Greenland: Where to?

Elizabeth sailed us around the coast, staying within sight of land, as I dressed in my Greenland regalia. I sat at the prow and let the sun glint off my helmet as I sweat in the heavy winter clothing and cloak. The villagers watched and waved as we returned. I signaled to them to bring the boats. 

While the two of us waited on the eastern coast, we’d brought all the villager cargo up on deck. When the small row boats arrived alongside us we were able to hand them down all their items as they cheered and raced each other back to shore. Lastly, Elizabeth got our boat in the water and sat at the oarlocks as I boarded.

“I can row. Why don’t you relax. You are all wound up for nothing. They aren’t going to notice.”

“Captain, you’re wrong.” She picked up the oars and took us in. 

My hope was that Izzy and Catherine had spent their day wisely and chosen a destination for the young mother and her son. After Italy, Elizabeth had begun to ask about going to “California”. As I had no current plans to lose a perfectly good first mate, we’d discussed her sailing with me to drop Izzy off back home and I’d take her on a tour of modern times. Elizabeth had asked if Catherine could relocate there. I’d given it serious consideration but didn’t think the young mother would be any better off. Catherine was born and bred for this era and for nothing else. She’d struggle with the culture shock, her lack of education, and much more. Then there would be the complications of being a teen mom in a world that would look down on her in judgment. No, we needed to find her a home here where she didn’t have to fight to survive and thrive on so many different fronts. Surely the two of them had spent the day with their heads together and had some solutions. 

Izzy was waiting for us on the beach when we rowed ashore. She wrapped me in a big hug despite the helmet and cloak ensemble and I remembered all over again why I kept coming back to her. “See?” I said, “Not too long to wait, right?” The villagers on the shore ferried the windfall of cargo away on sledges and left us to our welcoming party. John Henry toddled over to Elizabeth and she picked the little boy up and swung him around. Catherine was a few paces behind her son. 

“Ian?” Izzy asked. Over her shoulder Catherine had frozen. Shit. Elizabeth was right.

I wrenched my attention back to my sister. “Your husband is fine, healthy, alive. He makes it through.” I smiled at my sister. I should have lied. I would have lied except she was better at hiring chaperones than I was. Chaperones really did cramp your style. Elizabeth had stopped spinning around with her nephew. She and Catherine stood five paces apart, staring at each other. 

Shit.

Dammit. 

My first mate sent me a panicked look.

“Really?” Izzy burst into tears and I let her drape herself over me. Her back was to the dramatic fallout of our trip unfolding between my first mate and her relations. Catherine looked like she might be crying too but she wasn’t bringing herself closer to Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s free hand was out, clearly trying to calm her sister. “He survives the war? He won’t die on the battlefield?”

“He’s fit as a fiddle and ready for love.” I assured her. I’d just gloss over how he got a little aerated. She could go home assured that her “husband” had “survived” his war. History would gloss over the man same as I did. Catherine turned and ran to my hut. Shit. Elizabeth looked at me, devastation sunken into each of her features. She hung her head and let John Henry comfort her as he pulled on her hair. “I’ll be right back.” I left Izzy on the beach for a second and strode to the hut. 

Catherine startled at my entrance, terrified by my masked and caped appearance into her moment of grief and confusion. We stared at each other for a minute. She’d been crying. I hadn’t wanted to make her cry. Of all the things Izzy cried about, my returning or looking physically different had never been one of them. 

“I hate that helmet, Captain,” she sniffed. I took it off and placed it on my bed.

“Me too.” Catherine was on Maui’s bed and I joined her there. 

“What did you do to her?” she accused. “You were supposed to take care of her. Isabelle assured me she’d be safe with you.” 

“I kept her out longer than I should have. Please do not be angry with her. Blame me.”

“I do blame you,” Catherine exploded then put her hand over her mouth as if she could take back the expression of emotion. I accepted her blame. She wiped her eyes. “I’m not angry with her. I’m…saddened.” 

“Elizabeth is still the same person you remember. I promise.”

