Riv let out a long breath. “You want us to sink it?”

“I don’t know if you can. But if it shows itself again. I want you to try,” the man said.

Marco didn’t answer immediately. He just looked toward the ship, still moored safely in the cove. The breeze had picked up, and the tide had begun to roll in harder.

“If it shows,” Marco said, “we’ll try to deal with it. One way or another.”

"Thanks." The old man set down his bowl. "I didn't even have to offer to transfer you what I got from the temple, but if you do, I will. Fair's fair.”

The old man didn't stay long after that. He seemed to understand the group had work to do. He pointed them to a different portion of the island, one he said had trees more worth having and an outcropping they could dock on, then left to go about whatever sort of business a marooned man could have while still trapped in his prison.

Getting to work, the team moved the ship around to the trees he had mentioned, chopping until they had a good pile of relatively decent timber. The ship didn't actually care about the quality of any individual piece that much, instead using up quantity where quality wouldn't make it happen. With a little help from Riv, it was only a few hours before the ship had managed to repair itself back to a fairly pristine condition.

"I’m not sure it's a good idea." Elisa found Marco by the ship’s wheel before they left and had a quiet word with him. "I don't even know if we can destroy a ghost ship."

"Are you saying we shouldn't do it?"

"No. As much as I hate to say it, I don't think there's a better idea, either. We need that temple, and the old man isn't wrong when he says that something like a ghost ship isn't right. It shouldn't be."

"Sometimes a ghostly thing can be destroyed." Aethe appeared behind them, like a ghost herself in some ways. "Like anything else. We might get lucky. My people had stories about that kind of thing. Sometimes it was just another job, so to speak."

"And if we can't?" Marco asked. "What do we need to do then?"

"Something else." Aethe shrugged and took her place near the prow of the ship. "But we can figure that out when we have to. We always do."

—

The search started close to the island as they began to spiral outward. The old man had said he had seen it there at least once or twice, and there was no way he was watching the shore at all times. Elisa said the math worked out best if they just sort of ran patrol on the island for a day, and so they did. Nothing came of it, but that was the way of things sometimes. They wrote off the wasted day and moved further.

The sails filled as they moved out into deeper waters. Aethe stood at the bow, scanning the horizon while Elisa kept her journal tucked under one arm, ready to mark anything strange. Riv manned the ropes, and Marco held the wheel, eyes narrowed against the brightening sky. They were up to speed now, which let them cover more water more quickly. They worked a grid of sorts, crisscrossing the area from which the old man could have conceivably survived drifting in again and again.

Another day passed like that, then another. Some minor beasts attacked here and there, but nothing like the kraken. They handled them all easily and took their meager rewards before searching again. After another night's sleep, they were ready to actually find the thing, to take back their own time, do the job, and get the promised reward. Marco pushed the ship forward, anticipating a long day of sailing ahead.

They didn’t need to go far. The ghost ship appeared before noon.

One moment the horizon was empty. The next, it was there, just sitting in the water without an apparent care in the world. There was no wake behind it, and no crew they could see. No motion beyond the bobbing of the waves.

It was beautiful in a way that made Marco’s skin crawl. The sails were full and clean, the paint pristine, and every line and railing flawless. It was the kind of ship he would have gone down to the docks to lust over as a child. He still felt some of that, layered with fear and apprehension.

It was there. But it wasn’t there. Not really.

Elisa was the first to say it. “That ship doesn’t cast a shadow.”

Marco checked. She was right. The light cut clean through it.

“I don’t see anyone,” Aethe said. “No crew. No movement.”

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“You think it’s a trick?” Riv asked.

“I think it’s bait,” Elisa replied.

Marco guided The Foolish Endeavor toward it, slowing as they closed the distance. The air grew cold. The water lost its sparkle. No gulls called. Even the wind seemed to hush. When they were a few ship lengths away, the ghost ship turned.

The rudder didn't move and the sails did not fill. It just turned, slowly, deliberately, until it faced them. Then it began to drift toward them without wind or current.

“Does that thing have cannons?” Aethe asked.

“Nothing visible,” Marco said. “Doesn’t mean it can’t fight. Man our guns and get ready.”

They were all ready to fight as the ship drifted towards them, finally turning alongside their ship and settling to a stop at what Marco would usually consider a boarding distance. No boarders came over. The ghost ship just continued to sit there, inactive, as if it was waiting for something.

"I guess it’s our move to go aboard," Riv said. "I'll go first."

"Are you insane?" Elisa asked. "Let's just sink it."

"No." Marco shook his head. “Riv is right. It hasn't been aggressive yet. We don't know what it can do. As long as it doesn't attack us, we won't attack it. You and Aethe stay here while Riv and I jump over. Once we make sure it's safe, you can come.”

