12. Prison Company
I heard the commotion begin as soon as their boat docked. Loud, shouting men, cracks of whips, clipped soldier orders. What fresh hell was this?
The commotion moved through the fort until just outside the outer door of my prison cell. It appeared I was to have company. Fuck. Shackled like this, I was sure to be a sitting duck to whomever was placed in here with me. I sat up against the wall and tried to make myself appear bigger – which was a tall order considering how much weight I had clearly lost over the past week – week and a half? Two weeks? How long had I been in here?
The young lieutenant opened the heavy outer door and then the door of my cell. He eyed me appraisingly. There was an electric energy about him. Something was up. I adjusted my hat so I could get a better view of what was happening. The young lieutenant came to a decision and shouted orders to the guards outside. Five bound men were ushered directly into my cell, leaving the other cell completely empty. Something was definitely up.
“Well, well, well,” the final man in had the audacity to speak, “if it isn’t the Bitch Captain of the Seven Seas.” It was Marius. Fucking hell. I could smell his decaying hand.
I was in huge trouble. I placed the rest of their faces as men from the first militia who had come calling for the guns at the Sea Wind. I knew that young lieutenant didn’t like me, but this was obscene. These men would kill me, and if I was lucky, they would kill me first. He was kind enough to leave the men bound, at least, although I doubt that would delay them by much.
I looked at the young lieutenant, feeling betrayed despite having no call to expect anything different from the man. Execute me if you want, but be honest about it.
He met my gaze and took a deep breath. “You men are here pending judgement for the assault and attempted rape of the Lady Isabelle,” he announced.
I physically jerked and stopped breathing. A haze of fury descended over my vision.
“If by morning you have come to your senses and have found repentance within your wretched hearts, you may beg forgiveness from the Crown. Until then, a pleasant evening.” He turned his attention to me. “And, Captain?” My eyes flashed to his face. He stared intently and moved to shield me from their view. “Perhaps you will behave yourself as befits your title. I will return in an hour.” The lieutenant deftly and soundlessly popped open my shackles and walked away without a backward glance.
“You attacked Lady Isabelle?” I accused them after the lieutenant was well away. They all laughed and hacked.
“Almost had her too,” one of the damned bragged. “On the ground and everything. MacFaddon got her skirt up. Beautiful sight.” They laughed some more.
“She’ll be wearing Joseph’s bruises for a while. Did you see her face when he got her in the belly?” Another of the doomed souls chuckled.
“Her screams were delightful,” Marius reminisced, digging his own grave. I would save him for last.
“Beg for mercy,” I instructed them all.
They burst out into laughter that quickly died as I stood up and stepped away from my shackles.
Incapacitate first.
Five of them. Five swift kicks to their barely-protected heads. They all dropped.
Destroy.
I grabbed the heavy chains from the floor and wrapped one around each of their necks in turn, roughly three minutes each did the trick.
Finally, rule number one: dead men tell no tales.
I was panting from the exertion after days and days of confinement, but I wasn’t about to ignore rule number one. Not finishing the job good and proper had come to bite me in the ass a few times too many. I ran my fingers along the edge of the wall until I found the thin groove with the thin strap and pulled. Attached to the strap was a good sharp modern blade, not much bigger than a scalpel, an easy-to-hide blade that could reap devastating results.
The men were likely dead, but the deep slices through their arteries assured it. From the looks of things, they hadn’t arrived here in the full flush of life. They were thin and mangy, bruised, and one had a portion of an arrow still embedded in his shoulder. I pulled it out and examined the point. Izzy had been involved in some type of archery therapy after her parents died. Mom had signed Izzy up for every type of therapy seven ways from Sunday. Looking back on it, she likely drained my college fund, such as it was, to afford it.
I examined them more closely. There was evidence of an attack. One man’s pants were ripped at the crotch with extensive bruising visible beneath. A few had suffered head wounds, and there were burns where musket balls had torn through clothing. My very favorite, though, was the man with severe fingernail scratches across his face. I smiled and fondly touched the marks.
“Good girl, Izzy.” I felt sure the arrow from his shoulder must be hers too.
The young lieutenant’s footsteps sounded outside, and I quickly hid the scalpel back in its place. He opened the door to find me calmly back in my spot, surrounded by the dead men and their blood. He nodded, stepped back outside, and returned with a heavily-laden tray with a delicious hot meal and two tumblers of whiskey.
He handed me a glass (whereas I wanted to dive headfirst into the food), and I accepted. The drink was strong and burned as it went down. He tossed his back then poured us another. We drank. He poured a third but took his to go and left me the bottle and the tray – and for some reason a bucket of warm water and soap. Not that I was complaining, it was just a strange thing for him to do.
I was alone and unshackled. I should leave. I eyed the space in the wall I knew I could remove and be gone, but the smells emanating off the tray and the whiskey on my empty stomach overpowered my senses. I washed my bloody hands thoroughly and dove into the hot meal. Eat first, then escape. I probably had time.
Despite knowing better, I sipped at my third drink between bites. Rule number two was to avoid alcohol and the like. A side effect of the Fountain was my body’s intolerance of unhealthy foods and mild poisons such as alcohol. I had a low tolerance and got drunk quickly. It was usually better to avoid the stuff. I broke this rule constantly, but I did try.
“Cheers, lads,” I toasted the dead men and drank.
