"Tomorrow," I said, "in the morning,"
after he had a good night's sleep
and thought things over in the daylight, in the light
that dispelled the dreams and brought them to reason.
"It'll be too late, then, Dad," he said.
"We'll never get her back if we wait."
My boy looked so much older now when
he spoke, older than I was, older than-- and more--
older and more knowing than the sea
when it lies flat and blue in its bed.
"I believe you, my dear boy," I said.
"Of course, we must go."
And off we went, down to the dinghy, the boy at the prow
and me at the oars.
And we rode out to the ship, glowing cherry red
under the full red moon.
And no sooner had we reached the ship's black hull
than we were wafted aloft by a magical wind
to its disorderly deck.
And just as soon, as if on an elevator
cloud, we floated below to the drab galley amidships
and landed among a sullen, noisy crew and its unshaven,
peg-legged captain, who got right down to business.
"You can't have her," he said.
"Then Death will," the boy said.
The crew went silent and looked about apprehensively.
I was astonished at my son's words,
almost as I was by all the events that had led to them.
He seemed so certain, my boy, of things unknown and strange,
and it was clear that he was strongly in charge of himself
and that I was now under his wing.
Then the captain laughed.
And emboldened by him, the others
followed suit, but hollowly.
"What do you know about this matter, my little fellow?"
he asked nervously.
"Enough to make you be sorry," my son said.
"Sit down," the captain said, "and let's palaver
like gentlemen of the world."
He waved his arm, and suddenly, the grim galley
glowed with rich furniture and golden lamps.
And there appeared out of the air
a huge, candlelit table with golden bowls
of fruit and nuggets of chocolates
wrapped in gold tissue.
The captain beckoned my son to sit beside him,
waving me to the table's other end, where I sat beside a man
in silver trousers and a shirt so blue I could see the sky.
"Well, lad, what have you got to say?"
the captain asked, spearing a red pear with a silver knife.
"Well, sir, I want Nana's soul, and I want it
back inside of her."
"I have her soul, but I can't undo what Death has done,
and neither can you.
So that's the final word on that," he said,
slicing his pear to a sliver the weight of a breath.
The crew murmured their approval of their captain's firmness.
"Hear, hear," my tablemate called out.
"I understand, Captain," my boy said.
"Death has his power, and you have yours."
"Quite," the captain said.
"But you've stolen my nana's soul from Death."
"Let's say we got it on its way to somewhere else.
Right, my lads?"
I understood at last that we were on a pirate ship of souls,
that these pirates had waylaid my mother's soul
from its true journey through the world's seamless mystery.
"What do you do with the souls you've pirated?"
I asked.
"We shred them for mulch," he said
with a big wink of the eye that was not patched.
"We trade them," my table companion said.
"Small souls for larger, large souls
for grand souls, grand souls for noble souls."
"Whom do you trade them with?" my boy asked.
"Why, with other pirates, of course,"
the blue shirt answered.
"Enough," the captain said.
"We're not here for discussions."
"My nana had a noble soul, I'm sure," the boy said.
"Of great value, incredible value, of priceless value,"
the captain said.
"So what have you got to trade to match her worth?"
My son whispered into the captain's ear, whispered
something that piqued the captain
to cough up a sigh of a thousand fish-eyed bubbles.
"Even if you could do that, why would I care?"
the captain said when the last bubble burst
into a little hand of a flame.
"Because then you can always see him."
"See what?" the captain asked nervously.
"See him," my boy said.
"Well," the captain said, "this needs some thought."
He called his men together around him,
speaking to them so softly that I could not catch his words.
One pirate exclaimed, "To be trumped by a boy!"
"Still," the captain said, turning to my son,
"I don't see the usefulness in having his picture.
It's not," he said in an aside to his crew,
"that he's such a great looker."
"But you might find a use one day,"
my son said, ignoring the crew's roar of laughter.
"Maybe you will trade with him something he wants."
"That's an idea," the captain said--
"That's an idea, captain," said the man with the blue shirt.
"Maybe we can get him not to bother us so much, him always
pestering us to give back the souls we've snatched."
"What would he want to trade, my brave bucko?
Nothing pleases him.
Nothing interests him.
Nothing satisfies him except the taking of life
from everything that lives."
"He may want," my boy said in a voice firm
enough to drive a nail through a beam,
"he may want not to be seen."
"Show me, boy," the captain said,
"and then we'll decide who gets what."
"But you must first promise to give back
her soul where it belongs."
"Oh, I promise," the captain said with a wink to his men.