"If you disappear, I'm coming over right away," Aethe said. "Anything unexpected at all, and I get to shoot arrows."

"Deal. Just try to give us a second in any case, okay? We won't be far."

Marco and Riv moved to the rail, nodded at each other, and leapt up to the other deck with synchronized timing, landing at almost the same instant on the active, bustling deck. There were sailors everywhere, going about their jobs without a shred of emotion on their faces. Every single one of them felt wrong, not only because they had appeared out of nowhere.

“The sun is gone,” Riv commented. "How can the sun be gone?"

The moment they had crossed over onto the other ship's deck, it was night. Suddenly, darkness was everywhere, though the ship itself was well enough lit by some ghostly means such that they could still see. Marco twisted around to see what Aethe and Elisa thought of all this only to find The Foolish Endeavor was gone, too, missing from the sea as if it had never existed.

"Well, that's not great." Riv looked around the ship and shuddered. "They still aren't attacking. It's like they are actors. Bad, undead actors."

“Yeah.” Marco looked for anyone on the ship that could have been described as an officer and came up blank. These were all shiphands, cabin boys, and worker types. If there was someone in charge, they were either absent or below decks. "I don't think we have any choice but to move forward. Are you ready?"

They crept along the deck slowly, trying their hardest not to get in the way of the activity aboard the ship or any of the crewmen and women milling about. It was Marco, not Riv, who finally ran afoul of that attempt. A ghost moved right through him, filling him with a chill that left him shivering but doing no apparent damage to him. It appeared on the other side as if nothing had happened, going about its business and noticing nothing.

“That’s horrifying and comforting,” Riv whispered. “But let’s get to that hatch. Whatever we are looking for isn’t up here.”

Riv lifted the hatch to the underdecks, which creaked open just like a real, non-ghostly hatch would. Once it was open, they descended into the well-lit space beneath. There were crates here and there filled with various oddities, glowing tools, and supplies Marco recognized as spices, food, and alcohol. It was as the old man had described things, a merchant ship filled with merchant goods.

Right in the center of them, observing the work of various crewmen sorting out the mess, was the captain. It was obvious at first glance, since his uniform was better, his weapons were more expensive, and his competency seemed higher by far than anyone else on the ship. He was as expressionless as the others, almost. Just a small hint of despair leaked out from behind his facade.

Marco grabbed onto that bit of real emotion like a drowning man would grab a flotation device. He guided Riv over to the captain, standing just out of arm’s reach.

“Hello,” Marco called out. “Hello, captain.”

The captain froze for a moment as if startled, then slowly craned its head towards Marco. The rest of his body, which had been pointing and turning to direct the work going on around him, stayed still. It was just his neck that moved, and his horrible cloudy eyes.

“Who.” The captain seemed to use up a lot of energy to form that one word, but once it was out, it also seemed to expect an answer. “Who.”

“I’m Marco. The captain of another ship. This is Riv. We were sent by a former crewman of yours. Someone who survived.”

“Survived?” A bit more life jolted into the captain’s eyes, as if he was being shocked awake bit by bit. “Who survived?”

“An old man who eats slowly.”

“Thatch.” The captain nodded. “Good. Thatch lives.”

“I’m sorry about what happened here,” Marco said. “Thatch wanted me to see if there was anything we could do.”

The captain shook his head.

“Kill Thatch,” he said. “Don’t kill Thatch.”

“What?” Riv said. “We can’t kill him.”

“Good. Don’t kill,” the captain said slowly. “But to help… kill Thatch. The villain can’t be found. Thatch is… the Anchor.”

That last word snapped out like a bomb, echoing through the interior of the ship like a cannon shot. Marco and Riv both recoiled, and the captain did too, in a way. A moment later, he was back to giving his full attention to the ship’s activities, every bit of emotion that had played in his face now gone again.

“We need to get out of here, Marco. Now,” Riv said. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”

Slowly, all around them, the crew members were waking up from their pantomimed actions. Not as themselves, it seemed, but with malice in their eyes and with weapons suddenly in their hands.

“Yup.”

They sprinted up the stairs, weaving through approaching ghosts. Once on the deck, Riv grabbed Marco and bodied through several approaching attackers in a row as he ran towards the rail, put his foot on top of it, and leapt into the open ocean around the ghost ship.

Like magic, it was day again. Marco found himself lying on the deck of his own ship, looking up at a real sun, an open sky, and the concerned faces of two very worried women.

“Why is Riv unconscious?” Elisa asked. “Why is he so cold?”

“He ran through a lot of ghosts, I think. Take care of him first. Get him warm. I’ll just need a second.”