The food was swimming in gravy. There was a pot pie with a rich crust and herbs. Even Izzy would be impressed with this meal. My thoughts began to swim in the gravy, and I leaned against the wall. I wonder if Izzy made this. I don’t know who else would have included greens…or a freaking flower on the tray. This alcohol was really strong. I speared some type of meat and chewed it as I imagined Izzy at home in our kitchen beating lard into flour for a short crust. I loved gravy. I sopped up as much as I could into some rosemary bread and chased it with more whiskey.
I needed to go. The food could travel with me, and I had wasted enough time eating. Solitude was a precious commodity which I would be a fool to squander right now.
As I stood, my cell spun around me. Even for being bad at alcohol, this was a bit much. My first step brought me to my hands and knees, and I crawled over and examined my whiskey tumbler. There was a faint powdery residue at the bottom.
“That fucker,” I gasped as unconsciousness stole over me.
When I woke up, I was shackled to the wall again and the dead bodies were cleaned up and gone. I had a splitting headache and clanked as I took stock of my cell. The young lieutenant had left me the food (what was left after the rats got to it), the whiskey, and the soap. I poured a huge amount of the drink into my glass and drank it down to aid me in passing out again. I was a stupid, stupid fool.
****
The food disappeared. What I could snatch from the rats and bugs and humidity was stale and rotten after a few days. A stray guard appeared every now and then and brought me a drink of water or a small bowl of rice. My wounds from Tavern Rock healed while the welts and sores from the iron shackles grew deep and infected from the constant irritation.
****
It was quiet.
****
The guards that did visit were clearly instructed not to talk to me. The guard with the brother on Kent Island usually brought me a bigger portion of food than the others, but even he kept his mouth shut.
The clanking annoyed me every time I moved, so I stopped moving.
My scars itched and pained me, so I spent hours trying to disconnect from my muscles and keep my mind on matters outside my body.
I’d been imprisoned multiple times in my life. My longest stint was in the Canary Islands. Officially it was for smuggling jewels, unofficially it was because the local authorities had been tipped off that I’d robbed a big convoy. I was kept in that awful place for several months. Then I was severely flogged, hung, and released. I’d lost a lot that trip.
When I’d finally limped back home to Andrews in my looted and stripped-down ship, he’d been furious. Yvonne was pleased I’d managed to successfully hide the gems, but Angelica and Helene hid my bleeding back from the children and scowled. Yvonne was as equally as delighted with the deep stripes across my back as she was at the chest of jewels I brought the estate.
There was never a question in my mind why I was being held in the Canary Islands. Why was I here now? Sure, I had blown a little hole in a little building, but no civilians had gotten hurt. And who hasn’t exploded one wall or another in their life?
I’d been here far too long. It crossed my mind that Andrews could be behind this extended sentence. He wasn’t above bribing the officers at the fort to keep me behind bars until I relented and said yes to his proposal. Although, I felt like he would have come to deliver the terms himself if that was the case.
I’m not coming to get you this time. If you get into trouble, you can get yourself right back out again. I mean it, Nan!
He did mean it. He wasn’t coming for me, and I couldn’t ask him to sacrifice any more of his time for me than he already had.
Today I watched the little square of sun travel across the cell floor and worried the growing welts. The sting brought me focus. I deserved this, I know. I just wish Izzy wasn’t in so much danger because of me.
Today was gray and intermittently rainy. There was no sun to mark the time. The drops splashed through the window onto my floor. I tried to sleep, but the ghosts of the men I’d killed chatted blithely from the straw floor, repeating the story of their attack on my sister. Marius’s hand lay stinking and staining the floor with pus. The small droplets of rain weren’t going to wash that mess away.
They laughed their sick laughter, and once they were through laughing at Izzy on the ground with her skirt up, they laughed at me. They were plum tickled that they were released from their mortal bonds and there sat The Bitch Captain of the Seven Seas in irons.
“Thought she was so clever, aligning herself with that lieutenant.”
“Look where it got her now. Sitting in her own filth. Watching the days pass. Chained to the wall.”
“Chained for a sister who abandoned her.”
“She killed for her sister, and the prissy little girl hasn’t even come to say hello.”
“Hope she’s worth our stains upon your soul.”
“That blade is still within your reach. Why not go ahead and add your blood to the dirt in this cell? Let it mingle with our own.”
“Do it to yourself and it just might stick.”
“Don’t listen to them.” The voice spoke clear and strong in my ear. It was Maui’s voice. My dear friend. My lost friend. “They aren’t real. They aren’t here.”
“Neither are you.” Mine was the only voice speaking aloud. My lips were dry and cracked, my throat sore from days of breathing dust and mold and mildew.
“Chin up. She’ll come for you. She loves you. Have some faith, Heeny.” Heeny. The old nickname made me chuckle. He was the only one that ever called me by that name.
I’d allowed my old friend onto my ship to have one final goodbye with Izzy. His ship was prepped for departure too, and soon we’d both open sails to speed us in our separate directions. I met him back on deck and looked him over. He looked good, strong, healthy.
“Have a little faith in me, Heeny.” He finally broke the silence. “I really think I can make a difference.” He was full of courage and hope.
That was the last time I saw him before he went off to die in his failed war.
“No.” The chains clanked as I moved my arms. She’d put these on me. I deserved it, I know I deserved it. “She’s done with me. Just like you were done with me too.” I closed my mind to all those ghosts and stared out the window.
