Ethereal
Chapter 21

The Soup Pot

Over the course of the next several days I made it a point to stay below deck as much as possible. I kept to my room, only going out to get my meal portions and to finish my night shifts in the crow’s nest. I was being a coward by avoiding Jax, but I couldn’t face him – not yet. I needed to sort out my own feelings before I could face him again.

I had kissed him without thinking about my family waiting for me back at Camp. I was so swept up in my own emotions that I neglected to think of them, my sole purpose for being here in the first place. Once I returned to Camp and found them, we would replace some way to escape, and I would have to leave Jax behind.

Even if there was the slightest chance that Jax wanted to leave with me, I couldn’t live with the idea of taking him away from his own family that could be waiting for him as well back at Camp. There was no use chasing after something that would only end in disaster.

After all, I’ve only known Jax for a few weeks, barely a month at that. This was only a crush, a simple lust that would fade with time. That’s what I tried telling myself, anyway.

In the days that I kept to myself, my mind never strayed far from Jax. I wonder what he thought after I almost kissed him and left right afterwards. Was he upset? Angry? With his looks and charm I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a line of girls waiting for him back at Camp. Being rejected by me probably didn’t even wound his ego.

The more I thought about Jax, I realized how little I knew about him. How did he even end up at the Camp? What crime did he commit to be sentenced to such a place? What if I was flirting with a murderer? My chest thumped with the growing beat of my heart as worry seeped into my bones. The more my mind turned over that possibility, the surer I felt that Jax wasn’t capable of doing such a thing. My gut told me he was far from a cruel and violent person, but that didn’t excuse the fact that I don’t really know this boy, and I’m risking far too much by getting involved with him.

Yes, it was better that I cut whatever we had off now, rather than to get too caught up and have my heart broken down the road. This still didn’t stop me from tracing the lines of my lips late at night when I couldn’t sleep, imagining what it would feel like to have his mouth on mine.

It also didn’t stop me from pulling Jax’s shirt out from its hiding place at night, where I tucked it between the hay bales and the wall so it would always be close to me. It felt too creepy of me to wear it, but I didn’t want to return it either. So there it stayed behind my bed. Only removed for the occasional stroke of the hand when I couldn’t sleep or woke from a nightmare. His smell of sea salt and damp earth would then coax me back into a state of ease.

I flicked away the shell of an onion that had fallen on my pant leg, shifting my position on the hay bale so I could stretch out my legs more. Though my night shifts ended a few days ago, my muscles still ached from all the odd positions I folded myself into to help me fall asleep in the crow’s nest. Not to mention the poor state of my hands. Almost every finger was wrapped in a piece of gauze to protect either a blister or a cut I had earned from the knife peeling vegetables. My joints ached and my skin felt raw, my clothes stunk from sea salt and sweat that made the color fade from the fabric. I didn’t mind all of this so much, though. Working at the orphanage was hardly any easier, and it taught me how to endure hard labor. I even enjoyed it at times as it would distract my mind and get my blood pumping, leaving me with a feeling of calm at the end of the day knowing that I had earned my rest.

I tossed the last onion into the bag and made my way back to the kitchen. Grouch-o didn’t care that I did my work in my closet now. If anything, else he enjoyed it more so because it meant I wasn’t hanging around as much. Grouch-o had his back turned towards me as he hovered over his soup pot. The steam from the pot bellowed and hissed – an ominous sign that something was amiss.

Throwing the bag of onions under the counter, I sneaked a peek at the soup and held back a wince. The soup was a muddy brown that hardly moved as Grouch-o tried to stir it with his wooden spoon. Whatever recipe he was following needed to be thrown out.

“Onions are done.” I said, leaning against the sink.

Grouch-o mumbled something under his breath but said nothing else. I raised an eyebrow in surprise – was he not going to give me another chore? It was barely midday. It wasn’t like Grouch-o to let me off early.

I waited a moment more before turning to leave, somewhat shocked that he was going to let me off the hook so easily. Just as I was about to round the corner and retreat to my closet, Grouch-o looked up from the stove. His mustache was frayed from the heat, his long eyebrow hairs pointed upwards as though they had spotted a frightening ghoul lingering at the dark depths of the soup pot. I’d never seen Grouch-o so frazzled.

