The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere

The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere

The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere

Helen Whistberry

Copyright © 2025 by Helen Whistberry

All rights reserved.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for the purposes of critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. No part of this publication may be used for AI training purposes. For permission requests, contact Helen Whistberry through their website at: www.helenwhistberry.com

Other Books by the Author

Standalone Titles:

The Melody of Trees: 10 Tales from the Forest

The Tail of Nightshade

Once Upon a Wave of Witches (with Eli Belt)

When Your Heart is a Broken Thing

The Jim Malhaven Mysteries series:

The Weird Sisters

The Avenging Angel

The Ghostly Groom

To LA and Ian for their encouragement

and to my sister who set my feet upon the path

Contents

Illustration: Soot

1.The Doomed Ship

Illustration: The Worm

2.The Squirming Terror

Illustration: Marauding Crab

3.The Singing Beach

Illustration: The Child

4.The Gilded Child

Illustration: Theda

5.The Uncertain Countenance

Illustration: The Parlor

6.The Imprecise Translation

Illustration: The Patio

7.The Welcomed Guest

Illustration: The Tower

8.The Widening Ripple

Illustration: The Giant

9.The Contemplative Giant

Illustration: The Town

10.The Civilized Metropolis

Illustration: The Loom and Spinning-Wheel

11.The Unexpected Question

Illustration: Antler

12.The Golden Steed

Illustration: The Raven

13.The Grey Raven

Illustration: The Drowned Sailors

14.The Dreadful Plunge

Illustration: The Library

15.The Vast Library

Illustration: Book Press and Scissors

16.The Amateur Bookbinder

Illustration: Peony and Butterflies

17.The Tentative Enquiry

Illustration: The Cards

18.The Deck Arcane

Illustration: The Dance

19.The Plaintive Waltz

Illustration: The Gravestones

20.The Rueful Day

Illustration: The Wall

21.The Dreadful Thought

Illustration: The Ram-Beast

22.The Merciless Parade

Illustration: The Journal

23.The Empty Page

Illustration: The Braids

24.The Unforeseen Blessing

Illustration: The Fox

25.The Forest Refuge

Illustration: The Bouquet

26.The Sacred Interlude

Illustration: The Doors

27.The Headlong Flight

Illustration: The Rowboat

28.The Final Voyage

Illustration: Hands and Stars

29.The True End

About the author

Check out my other books!

The Doomed Ship

Far below the ocean’s surface, a horned beast waits and watches. It grinds its teeth and snorts sparks of lava-fueled fire into the chilly waters. Listens to a sailor’s shanty warbled above the waves. A catchy tune. It taps one clawed foot to keep time and makes plans to join that unfortunate crew.

–excerpt from A Naturalist's Observations of an Oft-Neglected World

The wood beneath my feet creaked and moaned like a dying animal. I had lost my last pair of shoes overboard in the tumult of the latest cyclone we’d endured and must suffer the cold, splintered decking with no protection but the thin black stockings that were currently more holes than whole. I did not complain. With most of the crew dead or dying and I capable of but little assistance, the best I could do was make myself even smaller and quieter than was my want and keep out of the way.

A voyage of the damned, the Captain had muttered only this morning over our hasty breakfast of smoked cod and stale, saltwater-soaked biscuits. He was bitter and worn thin from misfortune followed by calamity on top of disaster. Many were the hard glances sent my way. A modern-day Jonah, he was thinking perhaps, though he did not dare speak it aloud, for such words invite their own bad luck.

I would be hard-pressed to argue the point, for by the crew’s own accounts, The Serendipity had encountered calm seas and felicitous winds before my companion and I came aboard at its last port of call. Poor Mitra. She was terrified of sailing, having dreamt many times of her bones clapping and knocking about together on the lonely ocean floor like rolling dice. Had she the Sight after all, as she so often claimed? For such was indeed her fate.

When I closed my eyes, I saw her still. The almost comically surprised expression on her face as the wrathful wave caught her about the waist and dragged her through the cruel railings, splitting them both in twain. Her top half went one way, the bottom another. I tried not to picture their slow descent, the churning water pulling at her skirt of plain stuff and ripping the pins from her dark curls. The obscenity of her innermost secret parts sprawled open, convenient for sharp-toothed marine creatures to begin their relentless feast.

How long does one’s mind continue to conjure sensible thought in such a predicament? Not long, I hoped. The only thing worse than witnessing the breaking of her body would be to think she was aware of what was happening and counting out her losses as she drowned. My scientific mind told me that the shock of her injuries would have shut down any sensations of pain or despair in an instant, but my imagination couldn’t help but run wild, fancying her reaching out one hand to catch at a passing foot so they might not be parted in death.

