Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

upon the table and slotted it between two others. “And never does one feel so lost as they do in the moment of understanding their errors made. The chances taken. Choices unmade.”

“What do you mean?” Chidi asked.

Marisa shrugged. “One such as you are looks to me with the notion that I might have answers to all your many questions. In truth, the greater curse is having so many choices lain before you and not knowing which to choose.” Marisa spread her hands out over the remaining scatter of symbols. “So many choices, Chidi, but only by making them do you learn if they were favored, or failure. Only by making such choices can you move forward. That is one of the greatest lessons of all that both my father and failure taught me, Chidi Etienne. Much as others would malign it, I have found that sometimes a step backward can also move one forward too.”

Marisa turned silent then, moving her pieces across the table in ways that Chidi could only guess at that which the mystic Silkie saw played out.

“I know what it’s like to make bad choices too,” said Chidi when she could not stand the silence between then any longer. “Judging by everything you’ve said about me and Allambee, even having these pieces here . . . it seems like you’ve made more right decisions than not.”

“Have I?” Marisa asked, bemused. “I suppose we shall never know until we turn back the tide, or else the Others hold sway for the errors we made.”

A host of further questions plagued Chidi’s mind then when Marisa went silent again. For a moment, Chidi thought to continue her badgering of the mystic Silkie.

The want of fresh air and to escape the smaller quarters won out.

Leaving Allambee to sleep, Chidi headed up the ladder to reach the main deck inside the captain’s quarters. There, she found Girard slumped in his chair, his feet crossed and resting on the dash as he ate beef stew from a tin can with a plastic fork. Beyond the window, the seemingly endless stretch of Salt lay before them, The Lady Cat cutting through the chop, bound ever onward toward the east.

Girard gave her a wary look as if he had just spotted a stowaway upon his ship. When Chidi waved acknowledgement of him, however, Girard grunted and turned back to the open ocean ahead.

Where is Bryant? Chidi wondered, not spotting him inside the cabin. Turning, she found him alone, outside the captain’s quarter and upon the main deck at the furthest reach of the boat. For half a heartbeat, Chidi wondered if Bryant was considering jumping off. Do I leave him alone and go back down? Chidi asked herself. Or would he like some company too?

In the middle of her inner debate, Allambee climbed up out of the lower decking to join her. He grinned at her as he came on, his smile infectious to the point it pained Chidi’s cheeks.

“Hello, Chidi,” he said. “Marisa told me that you had come up for air and that I should join you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I was just about to go back down. I think Bryant prefers having some time alone.”

The cabin door behind her was opening before she had finished her sentence.

“How’s the word puzzle working out for you down there, partner?” Bryant asked. He smiled when Chidi faced him. “You ladies figure anything out yet about these keys we’re looking for?”

Chidi shook her head, despite his amusement.

“Yeah, I didn’t figure,” said Bryant. “If it helps, I been trying to put my big ol’ brain to the task.”

Chidi cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t have the symbols to look at . . .”

“Don’t need ‘em,” said Bryant. “’Cause I ain’t focused on whatever it is Miss Bourgeois is trying to translate. I’ve been trying to work out this whole five pieces of two thing she mentioned instead.”

“And?” Chidi asked.

Before Bryant could answer, Girard piped up instead. “Take it outside, will you?” he barked. “I go to sea for the quiet. Not to hear you lot gossip like a pack of ninnies.”

Bryant snorted, then waved Chidi and Allambee to follow him out onto the deck again. The Selkie marshal held the cabin door open for both, then firmly latched it behind him to not bother Girard any further.

Though she could hear Bryant grousing to Allambee about Girard as they both followed her outside, Chidi doubted that the captain of their journey would hear them over the speed with which his boat flew across the Salt. The moment she crossed the threshold of the cabin door, Chidi looked up at the night sky and drank deep of the salty, sea air. She had hoped to see the stars cast out over the darkened sky, finding not a single one to peek out among the rumbling and moving storm clouds overhead. Choosing one of the bench seats as the boat continued skipping over the water, Chidi looked back to Bryant with the question she had thought to ask inside. “Well? What did you come up with about Marisa’s five pieces of two?”

Bryant scratched at his whiskered cheeks. “Don’t rightly know as I can put a finger on it for certain. Guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around how something can be five pieces . . . but also be two at the same time.”

Chidi imagined Bryant felt as perplexed as she in the moment. As she was trying to think of a response, Allambee spoke up with one instead.

“There are five of us on this ship,” he said. “And two of them are women.”

Chidi turned cold at his words, even as Bryant scoffed.

“Schyeah. Now, that’d be a fun trick, wouldn’t it?” he asked, more to himself than Chidi or Allambee. “Spin this whole riddle and destiny talk on us. Meanwhile, she’s really just counting out how many of us are here.” He chuckled. “‘Course, she would make the part about two special pieces in reference to you ladies, huh?”

Chidi