theo degas's leather jacket

"Too risky, Lieutenant Storm," said Wingfoot. "Let us wait and see whether those sails are friends or foes."

Swallowing his impatience, Johnny flew up to the crow's nest with a spyglass instead. "Colors?" he asked, lifting the spyglass to his eye.

"English," replied the lookout.

Johnny nodded, satisfied. True enough, the red and white were flying proudly from the other ship's main mast. Not that he would have balked had it flown the black... only he'd had enough of battles. The sea used to hold such wonders, but in the past four years, for Johnny, Lieutenant Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm of the Royal Navy, it had held nothing but cannonballs and blades and bullets and screaming men and blood. But no pirate ships would dare approach Nassau Harbor head-on like this, not now, not when he and his family, the Four of the Fantastic, were known to be protectors of the West Indies. There was comfort in that, at least.

"That would be Governor Evans's ship," Commander Wingfoot said once Johnny rejoined him on the quarterdeck.

"I should return for the welcoming party then," Johnny said. Sue would have his hide if he were late.

"Shall we await you for tonight's patrol, Lieutenant?" Wingfoot said.

As it always happened whenever Wingfoot showed deference towards him, a jab of shame pricked at Johnny. Even though Wingfoot's ship, the Marvel, was only a small eight-gun sloop, mostly used for reconnoiter missions and patrolling, Wingfoot still outranked him, and yet Wingfoot treated him as though Johnny were a captain and not a mere first lieutenant. All because Johnny was a member of the Four. If he was to have respect from the men, then Johnny wanted to earn it on his own merits, not simply because he could set himself on fire.

"Naturally," he told Wingfoot. "A festive occasion is no excuse to shirk my duties."

"And you'll pass the word to the Governor about the... disturbances we've heard?" Wingfoot said, a little more hesitantly.

Johnny understood the commander's doubts. In the past year or so, strange tales had been reaching them across the sea, tales of disappearances—merchant ships, fishing fleets, frigates, and even galleons, were discovered adrift with not a soul on board. All living things, from the crews down to the animals in the holds, had vanished as if swallowed by the depth, leaving only the empty husks of the ships. No one, not pirates nor navies, came forth to claim responsibility. To add to the mystery, these ships' cargoes were intact—if they had been attacked, why would the raiders leave the valuables behind? So far, no ships on this side of the trade route had had firsthand experience of them—the disappearances seemed to be concentrated on the other side of the world, along the South Seas, and stretching as far as Madagascar and even the Indian Ocean—but they were unsettling, to say the least, and almost too fantastical to be believed. And yet, wasn't the very existence of the Four proof that the ocean held far more strange and terrifying wonders than humans thought possible? Johnny, for his part, was inclined to believe those tales.

"Of course I shall ask him," Johnny assured Wingfoot. "Even if the Governor himself does not know, his captain or someone in the crew may have heard something."

After saluting the commander and nodding at the rest of the men, Johnny made his way back to Baxter House, the modest manor that stood in the shadow of the fort overlooking the harbor, which had served as the Four's home since they were first sent to Nassau. Though not as imposing as the Governor's Mansion, it had the advantage of being close to the water, which allowed them to keep an eye on the bay.

Johnny flew through the window, which had been kept clear of drapes after he accidentally burned them to ashes when they first arrived, and landed on the floor of his bedchamber.

"You're late," Ben's gruff voice came from the corner of the room, making Johnny jump out of his skin. And here he thought only his sister could sneak up on people. How did Ben manage it with his bulk?

"The Governor's ship has only been spotted on the horizon," Johnny said, once he'd regained his composure. "The Excelsior will have no trouble meeting her before she even reaches Hog Island." He turned around to face Ben. "Why are you here anyway?"

"Sue sent me to tell you that you're late." Ben's voice made it clear that he didn't appreciate being relegated to the role of a pageboy.

"I'm ready."

"Not until you put those on." Ben pointed to the dresser, where a navy jacket with gold trim and a periwig, freshly powdered, had been laid out by the valet. Ben himself was looking quite distinguished in a similar jacket, though he had forgone the wig.

Johnny wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Why should we have to dress up to go out to sea?" he asked, poking at the wig as though it would sprout wings and take flight. He was a Royal Navy man, dammit, not a beribboned fop.

"We're not just going out to sea," Ben said. "We're meeting the Lord Governor of the Bahamas and welcoming him to Nassau."

