Salted (9781310785696) Read online

  SALTED

  Salt Series: Book One

  Aaron Galvin

  ***

  Copyright 2014 by Aaron Galvin

  Smashwords Edition

  Edited by Annetta Ribken. You can find her at www.wordwebbing.com

  Copy Edits by Jennifer Wingard. www.theindependentpen.com

  Photo by Kyle McBurnie. kylemcburnie.com

  Cover Design by Greg Sidelnik gregsidelnik.com

  Ebook formatting by Valerie Bellamy www.dog-earbookdesign.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either figments of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Find out more about Aaron Galvin and the Salt Series:

  Website: www.aarongalvin.com

  Salted fanpage: www.facebook.com/saltseries

  Twitter: twitter.com/aarongalvin5

  ***

  for Karen,

  who has waited on this longer than anyone.

  &

  for Mom,

  who is still holding out for the audiobook.

  LENNY

  Lenny Dolan never asked for a Salted life. No one smart ever did.

  But unlike those poor wretches stolen from the surface and dragged into the depths, Lenny didn’t have anything with which to compare his Salt existence. Born in the realm beneath the waves, he knew of no other life until his owner raised him up and gave him a profession.

  None of Lenny’s fellow catchers bothered to stir when he woke screaming from a night terror, two hours past. Each recognized the cries associated with guilt’s icy stabs and the shaded memories of those they hauled back into lives of Salt slavery.

  Lenny shivered in his hammock crafted of worn trawler nets. Fear is for runnas not catchas. Don’t run from it. Become it.

  He tossed the molded blanket aside and swung his stunted legs free of the bedding. Lenny winced at the cold onslaught when his bare feet grazed the cavern floor. He did not pull away. Once his feet numbed, he slunk through the maze of sleeping bodies.

  Lenny had grown quite good at slinking over the years, admittedly not hard for one of his stature. He tested the hinges of the rotted driftwood door. It threatened to fall off but held. He thanked the Ancients for their mercy and slipped out of the shack.

  Morn had not yet graced Crayfish Cavern. Some might have risked a torch to ward off the near absolute dark and light their way to the docks. Lenny did not. Doing so would only attract unwanted attention from whichever taskmaster had drawn the early watch. Not to mention the accompanying ten lashes for being outside of quarters without leave. Instead, he used the glittering stalactites, high in the stony ceiling, to guide him. Like countless glittering stars, they winked at him as if to warn they kept watch where taskmasters’ eyes could not follow. Declan Dolan had taught his son the use of them as a pup. They had yet to fail him.

  Lenny caught a dank smell in the air, rife with the blended stench of body odor, vomit, and excrement. He recognized it for a fresh slave crop come down the Gasping Hole. Not for the first time, he wondered why the taskmasters didn’t have the newest catches cleaned upon their arrival. Soon enough the lucky amongst them would earn a Selkie suit. The others…

  He snorted the scent away and continued on. Even now, with no one to see, he avoided the boardwalk. Bad habits led to accidents and Lenny sought no more of those. He waddled alongside the boardwalk, trading the slave stink for that of seaweed hung to dry from the tops of six-foot racks.

  Barrels lined the dock, each of them brimming with fresh ocean crops—Atlantic cod and haddock, littleneck clams, mussels, and oysters. All awaited surface delivery for the Boston fish markets.

  Lenny’s stomach grumbled at the sights and smells of the fresh and untouched food. He hurried past, lest temptation overpower his sensibilities, not stopping until he reached the oldest dock. Its wooden beams remained in drastic need of a repair that would never come. He hopscotched over the barren spaces toward the dock edge, leaned over the side to look down.

  The cavern ceiling gave the ocean waters an eerie, greenish glow. Three-foot waves struck the thick, barnacle-encrusted pillars. Lenny felt a giddy rush as they shook the rickety wooden pier. The receding tide beckoned him come hunt, then another series of waves rushed to shake the pier anew.

