She theorized her dream body didn't have the strength of reality.
The interloper, startled at the sound, had relinquished his interest in the travel chest to investigate the spilled belaying pins. By his cussing response, it was obvious he thought they'd merely been poorly packed, not intentionally spilled. After picking up and stowing the crate, this time with ropes to hold the crates in place against accidental shifting, he'd left the hold. Anusha hoped never to see him again. She didn't know what he'd do if he found her sleeping body in the hold.
It was already disconcerting enough to discover one creature aboard the ship that could see her dream form whenever she drew near it.
The first time she'd tried to leave her cabin in dream form, via the short hallway that connected several staterooms to the upper deck, she'd come across a black dog. Tied with only enough slack to roam the hallway, the dog was obviously set to guard the approach to the captain's cabin at the end. When she'd dream-stepped toward it, the dog's ears had come up and its tail had gone down. It broke into a low, rumbling growl. It fixed her with its eyes and bared its teeth, warning her to keep her distance. The animal scared her for a moment, before she recalled she didn't possess a physical body the guard dog could bite.
Still, she felt sorry for the dog. She began feeding the guard dog bits of meat she stole from the constantly simmering stewpot in the galley. After only a day, she'd managed to calm the creature so much that her immaterial presence elicited a happy whine and wagging tail instead of vicious growls. Not knowing if it already had a name, Anusha called it Lucky.
Besides Lucky, she also suspected Japheth might be able to see her, as the Green Siren put out from port. The man's gaze seemed to meet hers. She'd stopped, appalled. But he took no action other than stare at her, his expression somewhat bemused. She immediately forced herself awake back in her travel chest, her breathing suddenly coming too swift for the enclosed space.
After a few days thinking about those dark, mysterious eyes, she worked up enough courage to seek out the warlock.
She'd entertained a little fantasy that she would reveal her stowaway status on the ship to the man. Despite knowing nothing of Japheth, she felt a slight twinge of… interest. But his lethal habit! How terrible. She wondered how he was able to control its symptoms. Perhaps she had mistaken what she'd seen in the curio shop in New Sarshel.
One thing was certain-loneliness weighed upon her like an anvil. After four days of speaking only to Lucky, she yearned for conversation and companionship more than food. Well, the fact that the rations she'd packed with her sleeping body in the travel chest were beginning to taste like chalk wasn't helping her mood.
She'd been dream-stepping across the upper decks by starlight, looking for Japheth, when dread tingled on her neck. Not knowing from whence it came, she descended to check on her body, only to find the inquisitive sailor had returned. He was hunched over her travel chest once more, this time inserting a pry bar under the travel chest's lid. With him was another sailor, a dark-haired woman with a terrible scar.
Anusha dashed forward and instinctively reached to grab the man's arm. Unlike all her recent practice with inert objects, her attempt to interact with a living creature failed. Her hand slipped right off the interloper.
Desperate, she reached for the man with both hands, thinking to grab the too curious investigator by his collar and haul him backward. Instead, her hands 'slid' into his back, and she'd touched something slick and warm that had pulsed thub-dub, thub-dub, thub-dub…
The man screamed with a throaty, awful tone, fell backward onto the floor, and began convulsing.
The scarred woman looked at Anusha's image in the polished shield and screamed, 'Ghost! A ghost is killing Dorian!'
Anusha took another moment to gaze at her own terrifying image in the polished shield. A ghostlike image stared back, a burning silhouette in a girlish dress. If she didn't know better, she'd scream seeing herself too. Especially if one of Anusha's companions lay insensate upon the floor.
But Anusha was not a ghost, nor did she mean anyone harm. Normally, Anusha couldn't even bring herself to hurt spiders scuttling around the corners of her suite. Her grazing contact with the sailor's… insides… was an accident. He didn't deserve what she'd done to him, whatever that was.
Or did he?
The truth was, both the screaming woman and the convulsing man were pirates, not sailors. She'd overheard both Japheth and Behroun say it, and other evidence she'd found on the ship the last few days confirmed it.
The man and woman had probably done a lot of terrible things. Perhaps they deserved a little pain, if not something more drastic, in return. Perhaps she should reach up and quiet the woman too, before she drew a response. It wouldn't do to draw more people down here, wondering why one travel chest didn't show up on the hold manifest.
But she couldn't bring herself to follow through.
Besides, already voices echoed from the decks above, yelling questions. The ship was alerted that something strange was in the hold. Nothing she could do now would change that; she would only make things worse by attacking the woman.
A chill of foreboding touched the back of her neck. If her sleeping body was discovered, they'd forcefully wake her. Then what? Would they tie her behind the ship to drag through the cold, shark-filled water until she drowned or died of cold? Did pirates really do that? Yes, of course they did.
Anusha moved until she stood just a few feet from the polished shields. With the new angle, she could no longer see the screaming woman's distorted image in any of the shields; hopefully, neither could the woman see her. Just to be safe, Anusha reached out and struck all three shields to the floor. They clattered loudly, and the pirate screamed the louder.
Bobbing shapes, visible around the edges of the hold opening, resolved as the heads of watchful, muttering pirates. They gazed down at their crewmates with varying degrees of surprise, humor, and real fear. None of them had seen Anusha's reflection.
A new voice blared down, 'What's all this then, Brida? What's wrong with Dorian? I wager you stuck him, but are trying to claim it's spirits that done it. Am I right?'
Anusha saw the speaker peering down from the top deck, the toes of his boots overhanging the square opening. The elaborate hat revealed the man as Captain Thoster.
The woman on the ladder, apparently named Brida, kept her eyes fixed on the fallen shield in which she'd glimpsed Anusha's dream image. Brida exclaimed in a fear-coarsened voice, 'No, sir! It was a ghost! I saw it myself, right after it got Dorlan right there!' She pointed. Her arm shook as she tried to indicate where she'd seen the 'ghost.'
Anusha took a few more steps away from the fallen shields, then paused. What would Captain Thoster make of the claim?
The captain turned his head and spoke to someone standing just back from the opening, his voice not loud enough for Anusha to hear his words. It sounded like a question.
Then a cloaked shape appeared at the edge of the hold access. Her breath caught slightly. It was Japheth!
Even from two decks below, Anusha could see Japheth's eyes gleamed red. His gaze locked with her own. Fear thrilled down her spine and her stomach tightened.
A third shape appeared next to Thoster, a woman dressed in a bone white sari wielding a scarlet-glyphed wand.
It was Seren, the Green Siren's mercenary wizard.
Thoster complained to Japheth and Seren, 'I don't see anything.'
Japheth looked up at the captain and the wizard, then back down into her eyes, still silent. Could he see her, or was she imagining it?
Seren traced symbols in the air with her free hand. Where her fingers passed, lines of magical energy persisted moments before fading. Syllables of pure arcane magic tumbled from Seren's lips. Her eyes flashed with a glint of citrine light.
'There!' said Seren, gesturing with her wand down at Anusha. 'I see it now-an apparition! The spirit of a drowned woman, perhaps, lingers in your hold, Captain.'
Anusha cursed. She nearly woke herself… but then thought, I've got to lead them away from my travel
