By the time night had well and truly fallen, Jace and Katryn had assembled a pair of very passable shelters in the lee of the ship, made out of canvas and wood. It took some coaxing to get Sheiral out of the ship, even with it tilted at an odd angle on the beach. It took the promise of fresh fruit found by Jace to lure her out onto the sand, and even then only after it was made perfectly clear that none would be sent up for her if she didn’t come down.
As soon as she’d eaten her fill, she immediately sought to return to the Horizon Chaser.
“How comfortable could you be, sleeping on a tilted bunk?” Katryn asked.
“More comfortable than I’ll be on the ground,” Sheiral replied. “The last time I had anywhere truly comfortable to sleep, it was on Montaldo’s ship… and I was chained up! Anyway, I’d rather be uncomfortable and safe inside than uncomfortable and out here.”
“You’re perfectly safe right where you are,” Katryn assured her. “There’s nobody on the island but us, and probably nothing bigger than a rabbit.”
“There’s nothing bigger than a rabbit on the ship, either,” Sheiral said.
“Even still, I don’t want to leave you alone in there all night.”
“What about Loki?” Sheiral asked.
“That’s why I don’t want to leave you alone,” Katryn said. “At least out here, I can be sure there aren’t any malignant spirits whispering things in your ears.”
Jace had long since stopped paying attention to the exchange, which had been repetitive from the beginning, but at the word “spirits” his ears perked up. An idea popped into his head.
“You don’t suppose the island’s haunted, do you?” he asked suddenly. “I mean, if the mutineers all died here.”
“What?” Sheiral said. “You brought me to a haunted island?”
“No, Jace is just being silly,” Katryn said. “That happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Even if the mutineers had left behind some sort of ghosts, they’d be long gone by now.”
“Why?” Jace asked. “Ghosts don’t die of old age.”
“No, but I’m sure that after so long of haunting the same speck of rock and sand, they’d get fed up with the whole thing and just move on,” Kat said.
“That’s not how ghosts work,” Jace said, with a child-like certainty.
“How do they work?” Sheiral asked breathlessly.
“Now Jace is being stupid,” Kat said. “Or possibly he’s being marooned.”
Jace wasn’t paying attention to her, though. Sheiral’s interest in his words excited him and filled him with confidence, and so… even though he’d never given the subject much more than the sort of idle thoughts and imaginings that any young boy might have… he suddenly found himself an expert on ghosts.
“Well, ghosts hang around because they don’t want to let go of something, right?” Jace said. “If a spirit wants to keep something that badly, it’ll stick around forever, as long as that thing is still there to keep holding onto. And the ghost will try to stop anyone who tries to take it from them.”
“There you go,” Katryn said. “The mutineers were set down on this island with nothing but basic supplies. What would there be to keep them here?”
“Maybe the island itself,” Jace said. “Maybe they think it belongs to them. Maybe they’ll come after anyone who…”
“Well, we’re not trying to take the island,” Katryn said quickly, before Jace could lay down any lines they may have crossed. “We’re just here to look for their graves, which we’ll do very respectfully come first light. Don’t forget, until we find some proof, we don’t even know that the mutineers were even here.”
“But even if they weren’t, someone must have died here, at some point,” Jace said ghoulishly.
“Somebody still might,” Katryn said. “Let’s all just get some sleep. Come on, Sheiral. Goodnight, Jace.”
“Hey, before we go to bed, do you want you want to tell ghost stories?” Jace asked.
“Not even a little bit. Goodnight, Jace.”
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