19 Graphology

A sudden and loud knock on the door interrupted them.

Oh, how Bastian hated tropes that had anything to do with interruption. It was almost as if a malevolent god was controlling the world.

He tried to go on with what he had been doing with Amanda, but the knock was repeated, louder and more urgent than before. Amanda let out a curse.

"One could think of a better time!" she shouted through the door as she fumbled with the lock. "It is late! Extremely late, and I think the good captain should get his rest!"

Her face went pale as they saw Sammy standing there, covered in blood. For a moment, Bastian forgot nearly everything that had happened since noon, and he couldn't connect their little Halloween masquerade party to the appearance of the second first mate. However, the thing that brought him back to reality was the equally blood-stained note that Sammy handed to him without saying as much as a single word.

"Sammy," he read, as that was what the paper had written on it.

He looked at the angry red lines drawn over the name. From the looks of it, it did seem like a graphological session was in order.

He made the women sit down at the table and pulled out a blank piece of paper. Dipping a quill in a bottle of black ink with a ferocity that resembled a woodpecker banging its head against a tree, he wrote two identical and equally binding contracts, contracts that would bind the people signing them into full silence about what would happen tonight in this cabin.

"I want both of you to sign a paper like this," he said and gave the women their own quills to use.

Of course, the contract was a ruse. He just wanted to see whether either of them had a style of handwriting that matched the notes that they had received. This way, he could figure out whether the culprit was in the cabin right now. It was hard, but not impossible to fake a signature, he knew that much, but neither of the women held their quills like people who did a whole lot of writing. Instead, they looked adorably clumsy, like they had just started to figure out the art of writing.

"I want both of you to shut up about everything you see tonight," he said. "We are going to be dealing with forces and desires that you might not fully understand. Some of these things will scare you to the point where you will feel a desire to talk about it with someone you trust. But from now on, I alone shall be that someone. If you cannot talk about a matter to me, you cannot talk about it to anyone. No matter how freaked out you are. Because if either one goes beyond what is allowed in this contract, if you break these terms…I will keelhaul both of you without hesitation. Understood?"

It was a commonly known fact in all universes that wherever there were women, some of them were defective enough in a sense of mental self-sufficiency that they responded positively to the sense of danger. Captain Bastian Black was in no way convinced that men were any different, but his own gender had betrayed him often enough that he didn't give a shit about most other men.

These women as well seemed to be thrilled by this ordeal that bound them together, forced them to act as a team instead of being sworn enemies.

Bastian was half winging it, half acting out of concern for everything remotely magical that had happened since his transmigration. He had not read a lot of the book that held within all things from Captain Roy Gorgo to the occult books, but he did have an idea about one magical trick that could help him get an idea about the abilities and actions of his brother.

The flushed cheeks of the two first mates spoke their own, colorful language. Even though Sammy was the oldest person in the group and therefore tried her best to seem stable and reasonable, Bastian caught her licking her lips and glancing towards him with her pupils all wide.

He could have as well lost himself in their dark abyss, but he had better things to do.

He explained the contract, which did not really contain anything else besides "shut up about everything" and similar phrases, although Bastian, being Bastian, had put everything eloquently and without using a single rude word.

The girls pretended to listen, but at the same time there was something else going on in the cabin. Quickly, they adopted a kind of body language that they used to communicate with each other, but not in a hostile way. By presenting himself as their boss and a sort of a benevolent adversary, a strong one, too, Captain Bastian Black had essentially removed them from positions of rivalry and made them allies. Unlikely allies, but allies nevertheless.

"I am going to sign it if you sign it, too," Amanda said.

Sammy let out a gentle and attractive chuckle, unlike her normal laughter.

They signed the papers.

"Now," said Bastian, wondering how he could get a glimpse at the papers without alarming the women too much. "Now we are going to go through a simple and effective scrying ritual. I think you two might have heard of scrying before."

Neither of the signatures (clumsy as they were, written in all caps) matched the ones that had decorated the ominous notes. Bastian did not let that phase him, and he instead chose to go through with the rest of his plan.

Amanda laughed nervously.

"I thought scrying was impossible," she said with her eyes fixated on an imaginary spot on the table. "I thought it was the stuff of the tales of old wives."

"Why would it be more impossible than the Book of Peridot and those other items that really work?" Bastian asked. "Amanda, I understand that you lack the lived experience necessary to cope with this uncertainty, but the fact is that there are things that science will never be able to explain."

And he blew out all candles except for one.