“No, she is not. Years change people, Captain. Perhaps they don’t change you but they do change the rest of us. You were careless with her. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she straightened herself up and fixed me with a stare, “I’m going to go introduce myself to Elizabeth and get to know her.”

Catherine ran into Izzy at the door and the two women consoled each other for a moment before trading me off. Izzy stood with her arms crossed, foot tapping, and eyebrow raised. I put my hands up. See Izzy? I’m unarmed. I’m harmless. You don’t have to look at me like that. She took a deep breath and came to sit next to me.

“Tell me everything,” she demanded. There’d be no glossing over this one. 

“I’m going to. I’m going to,” I assured her. Why was Elizabeth showing up older suddenly upsetting to her? She'd never once been upset with me about showing up looking different from when I'd left. “Take it easy on Elizzy, she’s a little sensitive. Okay?”

“Who the hell is Elizzy?”

“Sorry. Right. Elizabeth – Bessie.” We’d been so informal in Zheng’s compound. I should have made more notes about Greenland. I should have read the notes I did make. I should have believed Elizabeth when she explained that Izzy and Catherine would take her reentry hard. 

“How long were you gone, Anne?” 

“We skipped around a little but Elizabeth kept count. She thinks it was five, probably closer to six years.” I don’t know how that girl had kept count. It felt like we’d barely been gone at all. 

“HOLY SHIT!” She jumped up, looking at me like I’d said the world was ending tomorrow. I could hear the capital letters in her words and cringed.

“Please stay calm. She was very nervous about how you and Catherine would react. I assured her you would be okay.” She seemed to take my words into consideration. She seemed to want to take Elizabeth’s feelings into consideration. I’d take the blame for this but Izzy had been the one to suggest the girl go with me. 

“But you’re okay?” She put her hand on my shoulder then moved down to take my hand. It was still so strange to have her with me like this. No one put their hands casually on me as if it was a normal, everyday occurrence. Not since – no, Graham was gone. I was moving on. If I could make it six years I could make it seven.

“I’m fine. Still sore where she hit me but otherwise good.” Elizabeth’s right hook after I lost our card game was showing up as a nice bruise on my chin, at least I assumed so. I hadn’t looked in the mirror but it felt sore. 

“So what happened that it took you so long? Six years, Anne?” 

What had happened? I searched my memory for details she would appreciate. 

“Oh…well, after finding Ian – which took some time –” It had taken a month to get that errand completed. So that part was true. Catherine, Elizabeth, and John Henry entered at this point and the baby came over to jump on my lap. Catherine stared at me coldly and Elizabeth sat sunken in the corner. “After that I ran into some trouble and couldn’t sail back.” And after that we were having a good time and didn’t want to come back. I’d save that comment for later.

Elizabeth scoffed, “She got the skin torn off her back.” She said it just like she’d told Zheng the story over and over again as they smoked and drank into the night. My first mate realized what she’d done and clapped a hand over her mouth. I’d termed these lapses as ‘time travel jet lag”. These lags would bite me in the ass when I would order a glass of wine for dinner when I was supposed to be sixteen and Mom would frown at me and narc on me to the server. Or when Izzy would put a biology book in front of my face and remind me we had a test in two days and I would groan out loud that ‘Are you kidding me? We are still in high school!?’ Or when I’d forget that Helene hated me and we would accidentally share a pleasant moment laughing about Yvonne’s latest antics and ambitions. 

“Oh my god!” Izzy stopped herself from ripping my cloak off to see Charlie’s new scars – which Elizabeth had assured me weren’t terrible. Zheng had assessed them as otherwise. I chose to believe my first mate. “While you were looking for Ian?”

“No. This was just after that. Really it wasn’t that bad. And it hardly bothers me anymore.” Only some mornings would I wake up and need to stretch or hold onto something for support till my back released. 

“It was terrifying.” Elizabeth had zero chill. I scowled at her. She flipped me off then tried to pass the gesture off as scratching her forehead. Whatever, she’s the one who tied me to the mast to get back here. Welcome home, Elizabeth. “We truly couldn’t sail back till she was healed. But then we went to the 1300s and…I’m sorry. I asked for more time before returning and she agreed.” 

