Ace spent some days in the sick bay to recover from their hypothermia, where most of their time was spent eating fresh bread and soup, courtesy of the cook. It wasn’t especially nice bread or especially good soup, but to Ace, it tasted like new beginnings. Anyone who’s never experienced sudden freedom might not understand this, so I’ll do my best to explain what was happening in Ace’s head at that time. 

It is easy to develop depression early in life, due to a consistent feeling of being trapped. Now, Ace had been literally trapped on the small island they had been born on, of course, but that’s not where their feeling of being trapped came from. After all, they’d never felt like leaving would have solved any of their problems. No, Ace’s feelings of being trapped were internal. Ace would never have been able to really put to words what was wrong, only that they felt off. They felt, essentially, trapped by the opportunities presented to them. To Ace, the only futures that existed were those on fishing boats, or possibly working a craft like any other people in the village. There was the feeling that every possible future had been laid out before them and not one of them felt like them. 

Ace would never have been a fisherman, a baker or a butcher. But if not that, then what, they’d thought. Which was where depression came in. After all, if you have no future, what point is the present? Many people who grow up with depression sort of assume they’ll die before they’re in their twenties, and when they get there have no idea what to do now. This is why opportunities are so important. When Ace had been able to work on the Siren Song with the crew, when they’d suddenly had a taste of what the future might hold, that it might hold the freedom of the ocean, it was as if the curtain had been parted, and suddenly there was the taste of future, of possibility. 

If you, my dear, sweet reader, have ever felt like this and didn’t know why, I have good news and bad news. The bad news -- because we always start with the bad news -- you might have suffered from depression. The feeling that there’s no future for you, only the present stretched out into infinity is stifling, terrifying and it makes you wonder why you do it every day. That you might suffer this is the bad news. The good news is that, like it did for Ace, so will it get better for you. Occasionally it takes something strange or weird to happen. Sometimes that might mean that you might need to jump off the end of a (metaphorical!!!) pier to chase an impossible dream. Sometimes you need to wait for the right pirate ship to come along. And to anyone who currently feels this way: I hope you taste freedom soon, because, as Ace could testify, it is the sweetest and tastiest meal you’ll ever enjoy.

Ace ate with pleasure as they recovered and felt the strength return to their limbs. They were visited most often by the ship’s doctor (Stewart Steward), Tall Tom, and John Cook the cook. Ace once asked Tom which had come first, the profession or the name, but Tom had only shrugged and told them that nobody knew and John Cook was really testy about it. 

Captain Maria had only visited Ace once, to thank them for what they’d done for the deckhand that had fallen off the mast, and to again officially welcome them to the ship. From what Ace picked up, the captain was a distant person, despite his jovial attitude, who spent most of his time in his quarters poring over old maps. It is important to note here that Ace spent most of their time just sitting in bed and looking out the porthole with a content expression on their face, instead of asking questions about their fellow crew-members. Between the three of them, Doctor Steward, Tom and John Cook could out-gossip anyone. 

Doctor Steward, for obvious reasons, spent a lot of time in the sickbay, usually dealing with small ailments among the crew, and would tell Ace stories of the Siren Song, which they listened to with rapt attention. The Siren Song had rounded the Cape of Good Hope more than once, had made the East Indies unsafe, and, if the good doctor was to be believed, fought off more than one large sea monster, all of which they’d escaped with their lives and, so Doctor Steward claimed, trophies that were locked in the captain’s quarters. Ace had asked, once, about mermaids, trying to sound nonchalant, which here means asking while trying to sound as bored as humanly possible while still demanding an answer, which was impressive for someone who did as little talking as Ace did. Stewart Steward had simply shrugged. “I’ve heard of them,” he’d said, “but never seen one with my own eyes.” That had been the end of that conversation.

Tall Tom would often, with all of his usual flair and bombast, tell Ace what the Siren Song was really like. According to Tom, the Siren Song, under Captain Maria Abbott, was a ship full of people who had felt out of place in their place of birth or employment. Sure, the Siren Song was a pirate ship, and they got by, often by robbing and boarding merchant vessels, but Maria Abbott was incredibly studious. Most ships they boarded were trying to sneak around established sea lanes and didn’t have large crews. Overpowering them with minimal losses was always the objective, and any member of crew was given the option to join the Siren’s crew, or to simply sail on, sans cargo. John Cook had been such a deserter and he was considered a valuable member of the crew. They made only one exception, Tom said with a dour expression, and refused to elaborate. 

