Seven Wonders Journals 1: The Select. Peter Lerangis

of Gibraltar had long faded from sight. Eight days into the voyage, I was making progress in understanding Malay. Not to mention many of the saltier words and phrases used by these men in many other languages. I tried to help as often as I could, but the men treated me as if I were a small child. I must have seemed like one to them. My headaches were becoming more frequent, so I often went belowdecks to rest. Father would often join me for a card game or conversation.

      It was during one of the games that we heard a scream above.

      We raced upward. What we saw knocked us back on our heels.

      The freshening sky had given way to an explosion of black clouds. They billowed toward us as if heaven itself had suddenly ruptured. Captain Kurtz was shoving sailors toward the mainsail sheets, shouting commands. First Mate Grendel, so quiet I’d thought he had no voice, was shrieking from the fo’c’sle, rousing the sailors.

      The Enigma lurched upward. As it smacked back to the water, men fell to the deck. The wind sheared across the ship and the mainsail ripped down the center with a loud snap. In the thunder’s boom, I stood, paralyzed, not knowing how to help. Rain pelted me from all directions. I saw a flash of lightning, followed by an unearthly crack. The mizzenmast split in two, falling toward me like a redwood. A hand gripped my forearm and I flew through the rain, tumbling to the deck with Father. As we rolled to safety, I saw the crumpled body of a sailor pinned to the deck by a jagged splinter of the mast.

      I tried to help, but my feet slipped on the planks. The ship tilted to starboard as if launched by a catapult. I was airborne, flailing. All I saw beneath me was the sea, black and bubbling. Three sailors, screaming, disappeared into the water. I thought I would be propelled after them, but my shoulder caught the top of the gunwale railing. I cried out in pain, bouncing back hard to the deck.

      “Sea monster!” a voice called out. “Sea monster!” It was the sailor named Llewellyn, dangling over the hull.

      I held tight to the railing. Beneath me was a horrifying groan. I took it to be the strain on the keel’s wood planking. I looked downward and saw the churn of a vast whirlpool.

      In its center was a man’s arm, quickly vanishing.

      Where was Father? I looked around, suddenly terrified by the thought that the arm might have been his. But with relief I saw him coming toward me, clutching the railing. “Come!” he cried out.

      He grabbed my forearm. The ship was rocking. I heard a deathly cry. Llewellyn’s grip had loosened and he was dropping into the sea. I pulled away to try to grab him. “It’s too late!” Father insisted, forcing me toward the battened-down hatch.

      He yanked it open, shoving me toward the ladder. Overhead I thought I heard the flapping of wings. A frightening high-pitched chitter. “What is that?” I called out.

      “Must be the angels, lost in the wind! Looking out for us!” Father shouted, trying desperately to be cheerful. “Now go!”

      My fingers, wet and slippery, untwined from Father’s. I fell from the ladder. Before my voice could form a cry, my head hit the deck below.

      I awoke squinting.

      To heat. To blaring light through the cabin porthole.

      The sun!

      Immediately my heart jumped with relief. The storm, the whirlpool, the devilish noises—had it all been a dream?

      I called for Father, but he was by my side. I felt his hand holding mine.

      “How’s the boy?” came First Mate Grendel’s voice.

      I willed my eyes fully open. Father’s hair was a rat’s nest, his face bruised, his spectacles gone. His shirt had torn and now hung in strips off his shoulders. I knew in that instant that the storm had been no dream.

      Father chuckled and turned to Grendel, replying, “He’s awake.”

      “Aye, good,” Grendel said. “There’ll be four of us, then.”

      I gripped Father’s hand. The words chilled me. “Only four of us remain?” I asked.

      “I thank God,” Father said softly, “that I am holding the most important of them.”

      “We’re not likely to last much longer if we can’t rig the ship to sail again,” Grendel said grimly. “And with the masts all snapped off, I don’t—”

      I heard a sudden shout from above. Musa. The fourth survivor.

      “Can’t understand the blasted fellow,” Grendel said. “Too much trouble for him to learn English, I suppose—”

      “‘Land,’” I said.

      Grendel stared at me. “Say what?”

      “Musa,” I explained. “He said, ‘land.’”

      Grendel raced away from us, up the ladder. Father followed, then I, on shaky legs.

      Abovedecks, I nearly reeled backward from the intense daylight. Where roiling fists of blackness had smothered us, now the sun blazed in a dome of cotton-flecked blue. Musa’s face was streaked with tears, his gap-toothed smile resembling the keys of a small piano. Dancing wildly, he gestured over the port bow.

      On the watery horizon was a distant frosting of yellow green.

      Schwenk. Coopersmith. Martins. Vizeu. Pappalas. Roark. Llewellyn. Finney. Gennaro. Caswell …

      Grendel recited the sailors’ names, placing for each a perfect seashell on a mound of sand. Reciting a prayer, he touched the white scrimshaw that hung around his neck on a leather strip: a crucifix carved into the cross section of a whale’s tooth.

      The battered Enigma lay anchored out to sea, tilted to starboard. It rocked on gentle swells, its timbers groaning in ghastly rhythm to Grendel’s prayers. I felt the heat of the pink-yellow sand through the soles of my shoes. Behind us, a thick scrim of jungle greenery stretched in both directions. Animals cawed and screeched, unseen. A great mountain loomed in the distance, black and ominous, as if the storm itself had gathered to the spot and magically solidified.

      Earlier we had managed to reach the shore via rowboat. All morning and into the afternoon we had traveled to and from our wounded ship, salvaging kerosene, sailcloth, wood, a small amount of salt beef and hardtack, a leather pack, a sopping wet blanket, and Father’s revolver—the only firearm that had not been submerged in seawater and damaged. Miraculously I also found this journal, relatively dry and not yet used, which I put directly into my pocket—and a pencil. Everything else had either washed away or been ruined.

      I had helped Musa and Grendel build four small tent huts, then briefly explored the jungle, finding a flat stone into which I scratched my name. Father had just unloaded and cleaned the gun, and he gave me a lesson in its use. He’d been unable to find extra ammunition, so we had only five bullets for hunting and protection. Accuracy would be essential. I was skittish about shooting, but Father scoffed. “Your aim was excellent when you were spitting wadded-up papers at your schoolmates!” he reminded me.

      Now, as Grendel prayed, I bowed my head. But I could not concentrate due to a prickly sensation at the nape of my neck. I had the feeling I was being watched. I turned.

      A shadow slipped from the trees toward Grendel.

      “Behind you!” I cried out.

      The little creature was swift, a scraggily monkey with one eye missing and a wicked grin. It snatched the scrimshaw from Grendel’s neck, scooting back into the jungle with a triumphant, chattering cry.

      Grendel bellowed a string of words I was not supposed to know. Grabbing the gun, he added, “I understand monkey meat’s a grand delicacy, and I’m hungry. Who’s coming with me?”

      Father eyed him warily. “Can you shoot? We have too few bullets to waste on revenge.”

      “Marksman, highest level in the army,” Grendel replied. “And I ain’t planning to go far. Let me bring the boy. He’ll