It was quiet. Quiet was good. I’d choose the quiet over the voices of all the men I’d killed.
****
I was starving. I was dehydrated. I hadn’t peed all day. My wrists were caked in blood. My cell was full of the ghosts of my victims come to laugh at me. Maui didn’t return. I had to get out of here. I was going to die.
The guard with the brother on Kent Island came in and shoved a tray through the bars. Water. There was water. I dove on the cup and wet my lips, my tongue, taking small sips, immensely careful not to spill a drop. I looked up at the guard, wanting to thank him, but my throat was closed and his eyes held nothing but pity. He left quickly.
He returned with another cup. I was not going to die this day.
Perhaps tomorrow.
Or the next.
****
The iron rubbed deeper into my wrists, stinging and rubbing me raw. I wiped the blood on my shirt. I’d lost enough weight that the shackles were looser now, not loose enough to slip out of but loose enough to move freely and rub and rub and rub my layers of skin away. I was starving and bloodied and aching.
The scars on my legs screamed at me; the enforced inactivity was torture.
I know I deserved this but how could Izzy do this to me?
****
The humidity had increased today, there was a storm brewing. About half an hour ago, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and hadn’t come back. The fort sat a little ways back from the shore but not far enough. A major storm surge would flood the prison. The clouds raced in the opposite direction from the winds, and the tides were doing an odd standing march that indicated dangerous undercurrents. All the birds were roosting, not about to risk a flight through what was coming. It was early for a hurricane but not impossible. Izzy and I were supposed to leave Bermuda weeks ago to avoid this entire issue.
A flash of lightning lit up the early evening, and I began a count until the thunder. Nine. When the count shrank to seven, the rain began. Footsteps sounded down the hall, and I hoped that whoever it was was bringing food. I’d licked the last crumbs off Izzy’s tray long ago. If only there was any of that whiskey left.
Thunder boomed again.
On second thought, with this storm, better keep my head. I might be swimming before long.
The outer door opened, and the young lieutenant entered the room and looked me over. “Back up to the wall,” he instructed. “And stay there.”
The hair on my neck stood up. I thought it would be a public execution. I swallowed and shuffled to the wall, my stomach ice. When he shot me, I’d have to play dead and get buried. I closed my eyes and steeled myself for the bang and the pain.
Instead, a different set of footsteps sounded, along with the drag of skirts against the rushes. I opened my eyes and saw my sister. The lieutenant held her close and kept his eyes trained on me as if he suddenly doubted the iron’s strength.
She looked healthy. I couldn’t see any deep bruising, she didn’t limp, there was no shine of fever to indicate infected wounds. I let go of tension I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. She was okay.
My eyes played tricks on me and overlaid the room with the blood of the militiamen. I felt their souls, swept into the corner, watching and judging me over the shoulders of that rat bastard thief and his cronies.
“Anne.” Izzy’s voice captured my attention away from their cackling laughs and gurgles through their slit throats. I'd made all my cuts deep.
The moment my name left her lips she began crying and held onto the bars of my cell. The young lieutenant stopped her from leaning too far in, where I had a chance of reaching her. I glared at his lily-white hands holding my sister away from me as she cried.
“I need your help.” She at last managed to speak coherently.
“Why? Get attacked by another militia?” If so, at this rate I would leave this journey topping my body count ten-fold.
“Glad to see you’re alright.” My voice was rough from disuse and suppressed anger.
“I am not alright,” Izzy cried at me. Oh shit, oh no, no. I had given her a sip of Fountain. Could it have messed with her pills?
“Oh, my god. You’re pregnant.” I tried to see past the stays on her corset to see if she might be showing. How long had I been in here? It couldn’t have been that long. Is this why she wanted to get married? I glared at that young lieutenant.
I’d have his balls off the minute I was out of here if he put Izzy through any more trauma.
“What? No. It’s literally impossible.” For some reason, she added her glare to mine, and the young lieutenant straightened nervously.
Who was this lady pretending to be my sister? Izzy was in sex ed class right next to me; she knew the consequences of opening her legs.
“Right. Because accidents never happen.” I snorted.
“They don’t happen if you’re being forced to abstain,” she muttered.
“Who’s being forced to abstain?” My head swam with hunger and confusion. Now who were we talking about?
“The lieutenant commander won’t touch me until AFTER the wedding. He’s. Very Disciplined.” She glared at him again but this time with an edge of wanting to be disciplined and disciplined hard.
“But you’re engaged. And you’re...you’re you.” I moved to the end of my chains to get a better view of these strangers in front of me. The storm had darkened the room considerably. I knew stronger men than this young lieutenant who had happily and gratefully fallen to Izzy’s wiles, never to recover.
The young lieutenant wavered under our stares and attempted to back out gracefully. “You were right, Isabelle. I would indeed prefer to stay outside for this.” He kissed her cheek and held her face a moment, silently checking in with her before stepping out.
I felt rather the stranger in that tiny intimate moment. This little scene did not coincide with my conjectures as to why Izzy had consented to marry this man.
“He’s far too gorgeous to be such a prude.” Izzy sighed, watching him leave.
I stayed still. I did not like what was happening. Something was wrong. I was missing information and I knew it would cost me. Izzy met my gaze and I tried to search for my missing pieces in her eyes.
“Anne – I need your help.”
Of course. And here are my apples, and branches, and bark. I rattled my chains. “I’m a little tied up right now.”
