The Star We Sail By

Excerpt

The Star We Sail By
Glenn Quigley © 2024
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

“It is the waves which break—not I.” Felix Diamond repeated this refrain to himself over and over again as he picked his way through the hustle and bustle of the Port Knot docklands. His personal maxim acted as a lifeline, leading him through any given storm and safely back to shore.

The ship on which he served had arrived at dawn to an already cluttered harbour. Without a word to his crewmates, Felix had stepped off and made straight for town. On that early December morning in 1781, the air was soft and wet, and the light thin. With his breath clouding about him, he pushed through the market, ignoring the stench of fish guts. Bundles of fresh flowers hung next to rows of empty birdcages. Furs from several kinds of animals sat in high piles on salt-rotten tables. Books and pamphlets on all manner of topics—from rumours about revolution in France to condemnations of the town’s new street lamps—cluttered several stalls. Cranes creaked as they unloaded goods from all four corners of the world. At the roofless court house nearby, hammers struck nails and men shouted obscenities and instructions in equal measure.

Felix had not long turned twenty-four and had the pinkish skin of a man who worked at sea in all weathers. He wore a short beard the colour of strong coffee, and a single curl dropped from beneath his woollen cap, coming to rest on his brow. The small gap between his front teeth whistled as he shouted away a mangy dog sniffing about his legs.

On the corner of Bibbler’s Brook, a man in a white frock coat embellished with seafoam-green oak leaves stood under a five-sided street lamp, working a long, knobbly, metal pole into its head. The light within the lamp dimmed first, then disappeared entirely. Two more dogs chased one other along the narrow, cobbled road and ran straight past the lamplighter. He jumped away and shouted at the young boys who, hooting and chattering, chased at full pelt after the dogs. Farther along, someone flapped a sheet out of a high window to give it an airing while a woman with a bony horse and slender cart collected odds and sods she found on the road.

The Star We Sail By stood on a bend in Bibbler’s Brook, not far from the harbour, on the north-eastern side of town. Its slim front doors nestled neatly between two jutting bay windows. Felix lingered at the locked front doors and tilted his head. Above the entrance, the prow of a sailing boat jutted out as a balcony for the first floor. Its masthead, called Atlas by the townsfolk, had seen better days. Shaped like a rotund and entirely naked gentleman whose modesty was halfheartedly covered with only a single, sheer ribbon, its paintwork curled like pages from an old book. Atlas held a murky stained glass star in its outstretched hands as if catching it or perhaps offering it to the weary traveller who stopped by.

Felix hesitated before taking two keys from his pocket. He found the first too small for the lock. The second fitted snugly. He turned it. Several bolts clicked and clanked. He readied himself and pushed the doors open. Inside, cracks of light pierced the rickety shutters. A shiny beetle scurried across the dusty bar. The tables held sticky pools of dried beer and gin. Tankards and glasses lay on their sides, some smashed on the wooden floor. Ashes sat undisturbed in the fireplace, and at the rear of the room, a little stage with tatty purple curtains stood primed but empty, like a broken promise.

“About time you opened.” A scruffy, unshaven man with a grog blossom nose had slipped in through the door unnoticed. He threw open the rest of the shutters in the windows, flooding the room with light, then coughed at the cloud of dust they released.

“I’m not open,” Felix said. “Please get out.”

“I’ve been here every morning for days. Days, I tell you!” the man said. “I’ve been practically homeless without this place.”

“I said get out.” His duffel bag slumped to the floor, and he readied himself to kick the man out if he had to. He hoped the man wouldn’t notice his rapid breathing.

“Don’t get all worked up,” the man said. He held his hands up and sat on a stool by the bar. “I don’t mean any harm. It’s nice to be home again.” He squinted at the sailor. “You’re the nephew, aren’t you? The one that ran away? The seaman. Fenton?”

“Felix.” He relaxed his hands and opened the other shutters. Clearly, this man wasn’t going anywhere.