  Lenny reached behind his shoulders for the soft and fuzzy hood draped down his backside. Smoky grey and adorned with white circles of varying sizes, it hung from what Drybacks would say resembled a one-piece wetsuit. Donning the hood, he pictured the Salted form given to him—a tiny Ringed Seal.

  Lenny’s transformation began.

  He felt the hood elongate, covering his face, blinding him. His sleeves and leggings tickled past his bare feet and hands, warming them. The sealskin grew further, cocooning his legs into a single tail. He knelt and lay prostrate before his upper body weight toppled him. He felt his feet splay sideways, toes curling to form two hind flippers.

  His already pudgy stomach bulged and grew into a fat, seal belly. The white circles of his former hood scattered across his back like a light touch meant to tickle. They shifted in size—some grew to the size of dish plates, others shrank to the size of coins.

  He felt his sleeves cover and tighten against his human hands like mittens. They morphed into fore flippers and sprouted nails from tiny digits at the end. His nose and mouth grew into a cat-like muzzle. Whiskers burst from his cheeks. His ears retracted to leave two holes on either side of his seal head.

  Lenny opened his seal eyes as the transformation from human to seal completed. He dove into the near freezing North Atlantic water headfirst. The water should feel frigid, he knew, but his seal body’s blubbery layer kept the cold at bay.

  A school of cod drifted nearby. Lenny gave chase. One he nipped in his mouth before the doomed fish recognized him for a threat. The others he swam down, hooking them with claws sharp enough to hack through glacier ice.

  The school unnaturally changed direction.

  Lenny halted mid-swim. With a shift of his head, he spun to face whatever predator stalked him now. He saw a chimney of bubbles churn below frothy white circles near the surface where he entered not moments ago. Looks like I’m not the only hunta this mornin’.

  He caught the scent of his owner’s seahorses on the current. The thought occurred to him one might have escaped, but their stable door beneath the docks remained tightly latched.

  His seal instincts suggested he surface and head for shore. Lenny dove deeper.

  Slap!

  The noise came from the surface; a sea otter, floating on its back, used its tail like a paddle to propel it forward.

  Endrees. Lenny realized his mistake too late.

  A grey shadow with light rings across its back sped up from the depths. Its skull collided with his stomach stealing his breath away.

  Lenny swiped at the other Ringed Seal.

  His opponent batted away the weak attempt. It weaved behind, collared him by the nape with its pincer-like jaws.

  Felt like an early mornin’ swim, huh? a man’s hard voice growled in Lenny’s mind like one of his own thoughts. Against the rules and five lashes for a first offense. How many times ya done this now? Eight?

  Y
a’ve only caught me eight, Lenny directed his thoughts to the other seal.

  Eight times too many.

  The sea otter dove to their depth and swam circles around the two seals.

  Get away from me, Endrees, said Lenny to the otter.

  It replied with a series of trills. Then it flipped to its back and swam alongside him, just out of reach.

  Endrees, Lenny’s captor spoke. Go to shore.

  The otter stuck out its tongue but obeyed the command and swam away.

  Good riddance, Lenny said. Ya oughta drown that sea rat.

  The other seal bit down harder. With a quick tug, it dragged Lenny inland. A catcha watches…waits in the shadows to make sure the goin’s safe. Otherwise he’s the one bein’ caught. Ya supposed to have at least two ways of escape. Ya forget that?

  I was in the water, Lenny argued. There’s a thousand different directions I coulda swum.

  If ya got no plan of where to go it don’t matta. Ya neva gonna be big Len, so ya gotta be fasta—

  —or smarta if ya wanna live, Lenny interrupted. I haven’t forgot.

  The other seal said nothing more as they neared the shoreline shallows.

  Lenny poked his head out of the water to learn who his captor had wrangled to release them both. A pair of sausage-sized fingers grabbed his upper seal lip before he could see anything. The fingers yanked up and then swept the entire seal head backward like removing a costumed mask. The seal head changed to an average hood again before draping down Lenny’s backside.

