Captain Calico

Whispers Of A Storm Without End

By dawn, Whisperwind Harbor should have been noisy with gulls, fish crates, and sailors calling for rope. Instead it sounded as if the whole place were listening.

Captain Calico stood on the wet planks of Pier Nine with one boot on a coil of hawser and her striped tail tucked close against the wind.

“The storm’s still there,” murmured Old Netty from her bait stall.

She said it as if she had been speaking to it all night.

Calico looked from the cloud wall to the neat stacks of tea chests waiting for her ship. The merchants wanted the cargo delivered south before noon. The storm wanted something else.

Behind him, the crew of the Fury moved in quiet little bursts. Hands checked knots. A deck brush slapped against the scuppers. Somewhere aboard, someone thumped a barrel lid into place. No one laughed.

A bell rang twice from the fog tower. Another answered from across the basin, thin and worried.

Old Netty leaned over her stall. “Three boats came in after moonrise. Two without masts. One with no one at the tiller.”

Calico turned. “No one?”

“Tillerman gone,” she said. “Rope still tied where his paws should have been.”

A fishmonger crossed himself with a sardine knife. Two gulls flapped down, decided the harbor mood was wrong, and flapped away again.

Calico had heard harbor tales before. Every port made stories out of rain and darkness.

She stepped to the edge of the pier and watched the black line of weather. It did not drift east. It did not break apart. It sat there and breathed.

Footsteps pattered behind him.

“Captain! Captain, I folded the signal flags twice. So they stay dry longer.” The speaker puffed out his chest after the report as if that made him taller.

Pip was small even for a kitten, all paws and bright eyes and orange-tabby stripes.

Calico glanced down. “Twice?”

“And I wrapped the blue pennant in wax cloth. And I checked the tinderbox. And I counted the flare rockets.

“That last order is the most important one,” said Calico.

Pip nodded at once. “I have obeyed it perfectly.”

A corner of Calico’s mouth twitched. “Good work.”

Pip leaned closer and lowered his voice, though not enough. “Is it true the storm around Tailwind never ends? Bosun Reed says it chases ships that brag.”

Bosun Reed, crossing the gangplank with a cask on one shoulder, snorted. “I said it follows fools who sail half-ready.”

Pip looked offended. “That’s not nearly as interesting.”