"Which we would not have to do if Reed took the governorship when they offered it to him," grumbled Johnny, shrugging on the heavy wool jacket. Adding the wig on top of that, and he would be a sweaty mess before they could even reach the ship. Surely, Sue would want them to be presentable when they met the Governor? Would he be able to use that as an excuse to forgo the wig? 

"Ha!" Ben snorted. "Can you imagine Reed as the governor?"

"He wouldn't have to govern anything," Johnny insisted. "He could be the face and let Sue make all the decisions, while he retreats to his workshop with his tools and machines. Everyone is happy."

"They wouldn't be. You know as well as I that Reed can never be the face of anything, nor would Sue hide behind anyone."

Johnny huffed. Ben was right. His brother-in-law could invent astonishing devices, but put him in a room with councilmen and politicians, and he would unwittingly start a war in his unending quest for the truth. As for his sister... well, those same councilmen and politicians had barely tolerated her presence on the ship; they would never go for her presence in the office. And, as Ben had said, Sue was no wallflower.

"You could be the governor then," Johnny said, seized by sudden inspiration.

"No one wants to be governed by a thing made out of rock, Johnny," Ben said, his voice tinged with bitterness that made Johnny instantly regret his quip.

"I would," he said earnestly. "And you could decree that no man should have to wear a wig ever again," he added with a grin, tossing the offending thing at Ben's head. No one expected Ben to wear a wig, of course.

"You can always say you accidentally set it on fire," Ben said, chuckling.

Johnny raised an eyebrow. Now that was an idea... Just as a little flame appeared on the tip of his finger, a blast from the door blew the wig out of the way. Johnny turned to find Sue, wearing a resplendent blue brocade gown and an irritated look on her face that he knew quite well.

"Stop dilly-dallying, both of you," she said sternly. "We're late."

Johnny wondered how long she had been standing there, and how much of his and Ben's discussion about the governorship she had heard. But there was no time to ask. As Sue swept downstairs, the flustered valet poked his head in and asked if Johnny needed any help getting dressed. Johnny waved the man away. He might be the youngest member of the Four, but he'd be damned if he let someone else dress him like a child. With a resigned air, he rammed the wig over his close-cropped blond hair and followed Ben out of the room.

Sue and Reed were already in the hall. Reed, in a navy jacket similar to Johnny and Ben's, was cradling Franklin, who seized Reed's dress sword in his chubby little fists and refused to let go. In one smooth movement, Sue gently extracted the sword from Franklin's grip, handed Franklin to the nurse waiting nearby, and buckled the sword on for Reed.

"I know, darling, I know," she said soothingly to Franklin, who was whimpering and trying to reach for the ribbons of her lace cap. "Mama and Papa have to go now, but we'll be back soon, all right? Be good and mind Sally."

She and Reed kissed the child's blond head, and Ben tapped Franklin on the chin with one rocky finger, before heading out the front door. Johnny was following when a furious yap stopped him in his tracks. He turned to find Herbie, their little white-and-tan terrier, running down the stairs, barking all the while as if calling for them to wait. Johnny scooped Herbie up before the dog could launch himself out the door.

"Not today, boy," he said. "We don't know if Lord Evans likes dogs or not, and we don't want to frighten him off."

Sally was already holding out her other arm with a long-suffering look, so Johnny handed Herbie over to her as well. Herbie immediately started licking Franklin's face. This had the double effect of making Franklin giggle and distracting Herbie at the same time, and the Four finally made it down the dock.

The Excelsior was waiting there, its blue-and-white trims gleaming under the Caribbean sun, its sails furled so the three masts rose like sentries, showing off the Four's pennant from the mizzen. It was the perfect day for sailing, the wind blowing true and steady from the southwest, but Reed had decided not to use the sails, to best demonstrate the Excelsior's power to the Lord Governor.

They boarded and took their usual positions—Reed and Sue on the quarterdeck, and Ben at the helm, while Johnny made his way into the boiler room in the bowels of the ship. Back on their first ship, the Fantastic, it had been Johnny's job to stay down there and make sure the furnaces were hot. He'd hated it, and he'd hated Reed for it. He admired his brother-in-law's genius, of course, but couldn't Reed have invented something that didn't require Johnny to confine himself in a hot, dark cell for hours on end, while the sea and the sky and all their wonders passed by overhead? Fortunately, in his design for the Excelsior, Reed had devised a mechanical system to convey the coal to the furnaces via pulleys, so now all Johnny had to do was shoot a bolt of fire from his hand to ignite the furnaces and wait for the rumble that signaled the wheels on either side of the ship had begun turning, and then he could join his family.

