'Are you alright?' she asked me, helping me to stand. Her eyes said You don't look alright, not at all. Tell Trollmother all about it.

I sighed and paced the room, watched by her patient kindness.

'What's going on? Where--' I looked at her as I voiced my question and she didn't say anything. 'What are they fighting about? How did the Captain turn Brad into a llama? How?'

My insistence brought a smile from the old woman, but she clearly couldn't give me anwswers.

'I don't know who I am.'

She patted the seat next to her and I took it, pouting, confused, hopeless.

'Listen. Who you are is nothing more than what you do.'

I choked on this. 'How do I know what to do?'

'You don't. That's the bit you just have to make up as you go.'

This wasn't comforting.

Trollmother left the room hurriedly when a girl-pirate knocked and came in with fear and desperation all over her face. I wasn't tired anymore, so I followed her.

I shouldn't have.

The shadow of the ship they were attacking was fading into the twilight. If it had been pitch black maybe I would've been less frightened. As it was the grey shapes of fighting pirates looked dangerously chaotic and at the same time sharply direct in their violence. Trollmother was brought to the fallen, the bloody, the maimed. They smelled of gore and sweat. I was enlisted, no questions asked, to help staunch the flow of blood, to wipe fevered brows, and to drag unconscious bodies out of the melee.

It was not fun.

The sun had, for the most part, gone down but it was still terribly hot. There weren't many wounded, but there were enough to clutter the deck, to fill the air with pained moaning. When everything finally calmed down it was well into the night. The stars looked down, cold and bright, and watched as Malory's crew tied up their prisoners and looted the ship. It had finally turned cold but I was still warm with exhaustion and stress. I don't remember being brought below deck to bed, but I woke up there to an early apple pie. Well, it seemed early anyway. Maybe I'd slept late.

After my pie I took a short bath, feeling rather guilty about it. I found my plaid clothes hung in the wardrobe and put them on, glad that they were clean and glad that they were mine. Trollmother came in briefly and told me in a reassuring voice that no one had died, and the morning had come bright and clear. When she'd gone I decided to feed Blue.

'Come on Blue,' I said, taking her out of her cage. She sat and nibbled her breakfast in my palm. I let her run around the floor for a bit, following her under Trollmother's bed, ready to snatch her back if she went to far. It was dusty under there.

Somewhat occupied, too.

'Yar,' the voice was soft but menacing. 'Who be yer? Whatcher doin' down 'ere?'

I scrambled out from under the bed without Blue, not sure what had actually just happened. Was there really...well, it sounded like a pirate...was there really somebody....why would they be under the bed?

I had to find Blue before she disappeared through some crack or hole in the wall. And I was curious. I folded up the covers and kneeled down to look.

'Yaaaaarrrrr!' the thing yelped and there was a series of thuds. Blue shot out and crawled up the leg of my trousers. I grabbed her and backed away from the bed.

I was speechless, watching the hand that emerged, its green and yellow mottled fingers covered with rings and a jigsaw of smeary tatoos. It gripped the floor and dragged an elbow out into the room. Blue shivered and squeaked. I shivered and backed further into the wall. As far as I could. My bare toes went cold. The arm was followed by a tattered rag of a sleeve, so old and worn I could see through it to the greasy tatoos on the shoulder.

His head appeared next, cursing and angry. And uglier than anything I'd ever seen before. I cringed as the creature stood up and lurched sideways. The clothes he wore were stretched and full of holes, dangling rather than being worn. His ears were small and sticking out at odd angles, and they looked ...moldy. As he lurched again I started to look apprehensively at the door, but I wastn't truly terrified until I noticed I could...no, not really..I couldn't...not... but I could, yes I really could, see the pattern of Trollmother's comforter through the sickeningly gooey-looking skin of this...this thing.

I tried to scream but somewhere between all the fear and disgust it became a strangled gurgle.

'Har Harr, yer look so skeered 'n all. Whassat rat yer got thar?'

The thing pulled out a dagger and held it pointing straight at Blue. I shifted away from him and all my fear condensed into a heavy astonishment. Still nervous, I tried to find my voice.

'Who the heck,' I said, 'are you?'

'An' who be yer ter be askin', arr?'

At this I became slightly indignant, shifting some more, away from the knife, 'I asked you first.'

He sneered and snorted another laugh. In my efforts to get away from the ugly, transparent pirate, I tripped over my boots and almost dropped Blue.

'Arr, getap yer.' He held out a hand but I didn't take it. I stood up awkwardly with one hand full of gerbil, my barefeet collecting splinters from the rough wood floor. That knife was still pointedly accusing me of who knows what, and I was running out of room to move.

'Tell me why ye was peekin' under me bed,' he demanded. 'Else I'll skewer yer lungs fer me afternoon tea.'

I breathed, trying to calm down, and lied to myself about the likelyhood that he'd really impale my internal organs on that rather short, but nonetheless gleaming and sharp blade.

'I was just..My gerbil...' I proffered my hands, which held the quivering rodent. 'She crawled under the bed and I went to get her back, that's all.'

His eyes sharpened and glared at me, but he eventually put away his weapon and introduced himself as Ivan the Terrible, three-quarters sea-ghost, other quarter zombie.

'Zombie?'

'Yup. Me gran'fatha was a zombie. Gimme that rat thing.'

His tone was so authoritative I almost surrendered the poor gerbil.

'Hey. No. What do you want Blue for?'

'Givit 'ere, girlie.'

His hand was fingering the handle of the knife in his belt.

'No.'

I looked at the door, but the bed and Ivan's terribleness were both inbetween me and it. His eyes narrowed as he continued to demand that I give him Blue. I wondered if the portholes in the wall opened and if I could get out through them without drowning... Or if I could make myself scream loud enough and if I did if it would do any good.

'Listen girlie. Rats en't 'llowed in ther Catface. Captain's orders. Givit 'ere.'

'She's not a rat! Get away from me!'