What the Game Master says has the ring of truth to it. It feels very natural that this would be the first incarnation of Sea Farmers. I can also see why it was jettisoned. Our father’s gaming philosophy was always one of non-hostility—of safe and gentle family fun. I can’t help but wonder if Sea Farmers would have been as successful if it had such an aggressive mechanic from the very beginning.
As we play, Alistair and I keep making eye contact and looking at the gun the Game Master is holding. If we could manage to distract them, possibly one of us could make a grab at it and try to overpower them. But the problem is that we can’t tell where exactly the Game Master is looking, because of the mask. Surely their peripheral vision must be significantly weakened, but it is still too risky.
Just as we are both coming to the conclusion that we will have to charge the Game Master at the same time—detonator be damned!—they stand up and move to one of the room’s far corners, covering me from behind.
“Play,” they say. “Don’t mind me.”
“There’s not really a bomb, is there?” I say, looking over my shoulder. The gun is leveled at me and it does not shake. I turn back around and consider the board. I roll the dice and then choose to cultivate my kelp field.
Neither Alistair nor I have the heart to put much strategy into the game. We both find ourselves sending the Kraken at each other, letting Gabriella off the hook, which means that she quickly takes the lead. There is something instinctual about this. She is the baby and we are the older siblings. Neither of us wants to be the one who kills her. We both find ourselves subtly striving for second place. This means that Gabriella is able to play the best game of Sea Farmers of her life.
It almost isn’t enough to put her over the top. As the game begins to wind down to its ultimate conclusion, Alistair and I are doing the math in our heads, counting who has the most cultivated fields, who has the most hatchling workers in seasonal rotation, who has the most stories on their Coral Castle. It will be tight between all three of us: Gabriella isn’t selling enough kelp to buy pearls. She never did understand this game very deeply.
Finally, I can’t stand it. The next time her turn rolls around, I point to the Oyster Bed and lock eyes with her. She gets my meaning. All she has to do is sell her remaining stock of kelp, turning it into enough pearls to hire all the dormant hatchling workers. If she uses her remaining action points to finish digging her last trench, she will beat me by forty points. If she doesn’t, Alistair will lay his last trench and they might actually tie.
I don’t mind losing to Gabriella, but I don’t want to be the one who clearly loses to both of them. I trade her kelp cards for pearl jewels from the box and then lay her trench for her. She squints at me, frowning. Alistair sees what I’m doing but doesn’t stop me.
“Okay, that’s it then,” says Gabriella, trusting that I know what I’m doing. “Everybody count up your score.”
We go through the motions and it slowly dawns on Gabriella that she has won. Has she ever won a game of Sea Farmers? I can’t ever remember her beating us. She seems perplexed.
The Game Master walks slowly back to the table, looking at the board.
“That’s 180 for me, 140 for Caitlyn, and 130 for Alistair,” says Gabriella. “I guess that means I win.”
Now is our chance to rush the Game Master. Alistair and I both tense up.
Gabriella pushes back her chair and stands up. She grins. She crosses her arms.
“I won,” she says, turning to the Game Master. “Just like you said I would.”
What the hell? I flick my eyes at Alistair.
“What are you talking about?” Alistair demands. She grins at him and opens her mouth to speak.
That’s when the gun goes off. Gabriella flies backward against the wall with a giant bullet wound in the center of her chest. The hydrostatic shock bursts blood vessels in her eyes and she chokes on the blood that pours out of her mouth as her body slides down the wall.
I am frozen in place. Alistair takes a step toward Gabriella’s gasping frame and the Game Master shoots him next, firing twice, hitting him in the side under his arm and then in the neck. He falls across the card table, sending pieces flying. The bottle of bourbon crashes to the floor and shatters.
I whirl around just as someone new runs into the room. It’s Angelo Marino, coming from the bathroom across the hall. Has he been in there the whole time? My ears are ringing and I don’t know which way to turn. I feel so vulnerable. So porous. So shootable.
Angelo Marino runs to Gabriella, shouting at the Game Master. “What are you doing? Why did you shoot her?”
He skids to a halt on his knees beside my baby sister and wraps his arms around her, glaring at the Sea Farmers King with furious eyes. The Game Master doesn’t respond. They lower the gun, but only for a second, and then raise it back up again, firing three bullets into Angelo Marino’s back. At least one of them travels through his spine and hits Gabriella in the torso, knocking her head back one final time. She stops breathing.
I am covered in blood and bourbon and glass fragments. I am paralyzed, standing between the three dead bodies and the person who filled them with bullets. The Game Master fishes in their pocket for more, then snaps open the revolver and reloads the gun.
They walk over to Angelo Marino and roll him over. Finally, the Game Master takes off the mask, shaking out a smooth mane of hair. It’s