Here was the part Johnny loved the most—standing on deck with the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin, smelling the salt air, watching foam-flecked waves part before the bow of the ship and disappear into the turquoise water, so clear he could almost see down to its coral-filled bottom, feeling so free, as though he were weightless. Best of all, there was the discovery of new lands, new places, new beings. Everything else he could get while flying, but that anticipation, that promise, could only come with a long sea voyage. Alas, the anticipation was in short supply that day, as they were going no further than Hog Island. Still, there would be new people to meet—Johnny had heard that the Governor was bringing his family, including a rather attractive daughter—and there was the promise of learning more about the mysterious disappearances as well.

Soon, all too soon for Johnny's liking, the Governor's ship appeared from behind the headland of Hog Island. Reed signaled to it, Ben brought the Excelsior to a halt and steered it right alongside the other ship, and the Governor and his retinue were rowed across.

"Lord Evans, welcome to the Bahamas," Reed said, helping the Governor climb on deck.  

Governor Evans was a small, short, colorless sort of man. Even the plumed hat and heavy coat he was wearing added little to his height and bulk. His eyes, of an undetermined shade somewhere between brown and green, looked out dully from a shallow face, half-hidden under a silver wig and beaded with sweat. Johnny's attention, however, was on the young lady standing behind the Governor's back, all rosy cheeks and chestnut curls, her shy brown eyes fixed on him with great interest, and his disappointment with the short voyage faded considerably.

"Thank you, Commodore Richards." The Governor nodded at Reed, the ostrich plume on his hat trembling in the breeze.

"May I introduce—" Reed began, gesturing at Sue, Ben, and Johnny.

"No introduction necessary, Commodore," the Governor said, cutting him off. "Of course, we have heard about you and your family." He bent over Sue's hand and inclined his head at Ben and Johnny. "It's an honor meeting all of you." He looked around the ship, taking in the furled sails, the smokestack, and the wheels on the sides of the ship. "And this must be the famous Fantastic." In his eagerness, the Governor seemed to have forgotten to introduce his daughter.

Reed cleared his throat. "Uh, no," he said. "The Fantastic was our old ship. It was destroyed when we—"

"When you encountered the mysterious vortex that gave you your supernatural abilities, of course, of course!" the Governor exclaimed. "That was near Drake Passage, was it not? You were trying to circumnavigate the globe. I remember reading the report."

"Indeed." Reed looked slightly uncomfortable. It had been four years, and he still blamed himself for their accident. "But the Excelsior was built from the same design, only with certain modifications. Allow me to show you."

And off they went, Reed taking the Governor on a tour of the ship, rattling off facts about the paddle wheels, the furnaces, and the boilers, how they allowed the ship to travel without being dependent on the wind, how the pulley system helped to reduce the number of crew members, how the sails were still necessary, not just for extra propulsion but also to keep the ship even-keeled in rough seas, and how the specially-designed carriage of the cannons allowed them to fire faster, farther, and with more accuracy. They were followed by Sue, Ben, and the Governor's retinue, while Johnny trailed behind, glancing impatiently at the Governor's daughter. By the equally impatient look she gave him, it seemed Miss Evans had no interest in propulsion or pulleys, but as they could not talk to each other without being formally introduced first, there was little they could do.

"Wouldn't the smoke alert the enemy to your position?" the Governor was asking as he looked at the smokestack belching gray clouds into the sky.

"No more than the sight of sails does," Reed said. "In fact, the smoke can help to mask our movements and add an extra layer of protection."

"By the time the enemy spots us, it is nigh impossible to outrun us anyway," Ben added with pride.

Miss Evans piped up, "And even if they do, Lady Susan can always hide you with her shield of invisibility, can she not?"

Sue smiled at the girl's enthusiasm. "Yes, I can," she said, "but not for long."

Thankfully, the Governor remembered himself just then. "Oh, I do beg your pardon," he said. "Allow me to present my daughter, Dorothea. Dorothea, the Four of the Fantastic—Commodore Reed Richards, his wife, Lady Susan, her brother, Lieutenant Jonathan Storm, and Captain Benjamin Grimm."