  He felt his seal claws retract into fingers as the flippers melted back into sleeves. His tail split in two, the remains of it shrinking up and against his ankles. Lenny shivered, now without the seal’s blubber to shield him. He glanced up to see who had released him.

  Paulo Varela, a bred-and-born product of slave owner selection. The crayfish tattoo on his neck marked him as belonging to August Collins. Its claws seemed to reach for his jaws as he yawned. His normally dark-gold Selkie coat glistened black, now soaked by ocean water. Paulo wiped the last bits of sleep from his eyes. “Heya, Len. Did you have to get up so early?”

  Lenny ignored him, just as he ignored Endrees hissing at him from atop a nearby boulder. He waded up the stony shore as Paulo went deeper to release the other Selkie.

  "Don’t walk away from me, son,” the captor’s voice transitioned from thought to spoken word.

  Lenny turned around.

  A grizzled, middle-aged dwarf had replaced his seal opponent. The little man stood no taller than Paulo’s waistline and, like Lenny, wore the smoke-grey suit with embroidered white circles marking him as a Ringed Seal. His hardened, lumpy face appeared marred by a drunken chiseler who had left the numerous scars for sport, and the corners of his hazel eyes wrinkled into crow’s feet the longer he stared at Lenny.

  Declan Dolan pointed at his son. “How many times ya gotta see others whipped before ya smarten up, boy?”

  “Pop,” Lenny said. “We’re catchas—”

  “That don’t make ya no betta than those bound for the Block,” Declan said. “Ya still a slave! Master Collins can do with ya what he wants. That includes sellin’ ya.”

  Paulo snorted. “August would never do that. Lenny’s the only thing that keeps you from running.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Declan said. “So what if Master Collins decides the lash isn’t keepin’ his catchas on the straight and narrow? Maybe he takes one of Lenny’s ears to remind him how important it is for slaves to listen. Better yet, Paulie, what if he takes ours to make sure we keep Lenny followin’ the rules? How’d that be?”

  Paulo instinctively reached for his ears and massaged the crystal-studded earrings.

  “Sorry, Pop,” Lenny said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Mistakes and apologies don’t keep ya safe in the Salt, boys. No more than they will on land,” Declan said. “Now come on, the both of ya. Ya been called up.”

  Lenny straightened. “Did someone run off in the night?”

  Both young catchers looked to Declan for confirmation. Neither received an answer. The elder Dolan limped alongside the boardwalk with his pet otter close on his heels.

  Lenny noticed Paulo’s earrings twinkle just before the thought transmission came through. We’re going out.

  Pop didn’t say that, Lenny directed his thoughts back.

  Paulo grinned. He didn’t say anything. We’re being sent out, Len. I can feel it.

  Lenny couldn’t. Even so, no arguments to combat Paulo’s enthusiasm came to mind and Lenny could not recall a scheduled whipping, hanging, or keel-raking today.

  Why else would we be summoned?

  Declan set them at a brisk pace, despite his short legs and limp, and they passed the Block in no time. Soon the same denizens Lenny had smelled earlier that morning would fill the empty cages. Their pleas for help and freedom mixing alongside an auctioneer’s voice.

  Paulo elbowed Lenny. “I wonder if August will send Ellie with us.”

  “I keep telling ya to forget about her,” Lenny said.

  “You suggest a Brazilian give up on love? Might as well ask me to not breathe.”

  “Ya were bred-n-born in New Pearlaya,” Lenny countered. “Ya neva been to Brazil.”

  Paulo shrugged. “Maybe not, but my mother said it’s important to remember our roots so we might find our way home someday.”

  Declan turned north up the long and winding sandstone path leading to the Collins’ mansion.

  Lenny gazed at the stone castle carved from the cavern’s very walls as they climbed the steep hillside. Declan once told him their owner chose the building site as another wise reminder. Not just to his slaves, but for anyone bidding on them down at the docks. With such a lofty perch for a home, August Collins wanted it known he looked down on everyone.