“I should have taken you back. Catherine’s right. I was careless.” I was the oldest. I should have known better. I should have listened the first time she brought up her concerns. Though, judging by their reactions, even if she’d shown up only one or two years older we’d still be in this same conversation. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Izzy leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Did you...you know?” She wanted to know if I’d died.  

“It was close but no. I stayed in this world.” Barely. I’d clung to life by the skin of my teeth and not believing for a second that Elizabeth wouldn't bury me. If Elizabeth hadn’t intervened, Charlie would have killed me for failing him. “Elizabeth helped me recover. But that leads me to our next problem. We cannot go to Portugal. It’s not a big deal, it’s just not an option any more.” The guns were for Charlie. Charlie was speaking to the eminent household on my behalf for the rooms for the season. The guns were gone. Charlie and his sway with the resident duke was gone. We were out of a castle. John Henry put his head on my shoulder and I kissed his little cheek.

“Oh, but-- Right. What’s the plan then?” Izzy asked. So that was a no, she hadn’t done a thing while I was away making sure her husband didn’t have a claymore sticking out of his skull. I sat back on the bed, tired all of a sudden. 

“I guess the new plan is the old plan.” No need to reinvent the wheel. I’d never had to play matchmaker before but I was confident I could find Catherine a nice man with a decent acreage and income. Dowry wouldn’t be a problem. “We find where to establish Catherine and John Henry. Elizabeth has agreed to stay on as my first mate. Izzy, this trip was for the summer only. I promised, vowed, to take you home and it’s time. I’m not going to force you to drag this out. I’m sticking by my word. You can trust me.”

Witnessing first hand their reactions to Elizabeth’s short time away, I was determined Izzy wouldn’t face the same fate. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to her friends or Vivienne. She wouldn’t have to explain anything at all. I would give her that gift.

“I’ve changed my mind, Anne.” I looked up at Izzy, what the hell was she talking about? “That was --” she was up and wringing her hands, “So much has changed since then. I can’t possibly go home yet.” 

“You…changed your mind?” Was she serious? 

“Can we even go home, Anne?” 

“I’m kidnapped and I’m going to stay that way?”

“After Bermuda.  Promise you’ll take me home.”  

“I want you to swear in such a way that you can’t wriggle out or loophole your way away from this.  Give me a definite promise.  Give me a concrete promise.  Swear on pain of your precious boat sinking to the bottom of the ocean that you, Anne, my sister, will get me home.”

“You will get back home where you will live out your days fat, happy, and rich.” 

“You will take good care of her, won’t you?”

“Of course I will.”

“You’ll see she gets home safe to me?”  

“I will.”

“Keep her out of trouble. She’s a good girl.”  

“I will.”  

“You promise?  You’ll bring her back in one piece?”

“I promise.”

 "You'll have to do better than that. I know what your promises are worth.”

All of Izzy’s protests came back to me. All of Vivienne’s fears that I wouldn’t bring her daughter home. All of it. And now she’d changed her mind? What was she thinking? That she isn’t ready to leave this life? Ready or not, sometimes the day is upon you and the clock hits zero.

“Izzy, a word? Can we talk over here a sec?”

“I don’t know...I kind of want to keep witnesses around with that look on your face.” She stood anyway and I led her out of the hut and away from the ears and eyes of the village. She was complaining about the cold but I ignored her. 

“Mom is waiting for you. We can maybe – maybe stretch this out a year but look at Elizabeth! The years will show on your face, on your personality, everywhere! Mom is waiting and you need to think this through carefully. Mom, your jobs, your friends, your life! It’s all waiting.” And here I stood, a shining example steeped in notebooks to help me remember what Vivienne’s friend Bunny wore to the last tea we attended. I didn’t want to see her lose everything she’d worked so hard to attain. I wouldn’t just be failing her. I’d be failing all our mother’s efforts. All of Rose and Elias’s efforts. All the doctors and therapists and teachers and friends who expected her to thrive in her own time and space. 

[Where does she want to thrive?] An annoying voice piped up. 

