Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 13

"Can you think of any way we can counteract my bad luck?" he asked the naked witch.

Bella pursed her lips. "Yes, but you'll need to be in here with me."

"That's not going to work. I need to be out there where I figure out our heading. This storm and the dark is going to make staying on course nearly impossible, so I'm going to have to keep reevaluating our position and triangulating with the charts. I'm going to be running back and forth a lot," Will said.

"That's definitely not going to work," Bella said, her curls bouncing as she shook her head.

"What do you need to do your job, Will?" Janie's voice called from the mirror. She sounded distant. He guessed she was still in the alcove, but when she wasn't standing directly in front of the mirror, she was much harder to hear..

"The charts and tools here in the desk, and my eyes on the horizon," Will said loudly, making sure she heard him.

"Well that's inefficient," Janie said coming back into the frame of the mirror. "Your job needs you to be two places at once."

"Yeah," Will agreed. "Not much way around it though."

"Bella, what do you need to do your job?" Janie asked.

"Just a circle on the ground, and the mirror to draw energy from," Bella said.

"Will, can you move the desk?" Janie asked.

Will looked, thinking. "Maybe. Not the whole thing, but the table is on a pivot here. I can unscrew these nuts and pull it off. Keep talking."

"I was just thinking about how we moved the mirror where it needed to be earlier," Janie explained. "We could do that. Just take the mirror and the desk out where you need them, and have Bella draw her circle there."

Will and Bella looked at each other. She gave him a nod. "That would work for me."

"The rain is starting. Won't that wash away your circle?" Will asked.

"I have stuff that won't wash away," Bella said.

The pivot frame on the desk was held in place with butterfly screws, so it wasn't difficult for Will to take it apart without tools. Whoever had built it was clearly thinking ahead. Far too often, shipboard amenities were designed by carpenters who weren't actually sailors. On a ship, things needed to be permanently affixed, or easily worked on using the fewest possible tools. There were lots of precautions sailors took to avoid tossing hammers and wrenches into the bilge or having them slide off the deck and into the ocean, but it still happened. The adage Will remembered best was that if something couldn't be repaired in a rainstorm with nothing but numb hands in wet gloves, it wasn't designed by a sailor.

"Rahat!" Bella cursed behind him. He looked over his shoulder. She was still drawing on herself, but seemed to have made a mistake. She was wiping away a bit of paint on her arm with the corner of a handkerchief. "Why is the ship shaking now?"

"We are at full sail," Will explained.

"Feels like the ship is bouncing," the witch grumbled, trying to draw the careful patterns between the swells.

"At this speed, in this kind of surf, we're sort of skipping from wave to wave. When they are close together, it's fine. That's what those small shudders are. Those big hits and the feeling like you're about to fall is when they are bigger or far apart. We fall down the back of a wave, and then have to climb back up and ram through the next one." Will strained as he talked, working a stuck screw free. Behind him, Bella continued slowly painting herself, occasionally cursing and having to redo something.

By the time Will had the surface of the desk free, Bella was waiting behind him, ready. "I can take that if you get the mirror," she said. She was still nude, with only a satchel over her shoulder and intricate patterns drawn in different colors of paint all over her chest and arms.

"It's already starting to rain. You're going to be freezing," Will said as he looked her over.

"All the clothes I have with me would smear the patterns," Bella shrugged.

"I thought you said it was alright for the pattern to smear a little?" Will asked.

"For drawing energy with sex, yes. For fortune magic, no. This is going to require much more precise spell work," Bella explained.

"You're in for a miserable night," Will said, a bit worried.

"I think we all are," Bella said taking the desktop from him. "Come on."

Will carefully lifted the heavy mirror free. Bella held the door open for him and they walked out into the night. Thick drops were coming down haphazardly. The rain was slow and scattered, but quickly covering the deck in wet splatters. It was building. Before long it would be a downpour.

More than a few sets of eyes did a double take and watched Bella's swinging, bare butt climb the steps, but there wasn't a single catcall or whistle. The whole ship was dealing with the danger at hand, so as unexpected as a naked witch on deck was, it wasn't enough to cause a significant distraction.

The Kestrel cut through the waves at top speed. The deck rolled and occasionally lurched as the water battered the prow. Bella had to tightly hold onto the railing as she climbed up the stairs. The darkness, wind and rain amplified the unsteadiness she'd been feeling in the cabin. The alternating feeling of being a little heavier, and then a little lighter, and the jostling back and forth as the waves pushed on the ship made her feel like she barely knew how to walk, and like the ship was trying to buck her overboard.