“I didn’t want to be kidnapped again,” Izzy said and shoved a basket through the bars. I nearly fell over from the smell alone.
I took the basket with shaky hands and pulled out a still-warm pastry.
Izzy kept talking. “You’re the only person who can help me, Anne. No one here....”
My stomach growled, and I was completely distracted. I was desperate for calories, and this smelled buttery and full of carbohydrates. I was enraptured by the simple baked good. I took a small bite, savoring the end of my involuntary fast.
I’m afraid I might have missed some of Izzy’s words. I must have because when she said, “I discovered slavery today!” I was at a complete loss.
“What?” I said around bites of the pastry.
“Fucking white people!” she screeched. Oh lord, what had I done now? Izzy continued, no longer crying but shouting.
“I went to a dinner party last month, and I thought I made a new friend. He was charming, and attractive, and normal, and he was really nice and helpful, and everyone’s been talking about how his place is the ONLY possible place for the wedding.”
My eyes flashed up. There was only one place on this island that could handle a high nobility wedding. I knew exactly where Izzy had been. Had she really seen him? Had she really met him? Andrews, my Andrews, had met my sister? The image of my two worlds in one room sparked in my imagination.
Izzy continued her rant. “And we went out there today, and you know what I learn? HE HAS SLAVES, ANNE! No one mentioned that wonderful, perfect estate is a FUCKING PLANTATION!”
The word resonated flat and out of tune in my head. She wasn’t wrong. Brass tacks, that’s what it was. It was a large piece of land worked mostly by people of color, and those people, by all outward accounts, were the property of Graham Andrews. Didn’t matter that they were no longer enslaved, no one was held in bondage, or that the terms of their contracts were fuzzy. No one could go anywhere anyway because it was a fucking island. If it were known there were free people on our land, we’d face daily attacks as slavers tried to recapture our tenants. Andrews was master in a kingdom full of unwillingly transported subjects. Izzy was right. It was just two centuries early for the image painted by my AP history class. I wondered how I had missed it.
Izzy continued her rant as I attempted to reconcile the images. “You know, he comes across as this remarkably modern, progressive man—”
Nanette, you do not give a man a chance, do you?
“—who has women running his business—”
Shall I propose again now or do we need a drink first?
“—and then you learn that the strong women he supposedly admires so much—”
Be careful, Nanette. One day I just might.
“—are ENSLAVED!” she crescendoed.
I reached up to my wounded shoulder and rubbed; it still ached where it was barely healed.
“And he’s definitely fucking all of them. I mean, what the fuck, Anne?” Izzy was pacing a hole in the floor, and thank god she was distracted. I crushed the delicate pastry in my fist.
Those women hated me, and I hated them right back. I loved him. I was there first. Couldn’t they all just leave each other alone? I mean, how could he do that to me? My eyes burned and my throat closed and I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t release my fist. The pastry squeezed between my fingers.
“—and everyone thinks I’m the one that’s weird for not being okay with him owning human beings.”
It was a moment before I realized she’d stopped ranting and pacing and was looking to me for a response.
I know he slept with them. I know he had his children with them. I couldn’t give him children even if I wanted to. Maybe I could have tried to change, should have tried...
I’ll still be a mother. What have you got to love you? A cold ship and a man who jumps into another woman’s bed the moment your boat rows away.
Izzy was waiting.
“You went to see Graham Andrews?” I could barely say his name aloud.
“You know Graham fucking Andrews-?” Izzy ripped through a few octaves. “Never mind. I shouldn’t be surprised.
Apparently you’re full of secrets.” She turned her attack squarely on me. “Your secrets have secrets. You have secret criminal records in the 17th century, why wouldn’t you have all manner of secret friends?”
The lightning flashed and illuminated her face. She was going in for the kill. I’d only seen that look on her face once before, when Mom dared to ask her to stay home for some party instead of going to visit her grandmother. I backed against the wall.
“Mary, Dom, Davies, Graham – ”
The names sliced into me.
“Helene and Yvonne—”
The names cut deep. How dare they be so bold as to occupy any space in my sister's head?
“All those pirate buddies of yours! Marco—”
Annie
I stopped breathing.
“—Oh and let’s not forget Closer To You My God Cowlishaw, and what you did to his face! You’re awful!” Closer’s mangled face hung in front of my eyes.
You are unwanted in heaven, hell, and here on earth.
“—This is all your fault! Who just kidnaps someone and takes them to a place like this without any warning? I mean, what the fuck, Anne?” The names were bleeding me. These ghosts were not supposed to haunt her. “And then you’re all ‘I know what I did, I did what I did, and I’d do it again’?!” Izzy wound up for her final blow. “You’re a terrible sister! I can’t even call you my sister right now. You know who you really are? You are the Bitch Captain of the Seven Seas!”
There it was. The name she should never have known. The name that encompassed all the secrets I’d burn myself at the stake for all over again before letting her know them. I felt the flames stealing the oxygen from my lungs and attempted to calm myself before spinning off into madness. The image of Izzy huddled in my tiny ship’s kitchen, terrified of the one person who’d devoted her life to protecting her, was burned into me forever.
I tried to stitch myself back together as Izzy fumed. “Feel better now?” I managed to rasp out. “I think you should leave.” I couldn’t face her any longer. I couldn’t leave. I could barely move in this tiny cell with these shackles keeping me close to the wall. The thunder rolled.