Trick question. She thrived everywhere.

“And then what? What happens after you take me home?” she asked.

“You live happily ever after in air conditioned bliss.” God, I missed air conditioning. Not that I needed it here in Greenland but Sunda had been sweltering. “Playing on your phone into the sunset, enjoying indoor plumbing and fabric softener.” I grinned. She was beyond happy and content in my mind, sitting on the giant wrap around couch at Heron’s Landing, texting her friends, not emptying her own chamber pot.  

“That’s not what I meant, Anne. You said-- you said–” She looked around as if we were being watched and spoke in a low voice, “Are you planning on ditching me?”

“Ditching you? No. Getting you back to your real life? Yes.” Grocery stores. Indoor plumbing. Tupperware. Shoes that are differentiated between right and left feet.

“And then I’ll see you for Christmas?” I started to laugh but she fixed me with a serious face. Christmas? No. She wasn’t asking about a holiday. She was asking if I’d be home for the holidays. The answer was no, I would not be. I would not be going back there.

“We’ve been over this. Remember?” I rubbed her shoulders and tried to smile in encouragement.

“Not really.” She was a terrible liar. “Do you have plans for Christmas?”

“That I invited you on this trip because our lives are going in different directions? That we are drifting apart? Any of this ring a bell?” This was our last trip together and I’d already pushed it too far, fallen into bad habits, let her see too much. If she remembered anything from our trip out of Bermuda she must understand that.

Izzy kept looking away from me, searching for an escape route from this conversation. “I mean, that was ages ago. Is that when you mentioned your Christmas plans? I’m sorry I don’t remember–” 

“Izzy, when I take you home I’m --” I wish she wouldn’t look at me like that, “moving out. Moving on. I don’t plan to go back to the 21st after I take you home.” My memory was patchy at times but I had rehearsed saying this to her. I remembered sitting on my ship and rehearsing the goodbye line about drifting apart and how I couldn’t hang around her forever. I know I’d said this.

“What? You mean, like ever?” she shouted as if this were brand new information. “You’re never coming home again?!”

She looked so young. I was supposed to be young like that. She was supposed to deliver that line as one sixteen year old to another about running away. But I was no longer that young. I was old. Too old. 

“I can’t keep going back. I have to move on. I’m not doing well.” Mo said so. Zheng said so. Hell, even Izzy herself had said so. 

[Keep it together.]

I’m trying.

Izzy started and stopped herself from saying a multitude of different responses, a multitude of different lies to both herself and me. Then she stopped and only said, “I’m not ready to go home yet.” 

You must consider that it is time to let her go…for both of your sakes. Mo had told me that. But I wasn’t ready. It looked like Izzy might not be ready either. I know she wanted to stay for her husband but perhaps she wanted to stay a little bit for me too?

“Then let’s not go home yet.” I hugged her and held on tight. I didn’t have to let her go yet. I wasn’t going to let her go a second before I had to and judging by how fierce she was holding onto me, that moment wasn’t here yet.

We eventually made our way back inside the hut and found Catherine and Elizabeth talking by the fire. 

“So we need a location. Who would like to cast a vote?” I interrupted their attempts at small talk and ice breaker questions.

“Well...I vote for England,” Izzy suggested. No shocker there. Catherine, Elizabeth, and I each displayed strong reactions of distaste for this location.

“I vote for anywhere except England. Or the Somers Isles.” Catherine muttered. I was liking her more and more everyday. She had a little vinegar in her soul and I was enjoying it.

“I’m with Catherine. England and Somers Isles are out,” I agreed with her.

“I would like to go someplace warmer,” Elizabeth proffered.

Izzy pulled her blanket turned poncho around her tighter. “Agreed. If I can’t see Ian yet, let’s at least get warmer,” she shivered. I rolled my eyes. It was summer and we hadn’t even had to break through the water to fish. 

“Okay. So there are a number of options in Europe and the Mediterranean. Africa and the Americas aren’t great choices at the moment.” I’d prefer to leave those peoples what time they had left before interference from the outside. 

