For an infinite moment, there was no sound in the cramped cabin but her mother's muffled cries coming from the bed where she held Caroline's small, lifeless body against her chest. Margaret stepped forward. "If you are not the devil, what are you?" she demanded.

"They are the devil's children," Mr. Abernathy answered in their place. "Cast to earth and doomed to feed on the souls of the innocent." Mrs. Abernathy's cries intensified at his proclamation.

Captain Abbot laughed, his teeth gleaming even in the low light. "Spoken like a man with no notion just how vast this world is."

Mr. Abernathy bristled, his shoulders squaring. "I am a soldier. I have witnessed death. And I have seen your kind before."

"I promise we mean you no harm," Abigail said, attempting to quell their fear.

"No harm?" Mrs. Abernathy said, raising her tear-stained face from the top of Caroline's head. "No harm? You killed my daughter!"

"Your daughter was already dying," Abigail said.

Mrs. Abernathy uttered an anguished cry as she slowly rose from the bed, her hand lingering on the still little body. "There is death on this ship," she whispered, as though to herself. Her expression hardened. She glared at her husband then, throwing herself at him and pounding her fists against his chest. "There is death on this ship! I told you, but you wouldn't listen to me! No one would listen to me!"

"Did I not warn you to prepare a stronger tea for the others?" Captain Abbot said to Abigail, souding annoyed. "We will be found out. And then what?"

Abigail gave him a stern look but otherwise ignored him. "Yes, there is death on this ship. And it will take every last one of you before we make land. My companion and I saved Caroline, as we did the others who perished, the agony of a slow death filled with fever and pain and misery. We eased them into the next life, without fear. Little Caroline was not afraid in the end, I assure you. We can do the same for you when your time comes, and it is coming. I smell the taint of death on you already."

Eliza whimpered from the doorway. "What is this nonsense? We are not dying."

"But you are," the Captain insisted.

"You survive on human blood," Margaret deduced.

"That is our curse to bear," Abigail replied.

"Curse?" Thomas said.

"I was once promised to God, but God turned his back on me for reasons I have yet to understand. We are alone in this world, my companion and I."

"Is he not your father?" Margaret said.

Abigail shook her head. "Our human lives ended centuries ago. This man showed me kindness, even knowing what I was. I made him."

"You made him," Margaret said. "Could you make us like such as yourself. Would you?"

"Meg!" Thomas exclaimed, as Mrs. Abernathy and Eliza began with refreshed sobs.

Margaret ignored her family and stepped forward, grasping Abigail's hands in her own. "If we are to die of whatever illness took my sister, make us so that we may live forever!"

"I will not live as a monster," Mrs. Abernathy said. "Kill me now so that I can follow my daughter into the afterlife!"

"We are friends," Margaret said to Abigail. "Or at least I thought so."

"And I will cherish our friendship, even when you are gone."

"You long for companionship," Margaret said, not to be deterred. "We can offer that to you. We can offer you a true family.

"No," the captain replied. "We will only draw attention."

"I don't want to die!" Eliza moaned.

"We are dead either way!" Margaret growled at her sister. "At least this way . . . this way we can still have a life." She turned to her father, imploring. "Imagine the things you could accomplish during not one lifetime, but many."

"Do not consider this," the captain said to Abigail. "It will be our downfall."

"Do you not grow tired of this life, Matthew?" she said. "One ship after another, always the same, year after year. I have found friends in Margaret and Eliza."

"You are no friend of mine," Eliza said coldly.

Abigail turned to her, her eyes filled with sadness. "I will offer you this life should you want it, nonetheless."

"No," Mrs. Abernathy said, from where she had resumed her place next to Caroline. "I will not concede to this."

Mr. Abernathy knelt on the floor next to the bed. He stroked Caroline's head, his eyes welling with unshed tears, as he clutched his wife's hands. "I will not leave you alone in this world to become a ghost."

"I am already alone," she said numbly, tears trembling on her lashes.

"You have me," he whispered, placing his hand against her cheek. "You have three other children. You could stay with me˗˗with them˗˗forever. Caroline might be lost to us, but we have each other."

"W-what about Willy?" Eliza said. "He is supposed to come for m-me. He will not want me if I am a monster."

"You will be dead before we reach land," Abigail said, "if not soon after.?"

"If you do this, you do this on your own," Captain Abbot said. "I will not be party to this."

Abigail grasped his arm. "You have been my companion all this time. Would you leave me now?"

He stared down at her, his face impassive. "It appears you have found your new family," he said. Saying no more, he turned and left.

Abigail stared at the door through which Captain Abbot had disappeared. "Well, then," she said at last, turning her attention to the others. "Shall we begin?"

*****

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