No one came for them. For a moment, as she was rowing away, Mariana was worried that the demonic monster had eaten Daniel.
Then he appeared, looking at her from above, perched on the gunwale like a raven.
He looked at her with disappointment on his face, but then - just for a split second - his eyes got a red glimmer in them and he merely nodded towards her.
Mariana somehow knew what that meant.
He was going to get her, one way or another.
She shivered. The water she had accidentally splashed on herself while severing the boat was cold enough, but colder still was the grim resolution she had seen on his face.
"There is an island here?" Madeliene asked.
For a moment, Mariana was glad that the woman had provided a distraction.
"Aye," she replied to the musician. "There is an island, although I am not sure whether we can find any seafaring people there. Could just as well be so that we have to wait for someone to pick us up."
Madeliene scrunched up her pretty little nose. "I don't like strange and foreign islands. I prefer routines, you know."
While they were still rowing for their lives, it was a bit hard to keep up a conversation, but they managed to speak a bit.
"I wouldn't have thought of a musician as a huge friend of things happening the same way over and over again," Mariana said. "I thought you people loved adventures."
"It has worn me down. I have a reserve of energy that I have to refill again and again. I just ran out of energy."
"Right. Hope you won't throw me overboard because of it."
"My dear skipper, I don't think you realize how tolerable you are."
That shut off the conversation quite nicely. They rowed for what had to be hours, and that was a nigh inhuman feat, a superhuman ordeal for two women with little upper body strength, and then, after praising herself and her accomplice, Mariana looked at the sky and at her promised island.
They had not even been doing this for twenty minutes judging by the sun and the distance.
Mariana sighed.
"I wonder if it's just easier to float where the sea wants us to go," she said.
The musician was silent, leaning onto the edge of the boat.
"What do you see in the water?" Captain Mariana asked.
The musician seemed almost too hypnotized by whatever was happening under the waves to make a single noise. Madeliene was just staring into the water.
Had she forgotten that it was not the realm of the living?
"Ahoy! Madeliene! Harp lady?"
Nothing, no response.
Then a butterfly arose from the sea.
It was an incredible thing, with the brightest cyan coloring its huge wings as it fluttered up, checking what was the matter with its silent observer, and then flying away. It seemed to know a route that was the most beneficial for the tired muscles of the two unfortunate sailor women, because when they rowed a little bit to catch up with the butterfly, a current took them towards the island.
It seemed like their task got a whole lot easier.
"What do you think…"
Madeliene's voice faded away. She bit her lip, squinting her eyes as they measured the shoreline in the sudden burst of sunlight.
"Well, it might not be a smart idea to talk about blessings before we are actually there," she confessed.
"I think the same way," Mariana said. "Although you did have some crazy luck with the demon summoning there on the ship. I wonder if they have had enough sense in them to light a candle."
She paused.
"Well, maybe more than just one candle."
"They are going to need some really big candles," Madeliene said. It sounded like the musician was holding back laughter.
They reached the island a bit before sunset. While there were no people there - they agreed that they would have liked to have a welcome committee greet them with flower arrangements and songs - there were some signs of the island being rather heavily inhabited. The forest was not a natural one. The trees were too symmetrical, and their placements too regular, and while they searched the shoreline, they found hidden fishing equipment and quite a good set of different knives and daggers.
"I don't like big knives," Madeliene huffed, handing a large dagger to Captain Mariana. "You take this one, we might need to defend ourselves. Although we may not…"
She shook herself. Apparently, the musician was one of those people who didn't want to speak about things that currently bothered everyone present. In times of peace, she was very straightforward.
In times of war and calamity, she knew when to stop talking. Mariana had to appreciate that.
"Well, we should find a shelter," the captain said. "I am trying to listen to the melody coming from the innermost part of the island. They say that there is a miner town here…although this place is very small, and there are not many vacancies for musicians, our good manners and good looks should buy us a bed and a dinner, hm?"
The musician agreed that this was the case. Mariana had a feeling that Madeliene disliked the music, but the woman did not critique any of the lack of harmony echoing from the forest.
They reached the miner town in no time at all.
What they had imagined to be a great celebration was a sad little lady with a guitar. Her voice was very sweet, but her guitar skills were not anything to be proud of, and she even looked a bit relieved when her excuse to stop playing on the makeshift street came from the woods.
Mariana was almost in tears. Her chest wound was hurting. Her arms were hurting. The charm of the butterfly had worn off long ago.
Spite was her only fuel right now. That, and hunger, of course.
"Please, help us," she croaked with a hoarse voice.