“Captain’s going to be furious,” he said. His eyes swiveling towards the stairs as if Jax were to appear at any moment. “he hates throwing out food. But I haven’t got any other choice, it’s… it’s…”

“Inedible? Repugnant? About to grow a pair of arms and legs and quite possibly a tail?” I offered.

“Yes.” Grouch-o said, shooting me a glare. “I need you to take it top side and throw it overboard without him seeing. I’ll start a fresh batch – he’ll be none the wiser about it. It’ll be as though it never happened!” Grouch-o said. Nodding to himself, be reached for another pot under the sink and began dumping in jugs of water and salt.

I looked from him to the forgotten pot on the stove. Not only would the fire have made the bottom half of the metal horribly hot, but the pot itself was nearly half my size. There was no way I’d be able to lug it up the stairs, let alone muster the strength to heave it up onto the railing to dump its contents overboard – if the soup didn’t solidify by then.

“There’s no way in hell I’m doing this by myself.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest as I set my jaw. I wasn’t about to let Grouch-o bully me into this one.

“Do this favor for me and you can have the rest of the night off.” Grouch-o said, now dicing up my onions as he added them to the new batch of soup.

I considered his offer. “And I want tomorrow morning off, too.” I said.

“No.”

“Then good luck getting rid of this by yourself.”

Grouch-o paused; his knife poised at the tip of the onion root as he weighed his options. With a heavy sigh, he nodded his head in agreement as he accepted his defeat.

Holding back a smile, I grabbed the pot’s handle on both sides, taking one deep inhale before lifting it off the stove and onto the floor. The pot was much heavier than I expected it to be as it nearly slipped right out of my grip. The hot metal almost caught my toes as it went crashing to the ground.

Grouch-o grumbled something about not breaking the pot as I bent over to try and pick it up again, but the pot wouldn’t budge. I stood up straight and popped my knuckles, stretching out the fine tendons in my fingers and then the sore muscles in my arms before leaning over for a second attempt.

Still, no matter how hard I tried to lift it, the pot only rose a few inches before I had to drop it back onto the ground with a grunt.

I changed tactics. Instead of trying to lift it, I wrapped both hands over one of the handles and tried pulling it across the floor. The pot made it a foot across the floor before my feet slid out from under me and I fell hard onto my backside.

I let out a curse as I pushed myself back up onto my hands and knees. At least I had gotten the pot little bit further towards the staircase this time around. I heard Grouch-o huff somewhere behind me, but I rolled my eyes and ignored him. At least he wasn’t laughing.

An idea suddenly came to mind. Grabbing a mop and a bottle of olive oil so old that Grouch-o only used it for shining the floors, I poured the liquid across the floor and spread it with the mop to form a path to the stairs. With my feet on either side of the oily pathway, I tugged the pot again and pulled it halfway to the stairs before I had to stop and take another break.

The oil worked well enough to get me to the stairs, but it was too heavy to carry to the top deck by myself. I considered going topside to hunt down Stew and Carlo before I remembered that they worked in the lower levels of the ship, exactly where I wasn’t allowed to go.

I rubbed the back of my neck as I thought of all the different ways I could get the soup pot to the top deck without maiming myself and destroying the ship. But the quickest way was to lift the pot onto each step and pause whenever I needed a break.

The next half hour consisted of exactly that. Lifting the pot as many steps as I could manage and taking short breaks in between. By the time I had made it to the top of the stairs, the smell of Grouch-o’s new soup was spreading all throughout the lower decks and slowly made its way topside. Though it smelled far better than whatever was cooling in the pot below me, I knew it wouldn’t taste much different.

Sitting on the top step with the pot of soup next to me, I looked out across the deck. It was a sunny day, the sky void of any clouds or signs of approaching storms crossing the horizon. There were a few crewmates doing rounds across the ship, but many of them were probably below deck preparing the next trade at Solomon’s Port. Stew had told me this morning during breakfast that we would be there within the next day or so.

