"Why are you so quiet today, Captain Mariana?"
"Hm?"
Mariana had been so absorbed in her meal that the memories of her poor behavior had not resurfaced. Now, though, Marrow was trying to become her best friend. She had no idea how to feel about it, since her initial reaction had been one of mistrust and fear.
"I've got a lot of stuff on my mind," she replied. A standard answer for that question whenever one did not actually feel like opening up about anything.
"Aye, but that doesn't say anything yet, does it?" Marrow pushed his porridge away. "Look. I'll give you my bread if you talk about it, Cap'n."
Mariana laughed. "Are you trying to bribe me, Mr. Marrow?"
The man shrugged. "Depends on if you're planning to tell Captain Daniel about it, skipper."
"I see…"
She rolled a piece of bread around in her mouth. It was true that she was not exactly living lavishly, except for the herbal baths and the bottles of wine she had to consume in secret to avoid making anyone envious. The bread was good, though, not too dark, not too rough to chew, either, and she could have certainly taken another piece, had it been allowed in the rules.
"Right, give me the bread and let's go somewhere safer," she whispered to him.
It wasn't even two seconds until he poked her knee with a piece of that loaf.
She slyly accepted the bribe and went for a walk with the man who was supposed to hate her. They decided that the hold was a whole lot safer than the deck.
"I don't entirely understand why you are so keen to learn about a woman's mind," Mariana sighed and sat down on a barrel.
"What would be a better way of seducing a lady than to practice the art of thinking like a woman with someone who seeks nothing from me? It's an investment." He raised an eyebrow and sat down as well.
"Oh, I see, you are that kind of a man," Mariana chuckled. "I don't blame you. I wish more men would think like you."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Look." He seemed to like that word. In fact, it was in synchronicity with the tasks he sometimes had; with his excellent eyesight, it made perfect sense to have him up in the rigging, discerning shallows from reefs.
"I bet it's about Captain Daniel and the ghost."
The word sank into Mariana's belly like a knife of obsidian, as sharp as possible, so sharp that she did not even realize that she had been stabbed. Verbally. Of course. But what did it matter, though, was the weapon of choice of any interest to her when she would bleed out in any case?
"You, too, know about the ghost?" she asked. There was no sense in tiptoeing around the topic if Marrow knew about Dars already.
"I had a deal with him once." Although it was pretty hot down here, Marrow seemed to shiver a little. "He…he told me he'd save my wife."
"Was she ill?"
"No, but she almost died in childbirth."
"What happened?"
Marrow looked at her with a hollow, pained stare in his eyes.
"It was a stillborn," he said.
"I am so sorry."
"Don't be. I brought this fate on us myself."
So, Dars could not be trusted to keep his word, and it could be that the ghost didn't bargain as much as he blackmailed. It was a bit unclear to Mariana why Dars felt the need to do this, or if he was actually going to do anything if she failed to kill Daniel, but she could not take any risks with the stakes being this high.
"How can I make sure that he doesn't get me?" she asked. "How can we be sure?"
"Look." Marrow clicked his tongue twice. "It would serve you well to always sleep with obsidian under your pillow. Cats are also great for keeping ghosts at bay. Cap'n…"
"Yes?"
Now the man had tears in his eyes. He was surprisingly soft and gentle for such a boisterous pirate, but the harshness was still there, even through his weeping.
"Don't let him do to you what he did to me."
The bread was pretty good.
Mariana met the possibly-demonic, possibly-divine cat again that night. Apparently, it had chosen the Good Wife as its new home, and this was a most interesting coincidence, seeing as witches, obsidian, and cats could keep Dars away. It was almost as if the kitty had telepathic powers that allowed it to go wherever it was needed the most.
The black beauty spent a lot of time on Mariana's lap, swatting at invisible bugs and cleaning its wonderfully lustrous fur.
Mariana, being a little bit soft in the head department, started to talk to the cat.
"Aren't you a beautiful baby?" she cooed. "Not as handsome as the man I fancy, though."
She stopped to glance around - no, Daniel was not in the cabin.
"I love him so, you hear me, pal," she sighed and started petting the cat's head again. "I love him, although I have no idea why he is so cold to me when I try to give him everything I have. I really love him…I wish I had never set out to kill him, but if I had not done that, then I wouldn't have fallen in love with him again and…"
Her voice faded away into the dangerously comfortable silence all around her. The purring was the only sound she could hear.
"I wish I had never contacted that wretched ghost. Well, no matter -"
All of a sudden, the bookshelf turned on its own.
Daniel stepped into her view. He had been hiding in a secret little room behind the bookshelf.
She froze.
"I know everything already, so don't start fuzzing about it," he said and walked out of the cabin, cruelly ignoring her declarations of love.
Mariana couldn't stop the tears now. A horrible feeling clenched up into a little ball in her stomach.