“I’m Tassiter, since you didn’t ask,” the man said. “Dick Tassiter.” He had beady eyes and straggly hair, and a face like a crumpled shirt abandoned at the bottom of the wardrobe. He eyed the bottles of gin lining a shelf behind the bar. “I’m your uncle’s best customer. Or I was.”

Felix peeked around a corner to the stairs. “He hasn’t been open for a while?”

“It’s been three days since those doors last opened. Three long, dry, thirsty days,” Tassiter said. “I thought I was cursed to wander the world forevermore without a drop to drink.” He pointed to one of the bottles. “Do you mind if I…?”

“Help yourself,” Felix said. He climbed the stairs.

The ground floor of the Star We Sail By held the bar and stage, the next floor had little round tables and a handful of booths with their own privacy curtains. Felix opened the glass doors to the sailboat balcony and stepped out to the briny air. A gull landed on the gunwale of the sailboat for a moment before Felix shooed it away. He leaned on the balcony and surveyed Bibbler’s Brook. The little road had changed quite a lot since he’d last been there. Tall, thin buildings, likely home to dozens of people, had replaced the little cottages which used to stand across from the Star. The road also now held a handful of street lamps, and one of the Entries—the network of crisscrossing alleyways which acted like arteries for the town—now held a clamorous and well-stocked cooperage.

He finished his little tour of the Star in his old bedroom on the third and topmost floor. The furniture was different, the smell was different, but the room’s only window still overlooked a small graveyard and beyond it—across a short stretch of water—the little island which was home to the gaolhouse and lighthouse. He’d grown up in that room though he could tell from the wear and tear it hadn’t stood fallow in his absence. He trod on a loose floorboard by the bed. It squeaked. Some things would never change.

He stepped into his uncle’s room, finding the bed unmade and some clothes strewn about. Nothing unusual about it at all. His uncle had never been what one might call houseproud.

Muffled voices from downstairs caught his ear and he arrived back at the bar to find out who had been keeping Dick Tassiter company. A pair of arms circled Felix’s waist from behind, and he staggered forward with a shout.

“Don’t move a muscle.”

He broke free of the grip and spun on his heels to find a laughing woman his own age, maybe a few years older. She had short, blonde hair, shadowy eyes, and wore a military jacket from the Chase Trading Company, but dyed black instead of the traditional emerald green. In his shock, it took him a moment to recognise who she was and who she had been when he last lived here.

She slunk off and slouched onto the bench that ran across the longest wall. She produced from her jacket pocket a thin pipe. She tipped some tobacco in and flicked open a clockwork striker. Sparks leapt from it, igniting the tobacco. She snapped the striker closed and drew on the end of the pipe. Smoke curled from her nose. “Cousin Felix,” she said. “Or are you still going by Lucky?”

“I never did. You’re the only one who called me that. Well, you and Tenner.”

“He won’t be happy to see you back. How long has it been since you’ve been home? Five years?”

“Ten,” he said. “Give or take.” He sat facing her. He realised he was clenching his fists. “You’ve changed since I’ve been away.”

She laughed and dragged on her pipe again. “We’re supposed to change,” she said. “That’s sort of the whole point, isn’t it? Though I prefer to think of it as outgrowing my old sex, as a blossom does a bud.”

“I take it I can’t use your old name so what do I call you now?”

“Dahlia,” she said, her voice husky but melodic, rusted from too much tobacco and whiskey. “What brings you back our way?”

“Uncle Gregory wrote to me, asking me to come home.”

Dahlia frowned, just for a moment. “When?”

“A couple of days ago.”

Her eyes blazed. “When?”

Felix clenched his fists harder. “I received a letter from him on the thirtieth. I came back as soon as I could.”

Dahlia studied Felix’s face intently. He had the distinct impression she was checking to see if he was lying.

“Where is Uncle Gregory?” Felix asked.

Dahlia inhaled her pipe again. “Rather a good question,” she said, leaning back. “It seems you received your letter just before dear old Uncle Gregory disappeared.”