“You’re just going to have sit there and deal with the horror of my fucking presence. We can both be pissed off together because I’m not going anywhere!” She spoke from outside the bars, giving them a harsh kick.
I had no more words. The ocean roared just beyond the sea wall and began to spray and spit inside the cell. What was a little more salt water to wipe off my face? Get yourself together, I commanded myself. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. It doesn’t matter how right she is. We’d go home, and she’d forget this ever happened.
Except the looking glass was cracked now. Izzy was across its threshold and was privy to all the ugliness I had worked so long to keep from her. Not the ugliness of the world, the ugliness that had taken root in myself. She’d never be able to unsee it. She was smart not to name me as her sister. This trip was intended to be a farewell tour, and it was living up to its name spectacularly. All I’d done so far was say a crapload of goodbyes.
The rain began to deluge.
“Ian took me out and showed me.” Izzy was never good at silence. “Slavery is here, and it’s real, and it’s awful. And I’ve been an unwitting participant. You know, I’m building a shipyard. When Michael Davies and Richard Lavigne suggested—”
The absurdity of this statement shocked me into a smile. Izzy blabbered on and on and on about labor practices. The more she talked, the more I felt at home. It was a habit she’d developed at the dinner table. Mom and I could hardly speak to each other for very long before one of us picked a fight. Silence equaled a hot meal and an even-keeled night. Izzy would regularly monologue throughout entire three-course meals. She’d say our lines for us and keep the illusion that we were a happy, functioning family.
The lightning cracked close by, and I saw the sea lit up as if from a camera flash. Izzy was still droning on about sustainable tree farming and not indulging in the slave trade. What did she want from me? According to her, I was nothing but a secretive sea bitch captain. Did she want my secrets? Could she handle my secrets? Could I even speak my secrets out loud? Would she even care to hear them? They were my problems. There was no good reason she would want to take them on. There seemed little point in telling her anything now that she was just going to go home and move on with her life.
“I travel. A lot.” I pried this one secret out of myself. I should have said time-travel. I time-travel a lot. This would have to do. My admission stopped the babble, but the wind picked up in the void of Izzy’s voice. I wrapped my damp coat tight around myself against the chill.
“Yes. You love to sail.”
“I sail.” My god, it was like pulling up an enormous anchor. My secrets were never meant to be unearthed once buried.
“I meet people. Not all good people. Mostly not good people.”
The waves pounded against the sea wall. Izzy was quiet. I’m sure she was confused, but she offered a simple “Alright.”
“I keep a lot of secrets for a lot of good reasons.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t speak the words. I changed tactics like the coward I was. “It’s easier not to get involved in the lives of ghosts. But,” I hesitated, “sometimes I can’t help it.” Like when Graham’s hand wandered up my skirts and found exactly what he was looking for. Like when he whirled around a dance floor with me, wildcat grin, shocking the guests by passionately kissing me at the conclusion of a waltz. Like when I woke late at night to find him curled around me. Like when he laid his weight on me, kissed me, and sank—
“I wish you wouldn’t call them that. Go on...” Izzy’s voice doused my fantasy the same as the cold sea water beginning to spray in with each wave. This night was going to suck.
“It’s what they are.” I shrugged and turned to face her finally. The light was dim, but I could make out where she stood.
“It’s what you’ll be if you choose to stay.” I hadn’t put that fact together until just now. If she stayed, if she married that man, she’d become a ghost.
Thunder quickly followed lightning. The storm was here.
“What a sad, lonely way to look at things.” She stared back at me. “I don’t understand you. How can you share a drink or a laugh with someone and think of them as a ghost? You have friends here, Anne!”
I’ve seen many of my so-called friends’ graves; I knew exactly what they were.
“I have moments. I don't have friends, I have moments. And in those moments, I do what I can with what I have before they become gho—memories,” I amended for her delicate sensibilities.
“Moments?”
“It means I drink with the ghosts sometimes too.” The thunder boomed. “But I don’t marry them.” No matter how many times he asks.
The wind picked up, and I wondered how long Izzy was planning to stay here. It wasn’t safe. Back home, Andrews and the family would be huddled together to wait out the storm. When I was with them during the stormy season, I would tell the children endless hours of stories to keep their minds off the wind and the cracking trees. I wished I was there with them now.
“What do I do about slavery?” she asked.
Jesus. I rubbed my temples. I guess she wasn’t ready to leave yet.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I answered. “It’s over. 1833, 1863. It’s done. Over two hundred years ago. It’s done.”
She needed to get out of here. This storm was turning dangerous.
“It is not over. You tell that to Bessie, and the branded men on that boat and the bed slaves I met today. Done my ass.”
She gripped the bars and looked like she wanted to hit me.
“Get me out of here, and I’ll tell them whatever you want!” My hand went absentmindedly to my own brand on the back of my neck, a souvenir of one of my earliest trips down a dark and winding path.
“When I get you out of here, are you going to try to snatch me off again?” The lightning lit up her face, and I saw she was serious. She didn’t want me taking her away.
“Oh, Izzy, come on!” I protested. Staying here was insanity.
“I’m building a life here!” she insisted. I wanted to wrap her up and feed her strained peas. She couldn’t possibly know what she wanted. She was a baby!
“You just got here!” I exclaimed. This was ridiculous!
“I know! Isn’t it amazing!”
“Be real. You are not going to go off and marry Lt. Rando from the 17th century.” The infantryman young lieutenant and my infant sister were not in love. They couldn’t be. It was absurd.
