The Ship of Lost Souls 1 Read Free Page A

lookin’ at?”
    Jem hadn’t noticed the man had come to a halt in front of him.
    â€œJem,” Uncle Finn murmured, sounding exasperated. To himself, he added, “Serves me right, really. I should have known better than to bring—”
    â€œShut up, ye,” their captor snarled. Uncle Finn’s mouth formed a small O, then snapped shut.
    â€œHaven’t ye ever . . .” The man squatted before Jem and pressed his face so close that in the dim lamplight Jem could count the pores on his jaundiced skin. His breath smelled sour and vaguely familiar. Rotten eggs? Cream left to clot in the sun? “Haven’t ye ever seen a pirate before?”
    Jem stared into the dark tunnel between the man’s front teeth, willed the jitters in his stomach to stop, and cocked his head to one side. “No,” he said.
    Of course he had never seen a pirate before. Nor had he, until two months ago, ever set foot on a ship that could cross one of the world’s largest oceans. He’d never been in the presence of seamen with muscles like coiled rope or felt the toss of thirty-foot waves or the need to chuck overboard into roiling black water. So how could he know if he was, in fact, in the presence of a real buccaneer, a Jack-tar, a chantey-singing sea swab? Or if they even existed?
    What would Master Davis think? Jem concentrated until he could hear his schoolmaster’s voice: “Pirates? Nothing but a figment of the imagination, Jem. And we all know what imagination is: illogical.”
    â€œNo,” Jem repeated, transferring his stare from the man’s teeth to his tarnished cutlass. “You’re not really a pirate, are you?”
    â€œJem, for God’s sake,” Uncle Finn said. “Now would be an excellent time to stop asking questions.” He turned to the man. “I’m sorry. Has to know everything, this one. Children these days. Question, question, question. It’s all they do, really . . .” Uncle Finn’s voice trailed off. The pirate shook his head, then rose and continued pacing.
    Jem thought about defending himself and his right to find out exactly what was going on, but he decided now wasn’t the time. Uncle Finn had no reason to get so irritated, though. He couldn’t exactly tow his nephew across the ocean to find some peculiar treasure tucked away on one of four dozen tropical islands that lay scattered like puzzle pieces in a monstrous, blue bathtub and not expect a question or two, now could he?
    Although, to be fair, Uncle Finn had explained a lot throughout their journey. Often, in fact, it had been hard to shut him up. Some nights he kept Jem awake studying maps and warning him of the dangers that awaited them in the tropics—stingrays, panthers, pirates with missing digits, even some disgruntled spirits that haunted the islands. Or so he said. More often, though, Uncle Finn kept him awake to memorize the Latin names of all the plants they’d encounter. Uncle Finn adored botany, but so far he hadn’t been able to pass on the obsession to his nephew, who found the subject dead boring.
    Still, Jem did owe his uncle some thanks, having convinced his parents to let him trade another year at the King’s Cross School for Boys for a chance to explore the world. The decision had come as a surprise. A shock, really. He and Uncle Finn had never been particularly close. In fact, Jem barely knew the man, aside from what he’d learned when the great explorer descended on his family’s house every few years to regale them with his tales from the tropics—the snakes he’d wrestled, the diseases he’d outwitted.
    Jem hadn’t even seen Uncle Finn in two years—not since his parents had enrolled him, despite his loudest protests and most exaggerated sighs, at the King’s Cross School for Boys. He actually hadn’t been home since. Not long after school began, Jem’s father