Johnny didn't simply bend over Dorothea's hand as the Governor had with Sue. He lifted it to his lips and placed a kiss on her knuckle, deepening the pink on the girl's cheeks. "Welcome to the Bahamas, Miss Evans," he said with his most charming smile. "Did you enjoy the voyage across the Atlantic?"

The blush on Dorothea's face was replaced by a peculiar shade of green that made her look, for a moment, just like her father. "I can't say that I have," she replied. "I was stuck abed with seasickness for most of the crossing, and when I wasn't, I was so frightened of running into pirates that I spent my days locked in my cabin."

Johnny deflated slightly. And here he had been hoping to talk to Miss Evans about all the sights she'd seen during her crossing of the Atlantic. He had made the same trip only once, five years ago, during their fateful voyage around the world, which they had never completed. Since then, they had been wasting away in the Bahamas, chasing pirates like England's hunting dogs, never going further than the Spanish Main and the Carolinas. Well, if he couldn't satisfy his thirst for seafaring with Miss Evans, then Johnny hoped that her father would announce that with the pirates more or less eradicated, the Four could retire and return to exploring.

What Lord Evans said only strengthened that hope.

"Now, now, Dorothea." The Governor patted his daughter's hand. "I told you, there are no more pirates in the Bahamas. The Four took care of that."

"But some of them escaped, did they not?" Dorothea said, her eyes wide. "I've read about them. Mole Man, and Namor the Mariner, and Captain Barracuda..."

"Mole Man and his people have taken the King's pardon, Barracuda is holed up in his hideout in the Carolinas, and Namor has not been seen for over a year," Johnny said in a reassuring voice. "Even his pod of leviathans has gone quiet."

"And what of—Galactus?" Dorothea asked, whispering as if afraid she might call up the pirate in question by speaking his name.

Johnny exchanged a look with his family. Even the Governor was watching them warily. Galactus—or Galan of Taa, as he used to be known, back when he had been but a humble privateer working for the Spanish crown, before he'd gone rogue and become the Devourer of Ships, the most fearsome pirate of the Bahamas—had been the Four's biggest foe, the hardest one to defeat. And, to own the truth, they hadn't defeated him, not definitely. When they faced him, it had only been a year after they gained their powers, and they had still been struggling with how to manage and master those powers. It had taken everything they had to destroy his flotilla, and Galactus himself had fled toward the South Seas on his flagship. Going to the South Seas meant facing Drake Passage once more, and who knew what would be waiting for them there this time? What if it should be something worse than the vortex that had given them their powers? So, in the end, Reed had balked at chasing Galactus down. With luck, Cape Horn might have claimed Galactus, his ship, and what remained of his crew already. This hope had grown in the past four years, when there had been no sights nor sound from the former Pirate King. Now Johnny told Miss Evans the same.

"Nassau is perfectly safe," he concluded. "You have nothing to worry about."

Miss Evans looked slightly comforted. "It seems I must thank you for that," she said, fluttering her lashes at him.

Johnny smiled modestly. "It's only my duties, Miss Evans." He was trying to think of a way to bring up the disappearances to the Governor without alarming her, when Dorothea asked, "Are you fond of dancing, Lieutenant?"

"Indeed, I am," Johnny said, brightening up at the change to a more lighthearted subject. He always felt slightly embarrassed to discuss their pirate hunting, the same way he felt when Commander Wingfoot deferred to him, that he didn't deserve the respect and admiration. "Alas, we haven't had much time for dancing in Nassau. But now that you're here, Miss Evans, I hope we might dance together soon."

"Oh yes, Papa, let's give a ball!" Dorothea cried out, clinging to her father's arm.

"All right, my dear, as soon as we're settled into the mansion," the Governor said with an indulgent smile. "We shall have balls and parties to your heart's content."

Dorothea squealed in delight and turned back to Johnny. "I hear you are an accomplished musician as well, Lieutenant," she said. "Shall we have the pleasure of listening to you play at one of these parties?"

Johnny smiled again, not so modestly this time. It was on the tip of his tongue to say that it would be his pleasure to play to such a welcoming audience, but just then, as if conjured up by Miss Evans's question, a snatch of singing floated to him over the expanse of blue.

