. As he did so, the cats spotted a leather collar circling his neck, tucked under the scarf.

”So,” said Gretchen, regaining her voice and stepping forward. ”You're not . . . free. Right? That man owns you?”

Remy chuckled again as his deep brown eyes appraised the crate. ”More free than you, eh? We don't get that many cats in here; usually they're pretty well-liked by their owners. Were you no good at your job on the s.h.i.+p?” He seemed genuinely interested.

”We were great,” replied Gretchen pointedly, arching her back. ”But it's a crew of pirates . . .”

Remy nodded and smiled. ”Gotcha.”

A small gray monkey began shrieking hysterically in a cage across from the cats. In a flash the dog darted to the monkey's cage and issued several sharp barks and one long growl, frightening the monkey into cowering silence. Remy trotted back and sat next to the cats' crate.

”Not bad,” said Cecil quietly.

”I'm good at my job,” said Remy.

”He's not going to let us out of here, if that's why you're flattering him,” Gretchen murmured to Cecil. Remy woofed in agreement.

”Okay,” said Cecil, ”then have you seen any large old whales around here by chance? Or a mysterious eye, up in the sky?”

Remy snorted. ”Whales don't usually pull up to the dock to visit, so that's a big no,” he said. ”As for an eye . . .” He paused, panting. ”A couple of nights ago I did see something like that. A bright cloud, could have been a trick of the moonlight. I'm not sure.”

Gretchen stepped up to the front of the crate and pressed her face against the slats. ”Did it speak to you? Do you remember any more?”

”It pa.s.sed over me, blew right by. But there was one odd thing about it,” he said, staring at Gretchen's face. ”It looked just like your eye.”

A dreadful squawking rose from a cage down the row containing a fearsome white-headed bird. It had beaten its wings against the cage door until the thin reeds gave way, and now the bird stumbled out, furious, its sharp beak slas.h.i.+ng the air. Remy leaped and in one motion brought the bird to the ground, firmly but carefully and without crus.h.i.+ng it. The market master rushed over and wrestled the bird into another cage as Remy stepped back.

Cecil noticed a deep scratch on the dog's foreleg from the bird's beak and felt his heart pound. In a strange way he envied that scratch. Even though Remy was ”owned,” he was free to run away if he wanted to; he was in charge of his own destiny. Cecil, at this point, felt his freedom slipping away.

That evening as the pirate s.h.i.+p left port and sailed smoothly out on the dark open sea, Cecil, though relieved he and Gretchen had not been traded, was quietly miserable. He wondered how many other ports there were like that one, and whether Anton could have gotten off his s.h.i.+p at one of them and started a new life in a village somewhere, giving up the idea of getting home. How could Cecil find him then? Or worse-the encounter with the vulture was the first time he had reckoned with the idea that Anton might not even be alive anymore.

”Where are you, brother?” he said softly to the horizon.

Gretchen crouched next to him on a box by the deck rail, not knowing what to say. She could not say that it would all work out in the end, because at this point, she didn't see how it would. So she curled her tail carefully around behind him and sat silently, watching the empty ocean and the wide starless sky, waiting with him for a sign.

Days and nights went by without sighting a single other s.h.i.+p or land of any kind. This was quite unusual, and the crew of the Leone began to get restless. There was some concern over the supply of fresh water on board, and indeed whether they had fallen off course somehow. The captain strode up and down the deck, growling at his men as they took measurements by the weak sun and consulted charts and maps. The stars, their usual steadfast guide, were obscured by swirling clouds night after night until the crewmen threw up their hands, helpless. Pointing up at the sun and then straight off the starboard side, the captain barked an order to head in that direction, but the wind was so light that the sails barely caught enough to turn the s.h.i.+p.

Gretchen and Cecil tried to escape the late afternoon heat under the shelter of a canvas tarp.

”I mean,” said Cecil, exasperated, ”the saying is, 'Where the eye sees the eye,' right? So: that's two eyes. I think one of the eyes has to be the one in the sky, from the legend.”

”Definitely,” agreed Gretchen, nodding. ”The shape is a cat's eye, just like the dog said.”

Cecil thought again about the warm glow he'd felt on the clipper.

”But what's the other eye?” she asked. ”That's the question.”

