The Undead Captain Takes No Living - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Before my brother Leon disappeared, he sent me an empty seashell.

There was no pearl inside. No letter. Only the briny reek of the sea.

I pressed it to my ear and heard someone knock three times from within.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then came my brother’s voice.

“Lia, don’t get on the ship.”

That very night, I packed my bags.

It wasn’t that I was disobedient.

It was mainly because, ever since we were children, whenever my brother said “don’t,” something was definitely going on afterward.

For example, “Don’t tell Father I stole the horse.”

Or, “Don’t touch that lamp.”

Or three years ago, before he went to sea, when he crouched on the threshold, patted my head, and said, “Lia, don’t wait for me.”

I waited three years.

I waited until his name was crossed off the Navy’s roster, until House Melowen’s shop was emptied out by creditors, until everyone in the Royal Capital said Leon had long since died in the Mist Sea.

But dead men don’t send seashells.

And the Mist Sea doesn’t let people come back.

Unless that person boarded the Ghost Ship.

The Ghost Ship docks on the fifteenth of every month and stays for only an hour.

It doesn’t take the living.

It takes debts, takes corpses, takes the souls swallowed by the sea that still refuse to close their eyes.

To sneak aboard, I bought the cheapest Death Powder from a coffin shop, then spent three copper coins to have an old coroner paint me a dead person’s face.

The old coroner’s hands shook. When he finished, he looked at me and sighed.

“Miss, that face of yours doesn’t look like a dead person’s.”

I asked, “Then what does it look like?”

He was silent for a while.

“Like someone who was just angered to death.”

I endured it.

At midnight, fog surged in from beyond the docks.

There was no moon over the sea.

Only one pallid lamp after another slowly floated out of the mist.

Everyone on the pier knelt.

I knelt with them.

The moment my knees touched the damp planks, a fishwife beside me lowered her voice and cursed at me, “Lower your head. Don’t look.”

I lowered my head.

The next instant, the sound of water rang right beside my ear.

It didn’t sound like a ship docking.

It was more like an enormous coffin gently bumping against the world of the living.

Someone came down from the ship.

Their footsteps were very light.

But with every step they took on the planks, one lamp on the pier went out.

I clutched the little knife hidden in my sleeve, my heart pounding far too fast for a dead person.

“Next.”

The person in front handed over joss paper.

A crewman reached out and took it, his bone-white fingers rubbing the joss paper once.

“Death Debt of thirty-seven years. Approved.”

The man kowtowed, sobbing.

“Please, my lord aboard the ship, bring my mother back.”

The crewman did not answer. He only had the thin coffin behind the man carried aboard.

When it was my turn, I handed over the joss paper I had prepared long ago.

The joss paper was fake.

The name was fake too.

My identity said I was a washerwoman who had drowned at South Seven Pier, dead for two years, with no family or ties, and a soul debt left unpaid.

The crewman lowered his head and glanced at it.

Then he looked at me.

There was no flesh on his face, only a cluster of dark blue fire in each eye socket.

“Raise your head.”

I slowly lifted my eyes.

His bone knife pressed against my lower eyelid.

It was so cold I almost shivered.

“Don’t move.”

I didn’t move.

The tip of the knife lifted upward.

He stared into my eyes for half a breath.

Then he said, “Alive.”

Every lamp on the ship turned toward me at once.

I heard the people around me suck in sharp breaths.

The fishwife scrambled and crawled a little farther away from me.

I didn’t blame her.

If I were her, I would have crawled faster.

Two crewmen seized my shoulders, one on each side.

Their hands were very cold, not like human hands at all. More like stones freshly hauled up from the bottom of a well.

The little knife hidden in my sleeve fell to the floor.

With a ding.

It was humiliating.

And very crisp.

I wondered if it was too late to jump into the sea.

Suddenly, a voice came from above the deck.

“Let her go.”

The voice wasn’t loud.

But every crewman froze.

The fog parted from the bow, spreading to either side.

A man walked down.

A black cloak, silver clasps, and a narrow blade hanging at his waist.

He was young.

At least, he looked young.

His eyes and brows were cold, his lips pale, like snow that had yet to thaw.

But his shadow did not fall on the floor.

I stared at him for a second and understood at once.

This was the Undead Captain.

He walked up to me and looked down.

I looked back at him.

Then I froze.

A length of Red Cord was tied around his right wrist.

The Red Cord was so old it had darkened, and its end was tied in an ugly knot.

I was the one who had tied that knot.

Seven years ago, I saved a little boy from the bottom of a well in the Royal Capital.

He couldn’t speak. His whole body was covered in wounds, and someone had chained him to the wall of the well.

I cut the lock open for him. Afraid he might get lost, I tore a red thread from the hem of my dress and tied it around his wrist.

That day, he looked at me for a very long time.

Before he left, he used a pebble to write two words on the ground.

Don’t forget.

Later, I really didn’t.

I just never expected that, when we met again, he would have become the Undead Captain.

One of the crewmen said in a low voice, “Captain, she’s alive.”

The man’s gaze settled on my face.

For a long time.

So long I began to suspect he no longer recognized me.

At last, he spoke.

“She has died before.”

My throat tightened.

“I haven’t.”

He looked at me.

“Seven years ago. At the bottom of the well.”

All at once, I couldn’t say a word.

The crewmen didn’t seem to have expected him to explain either.

The Ghost Ship fell as silent as death.

The Captain held out his hand.

“Come up.”

I looked at that hand.

He wore black gloves. The back of his hand was thin, his knuckles long.

I didn’t take it.

“I’m looking for someone.”

He said, “The Ghost Ship does not search for people on behalf of the living.”

I said, “Then why did you just lie on behalf of someone alive?”

The crewman’s bone knife lifted again.

The Captain did not look back.

“Stand down.”

The bone knife lowered again.

I let out a breath of relief.

But then he bent down, picked up the little knife I had dropped, and handed it back to me.

“Ilya.”

My heart gave a violent leap.

He knew my name.

I took the knife and lowered my voice.

“Do you know where my brother is?”

He didn’t answer.

He only looked at the shell peeking out from my sleeve.

At some point, a crack had opened in that empty shell.

A little black water seeped from the crack.

His gaze changed.

Only for the briefest instant.

But I saw it.

“Who gave you that?”

“My brother.”

“What’s his name?”

“Leon.”

The Captain’s fingers tightened beneath his sleeve.

I heard the faint sound of leather being clenched.

After a moment of silence, he turned and walked deeper into the ship.

“Set sail.”

I panicked.

“You still haven’t told me!”

He didn’t stop.

“If you want to know, live until dawn.”

Before I could react, the deck beneath my feet suddenly lurched.

The dock receded before my eyes.

The lights on shore went out one by one.

The fish-selling auntie knelt among the crowd, looking up at me, her face full of terror.

Her lips moved.

I couldn’t hear her.

But I understood.

What she said was:

Don’t look back.