Mr. Grummage informs Charlotte that both traveling families have dropped out, leaving her to sail alone on the Seahawk.

Zachariah, the ship's cook, gives Charlotte a small dirk and urges her to keep it for her own protection.

Captain Jaggery invites Charlotte to tea, shows her his gun safe, and asks her to spy on the crew.

Charlotte reports the round robin conspiracy paper she found in the crew's cabin directly to Captain Jaggery.

Jaggery shoots the one-armed stowaway Cranick dead in front of the assembled crew during the failed mutiny.

Jaggery selects Zachariah from the crew to receive fifty lashes as collective punishment on everyone's behalf.

Charlotte rushes at Hollybrass to stop the whipping, grabs the whip, and accidentally slashes Jaggery's face.

The crew holds a solemn funeral for Zachariah and throws what they believe is his body overboard.

Charlotte successfully climbs to the top of the main mast and back down, earning her place among the crew.

A massive hurricane overtakes the Seahawk, tearing apart its sails and snapping off the main mast.

When the storm clears, Hollybrass is found dead beneath the wreckage with Charlotte's dirk buried in his back.

Captain Jaggery conducts a murder trial, finds Charlotte guilty, and sentences her to be hanged.

Charlotte sneaks to Jaggery's cabin but finds him waiting, and he openly confesses to killing Hollybrass.

Jaggery chases Charlotte onto the bowsprit, slips while trying to hurl her into the sea, and falls to his death.

Charlotte escapes through her bedroom window in her sailor clothes and returns to the waiting Seahawk.

Charlotte boards the Seahawk alone after her planned companions cancel, and quickly falls under the protection of the gentlemanly Captain Jaggery. When she discovers a mutiny plot and reports it to him, Jaggery crushes the rebellion with deadly force, shooting the stowaway Cranick and ordering Zachariah whipped — and Charlotte's attempt to stop the punishment costs her the captain's favor entirely. Cast out, she joins the crew, earns their trust by climbing the main mast, and proves herself during a devastating hurricane. The storm leaves behind the murdered body of Hollybrass with Charlotte's own knife in his back, and Jaggery frames her for the killing. After a rigged trial and a desperate confrontation in the captain's cabin, Charlotte drives Jaggery onto the bowsprit and witnesses his fatal fall, then later escapes her strict family home to return to her true life at sea.

The headline events that drive Charlotte's transformation from passenger to sailor to survivor.

Mr. Grummage meets Charlotte's carriage at the Liverpool docks to arrange her passage aboard the Seahawk.

A dock porter drops Charlotte's trunk and refuses to carry it any further after hearing Captain Jaggery's name.

Second mate Keetch loudly tells Charlotte she should find another ship, but Grummage forces her to board anyway.

Charlotte overhears Keetch tell someone he arranged for her to be the only passenger aboard to serve as a witness.

Captain Jaggery holds his first formal assembly of the Seahawk's crew on the main deck.

Jaggery parades Charlotte proudly along the full length of the ship's deck in front of the entire crew.

Charlotte visits her trunk in the lower hold and is terrified when a mysterious carved face appears in the dark.

Zachariah sews Charlotte a set of sailor's trousers and a blouse, urging her to dress properly for shipboard work.

Charlotte begs Jaggery to stop the whipping of Zachariah, but he silences her and forces her to remain and watch.

Jaggery angrily rejects Charlotte's apology after the whipping and withdraws his promised protection from her.

Jaggery orders Charlotte's belongings moved from her cabin to the crew's forecastle and logs her in the record as 'Mr. Doyle.'

Sailor Barlow warns Charlotte that the captain is steering deliberately toward the edge of a hurricane to gain speed.

Charlotte finds Zachariah alive and hiding in the dark brig deep within the ship's hold.

Charlotte's father reads passages from her journal aloud, declares it rubbish, and hurls the entire book into the fireplace.

Charlotte bribes a maid to smuggle in newspapers and finds the notice that the Seahawk is preparing to sail.

Charlotte's sea voyage begins at the Liverpool docks, where warning signs appear immediately: porters flee at Jaggery's name, Keetch urges her to book another ship, and she overhears a suspicious conversation suggesting she was deliberately planted aboard as a deterrent to mutiny. During the early voyage she attends daily tea with the captain, becomes his informant, and is paraded around the ship as a display of his authority, while Zachariah quietly sews her a set of sailor's clothes she initially refuses to wear. When Charlotte tries to stop Zachariah's whipping and is abandoned by Jaggery, she faces the crew's deep distrust before being moved to the forecastle and accepted into their ranks. As the storm approaches, Barlow's warning about the captain steering toward the hurricane goes unheeded, and afterward Zachariah is discovered alive in the brig — a secret that reshapes the entire struggle for the ship. Back in Providence, Charlotte's father burns her journal and locks her in her room, but a newspaper smuggled in by a bribed maid finally reveals the sailing news she has been waiting for.

The supporting moments and quieter revelations that give the main story its texture and context.

Charlotte boards the Seahawk alone and is shown to a tiny, filthy cabin below deck by a nervous second mate.

Sailor Barlow privately warns Charlotte on her first night that her presence on the ship will bring no good.

Zachariah introduces himself as cook, surgeon, and carpenter, then invites Charlotte for tea in the ship's galley.

Charlotte suffers four days of seasickness while Zachariah quietly nurses her back to health with tea and soft food.

While fetching a sewing needle from the crew's cabin, Charlotte stumbles upon a round robin conspiracy paper.

Crewman Morgan silently draws a finger across his throat at Charlotte, warning her of the mortal danger she now faces.

Cranick is revealed on deck as the one-armed stowaway who secretly boarded the ship back at the Liverpool docks.

Cranick's body is dragged to the ship's gate by Hollybrass and pushed into the sea without a word of ceremony.

Charlotte puts on her sailor clothes, returns to Fisk at dawn, and begs to be accepted as a member of the crew.

Jaggery orders Charlotte to climb out along the bowsprit alone and fix the dangerously tangled flying jib sail.

Struggling through the hurricane's screaming winds, Charlotte uses her knife to cut her blinding hair short.

As Charlotte loses her grip in the rigging during the storm, a mysterious figure reaches down and saves her hand.

Charlotte and Zachariah piece together the evidence and conclude that Captain Jaggery himself murdered Hollybrass to silence him.

Keetch promises to help Charlotte retrieve the gun safe key but secretly reports the entire plan to Captain Jaggery.

Charlotte cuts Zachariah free after Jaggery's fatal fall, and the assembled crew proclaims her captain of the Seahawk.

Charlotte's transformation begins the moment she steps alone onto the Seahawk's grim deck and discovers that Zachariah — not the captain — is the one who genuinely cares for her during four days of illness. A chance search for a sewing needle leads her to the round robin paper and sets the mutiny in motion, though a silent death-threat from crewman Morgan hints at the danger already closing in around her. When Cranick is shot and thrown overboard without ceremony, Charlotte sees the captain's true character, and her decision to put on sailor's clothes and beg Fisk for a place on the crew marks the emotional turning point of the entire voyage. She survives the bowsprit assignment, the hurricane's fury, and the storm's violent aftermath, and together with Zachariah pieces together the truth that Jaggery himself committed the murder. Keetch's betrayal sends Charlotte into a final desperate confrontation, ending with Jaggery's death on the bowsprit and the crew's proclamation of Charlotte as captain of the Seahawk.

The key decisions and discoveries that shift Charlotte's loyalties and shape her destiny.

Middle grade

Novel

Fiction

Guide