Cook the cook’s stories were more grounded, and from him, Ace learned about life on the ship. They were shanghaied into peeling potatoes with Cook, which they didn’t really mind. While they cleaned and peeled, Cook would tell about the journeys the Siren Song often sailed, how the crew trusted Captain Maria unconditionally, despite their unusual approach to piracy. Most of the time, they would hunt ships whose routes had been thoroughly researched. But sometimes, the captain seemed to completely change his mind, and sail them into waters that had no scheduled ships. Every time, John said, there would be a ship there, often in the middle of nowhere, equipped for whaling or fishing, with almost no cargo and very little in the way of defenses. Every time, Captain Maria had attacked them with a fury that nobody on the crew would otherwise ever catch from them, demanding the ship be sent to the bottom. If they boarded, the captain himself would be the first on deck, a dervish of gunfire and shining steel. There would be no mercy for these ships. John Cook had no idea why and, he’d said as he turned to Ace, “You best not ask.”

Ace had nodded. The Siren Song was a shipful of secrets, they’d discovered. It seemed as though everyone on board had their own story of how they’d ended up on the ship, all different, but all with an element that they’d kept to themselves. But every single one of them agreed that Captain Maria Abbott was beyond question, that their loyalty to him was absolute. Ace had never met someone who commanded that kind of respect, and they wondered what it was that the captain had seen in their eyes when he’d hired them. 

After their recovery, Ace was put to work. For those of you who have never heard of “swabbing the poop deck”, this and other fun nautical phrases were most of what they did during the day, though Tom had encouraged them to also explore the ship some. The days went by in relative calm as the ship made its way west-by-southwest across the Atlantic, flying whichever flag would attract the least attention at any given moment. 

At night, Ace spent a lot of time sitting on the deck looking out over the sea, the nights getting warmer the further south they traveled, and felt the pearl in their pocket as the black glass of the water reflected the stars as far as the eye could sea. Sometimes, a small yellow light would slowly pass the horizon, and they wondered what kind of ship it was, who they sailed for. But most of the time, they looked down at the water. There was a slight pull. That is not to imply that Ace had the desire to fling themself overboard and drown, but rather that they had been starting to wonder whether or not their encounter with the shark girl had been real. The pearl in their pocket consistently told them that a part of that meeting had been real, but it had been very cold, and doubt had started to set in. 

That was why, one evening, when they’d been looking out one of the lower deck portholes, only a few inches across, they were overjoyed to see just a glimpse of a dorsal fin and black hair. There was a certain feeling of certainty that this was the same girl, and they’d jumped up. A familiar face bobbed up above the waves in the light of the setting sun. Ace took the pearl out of their pocket in front of the porthole and hoped that the girl would recognize them, would see them. She looked directly at Ace, and smiled, and disappeared beneath the waves again. Ace sighed, feeling something they’d never experienced before. While it would be easy to dismiss this feeling as infatuation, a child’s crush, or even love at first sight, there was more to it than that. Ace’s feeling, that the world was larger than most people thought, had just been validated, and that was a tremendously powerful feeling. 

So they made the effort to be in front of the same porthole every evening, to wave at the shark girl. They didn’t want to risk her being seen by the other sailors by doing something as overt as waving at her from the top deck, so they played this game every evening. The girl got more daring as time went on, leaping above the water and splashing back onto the waves with everything but grace.

This continued for a few days, until, one night, she swam past the window, and Ace got up to follow her, shadowing the shape from window to window into the port walk. If you don’t know how ships are built, consider yourself lucky because, as information to have bouncing around in your head goes, it’s quite useless. But suffice it to say that ships have passageways that go around the ship, often going behind the walls. This was where Ace followed the shape of the merwoman, all the way down to the stern of the ship, underneath the captain’s quarters, where they lost track of her. They were about to head back down the length of the ship, when they overheard the voice of Tall Tom and Maria talking above them, and they paused.

“Captain, with all due respect, you don’t have to do this.” That was obviously Tom. His usually loud voice was muted, and Ace had to strain to hear him properly. He sounded… upset? Worried? Pleading? Ace couldn’t immediately tell. 

“With all due respect, Tom, I’m afraid I do. I’ve never led us astray so far, have I?” Maria’s voice was crystal clear, due to his eloquent accent, that seemed to cut through the air with practiced precision. “Besides, we’ll find them. If we get there before the bloody Spaniards do.”

Tom sighed. “What I tell the men, Captain? They’ve just been through hell. We all have. We lost Fast Jack last time.”

There was a pause as people walked around, and Ace could tell the Captain was pacing back and forth, stopping right above them. 

“I know. I think the new one… they’ll be good for us. But don’t let them stop us from finding what we’re looking for, you understand? We’ve been hunting for three years, I’ll be damned if I give up now.”

“Aye, captain.” Tom said. “Why are you so sure, this time?”

When Captain Maria Abbott spoke again, there was something about his voice that made Ace’s hair stand on end. There was a viciousness to it, a determination that was utterly terrifying. 

“Because, Tom, we’re being followed. And she’s going to lead us right to them.”