“Let’s go someplace where Elizabeth and John Henry and I don’t stick out like sore thumbs.” Izzy said this, but hadn’t she JUST asked to go to England? Hormones were powerful blinders.

“Suppose we all go to 1652?” Elizabeth came over to stand next to me. “You said England’s current war ends then. Isabelle can see the Lieutenant Commander. Catherine might like to travel the portal.” She wanted to show her sister more of who she was. I understood. Izzy was currently in the same hut with me, centuries before her birthday, all because I wanted the exact same thing.

“I don’t mind the when so much as the where.” Catherine hugged her son.

“I’d like to avoid complicating Catherine’s life any further.” Skipping around, going on trips, that encompassed too many variables when establishing a new life in a new land and a new time. Even a year or two and Catherine would face massive time travel jet lag that could hurt her and John Henry’s chances of survival. We needed to decrease variables for her, not pile them on in extraordinary amounts. She was already facing relocation, remarrying, possibly learning a new language, saying goodbye to her sister, adopting a new name and new backstory, and we didn’t need to cram time travel onto her list of issues. 

I rubbed my eyes and chose a country. “How does Greece sound?” The Mediterranean was John Henry’s best bet for blending in without too many nonnas side eyeing him and his mother. 

“Do you speak Greek, Catherine? Or whatever it is they speak there these days.” Izzy went to sit by Catherine and hold her hands. I appreciated her concern but not her coddling. Catherine needed to grow a thick skin and fast.

“She could learn,” I insisted. 

“I was just asking!” Izzy glared.

“The colonies are also an option for you.” Settlers would jump at the chance to marry a beautiful young wife who had proof drooling on her knee that she was a fertile and capable mother. The colonies were also an easy place for me to travel and check up on her and the baby.

"Not with John Henry it isn’t.” Izzy ruined my plans once again. She had a point. Catherine and John Henry could be safe for a generation with the right husband but possibly not his children or his children’s children as history wound its way forward.

“Good point. Dammit.” I conceded. “Portugal would have been perfect.” My back spasmed in memory of Charlie’s whip. I decided to split the difference in the Mediterranean. “Let’s say Italy. Maybe Genoa. We can work on the language as we sail. After that, Elizabeth, you and I can then take Izzy to get laid – see her husband one last time in England then take her home.” Izzy fumed at my flippance about her super serious Vegas style wedding.

“Then back to China? I’d love to keep working with Zheng. Plus she owes me money.” Elizabeth grinned. She’d taken Zheng for everything she was worth. 

“You got it.” I laughed. I’d love to resume our trade routes with Elizabeth as my first mate. Plus, I loved seeing my old friend searching down to the lint in her pockets to pay Elizabeth her winnings.  

“No. You are not leaving me behind,” Catherine stood and declared, stopping our laughter. “Bess– Elizabeth is going to China. I am going to China.” 

Whoa. Wait. Elizabeth and I looked at each other trying to imagine the small girl among the pirates in Zheng’s compound. Neither of us saw that working out well and both started to protest when –

“Yes. China. I don’t want any of us to split up yet.” Izzy backed Catherine up and all of a sudden I saw both of them in Zheng’s compound, only this time Izzy was teaching the miscreants how to properly tie a cravat and telling Zheng to sit up and stop cursing so much and insisting on quality public education for all the children running around. 

Depending on when we dropped into Zheng’s timeline, my old friend would get a kick out meeting or seeing Izzy again. 

“Alright, if we are only going on a short journey, I’ll remind you all that we are not bound to this time either. We can go back to the 1300s but Zheng is also in operation contemporary to us now.” 

Izzy couldn’t help herself, her eyes slipped to Elizabeth before wringing her hands and fretting, “I need to limit my aging. I am planning to reunite with Ian once the war is over.” Hormones. Powerful again. What challenge does a war present in the face of burning loins? Izzy turned her attention to me and smiled. “I was worried that you would come back and say he didn’t make it and we’d have to go to England to save him right now.”

