A Ship of Bones & Teeth

by Karina Halle

When it comes to the high seas, not all monsters lurk beneath the surface.

There was no moon on the night I decided to sell my soul.

I had always wanted a man’s heart, but my mother said it was something I had to earn.

“I’ve come to rescue you, milady,” I tell her, flashing her a grin and spitting out sea water.

“I wasn’t,” I say but I stop myself. Because I am a liar. I was leaving him for dead. And I was trying to save only myself.

“What’s this?” I ask, peering at her. “What happened to your face?”

“Are you going to tell me who laid their hands on you?”

He tilts his head and frowns, studying me. “Don’t waste your tears on me, Princess,” he says, and that’s when I realize I’m crying silently, my cheeks wet. “Let’s get you back to where you belong.”

I find myself smiling. “She is, isn’t she? And not just a lady, but a princess.”

I don’t know what it is about a woman that wants me dead, but I swear nothing gets me harder.

Suddenly I want nothing more than to make her laugh again.

While he’s still looking at me, while he’s still alive for just a few more seconds, I take his still beating heart and shove part of it in my mouth, biting down with needle sharp teeth as ravenous, monstrous hunger takes over. I make sure it’s the last thing he sees.

She’s mad. This woman is pure madness. She needs to be locked up. She’s dangerous and wild and unsafe. And yet, how is it that I’ve never been so delighted before?

This woman is now my equal.

A low grumble sounds in my chest like a warning. “Do I need to ask who did this to you?” I manage to say.

God Almighty, she is the moon and I am the tides. I feel my resolve begin to slip away as her eyes pull me in.

“I fear many things, luv. And from the start, I have always feared you.”

that maybe one day, in another world, in another century, she could learn to love me instead of hate me.

But Maren is kneeling by the porthole and staring out the window at the moon and the sea and…damn it, it knocks the wind out of me. That’s all she really wants. To go home. She doesn’t want to be with me. She just wants to return to the sea.

Then I will help you get home, I think to her.

He promised he wouldn’t hurt me, but I’ve never been one to take a man at his word.

I deserve your wrath, Maren. I deserve it, as do so many people who have tried to put you in a cage. People who have hurt you and overlooked you and ignored you.

DONT SAY SHIT LIKE THIS IM SO FRUSTRATED I DONT WANT TO LOVE HIM

“I’m still angry. Gods help me, I don’t want to be this angry.”

My poor baby

And that, my cearban, is a relief.”

“Gaelic for shark,” he explains.

“Don’t you think? What is madness if not rage? If not a monster?”

I know now, no matter how I spin it, that whether I’m with him or not, it will hurt to say goodbye, cut me right down the middle. I can’t pretend otherwise.

I love fmcs with brains

“Monster, Syren, princess, and pirate.”

I delicately wipe my lips and fold my hands in my lap, like a lady.

“No, you aren’t going to live through this one, mate. The lady you just tried to take, my lady,

The taste of your own shortcomings is the last thing you’ll know.”

“God Almighty,” I swear, bubbles rising from my mouth. “You are the most stunning monster I have ever seen.”