“Yes, I am, Anne! I love him!” Izzy was pissed all over again now.
“You’re going to get married? Without Mom?” It was a low blow, but my arsenal was depleted.
“Well, are you going to go and get her?”
“Hell no!” Pigs would fly and fire rain down from the sky making the most delicious bacon storm ever before I invited Mom on my boat for a journey back in time.
“Well, then, I guess it's happening without her, isn’t it?” Wind swept in and blew the rushes on the floor around.
I shielded my face as best I could and tried to find my hat. The lightning cracked close by. Izzy didn’t seem to notice or be concerned.
“And without any of the trinkets or heirlooms from my hope chest. Such is life!” She threw her hands up in the air just in time for a wave to break against the prison wall and a huge spume of water to enter and soak me and half her dress.
Izzy shrieked, startled, as if this was the first time she was noticing the weather and the fact that there was no glass on the window. The young lieutenant burst into the room and swept her into his arms.
“Isabelle.” He checked to be sure she wasn’t hurt, just wet. “This storm is worsening. You cannot be down here.” Thank god he had some common sense to his name.
“Wait, you’re leaving her down here in this?!” Izzy gestured to me. The lieutenant and I rolled our eyes in synchronicity. Another spume of sea spray soaked the room and shook the mortar.
“You left me soap. I’ll be fine and much cleaner.” I grabbed the hunk of soap and pretended to wash my armpits in the spray. If she thought I was in too much danger, she’d never leave. “Get her out of here!” I growled at the lieutenant.
Thunder boomed again, and I was hit in the back with another spray of water. It knocked me as far as my chains allowed me to move. The noise of the storm was fantastic in the cell.
“What?!” She screamed, incredulous.
“Leave now!” I ordered at the same time that the lieutenant pulled Izzy toward the door yelling, “Isabelle, it's not safe for you down here.”
“You can’t leave her down here like this!” I thought I heard her yell from halfway up the stairs. The storm raged, and I couldn’t hear anything other than the pounding rain and the wind and the thunder. I wrapped my coat around me and huddled as far from the window as possible. The sea doused me over and over.
Izzy’s little basket of gifts wasn’t far. I pulled it towards myself and found a little bowl of pesto and noodles. My favorite.
****
Three inches of water covered the floor of my cell by the time the young lieutenant returned. I held the basket tightly and tried to stay dry. The winds had died down along with the rain, and a soggy yellow light filled the window. We were in the eye of the storm.
The young lieutenant opened the door and hesitated a moment, looking mournfully at his clean, dry boots before splashing inside. He held a ring of keys.
“The storm is bound to pick up again soon, so do not interrupt me. For your...safety...I will unshackle you until it passes. Your sister will check on you in the morning to witness that you have not drowned, and then you will be chained again. One word, just one, of threat or deceit from you and I will return upstairs and refuse her wishes.”
I stayed quiet.
“Good. Back against the wall,” he instructed.
I did as I was told, and he unlocked the cell door and waded towards me.
“Whatever you think or believe, Isabelle and I are getting married in ten days. She esteems you highly – though I cannot imagine why – and would like you to attend. I would not.” He busied himself finding the key to my irons. “I think you are too great a risk to her happiness. Am I correct? Would you ruin her wedding day and insist on making her fearful and sad on such a momentous occasion?” He held the key teasingly close to my shackles. “You may speak.”
“If what she wants, what she really and truly wants is to marry you, then I won’t interfere.” I watched his face, not his hands, for signs he would follow through with unlocking me.
“You believe her acceptance is a ruse of some sort?”
“I believe that you barely know her. You come from different worlds and are rushing into a commitment neither one of you fully understands.” I was risking my freedom with each syllable that left my lips. I needed to just shut up.
“You will earn your release the morning of our wedding. You will behave. And you will be there for your...sister. So help me, you will do this, or I will see you rot in this cell for eternity.” He popped the locks of my shackles open and left with my chains over his shoulder. He slammed and locked the outer door, leaving me alone.
I rubbed at the deep sores on my wrists and waffled only a moment. The wind was beginning to pick up, and I was not going to waste this time. I was out of here. I stuffed what I could from the basket into my pockets and yanked the bars I had long ago replaced with vulcanized rubber from the window. I climbed up and out, dropped to the rocks below, replaced the “bars,” and began sprinting and planning.
The wind was back and pelted me with the first rain drops from the south side of the storm. The town was boarded up tight and I didn’t run into a single soul until close to the docks, where Dom raced up to me, soaked and terrified.
“Captain! Captain! It’s gone! All of it!” he shouted while shoving a note in my hand.
Anne,
I’ve taken the cargo to The Phoenix. I didn’t give your guards any choice.
– Lady Isabelle
What the hell was The Phoenix? I crumpled the note into my shirt as I boarded the ship and saw what Dom was talking about.
It was gone. All of it.
Every box, crate, sack, and container of goods I’d carefully cultivated over the past few years was gone.
Fucking Lady Isabelle.
I walked straight to the galley and launched her air fryer into the bay. Then I followed it with a few spatulas and a series
of wooden spoons. Fuck! I kicked a hole in a cabinet. All of it was gone. Everything that had decorated my decks and cargo hold was gone. The thunder boomed, and I shook my head to clear it.
