The Pirate Fairy by A.J. Llewellyn Read Free Book Online Page A

when it had involved drinking. Though Denny chafed at authority, he shone when a superior officer befriended him. It came from his years as a street urchin. Always desperate to belong, he’d trotted beside the ship’s crewmembers when they’d stepped away from hauling barrels onto the ship and slipped into one of the many tavernas dotting the port.
    For the first time, Denny had tasted the local drink, Chartreuse, an extremely alcoholic green drink that tasted sweet at first, but then developed a strong and pungent aftertaste that made the drinker imbibe more to get back the sweetness. Denny and the crew had ordered platters of pa amb tomàquet , which had turned out to be large slices of square toasted bread with scrapings of tomato laced with olive oil and salt. Denny couldn’t believe how good such a simple meal could taste. He thought of the numerous nights he and his sister, Polly, had slept without food in their bellies. Like the others, he’d kept drinking.
    It had been something of a shock to find himself on a stone floor the next morning inside a jail cell. The place had been noisy and the head jailer had come to see him when a guard had alerted him that their prisoner was awake.
    “Where are the others?” Denny had asked, sitting up and wishing the world would stop spinning.
    The head jailer had paced. “My name is Christoph and I oversee things here.”
    Denny had panicked that he’d been left behind, and waited for the news.
    “Your friends refused to pay their bill and your captain, Lester Piggins, will not pay for it. He says he will leave you all here until you’ve learned your lesson.”
    Denny had hated the sound of that and had plotted against Piggins from that moment.
    “I understand,” Denny had said. What else could he have said? He didn’t speak Spanish and he’d been at the mercy of this Christoph guy who, though not especially attractive, had had a seductive accent, and so far had seemed quite kind.
    Christoph had left him alone then, and for hours and hours, Denny had remained that way in his cell. He’d had no idea what was going on but had heard occasional chatter from other prisoners scattered around him. He’d tried to peer out of the bars of his cell, but hadn’t been able to see much. A frantic urge to pee had left him disheartened when he’d noticed the slop bucket in the corner. He’d made use of it, but it had demoralized him.
    He’d done nothing wrong, or had he?
     

Chapter Four
     
     
     
    Merritt somehow made it out of the window, but dropped one of the items he’d stuffed down his shirt. Damn. It was the black candle. Gremma could still use it to work magic against the person whose blood had touched it.
    “No!” she yelled as he dropped back inside and grabbed it, but Merritt made his way out of the window again and took off running. She followed him, but he lost her. He ran and he ran, hiding far in the forest. Her voice followed him until he climbed higher up into the dense forest and found a small cave. Once he was sure he was alone, he sat just inside the entrance. He took out everything, including the sandwich that might or might not have been poisoned. He was starving now and the sky grew dark. He’d been gone all day. His sister would be frantic, no doubt, but he didn’t care. He examined all the objects he was certain had been stolen from unluckily hexed victims. Psychometry had been his gift until he and Fortunata had had the misfortune of being abducted. Neither of them had been able to harness their power because Merritt had been shackled. Then Denny had come to their rescue.
    He wouldn’t think about that now. He had to find out who had owned each object before him and return the items in order to break the spell Fortunata had over them. He moved his hand over everything. He’d start with the sandwich. It was the most recent object that had possibly been hexed.
    Merritt’s magic was strong but he’d declined to use it all these months because