Kyle walked down the mostly empty main street of Tortuga, Mona perched on his shoulder. He and Hal were returning to the ship for a Christmas dinner, celebrating with the crew that did not have families on Tortuga, and Hal had sent him off to the bakery for fresh bread. While most of the residents of the island were home today, most of the merchants on the wharf were still open. Piracy didn’t take holidays and there were still ships coming and going from Tortuga’s harbor and plenty of sailors with money in their pockets.
The bakery was open and busy, a long line stretching out from the door. Bread baked from (mostly) fresh flour and (mostly) free of weevils was one of those luxuries you took for granted until you were at sea for a while. Kyle took his place in line, glancing towards the rest of the market. He hoped the stall with the jewelry was open today. Since they were heading for England, he wanted to get Jenny a gift, perhaps one of the crystal pendants they had gotten for the girls. He may have had a falling out with her brother, but he still considered Jenny a friend. Her father had sent her regards in the letter, so it seemed she still considered him a friend as well. She was most likely his only friend in England.
He finally reached the door and bought the loaves of bread, along with some more gingerbread cookies for Mona. He handed her one as they left, the monkey snatching it up in greedy fingers. “You’ll have to go easy on those cookies,” he chided her. “They have to last us until we get to England.”
There was a shout behind him and he turned. A young boy was running towards him. An angry sailor chased after him, waving a half-empty bottle of rum. Kyle grabbed the boy by the arm as he passed, nearly dropping the bread in the process. Mona leapt off his shoulder and scampered away. Shit!
“Let me go!” the boy yelled, twisting in Kyle’s grip.
“The brat stole my money!” the sailor shouted. He raised his hand to strike the child, but Kyle reached out with his foot and tripped him, sending him sprawling in the dusty street and spilling the rest of his rum.
The man growled and stood up, moving to draw his sword, but another sailor grabbed his arm. “That’s Jordan’s boy,” the man said. “You touch him, you’re as good as dead!”
Kyle looked down at the child in his grip. He had made a very thin construct underneath his hand to wrap around the boy’s wrist, small enough so there was barely a glow, but enough so the boy couldn’t squirm out of his grasp. “Did you take his money?”
The boy looked up at him from under a mop of dark, matted hair. He was filthy, in ragged clothes spotted with holes, and far too thin, but he stuck his chin out defiantly.
“Give it back,” Kyle said, trying his best to sound like Hal in a bad mood. The boy’s defiant look disappeared and reached into his pants, pulling out a bag of coin.
The sailor grabbed it away from him. “Filthy little thief! Needs to be locked up in the gaol! Or maybe a trip to the gallows would teach you a lesson!”
Kyle raised his eyebrows and looked at the man. The sailor had a tattoo on his forearm, a bare-chested mermaid signifying he was crew on The Sea Nymph. “You’re a pirate, but you think a small child should be hanged for stealing some coins?” Kyle asked him. He shook his head and laughed.
The man took a step towards Kyle, but his companion pulled him back. “Don’t do it! You know if you touch a hair on his head the Nymph will be paying a visit to Davy Jones, and all of us with her!”
Kyle glared at the man, daring him to try anything. Yes, it was stupid to tempt fate like that, but in this case it felt really good when the sailor backed down simply because he was afraid of Hal and the crew of the Emerald Dawn. The two men shuffled away, the first sailor still throwing dirty looks over his shoulder. Kyle looked down at the boy. “Where do you live?”
“Nowhere,” the boy mumbled. He tried to pull his wrist from Kyle’s grip. “I gave him his money back! Let me go!”
“You must live somewhere,” Kyle said. “Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” the boy muttered. “My mum is anyway. Don’t know who my father is.”
An orphan then. Kyle knelt down in front of him. “Want something to eat?” He nodded at the bundle of bread tucked under his arm. “We’re having Christmas dinner.”
“I can’t pay you,” the boy said, eyeing the bread hungrily.
“Don’t worry over it,” Kyle said. He smiled. “My name is Kyle Rayner. What’s your name?”
“Sodam Yat.”
He studied the child’s face. It was an unusual name, but the boy had unusual features. Possibly oriental, but maybe native as well. “Well, Mister Yat ...” Kyle stood up and looked around. “Would you like to help me find my monkey?”