“I’m sorry.” Mary came up next to me as I surveyed the empty hold. “The lady arrived with her lieutenant commander and many wagons and took everything. I couldn’t stop them.” Anything that hadn’t been nailed down was gone. The boxes of foodstuffs, fabric, various luxury goods like plates and silverware, ivory, china, all gone. Nothing left but the stinking ambergris in the corner. I pulled down the false ceiling in my cabin and breathed a sigh of relief that my strongboxes were still there.
“Dom!” I shouted, and the boy appeared at my elbow. I shoved a bag full of coins at him. “Run to the blacksmith. Buy all the tools and woodworking equipment he has. Get them to deliver it in the next twenty minutes. If he can do it, there’s double this amount waiting for him.” Dom saluted and Mary watched in terror as I sent her son out into the burgeoning storm. “Twenty minutes. He’ll be fine.”
There was no sense mourning my lost cargo. I grabbed one of Izzy’s precious kitchen knives and stabbed it through the note and into her door. I’d lost cargo before – never to someone I considered a friend, but I could build the stores back up later. It was a pain, it was expensive, but what needed to happen now was getting the hell out of St. George’s forever.
While the children sat and shivered in my little kitchen, I did a quick engine check. I fully intended to get us out of this port and far away. In this storm I’d need an engine, not sails. Dom was back in record time with the old, chiseled blacksmith and his enslaved man pulling a heavily loaded wagon. The strong young man immediately began unloading the wagon onto the ship. I watched him with new eyes, thought about his life with new thoughts. Damn Izzy straight to hell.
I called the blacksmith over. “I have a proposition for you.” I kicked open one of my strongboxes and watched the strong old man’s eyes pop. “I’m building a shipyard far out on the western end of the island. I would like to hire you and I would like to hire that young man.”
“My boy? Henry? You want to buy him from me?”
“Absolutely not. I want to hire him as a free man. You do this and you are both guaranteed good pay and good positions at my shipyard. We’ll leave as soon as the wagon is unloaded. You have until that bank of clouds breaks to decide. Then I’m leaving.”
The old man went to talk to his apprentice, and before long they both came over to me and shook my hand. The old man needed to make arrangements to move his entire industry to the west before settling out there, so I left Henry in trust of the old man’s share of their onboarding pay to be delivered to the blacksmith upon his arrival.
The rain began sheeting down, and I called for Dom and Henry to get everything and everyone below decks. Mary came up to me, her eyes wide and terrified. “What are you doing?”
“We are going west.”
“Now? In this? On this boat?” She was ready to bolt.
“Yes. Stay calm. Go down below. We’ll be fine.” I lied to her a little bit.
“Captain, I can’t. I—”
“I killed Marius,” I shouted over the wind and rain. Mary sat down hard, and her hand went to her swollen belly. The rain turned her threadbare dress almost transparent, and I saw she was much further along than I’d first suspected. I knelt down to be at her level and grabbed her hands. “I will not leave you in a bad position. I will see that you and your family are taken care of. I promise you that, Mary.” I helped her down the stairs to the kitchen and saw a strange sight: a crowd of people in my ship. Their scared faces wet and staring. I had passengers on my ship. It felt wrong. I did not like it. My back crawled and the air felt thin.
“Listen,” I started, “I’m going to sail us out in this storm. Stay in this kitchen. Do not mind the noises you hear. Do not come above until I tell you it’s safe.” I fairly fled back up the stairs and jammed the engine start.
St. George's was a ghost town with its windows boarded and inhabitants huddled inside. No one would be looking out their window at the ship moving against the wind in this screaming storm.
The ship tossed and rolled and bucked against the rudder. I kept us pointing into the waves and upright. I was buying time, if not much distance. Once far from the island, I called Henry and Dom up to begin loosening the sails.
The sea was boiling around my prow. We made slow but steady progress west. I aimed us towards the backside of the storm and attempted to sail us out beyond it. Three hours later, Dom and Henry were waterlogged and grinning and whooping their way up and down my masts, my kitchen smelled strongly of sick, and I was shaking from the effort of steering through a hurricane after weeks of little food and bad sleep. We sailed through the night this way.
When the sun broke through the clouds, Dom, Henry, and I cheered and celebrated. Henry was younger than I even imagined. There were barely five or six years between the two boys. I brought everyone up on deck and ordered the windows opened in the galley. We had an excellent view of the end of the storm crossing over the island. I held on tight to Mary and whispered constant reassurances to her that we were fine. She was still terrified. I encouraged her to go lie down, but the words and concept were foreign to her and she refused to leave my side.
The older boys raised the sails, and we began the true journey to the west of the island. Bettie, Mary’s oldest girl, brought me up some food and drink, and I was feeling elated after cheating death over and over again with each wave we crested, so I put the girl’s hands on the wheel and gave her an impromptu sailing lesson. The boys looked on with jealousy as I shared my captain-y secrets with her, secrets such as “Sail that way,” “Now keep sailing that way.” The two little ones ran to and fro on the decks, scaring Mary into paroxysms of panic until I tied long ropes around their middles and the other ends around the railing. They’d be fine.
It was oddly delightful to see so much activity on my lonely little ship. Usually she and I crossed these oceans together in silent dedication to each other. In a very esoteric and otherworldly way, I thought my ship felt happier and lighter to have these little voices ringing out in praise and fun about this little jaunt around the island.
Mary held white-knuckled onto the railing next to me. “There!” I pointed out to her the small encampment barely visible on the shore. “That’s the location of the shipyard.” Mary was unimpressed. “You’ll be safe there. It’ll be a better life,” I encouraged her.