”Could it be my eye?” he wondered, touching his paw to the side of his face. ”Or the eye of any creature who's in trouble?”

Gretchen frowned. ”I don't think so. When I saw it, nothing in particular happened to me. I wasn't 'found.' And the dog said he saw it, their eyes met, but he didn't say that anything happened to him, either.”

”Hmmm,” said Cecil, scratching behind his left ear thoughtfully. ”So what is . . . the second eye?”

At that moment they both felt a subtle but unmistakable lift and fall of the s.h.i.+p, which was odd after so many days of stillness. The two cats emerged from under the tarp and hopped up on a barrel near the stern to survey the situation, which was strange indeed. The sky was the color of swirling smoke and the sea was a dark gray-green, with small ripples beginning to appear on the surface. Peering over the railing, they saw little fish moving in fast schools under the s.h.i.+p, and birds flying singly in all directions just above the water. ”Birds usually mean there's land nearby,” Gretchen said, ”but there's nothing to see from here.”

The crew behaved as if they were suspicious of the weather, scowling at the sky and sea. The wind whipped unpredictably, snapping the sails taut and plunging the s.h.i.+p in one direction, then dying just as suddenly, then changing direction. Sheets of rain pa.s.sed over them like waves with brief periods of calm in between.

”What's going on? Where are we?” asked Cecil, trying to take everything in at once.

”Don't know,” replied Gretchen. ”Never seen anything like this before. I don't like the looks of it, though.”

In silent agreement, the cats remained on deck despite the intermittent soakings, huddled together for warmth and protection. They both felt that what happened next might be important somehow. The night pa.s.sed slowly, as the strange weather neither worsened nor abated, yet seemed to be pulling the s.h.i.+p intentionally off course. The cats dozed, waking in the darkness to the sound of the wind bl.u.s.tering against the sails. Finally Cecil thought he detected through the gloom the barest brightening of the sky on the horizon. Dawn must be coming at last, he thought. He had just noticed a bird flying by both backward and upside down when a pirate shouted from high in the crow's nest. All eyes looked up at him, and then to where he was pointing.

Gretchen got to her feet. ”Land,” she said.

Cecil stood as well and squinted into the dim light. Directly off the bow, though still a good distance off, was a tall green island. Almost pointed at the top, with steeply sloping sides, the land appeared to be covered with lush vegetation and small trees, but no s.h.i.+ps, houses, or other signs of people that Cecil could see.

”That's odd, isn't it?” he asked. ”The way it just . . . showed up?” He glanced at Gretchen.

”It wasn't there last night.” She sounded faintly alarmed.

In the dawn haze as the sunlight played on vapors rising from the ground, the island glowed majestically. The thinning mist made it appear to be advancing rapidly toward them. The crew of the pirate s.h.i.+p now just stood and stared. Finally the captain, his large feathered hat set aside because of the unpredictable gusts of wind, gripped the railing to steady himself.

”Pull yourselves together, lads!” he shouted. ”It's land we've been waiting for, is it not? And here we have it!” He gestured widely at the island. ”Drop anchor and make ready a landing party to fetch water and whatever stores are to be had. On the double!”

As the crew broke out of their stupor and hurried to their tasks, the first mate, a short man with silver spectacles and a blue brocade vest, stood next to the captain looking out at the ocean, his spygla.s.s held slack by his side.

”Cap'n, sir,” he said in a low voice.

”What is it?” The captain whirled to him.

”The currents, do ye see?” He pointed. ”An' the wind, too. We're bein' pushed.”

”Well, of course we are, you fool!” the captain growled. ”That's how we sail-currents and wind-is it not?” He picked up his feathered hat and swatted the first mate's head with it.

”I only mean, sir,” said the first mate, flinching, ”this time it seems we're being drawn in, like a magnet's pulling at us, in a manner of speakin'.”

The captain stared. Indeed, the s.h.i.+p felt like it was moving on its own, turning to starboard, then to port, as puffs of wind and surges of waves drew it along a path into the island, while no man's hand touched the wheel. When the s.h.i.+p closed to within a few hundred yards of the sh.o.r.eline, the wind died and the waves became calm. The s.h.i.+p slowed to a halt, turning lazily in place.

The captain glanced sharply around. ”What's this now?”