My father always rebuked me for my morbid fancies, so I learned early not to speak of them. But one soon discovers that to constantly guard one’s tongue is a tiresome affair. Far easier not to speak, though I would be hard-pressed to decide if the world was more suspicious of one who talks too much of what is deemed nonsense or one who talks far too little. You might almost think conserving one’s words was itself a crime. I had hoped to escape such societal expectations when I traveled, but it turned out even the roughest and most graceless of sailors demanded the social niceties from one of my station.

As I huddled close in a small alcove that I’d discovered behind the water barrels lashed to the deck, I heard the Captain shouting orders barely audible above the indescribable commotion of the oncoming storm. I must admit a part of me found the experience restful. At that moment, I required nothing of anyone, and no one required anything of me. To cling, to survive, to speculate how long the ship could withstand yet another tempest with its greatly reduced crew and damaged hull—that was all. To find my life and its striving reduced down to this simple calculus was a relief. For once, I felt my over-busy brain settle and focus.

A dozen men lay below in their hammocks, too ill of the fever to assist or care whether we survived our current trial. Some might even welcome the ship foundering, dragging them down with it and putting them out of their endless misery since they were bound to succumb to their symptoms as had so many others. Another five sailors had been washed overboard as dear Mitra was. That left a scant rollcall of hands aboveboard.

The cook had been installed before the wheel, being the only one remaining who was big and strong enough to fight the inexorable pull of the waves. He looked frightened to death, poor man, and I couldn’t help but think he was steering the ship more or less at random. He lacked the talent of seamanship and would have been far more comfortable stirring a pot on the woodstove in the galley below. The Captain should by rights have been navigating, but he was distracted helping the skeleton crew bring in the sails before they were ripped to pieces and the masts shattered.

I was soaked through and as chilled as I’d ever been in my life. My teeth chattered out an eccentric rhythm that vibrated through my skull, giving me the headache. I became aware of a warm spot at my back. It was Soot, the ship’s cat, a brave golden-eyed mouser with long black fur, four white paws, and a charming little silver moustache. I turned and curled round him, sheltering him from the driving rain. I couldn’t say which of us was shivering more, but what comfort it was to know even one living creature was near to me and faithful enough to share in my fate.

Never before in my travels had I experienced seasickness, but the wildly gyrating ship, the sudden ups and downs as we dropped from highest wave to deepest trough, were challenging even my iron stomach. Any thought of heaving over the side was out of the question, so I concentrated on calming my breath and conjuring pleasanter thoughts in my mind.

The Royal Gardens of Lilliash, lush green lawns punctuated by blooms rioting in every color imaginable. The orchards, tree branches weighed down with a bountiful crop. Mitra’s perfect white teeth biting into a purple plum as the juice ran down her chin. Me, laughingly tucking a twig of white apple blossom behind her ear. The guard who half-heartedly chased us off with a grin and a rude observation, indulgent to our spring fancies and petty thefts.

No, it was too painful to think on Mitra. Better to recall a time from before our first meeting. The summers I spent on Grandfather’s estate, wandering the forbidden wilds and helping bring the herds down from the high places where they fled to escape the spring floods in the meadows. The little wounded owl I nursed back to health and released to the sanctuary of the deep forest with the truest regret. I could feel the grip of its tiny claws round my rough forefinger still. Treasured its hard-won trust.

I’d always had a way with creatures of every kind. Maybe that was why Soot had sought me out. We’d had many a lively conversation below deck in happier times, and he rejoiced in showing off his latest kills to me before devouring them.

Fret not, small friend, I whispered in one soft ear. It’s only another storm and we have weathered many a one these past weeks. All will be well.

Alas that I’ve never learned not to tempt fate with foolish predictions!

The Squirming Terror

I raced onward like a demon chasing the last sinner through the bowels of Hell, never pausing to assess the cost of my headlong plunge. Understanding only that to halt, to turn, to face the thing following me would complete my descent into grief and madness.

–excerpt from Memoirs of a Disgraced Magician

Iwas examining Soot’s face, admiring the small moustache which gave him an air of being constantly amused, when his eyes grew very big and wide and black. His size doubled in an instant as the hair on his trembling body stood on end. A screeching yowl that passed through every musical scale imaginable and seemed to have no end flew from his lungs. I turned my head to follow his gaze.

At first, I thought it must be the limb of some tentacled creature reaching up and around the ship from the depths, but then I realized it was unencumbered by any unseen body and was complete unto itself. How to describe it? Snake-like, eel-like? Neither seem sufficient comparisons for the winding, sinister thing that stretched and spiraled its way across the deck toward us.

Subtle bilious green and mustard yellow stripes ran diagonally down its form, which was twice as long as my height and as big around as my thigh. It quivered and twisted back and forth upon itself like an earthworm stranded on a