He was as tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.
“Do you remember when we first met? I thought I had strayed into a dream. Long years have passed... You did not have the cares you carry now. Do you remember what I told you? You said you’d bind yourself to me, forsaking the immortal life of your people. And to that I hold. I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone. I choose a mortal life.” – Arwen Undómiel, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
There was an unseasonable chill creeping into the air as Hamish Reid set about lighting the lanterns aboard the deck of the schooner named Casco. The weather had been fine for weeks, the sun beating down hard upon their backs during the day and the stars cascading across the sky like a shimmering sea of shattered glass at night. Hamish had found himself praying for clouds, of the familiar sort that tucked in damp and close around the shores of the Firth of Clyde. He hadn’t known you could miss such things until he found himself in this place, desperate for a moment’s reprieve from this wide, hot, and foreign sky. In the failing light he could see the clouds that were finally looming on the horizon, but they were tall and deep purple, not the muted greys of home, and the air already felt sharp and pregnant with the weight of an angry storm brewing. Perhaps he’d sent up one prayer too many. He hadn’t considered that he might be tempting fate. Or perhaps his prayers had simply been heard by the wrong god. There were stories about these waters, and the false heathen deities that still clung to their depths.
“Boo!”
Hamish leapt back from the rail, the still-smoking taper in his hand falling over the side as he spun. “Jesus Christ!” he hissed. “Fuck’s sake, Philip, don’t do that! I nearly shat myself.”
Philip sniggered, leaning against the rail at Hamish’s side, while William, the Carpenter’s Mate, stood laughing behind him.
“You were miles away. Couldn’t resist,” Philip said, looking out towards the horizon. “That storm looks nasty. Should pass east of us, but the Captain’s changing course just in case.”
As though it could hear them, a long, low rumble of thunder rolled across them, and Hamish felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Don’t get too close to the edge,” William said. “Long John Silver’ll get you. He sails these waters, prowling along the edges of the storms just waiting for men to go overboard. Your soul won’t even make it as far as purgatory.”
“You’re talking shite,” Hamish said, but he took a step back from the rail, just in case.
“You think so, do you? Calypso conjures the storms, he collects the souls,” William went on. “Everyone knows it. She cursed him. Bound him to his ship in servitude forever. He can’t make port; can’t eat or drink; can’t feel the touch of any woman. Ever. An eternity of solitude with nothing on the horizon but empty seas and violent storms. And all because she heard him telling stories about her, doubting her power. The offence had to be answered, see, so she proved her power to him once and for all.”
“That’s not how I heard it,” Philip interjected. “Who’ve you been talking to? They were in love. Or at least, he loved her. Don’t know that a god could ever truly love a man. She took a fancy to him at any rate. Then one day he went overboard. New sail was being hauled aloft, or something of the like, and the lashing snapped. He went clean over the edge, knocked out cold. He should’ve drowned, but she saved him. His whole crew saw it: a mermaid with hair as red as flame, hauling him back above the waves, blowing air into his nostrils to keep the water out. That was when they knew for sure just how far he had her favour.”
William looked sceptical. “Yeah right. If they loved each other then why would she curse him, eh?” He raised his eyebrows to emphasise just how clearly infallible he considered his logic to be.
Philip snorted. “She cursed him because he broke her heart. He betrayed her. Ancient gods might not be able to love, but no-one else is capable of such fathomless hate.”
“That’s not what Mr Calvin said,” Hamish blurted out, and he cleared his throat as two sets of eyes focused on him. “He said she betrayed him, and then he tried to cut his own heart out rather than live with the pain of it. That’s why he became so corrupted. She ruined him. He was barely even human after that. He was supposed to ferry souls to the afterlife in safety, not keep them from it.”
William shrugged, and said, “Yeah, well, whatever the truth of it, the stories are all the same in the end. He’s a man made monstrous. There’s no end to his appetite for cruelty. Any goodness in him turned to hate. Any kindness into rage. He shows no quarter, and the only mercy he ever offers is a quick death.”
“Unless you’ve got red hair,” Philip said, scrubbing a hand over Hamish’s head and earning a punch in the arm for it. “He has a soft spot for redheads. They remind him of her.”
“You’ve got it backwards,” said William, shaking his head. “That’s exactly why they’re always the first to go. Hard luck, Hamish lad. It was nice knowing you.”
“Fuck off,” muttered Hamish, smoothing his hair down. “Maybe we should talk about something else.” The air was feeling colder by the minute, and the goosebumps spreading up his arms were only making him feel more tense.
“Afraid he’s going to hear us?” William teased. “Don’t be such a milksop. They’re just stories.”
“I know that,” Hamish said quickly. “They don’t even make sense anyway. If he was a man of flesh and blood once then there’d still be some way to reason with him, to gain his mercy. Even if it was by a trick. There’s always a way, even in stories. No-one has a heart of stone.”
“I don’t have a heart at all.”
At the sound of the voice, all three of them leapt back against the rail, and Hamish thought his heart might hammer its way right through his ribcage. His pulse was roaring in his ears, though it was difficult to distinguish it from the thunder rolling overhead.