Ugh. She would have too. As amazing as that Chilean vacation would have been it looked like saving the young lieutenant had been the right move. I felt dirty just thinking about how much Fountain I’d had to shove down my jailor’s throat just so Izzy could get laid again. 

“Good thing we know he survives then, right?” Stupid brother-in-law. She didn’t want to age for him so we’d keep her cheeks baby soft and stay in this era. The 1300s were much more lucrative for us but this era would be passable. “Zheng is operating in China. We could go see what she’s got going on over there. Catherine? Izzy?” 

“As long as I will not see my family or Commander Sutton, I am open,” Catherine cast her vote.

“China.” Izzy took Catherine’s hand and squeezed.        

“China!” Elizabeth rubbed her hands together. 

“China it is. Zheng will be thrilled.” The lists of preparations began to compile themselves in my mind. The ship was in good shape and we could leave within a few days. I sent Elizabeth to go begin inventory on our stores and Catherine went with her. It was nice to see how determined they both were to hang onto each other. I picked up my helmet. I’d need to negotiate for some supplies and arrange another trip to the grotto to see if there was something there to bring Zheng as a present.

I sat down on the bed and took a few steadying breaths before I needed to head back out and perform. A cup appeared in my line of sight and I looked up to see Izzy in front of me, eyes soft and gentle, holding out the medicine. I took the cup from her and sipped.

"Good. Thank you." She looked relieved I hadn't put up a fight.

The medicine worked quickly or perhaps it was stronger than the few doses Elizabeth had made me lately with our dwindling supply. I put the helmet to the side. A short rest wouldn’t delay us by much. 

“This is nice. I think I might rest a little if you don’t mind.” I took another sip and felt the relaxation spread deep into my muscles. “We were away too long,” I confessed to the blurry edges of my vision. “I’m a little tired.”

“Can we really get to China?” Izzy tucked me in and I was grateful for it.

“Well, they don’t call me the Bitch Captain of the Atlantic.” I laughed at my little joke. I pulled her cheek close and kissed it. I had missed her. Then I promptly passed out. 

****

Elizabeth sat with me in the morning over a cup of hot broth while most of the village slept. It was early even though the sun was up. The sun was always up in the summer like this. I’d allowed us a few solid days of rest and relaxation but after years of traveling, she and I were still on our boat schedule. We’d started a nice little habit of sharing a morning cup of something hot between the night and day shift. The morning was a cool and slightly clammy one and we sat next to each other by the community fire. We’d be on the water in just a few hours. 

“They look exactly the same but not exactly the same,” Elizabeth said as her mug steamed under her face. I’d been going over lists of chores and looked over at her. She worried the rim of her cup. Between Catherine and Izzy and John Henry (by accident or design), the two of us hadn’t had more than a few scant moments together to discuss our reentry. 

“They are exactly the same. To them we were gone less than a full day.” I refilled her cup.

“She looks…young. Why does she look young?” Emotion pulled at her voice and she stared at the hut where Catherine was asleep. 

I put my hand on my first mate’s shoulder. This was one of the harder aspects of my career, this balancing of my experiences against the static nature of my home life. The first time I was gone for a significant period of time was when Izzy was 16. It was well over a decade, possibly more like two or three decades, before I made my way back to her. So much had happened to me in that time and yet Izzy was as unchanged as she’d ever been. The adjustment back into who I’d been before I’d left had been an arduous affair. But Izzy was 16 and dammit, I was going to be 16 too. So I’d hammered at my sharp edges and barbs until I fit my square peg into that round hole and frog marched myself through life with her and my mother until it was time to leave again.  

“She looks young because she is young,” I answered Elizabeth. “You said we were gone how long?”

“Six years.”

“Right. So you are now six years older than she is.”

“We’ve always been the same age. That’s why I was…” she trailed off, preferring not to think of her younger days.

“Do you regret coming along with me?”

“I wish I had known a bit more about what we were doing." She smiled. “But no, I do not regret it.”

“Maybe we’ll go again soon?” I offered. I could already feel the pull of the portal reaching out to me.  

“Maybe we will.” Her smile broadened and we drank our cooling broth. The look on her face was familiar to me. It was the lure of adventure and unimagined freedom and experience. I had a crewmate for life.  