Will seemed to have no problems with it, even with the giant mirror in his hands. He walked when it was easy, and leaned or braced with the shudders and drops. He couldn't see where he was headed, but he still had an easier time than Bella.

Captain Vex gave Bella a curious look from the helm. "Ye dinnae want tae stay dry?"

"Blame him," Bella said, jerking her head back in Will's direction. "He has to see the surroundings to do his work, and I need him in the circle to do mine."

"Tie off," Captain Vex said. "Ye don't want tae get swept overboard."

"To what?" Bella asked.

"The mizzen, unless ye need tae move around," Captain Vex said.

"No, but I can't have ropes dragging across my circle either," Bella said.

"Does the size of the circle matter?" Will asked. He crossed the deck and propped the mirror up against the back railing, steadying the mirror while he held on.

"Not really," Bella shook her head. She leaned the desktop against the mirror and let Will pin it in place with his leg. "There's some reasons for smaller or larger circles, but they don't apply for what I'm trying to do."

"How about we put the circle around the mizzen," Will suggested.

"I have no idea what a mizzen is," Bella admitted, looking exasperated and sheepish.

Will pointed to the mast protruding out of the rear-center of the quarterdeck where they stood. "Mizzenmast."

"That works. I was going to suggest we tie the mirror to it anyway," Bella nodded. "First I need a loose loop of rope around the mast as a guide for my circle."

"Big protractor. Got it. You hold Janie," Will said. Bella took over steadying the mirror and sat down on the bench at the back of the aftcastle. She held tight to the railing. Back here the ship was fairly steady, but the rolling up-and-down of the waves still made her feel nervous now that she was near an edge. Will grabbed a loop of rope off the mast and got to work. In short order he had a loose line ready to trace a large circle. He handed bella the end of the rope and took over steadying the mirror. Now it was Bella's turn. She jammed the handle of her paintbrush through the rope and pulled it tight, then started her circle. It was a bit slow going. She dipped her brush in a pot of white paint, then made a short arc with the rope pulled taut. Then she positioned herself, made sure the rope hadn't snagged, and did it again. Each section was only a few feet long, but bit by bit she traced out an arc of white paint on the quarterdeck just behind the helm.

As she worked another sheet of lightning lit the sky. Will was able to make out two distant islands. He noted their position for later.

As Bella finished her circle she started making another pass, thickening it and defining it. "How long do we have until the other ship is near us?" she asked.

"Oh, a while yet," Captain Vex said with a shrug. "Maybe hours."

"What?" Bella asked, surprised. She was already breathing hard from working at a fast pace. Trying to quickly crawl on her hands and knees across the rolling deck to paint the circle was surprisingly tiring. "I thought we were in danger?"

"We are," Will said. "Most ship chases are endurance races."

"Aye," Captain Vex said over her shoulder. "Closing the distance c'n take a long time, especially when both ships are fairly even in speed. Once they get close, it'll stop being about speed, an' start being about maneuvering. A lot of it is about trying tae predict what the other ship's going tae try tae do, and see if ye c'n trick 'em intae doin' somethin' stupid. If we c'n get 'em tae come about the wrong way, or force 'em tae round an obstacle we dinnae have tae avoid, we c'n git some distance. Then it's a chase again, until they catch up. We win this by exhausting them and keeping ahead, or by making it somewhere they won't follow."

"That sounds a lot less... I don't know... less exciting? Than I thought it would be," Bella said, sounding relieved but a little confused.

"The excitement comes if they catch us," Will said. "Excitement is bad."

"So we might have hours to prepare for that?" Bella asked.

"From the looks of things so far, yes," Will nodded.

Bella started laughing. It started amused, but then became a bit sinister. "Oh, those poor bastards."

Will and Captain Vex looked at each other, not sure what to say. Bella pulled her brush out of the rope and repositioned it a bit further back. "I'm going to draw another circle. Once I'm clear of the front arc, facing Belita, go ahead and tie the mirror to the mast."

"Sure," Will said. "Mind explaining the evil laugh?"

"I didn't know I had time," Bella grinned as she started the arc of her second circle. The gap between the two circles was about a foot wide. "My mother used to say that whenever you do spellwork, it's always efficient, powerful, or fast, and you can only pick two. I thought I needed to be fast and powerful, so I was ready to toss efficiency out the window. I planned on drawing a ton of energy, and wasting most of it just to get the job done. Now I have the time to use all that energy right. I'm going to hit that ship with the mother of all hexes."