“You have a monkey?” Sodam’s face lit up.
“I do. Her name is Mona.” He scanned the tops of the buildings, looking for any sign of her. He would be sad if he lost her, though Hal and the rest of the crew probably wouldn’t mind so much.
They walked together down the row of shops. Kyle made a quick stop to buy Jenny’s pendant. He noticed Sodam was eyeing up a clear crystal prism. The boy appeared fascinated by the rainbow of colors that spread out on the sheet under the crystal. Before Sodam could cause trouble for trying to steal it, Kyle picked it up and showed it to the shopkeeper. “And this as well.”
Kyle paid for his purchases, slipped the pendant into his pocket, then held the prism out to Sodam as they walked back out into the street. “Here you go.”
“Why are you giving it to me?” Sodam asked, looking up at Kyle warily. “Are you trying to buy me?”
Kyle stopped in his tracks. “Buy you?”
“I’m not a whore,” Sodman said, lowering his eyes and kicking the ground with his ragged shoe. “That’s why I ran away. They were going to sell me.”
“Who was going to sell you?”
“The whores at the brothel,” Sodam said. “They said I was old enough to start earning my keep, that I owed them for keeping me even after my mum died. So they were going to make me be a whore, too.”
Kyle felt sick. The boy couldn’t have been any older than ten. “I’m not trying to buy you. I just want to help.”
The boy still looked suspicious, but he snatched the prism out of Kyle’s hand.
They continued walking, Kyle still scanning the trees and rooftops. It seemed most likely that Mona would have gone up, since that’s what she had done on the ship. And he was certain she had ran this way when the confrontation started.
They reached the end of the road, at the corner where the man with the violin was sitting on a battered old chair and tuning his instrument. Down on the dock Kyle could see Hal waiting for him, talking to another sailor. Kyle stepped closer to the building so he wouldn’t be easily seen. Hal would be angry if he knew Kyle had to search for Mona again.
“There!” Sodam was pointing up at the shop sign on the building.
In the fork between the post and the building, Kyle saw a furry tail. Then it disappeared and was replaced by the familiar little moon-face. “Mona! Come down here!” He handed Sodam the package of cookies. “Hold one of those out to her,” he said. “She loves them.”
Mona squeaked and leapt down from her perch, bouncing from Kyle’s head to Sodam’s shoulder. The boy giggled when the monkey settled on his shoulder, munching away at the cookie.
“Let’s go,” Kyle said. “We’ll get you something to eat, too.”
“Are we going to a ship?” the boy asked excitedly. “I’ve never been on a ship before.”
“Yes. We’re going to that one there,” Kyle said, pointing to the middle of the harbor where the Dawn was anchored. “She’s called The Emerald Dawn.”
Sodam gasped. “I heard about that ship. They say it’s captained by the Devil himself!”
Kyle snorted. “Well, he can get fairly grumpy at times, but I wouldn’t call him a devil.” They went down the stairs to the docks, where Hal was waiting next to the boat.
“Where have you been?” Hal asked when they approached. He looked down at the boy with the monkey on his shoulder and frowned. “Who is that?”
“This is Sodam Yat,” Kyle said. “Sodam, this is Captain Hal Jordan.” Sodam was just staring up at Hal, eyes as big as saucers, probably imagining him suddenly sprouting horns and a tail. “He’s going to have dinner with us.”
Hal’s jaw clenched. “We need to talk.” He took Kyle’s arm and pulled him down to the end of the dock. “All right, I indulged you when I bought you that monkey, but I’m going to draw the line at stray children.”
“But, Hal ...”
“No. Take him back where you found him. He probably has a family looking for him.”
“He doesn’t. His mother is dead. He was living in the brothel where she worked and they want to sell him! That’s why he ran away.”
Hal sighed. It was a sore spot with him, people being traded like they were animals, and Kyle knew that would change Hal’s mind. “All right. We’ll feed him, but then we’ll take him up to Kat and Tora, see if they want to take him in.”
Kyle nodded. He doubted they would turn the boy away. “Agreed.” He started to lean in to kiss Hal, then remembered where he was. He reached out and quickly squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”