The village began waking up. There was a laundry list of items left to accomplish before we raised our sails. Catherine was saddled with the baby and was dead weight to me. Izzy would be useful once I could get her out of that dress and into clothes she could move around in. So until we had all passengers on the ship, it was mostly Elizabeth and I (sweating in my helmet) performing the chores needed for departure.  

Izzy surprised me with a few additions to our crew. A goat and flock of chickens. She was crying over the stress of trying to refuse the villagers who wanted to gift her these animals and she’d already named these animals and blah blah blah and fresh goat milk and blah blah egg supply and crying sentimental emotion. I didn’t have the fight in me for this. I let the animals on my ship knowing I’d sell them to the first butcher I found in my first port of call. Or feed them to the sharks if they got too smelly. Elizabeth and Izzy rowed them out to the ship with Izzy and the rest of their luggage. She came back for Catherine and John Henry. And finally me. 

I signed my farewell to the village. The chief signed back that they would welcome me again the next time. I shoved the little boat into the water and sat in the prow, helmeted head gleaming in the sun, as Elizabeth rowed us away.  

Elizabeth and I raised the Try Your Luck’s sails together and my heart soared as the wind filled them and the ship began to move. At last, we were on our way.

****        

I relieved Elizabeth at the wheel as we closed in on the portal. She went below with Catherine and John Henry to give him a snack and to continue their ‘get to know you’ discussions. We were barely out of sight of land but Izzy was already working away in the galley. I focused on the portal ahead of us. We were headed to contemporaneous China and it was always tricky to use the portal to travel Space alone without serving Time first. If we were going to Europe I wouldn’t mess with the portal and just sail on plain water the entire journey. Crossing to the Pacific from the northwest corner of Greenland however would heavily tax our passengers and our food supply. Fresh off the reactions of each of them regarding the aging processes of young women, I was also sensitive to the fact that none of them wanted to unnecessarily add a year to their lives. 

Izzy brought up food and her stupid new goat trotted over for love and attention and scraps of garden clippings. She gave me the goat’s plate and when I questioned her on it she corrected me exclaiming that it wasn’t garden clippings, it was a salad. Lovely. She put a pail of what looked like the exact same salad down for the goat and we both started munching our greens, the goat much happier than I was.

“So,” she flounced down next to me and my roughage. She was altogether too bright and chipper. It set me on edge. There were no horses she could strap me to out here but I sensed great danger. She was far too happy. “Tell me about Marco. The handsome pirate you married?”

“Oh fuck.” I grasped the tattoo on my forearm, a souvenir from our wedding. “I forgot about that. Look at the time.” I stared up at the sun as if the time of day would ever make a difference to my sister when she had a juicy piece of gossip she could interrogate me about. “I gotta go.” I made a futile attempt to escape but she brought me right back down.

“Don’t even think about it.” She shoved my plate of ‘salad’ back on my lap and threatened me with a fork. “Come on! You got to come to my wedding and you won’t even tell me about yours? Or the husband? Spill, bitch!” She jabbed me in the ribs. 

“You’ve already met him!” I groaned and stabbed at what I hoped was a poisonous berry I could choke and die on to get out of this conversation. Fucking turkey berry. Not poisoned yet.  “What do you want to know?” 

“I met him for five minutes in a firefight! Tell me about my brother in law!” Technically she’d met him one other time but I wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize him. I sighed. Where to start? Marco…fucking Marco. Last time I saw you, you were in my bed, under my sheets. I shivered. That could be anytime at all. Go back to Greenland. Do what you need to do and come find me. It didn’t mean a thing. Nothing. He had been talking out of his ass.

“First, and let’s make this really clear, he is NOT your brother-in-law. We were so young.” We knew nothing about anything. Just knew what we thought we wanted, what we thought was meaningful.

“How young were you?” she asked. I leaned back and tried to do the math. It was easier to count the years closer to childhood.