“Make sure the captain doesn’t see you!” Grouch-o called from the kitchen. I rolled my eyes, wondering how I was going to pull such a feat off.

Through the cracked doorway I watched as the men tied off the mast’s ropes and checked the sails, Jax nowhere in sight. I waited until they either disappeared from view or turned their backs before jumping up and hauling the pot over to the railing.

The oil had made a tremendous difference when I had moved it through the kitchen, but I couldn’t oil the top deck without having to come back later to wash it out. By then someone might stop and ask questions, and if I wanted Grouch-o to let me off kitchen duty I couldn’t risk it.

With a grunt, I stopped a few feet short of the railing and took a quick look around me. The crew was still oblivious to my presence on deck, and there was no one on the helm above me. I was still in the clear, but my time might get cut short at any moment.

Rolling my shoulders in a quick effort to ease the tension out of my neck and back, I grabbed the handle and gave it one last pull. The pot scrapped against the wood louder than I liked, but I had made it to the railing. Now all I had to do was lift it, dump it, and be done with it.

“I didn’t expect to see you topside.”

I didn’t have to turn around to know who was standing behind me. I wanted to kick myself for not paying closer attention.

Jax moved so he was leaning against the railing next to me, his eyes drifting from me to the pot sitting between my knees. Maybe he wouldn’t ask about the pot.

“What’s in the pot?” he asked. Shit.

“Just some scraps Grouch-o wants me to throw overboard. Onion roots, potato eyes, eggshells. You know, just the usual stuff that gets tossed.”

“I see.”

“I was just gonna get rid of it and go back down, I don’t need any help.”

“Alright.”

I waited for him to turn and leave, but his dark brown eyes held mine defiantly. He wasn’t going to leave any time soon.

My lips formed a thin line as my stomach twisted in frustration. Why did he have the uncanny ability to show up at exactly the wrong time?

Turning away from him, I looked down at the pot. The brown goop had gotten darker in the afternoon sun, making a sour smell rise up out of it. Holding back a sigh, I bent over and grabbed the handles.

“Lift with your knees, not your back.” Jax said from next to me. I looked over to see him casually watching me out of the corner of my eye, a cigarette dangling out of his lips that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He breathed out a low cloud of smoke that curled around my waist. I didn’t know he smoked.

“It helps clear my head.” He said, motioning to the cigarette as he flicked off the ash. I blinked up at him – it felt like he was able to read my mind sometimes. Just a glance at my face and he could know what I was thinking.

I cradled the pot between my knees and lifted, setting the bottom of the pot on my thigh before tipping it against the rail. The action would have been fairly impressive had I not lost my grip on the pot, helpless as it slipped through my fingers and tumbled into the ocean below. It hit the waves with an audible smack, its dark contents didn’t even leak out as the pot descended below the surface. I felt bad for the poor fish who tried to eat it.

Jax stared down at the water along with me. “You probably just killed every living thing down there.” He said. I pressed my lips together to keep myself from letting out a giggle.

“What do you need to clear your head for?” I asked him suddenly, looking at the cigarette that sat perched between his lips. I wanted to smack myself again – what happened to cutting the cord with him for good? Now I was diving deeper into his personal life, asking him what was bothering him so much so that he sought out smoking for solstice.

Jax raised an eyebrow at me, a smirk playing on the edge of his lips. “I fancy someone who doesn’t fancy me back.” He said.

My heart fluttered in my chest. Was he talking about me? He wouldn’t be so cruel as to be telling me about some other girl. Was he still thinking about the night we almost kissed?

“I’m sure if you just told Grouch-o how you feel, he’ll admit he feels the same.” I said, dancing around the topic. “And who even says the word ‘fancy’ anymore? You sound like an old milk maid.”

Jax flipped his head back as he laughed, the earthly sound vibrated deep into my bones. The fluttering in my heart was now migrating into my belly, it was like having the whole damn ocean swimming around in my stomach.

I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear as I felt my cheeks flame. Hopefully I could blame it on the heat of the sun and my intense battle with Grouch-o’s pot. But Jax was still too busy laughing while he rubbed his jaw to notice my reddened cheeks. I watched the way his palm grazed the stubble surrounding his cheeks and chin, and before I could stop myself, I reached out and touched the skin of his jaw just below his ear.