  This is our home, Paulie. Lenny thought to himself.

  After the long climb, Declan led them around the mansion and through the kitchen’s prep area. House slaves unworthy of a Selkie coat busied about their morning chores, feeding the cook flames. Lenny would later swear he saw eel crackling over a fire through an open kitchen door. He had only tasted the bacon of the sea once, and crumbs at that, but had never forgotten it.

  The house slaves bowed their heads when the three catchers walked through their midst.

  Moments later the trio reached the gallows platform. Its position had been erected just outside and below August’s personal chambers. Some rumored it done so he could witness the hangings without leaving his bedside. But this morning the owner of Crayfish Cavern had already risen. He and his much thinner son, Oscar, sat on the stone veranda sampling the first course of breakfast—skewered clam and boiled kelp.

  Though still dreadfully early, both Collinses had dressed in regal Harp Seal to befit their station. The luxurious sheen off the pearl-white coats sparkled as it caught the torchlights house slaves held to illuminate their very different faces. August might once have been sharp-jawed like his son. Now his face resembled a blown-up puffer fish, just like the rest of his body.

  Lenny scowled up at them.

  August missed the disdainful look. Nothing escaped his overseer, Byron Fenton. The wiry, former catcher stood just behind his master and his thin lips pursed. He gave a slight jerk of his head in warning for Lenny to move along.

  Lenny followed Declan’s lead into the nearly barren courtyard. He half-expected a score of catchers. He found two.

  One wore the tan hide of a Sea Lion. The boy had not reached his teen years, yet his gaunt features spoke plain he had witnessed more pain in his short life than most on land ever would. He had yet to shed a boy’s natural excitement, however, and he stood straighter seeing Lenny Dolan and his father approach.

  The other—Ellie Briceño—stood near the gallows. As big as Paulo, she too bore the Elephant Seal suit to befit her size. Unlike the others, her natural human skin still fought to retain some semblance of a tan. She had lived ashore once, Lenny knew, and had not yet resided long enough
beneath the waves to have her color sapped.

  Lenny still hadn’t figured out how long ago her surface life had been stolen, but he knew she didn’t like being asked about it.

  Both allowed way for Declan to stand at the forefront. Only when Lenny's father stopped did Byron step forward to address the unusually small crowd.

  Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Byron rapped his waist-high, razor-shell cane on the stone parapets. “Word has reached our master’s ears of a proven, elusive runaway by the name of Marisa Bourgeois. She is rumored uncatchable, among other things,” said Byron skeptically. “Our wise master does not believe such claims. He has taken up wagers that any runner can be captured. You lot will prove him correct!”

  Byron bowed his head and closed his eyes as if meaning to pray. His eyelids quivered, earrings flashed.

  A moment later, Lenny and the others had a picture of a girl in their minds. No older than eighteen in appearance, black skinned with green, cat-like eyes, she wore a shaggy, chocolate-brown Cape Fur Seal coat.

  Lenny wracked his brain for any conceivable advantage the suit might give her. Nothing came to mind. The Cape Fur held no speed, strength, or even temperature benefits others offered.

  “A job of this magnitude carries with it an equally sizable reward,” Byron continued. “Our generous master offers a thousand anemonies to the crew who brings her back!”

  Lenny turned to his father. Pop, has August eva given a reward before?

  Declan’s earrings sparkled once. No.

  A thousand anemonies! Lenny kept the thought to himself. That could buy our freedom.

  The glow of earrings from the catchers speaking to one another teased a smile from even Byron Fenton.

  “As you may have heard,” Byron continued. “Other crews have already been sent…sprinters to scour the reefs and patrol the coasts, divers to the deepest of depths, and brutes to turn over the outposts. Your task will be a different one—” Byron hesitated and gave a sideways glance to both his owners.