“Oh god, probably 24 or 25.” Time at the temple twisted in on itself and I’d already been traveling the portal for years but it had to be close to that. Right? Probably. Didn’t matter. I could still feel Marco’s hand in mine as he brought me to bed. I could hear him murmur my name late at night when we were all alone. 

Izzy’s scoff brought me back. “That’s not THAT young,” she admonished, gesturing to her own 25 year old self. Yes, Izzy. It is young. I suddenly felt like a stranger to her. I looked out at the water so I didn’t have to examine the differences between us. “So you married him a few hundred years ago?”

“Like I said, we were young. We didn’t know anything…ancient history.” Last time I saw you, you were in my bed, under my sheets. He was talking out of his ass. He was a con man. None of his words meant anything. Not too long away this time, Nanette. Yes? Graham was still out there, waiting for me. Next time he saw me would be in St. George’s among the flames. I should have said yes to him.

“Alright...Well, how did you do in the divorce? Did you get a house or jewels or anything?” She smiled and laughed at her joke but I was torn from one scene of death and devastation to another.

“We didn’t get a divorce. I died.” I couldn’t keep anyone…or perhaps more to the point, no one could keep me.  

“Oh. Well shit. That’s....wow. Sorry.” She pet her new goat for comfort. That thing was going to look great on a fork.

“We didn’t know then that death wasn’t the end for us. We didn’t know anything. I was the first one of us who died.” Our whole family had broken up after that. Mo and Zheng went their separate ways. Marco and Maui traveled together till they were captured. Until I sailed to each of them there was no way for them to reunite. “I went to find him years later but he’d moved on.” 

I was the first of his wives but not the last. He’d found many women to fill his days and had many children with them. “So yeah, I was married but it’s ancient history, for both of us.” 

Come find me soon, Annie.

I shook it off. He was ancient history. 

“That was your first time?” she asked.

“Marrying or dying?” I refocused on the portal. We were about there. The wind was with us and speeding us along at a perfect seven knots. I adjusted our course. Just another minute and we’d be in.

“Dying. You were married to Marco the first time you died?”

“Yeah.” Only a little further. Almost there.

“How-- wait. I don’t know if there’s an etiquette to this thing. Would it be rude for me to ask you how you died? The first time, I mean?”

“Oh. Um. No, not impolite.” I brought us right up to the event horizon of the portal and rode the edge till I had the course I wanted. “I just never thought I’d be having this conversation.” I eased the port side into the portal. We were in. “I was on a ship with my friend and I…there was a problem. I bled out.” She didn’t need to know the gory details of how there was blood…just everywhere. I eased the rest of the ship into the portal. 

“Oh god. That sounds awful. And terrifying.” The goat had its tasty head on her lap now.

Heat slammed into the boat, feeling like an oppressive humid umbrella after the crisp arctic summer. I frowned. That wasn’t a good sign.

“Pretty much. Like I said, ancient history. Till death do us part, right? Nothing to know. It’s over.” The Try Your Luck glided for probably fifty yards before the wind dropped out of the sails and we came to a dead stop.

Shit. 

I jumped up and ran to the rail. The ocean was placid bath water and the sky above, an unrelenting cloudless dome of radiant sun. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

“Ummm. What happened to the sails? We just had wind a second ago…” Izzy asked from behind me. I looked back up at the sky hoping for indications that this was a fluke.

“We’re in the portal now.” The sun beat down on the deck, already heating it up under my feet. “Sometimes the weather is different in here.” I shaded my eyes and tried to detect if there was any current to work with.

“So it’s just a temporary thing?

“Yeah.” Where was the current? “Just temporary.” I adjusted my hat. This was not good. I tried to see if there were any available exits we could take. Nothing. We were becalmed and staying that way. Shit.

“Okay. Well I am going to temporarily take my ass downstairs because it’s suddenly hotter than death and I’m still dressed for Santa’s neighborhood.” 

“Okay. Bye. Merry Christmas –” I looked up and saw her at the stairs. It wasn’t Christmas. Too hot for Christmas, “Or, no – sorry. Enjoy your nap.” I kept looking out at the dead air. 

[Well, this should be fun.]

Crap.