He froze, his laughter stopping completely as he twisted out of my grasp. The butterflies in my belly turned to stone, their weight making me want to sink to the bottom of the ocean with Grouch-o’s lost pot.

I felt my bottom lip tremble but quickly bit it to stop its shaking. The action did not go unnoticed by Jax, who swept a hand through his hair and looked down at me with an emotion I couldn’t quite place. He set his jaw, looking between me over his shoulder at the rest of the crewmates working. Was he embarrassed of me?

I wanted to scream at him and rip the pretty blonde hair clean off his head. One minute he’s telling me he fancies me and the moment I show the slightest bit of interest back he pushes me away?

I felt a familiar burn appear at the back of my eyes as I fought the urge to cry. I choked back the lump in my throat and ignored the dull pain beginning to form between my eyes. Why was I being so emotional?

Pivoting on my heel, I turned back towards the stairs leading to the kitchen and ripped open the door. It rattled off its hinges but quickly went still as Jax placed a hand to steady it from behind me. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me back around so I was facing him.

He had pulled a tad too hard, however, and my lack of coordination made it so I ended up crashing against his chest instead. My hands felt hot against the soft fabric of his tunic, which was misted from the sea water. He felt cool and solid beneath me as I burned hot in his embrace. I looked over his shoulder to see if any of the crew was watching, but Jax’s broad chest hid me from view.

His nose brushed the sensitive skin under my eye, his breath fanning across my face and ruffling my hair. We stayed like that, his arms wrapped around me while I breathed him in. All too soon he pulled away.

“You never know who’s watching, Mousey.” He said.

The next moment he was gone, leaving my emotions reeling inside my head and chest. I headed back down to the kitchen, his words still ringing in my ears. What had he meant by ‘you never know who’s watching?’ and why was he still calling me Mousey?

“Where’s the pot?” Grouch-o said the moment he saw me walk in.

I bit my tongue. I had completely forgotten about that.

“The soup was stuck to the sides of it. I couldn’t get it to pour out, so I just chucked it.” I said, the lie slipping off my tongue far too easily.

“You what?” Grouch-o said, his voice bouncing off the walls.

“What else did you want me to do?” I said, throwing my hands up into the air. Jax had already riled me up, and now Grouch-o was going to send me over the edge.

“Not throw my damned cutlery into the ocean!” Grouch-o said. The top of his bald head was beginning to turn red – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this upset. And about a soup pot no less.

Instead of responding, I turned away and headed for my room. I wanted to sleep off the deep ache that felt like splinters were imbedded into my skin and bone.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Grouch-o called from behind me.

“I’m going back to bed.”

“You chucked my pot – you’re not going anywhere. There’s another pile of turnips I need chopped before noon tomorrow.”

“But you said I could get the rest of today and tomorrow morning off!” I said, whirling back around to face him. The soreness in my arms and legs all but disappeared as I felt my skin heat and the muscles around my neck and face tense. Was he really going to try and pull this card?

“That was before you threw out my favorite soup pot.” He waved his carving knife at a brown sack by his feet. “Now get chopping.”

“No.” I said, squaring my shoulders. We had a deal, and I wasn’t going to back down from getting a mid-afternoon nap.

Grouch-o’s eyebrows rose to the top of his bald head. Had my response shocked him any more they would have shot clean off his face. He lifted his knife, the tip pointed at me, but before he could begin to argue with me, I cut him off.

“If you’re going to make me work, then I’ll tell the captain that one of the pots has mysteriously disappeared. Then you will have to explain how your soup of shit had to be chucked out, the pot included.” I said. A sort of strangled sound escaped Grouch-o’s mouth, as though he was trying to speak but the words had been lost along the way. “And you’re the only one who makes the soup around here. I didn’t go anywhere near your stupid pot, so you can’t blame it on me this time.”

I turned and disappeared down the hallway, not waiting around long enough for Grouch-o to think of a response that would keep me there working for the rest of the night.