From out of the lantern-lit gloom a figure appeared. His gait was odd and lilting, and his every other step thudded hollowly against the decking. He wasn’t all that tall, but he seemed to fill the dark and loom over them nonetheless.
“Who’s that?” William called, the first to find his voice again. “Tom? You’re not fucking funny, mate.”
“Mm, no, not so funny these days, you’re right,” the man said, finally illuminated by the nearest lantern. “I was though. Once upon a time.”
Hamish felt his knuckles crack as his grip on the rail tightened. The thrum of blood in his ears had turned to ringing and he wondered whether he was going to pass out and hit the deck. Maybe he was ill. Maybe this was all just some strange fever dream.
The man seemed to be waiting for them to speak again, his eyes unnaturally blue in the low light.
“Long John Silver?” Hamish breathed, suddenly too certain of the truth of it to feel foolish in saying it out loud.
“The very same,” Silver replied, with a smile. It was wide and easy, but there was no kindness behind it. It looked like an old habit warped into something cruel.
Up close now Hamish could see him clearly. His hair was long and dark and wild, fighting free of its loose binding; crisp curls casting a halo around him in the lamp light, like the pale foam upon a storm-tossed sea. Here and there among it were trinkets braided in: cowry and auger shells; sleek blue-black feathers; and even what looked like the bones from a human toe, fixed in place with silver beads and neat threads. There was an air of the carefully kept about them, at odds with the chaos of the rest. His ears too glinted with silver rings that were tarnished with age, but looked to be maintained out of some sense of sentiment.
He didn’t look so monstrous, Hamish thought. Not in the ways his own imagination had constructed, at least. Indeed, he might even have been considered handsome by some, in his way, with his round, boyish face and those bright eyes and white teeth. But as Hamish looked closer he saw the wet patches of mottled grey-green on his skin, that looked like the rot of flesh submerged for days, and the odd barnacle that clung on along the edge of his rough beard. There were scars in places, like wide pockmarks, where other such unwelcome stowaways had been dug out with the point of a blade, or with impatient gouging fingernails. He looked half a dead thing; the other half simply hadn’t realised it yet.
“What do you want with us?” William said, and Hamish jumped a little as he remembered that he wasn’t alone with this apparition.
“Want? Who said I want anything?” Silver said, thumping another pace forward.
Hamish’s gaze dropped to his feet, and he saw that in place of a left leg stood a splintered and sea-worn wooden peg. Perhaps it had once been the handle of an oar - it was of that size and shape - but it looked to be a part of him now, fused to his flesh in lieu of bone and gristle, and bleached by the sun and the salt.
“Did your mothers never warn you?” Silver continued. “Talk of the Devil, and he shall appear.”
“Sir, please!” Philip said, his voice desperate and high. “We meant no harm. They were just ghost stories. That’s all. Please. If you leave us be then we’ll never speak of you again. We swear it. We can tell anyone who’ll listen never to tell stories about you. Not ever.”
Silver laughed, the sound of it almost drowned out by the rumble of the storm now roiling directly overhead. “And why would I want you to do that? I always loved stories. You were right. That is how he found me.”
“How who found you?” Philip whispered.
“Calypso,” Silver said. “Half the truth between the three of you, and yet the little details always end up lost, don’t they?”
They pressed their backs harder against the rail as Silver took another step closer, barely four feet away. His shirt was ragged, hanging open down the full length of his sternum, and Hamish saw that there was a tattoo on the left side of his chest: a mermaid with red hair. No, not a mermaid, a merman. Its flowing hair fanned out around it, its tail coiled over his heart, but a jagged and vicious looking scar ran through it, slicing it in two.
Silver’s eyes followed Hamish’s gaze, and he reached up and pulled his shirt open wider. “He betrayed me,” Silver said. “He broke my heart. Beyond repair. So I did what you do with all things that are broken irreparably: I cast it aside.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Hamish breathed, cold dread trickling down his spine. His knees felt loose and weak. He didn’t think he could stay standing for much longer.
“I so rarely have a captive audience these days. Seems a shame to waste the opportunity,” Silver replied, stepping closer still. “And besides, it adds a much needed flair of the dramatic to the whole proceedings.”
Some days later, when the crew of a fishing boat came across the schooner Casco drifting with the current, their first thought was that the crew must have abandoned ship in the storm. Strange though that there was no damage above the waterline that they could clearly see. The masts remained, the sails were neatly furled, and the hull looked to be intact. Perhaps then she had simply broken free of her mooring, drawn out into the open sea by the gusting winds. When they boarded her, however, and found her crew drowned, to a man, in even the most watertight bowels of the hold, their clothes sodden and their skin greying and slick, they began to understand. As they fled the ship, feet skidding across the deck in their scramble to escape, desperate prayers flooded out of them as they turned on the spot and spat on the deck to ward off the evil spirit responsible. But it was as they sailed away and caught sight of the figurehead, thick ropes of kelp binding her to a corpse with red hair and a cavernous wound in place of a heart, that the name Long John Silver came whispering past their lips. The stories told themselves after that.