“I’ve heard those words before.” Her voice was thin and shaking.
I tried to rub some warmth into her shoulders but gave up; she was frozen. Instead I went and pulled Izzy’s comforter off her bed and wrapped it around my friend. Izzy didn’t need it anymore...I added it to the list of things Izzy didn’t feel she needed anymore: modern plumbing, denim jeans, suffrage, a hope chest of trinkets, her mother at her wedding, me.
The water was deep off this end of the island. Large ships could pull up close to the shore, which made it ideal for a shipyard. I knew for a fact that Izzy wouldn’t own this land for long. Within a century the British Navy would take it over and use it for their own expansion purposes.
I moored the Try Your Luck and rowed my passengers the short distance to land. Michael Davies and a motley crew of what looked to be uneducated and malnourished laborers met my rowboat on the shore.
“Captain!” Davies beamed. He was a tall, wiry man with a face that never seemed to grow old. He was a boundless well of optimism despite his repeated failures. “I’m heartened to see you released at last." He shook my hand vigorously.
“They can’t keep us down, can they, Davies?” I always responded well to his optimism.
“No, madam, they can’t. They try, boy, do they try! But we prevail.” He grinned and I was reminded of the energetic teenager tagging after Andrews and me, hoping to pick up the scraps of business we left behind. The two of us had tried to set Davies up time and time again in all kinds of positions, but it never took.
“Let me introduce you to Mary.” I brought Mary forward, and Davies kissed her hand. She was still unsteady from the boat. “Mary and her family are relocating here. She’s been hired as the grounds manager and will manage the division of labor and distribution of resources.” Mary looked at me agape.
“Wonderful!” Davies exclaimed. “I was just ordered to hire women! I’m enjoying the novelty of it all. Thank you for taking this on, Mary!” He kissed her hand again before letting go.
Mary was bewildered. I hadn’t told her she’d be employed here as I knew she’d refuse if I gave her time to think about it. Next I introduced Henry, and Dom as Henry’s new apprentice. The two boys thought this was a terrific bit of subterfuge and didn’t say a word to the contrary. I explained that the older blacksmith was also hired and would arrive in a few days.
Davies invited us all up to the main encampment, and I got a firsthand view of how slipshod this operation was. Mary was immediately in crisis-solving mode and got to work delegating the unskilled labor into minor and major chores to begin setting up a workable camp. She’d managed her huge family and small farm all by herself for years and was a natural. Henry and Dom scouted out a good area for a forge and went out for Dom’s first lesson: how to chop a shit ton of wood for forge fires. Dom came back for dinner blistered and happy.
I had planned to drop and run, but the idea of designing and producing my own brand of ship off my own shipyard line was entrancing. I spent three days drawing out designs and construction plans for an ideal merchant ship. Not that I had any plans of giving up the Try Your Luck, but these babies would be gorgeous. I grilled Davies on production methods and drafted several letters he was to post to my various contacts throughout the Caribbean and the African coast whom I knew to be expert engineers and skilled shipbuilders.
Three times I tried to pack up. Three times. I had the anchor up and everything only to remember one last bit of advice and expertise I wanted to impart. Before I knew it, Davies and Mary and I were having dinner together again and discussing the finer points of the assembly line.
Then, of course, the old blacksmith arrived, and I couldn’t very well leave without setting him up and introducing him around.
The morning of the eighth day, I had to face facts. I was dragging my feet. The wedding was two days away, and I needed to decide to go home without Izzy or stay and watch her be relegated to the history books. It was shit-or-get-off-the-pot time. Either option meant sailing: Andrews’ dock was several hours away, the portal slightly farther. I packed in earnest this time.
“Where to now, Captain?” Davies asked, the same as all the other times he’d walked me to the ship the past few days.
“Home. I think.”
“If I don’t see you in an hour,” he chuckled and patted my shoulder, “I wish you a happy homegoing.”
“Thanks, Davies. Don’t lose all my money.”
“Your money? This is the Lady Isabelle—”
“Until the lady’s family money comes in, I am providing the start-up capital. The money you’ll be losing is mine,” I warned.
His eyes bugged and his mouth gaped open.
“Captain, perhaps I’m not—”
“You are.” I held out my hand and shook his firmly. “We all just need the right opportunity, and this is yours. Don’t fuck it up.” I climbed aboard my rowboat, and Davies pushed me into the water. “Get this dock built!” I shouted back to him as the waves took me out.
Mary had walked down to stand with Davies, and I waved to the two of them, wondering how much of a wager they had on whether I’d really leave this time or not.
I stowed the rowboat upside down on the aft deck and looked back to the island. Somewhere in there was my sister, my 21st-century sister, choosing to stay. I raised my sails, turned toward the wind, and chose to leave.
An hour out, I began the search for my buoy. The last time I was here, a storm was rolling in and Izzy was shut in her cabin, high and furious. I dropped anchor and rowed over to the buoy and hauled up the capsule. I checked to make sure no new notes were added (that happened occasionally) and pulled out a new sheet. I dated it and began.
August 6th, 1649
Mary is fine. You killed her husband for her finally.
Blew up the inn.
Burned and cut up the Puritans.
Imprisoned a few weeks
Andrews almost convinced me to marry him
No news of Edmund
Dom is growing up too fast
Izzy married the young lieutenant
You may not return here.
