The Nocturne is the most mysterious of ships (we don’t even find out its name until the end of Tide of Terror) and is first glimpsed by Connor as he drifts in the sea awaiting rescue. “All he could make out was the dark silhouette of its strange, tattered sails. They seemed to flap gently as the ship made its way. It seemed as if, rather than sailing through the rough ocean, the ship was merely skimming the surface, unaffected by the strong currents.”
Connor glimpses the figurehead, with her sleek black bob and wide, mesmerizing eyes. Little does he know that the figurehead has a name - Darcy Flotsam, that she comes to life after sunset, or that she will become one of Grace’s great friends aboard the ship.
When Grace is pulled from the stormy seas by enigmatic Lorcan Furey, she awakes to find herself lying on red stained deck boards. Her range of vision is limited by a strange, circling mist. Before she can explore her new home, she is carried away and locked inside a cabin. The room is filled with ornate furniture and intriguing objects from the ship’s travels but Grace is more interested in what is going on outside. She is warned to keep her curtains closed and not venture outdoors for her own safety.
Hot food mysteriously arrives in the cabin without anyone seeming to enter the room. The candles flicker but never seem to burn down and time plays strange tricks on her. In many ways, the more time she spends aboard the ship, the less everything makes sense. But then Grace breaks free and starts roaming the ship’s corridors. And that’s when her adventures really begin…
Bob Lea’s first cover illustration for Demons of the Ocean shows The Nocturne and is a particular favourite of mine as it gives life to a setting, which until then had only existed in my imagination. I view The Nocturne a little like Doctor Who’s Tardis – it’s a key setting for the books and we see and learn more about it as the story unfolds. But, as Lorcan says to Grace, “there’s a million mysteries aboard this ship” and we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of them.