There were no words in the singing, only voices, so faint that they sounded little more than a whisper in the wind. As soon as the singing reached Johnny's ears, the words he was about to say died on his lips, forgotten. His family, the Governor and his daughter, the crew, all vanished. He was no longer on the Excelsior, but on the Fantastic, on his first voyage across the Atlantic. One night, during that voyage, somewhere past Madeira, he'd stood on the deck, gazing at the sea, its black velvet surface matching the black velvet sky so perfectly that he could tell them apart only by the moonlight glittering on the water. In that moment, he'd felt as if he were the only living being in an immense world, yet at the same time, the world was so small, its horizon extending no further than the bow of the ship, and the velvety sky and the moonlit sea were close enough to touch. Everything was possible. Now, hearing that singing, he was back to that night, and that vast, welcoming sea was beckoning him...

A force pulled at his waist, and his back collided with something that felt like a solid brick wall, knocking the wind out of him.

"Easy there, Firefly," Ben said behind him.

Johnny became aware that he had drifted over to the starboard railing, and it was Ben who had pulled him back, saving him from tumbling into the sea.

"Did you hear it?" he asked.

Ben nodded, his eyes somber. Johnny looked at the others. Sue and Reed were looking the same as Ben, grave and wondering, while the Governor and his retinue, some with eyes still glazed over, were shaking their heads as if trying to dislodge cobwebs in their minds. Whatever the singing was, it had had a strange effect on them all. Even though the music had stopped, Johnny could feel the longing for the sea still in his heart, tugging at him, and he could hear the melody lingering in the back of his mind, like a dream that faded upon waking but never completely disappeared.

"Lieutenant?" Dorothea said, looking frightened once more. "What just happened?"

"Excuse me," he said, shaking off Ben's grip.

He hurried past the others, ignoring their curious glances, and went toward the hatch. The moment he opened it, Herbie flew out in a white-and-tan blur and ran straight into Dorothea's skirts.

"Herbie!" Ben's scream rang out, threatening to shake the Excelsior off its moorings. "What on Earth is he doing here?"

"I—I don't know," Johnny spluttered. "I could've sworn I left him with Sally!" But they both knew the little dog could be as stealthy as Sue when he wanted. And as fast as Johnny, as flexible as Reed, and as strong as Ben, too.

Dorothea didn't care about any of that. Bending down, she picked Herbie up and started petting and cooing over him, her fear over the strange singing gone. Giving Herbie a silent thank for the distraction, Johnny slipped belowdecks and made his way into his small cabin.

Ignoring the chaos of clothes, maps, charts, bits of ropes, and even ribbons, silk flowers, and fans—mementos of his many romantic conquests—Johnny found a quill, the inkwell, and a bit of paper. With the strange music still fresh in his mind, he scratched down the melody as quickly as he could. He was hardly aware of what he was writing, only focused on committing the memory to paper before it vanished, as though those disembodied voices were dictating it to him and compelling him at the same time.

Only it was done did Johnny turn his attention back to the mess. It took him a moment or two of digging before he located what he was looking for—another sheet of paper, filled with similarly hasty scrawls of music notations. Even before he held the two sheets up for comparison, he knew they were similar in more ways than just the speed at which they had been written. The notes were the same. And back in his room in Nassau, there were more music sheets filled with the same notes, the same melody.

For nearly a year, Johnny had been hearing that singing coming from the sea—while he was on patrol, while he went on supply runs to other islands, and even on sleepless nights, when he opened his window hoping to catch a cool breeze to disperse the stifling tropical heat. It was always the same melody. There were variations here and there, but the leitmotif remained constant. There were never any words in it, only voices, so distant and ethereal that the first time he'd heard it, Johnny hadn't been sure if they were real voices or simply the wind. He had even tried to recreate the melody himself, but his violin could not compare to those voices. And there was always, always that sense of longing, sometimes so acute that it completely took over his mind, as it had just then, other times just a passing feeling, like smelling lavender and remembering the same scent of his mother's sachets.

What magic did those voices possess to affect him so? Did it have anything to do with those disappearances in the South? The singing had started shortly after reports of the disappearances had reached Nassau. Could it be that people had heard the same singing and were ensorcelled by it into abandoning their ships? And where did the singing come from? Who did those voices belong to? What did they want? There were times when, as soon as he heard them, Johnny had jumped to the sky and raced toward the music, only for it to be drowned by the rushing of air in his ears, and he was left hovering in the sky, lost and bereft. Now he sat staring at the music sheets, trying to discern the secret hidden between the staves. The sheets stared back, mocking him with their impervious black marks, until he was forced to give up with a sigh and rejoined the others on the upper deck, as the Excelsior made its way back to Nassau. Just another mystery of the sea that he was not allowed to explore.

Chapter 2