Pirate's Wraith, The

by Penelope Marzec

  Harlan jumped up. “’Tis a ghost.”

  Lesley’s insides turned to ice water. Until now, she had never believed in ghosts, but there in front of her was a thing that had a lot more substance than smoke or fog. Two appendages appeared and reached out toward her.

  Harlan slashed at the thing with his dagger. It reacted by emitting a high note.

  “Stop!” Lesley screamed. “You’re hurting her!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Harlan’s heart thundered in fright but he lowered his dagger and stumbled backward. The swirling cloud dissipated while the high-pitched cry slid into lower range until it became so faint it faded away. In a moment, the spirit vanished without a trace.

  He had fought in countless battles, but he had never trembled with such abject terror. Every part of him quivered as if his body had no more substance than the telltales lifted by the wind on the sails. His mouth had not a drop of moisture in it. His tongue could not move. It lay like a dead stick of wood in his mouth.

  His glanced downward at the wooden pony on the sand. No light emanated from it. No sparks reached out to stab him with fire. He had fashioned it with his own hands from an ordinary block of wood. Elsbeth must have enchanted it. He had thrown it into the fire once and it had not burned. Perhaps he should throw it into the sea.

  He reached for it, but Lesley snatched it away and held it to her breast.

  “You shouldn’t have done that. I don’t think she meant to hurt us. She wanted to talk to us.” She slid her fingers along the pony’s back as if it were a live pet. “This little horse has come a long way with me. It’s all I have left of my other life.”

  In the moonlight, he saw the lone tear course down her cheek. He had a sudden urge to taste it, but he fought against his inclination.

  “I suffered for months with the most unendurable migraines but I would reach out to this little horse and dream ... and somehow it comforted me.” She held the toy as tenderly as one held an infant.

  He grabbed the bottle of wine, uncorked it and proceeded to quaff most of it down. His tongue loosened. “I have gone mad.”

  “There are other explanations. We could have suffered a hallucination brought on by the trauma of all we went through. Or maybe the mussels have some fungi in them, which causes a kind of delirium. I read about a fungus on rye bread that caused people to have delusions in the middle ages. It was the original LSD.”

  “I do not understand your words.” Living on an uninhabited island with a strange woman who talked of the future and caused him to see things that could not be surely would cause his death.

  “LSD is a hallucinogenic drug. You must have opiates in this century. Right? LSD is worse than opium. I think. I’ve never tried it, of course. A glass of wine is my drug of choice.”

  Harlan handed her the bottle. “Drink.”

  “I thought we were supposed to conserve it, but .... bottoms up.” She lifted the bottle to her lips, but held onto the wooden pony with a death grip that showed in her white knuckles.

  He sat on the sand beside her and watched as the tear coursed down her cheek and dribbled away, leaving only a pale trail. His fingers itched to wipe the light stain from her skin, even though the horrible discoloration from the bruise still marred her beauty. For one so delicate, she had endured much, and she had borne her sufferings with little complaint.

  He had seen men with far less fortitude. Was her bravery a product of her courage, or did she possess the power of the devil? Had she even now woven a spell about him? Why should he care for her? Yet, he had to admit to himself he did.

  She lowered the jug. “Feels good going down—despite the slight tinge of vinegar. At home I have a very classy wine rack. I keep it well stocked with my favorite Pinot Grigio.” A hint of emotion sounded in her voice. Would another tear follow in the wake of the first?

  “Wine is a woman’s drink.” He craved a glass of whiskey. It would eliminate his foolish thoughts. Unfortunately, he could be on this island for many months before a friendly ship came along. It might be a long time before he tasted whiskey again. The firelight played on Lesley’s hair, making it appear not black but same tawny hue as his favorite drink.

  “You are a damned chauvinist.” She glowered at him as if he were the lowest of vermin.

  As usual, he had no idea what her strange word meant, but he could guess. “Women cannot handle whiskey.”

  “Ha! If I weighed as much as you, I could drink the same amount.”

  He laughed. “The last time you had my whiskey, you could not keep your eyes open.”

  “That doesn’t count. That was a horrific day. In fact, I’ve had nothing but drama since I arrived in this miserable century. If we get back to civilization—such as it is—I will prove to you that I can hold my liquor as well as you can. Though we have to base consumption on body weight. Do you know anything about percentages? Here, I can show you in the sand—” She used her finger to draw a mathematical formula.

  He did not listen to her words, though the soft lilt of her voice had a calming effect. Warmth lingered in the night. The wine had dulled his panic and he began to doubt what he had seen. It could have been smoke from the fire, a wisp of evening fog, or some film floating across his eye.

  The cry he thought he heard could have come from a seabird. His senses could have tricked him. He needed rest and more substantial food. Tomorrow he would go hunting and set traps.

  In the brief walk he had taken, he found indications that the island contained an abundant source of fresh water, which made it far more likely that a ship would drop anchor at some point. There should be clues about the island of former shipwrecked sailors. He had not seen anything yet, but he intended to search for broken barrels, pieces of pottery, or other signs of previous visitors. While he knew he had never laid eyes on this scrap of land until now, that did not mean that no one else had.

  Many parts of the world remained unexplored. When he had started off on his seafaring life, the possibility of discovering new places filled him with excitement. Somewhere along the way, the thrill had left him. Each day became a struggle to survive and the only thing that kept him focused was the hope of regaining the wealth that should have been his.

  He never considered recapturing the happiness lost to him with his son’s death and Elsbeth’s curse. But tonight the dancing firelight playing on Lesley’s gentle frame stirred his lust. He knew what lay beneath her ragged clothes and he could not stop himself from recalling all the wonders of her perfect body.

  “So you see, according to my calculations, using body weight as the determining factor, if I drink seventy percent of the amount of whiskey you drink, it would count as the same.”

  He had paid no mind to her words or her calculations for his own thoughts consumed him.

  “Whiskey is liquid fire.” He put his hand up to touch the gossamer silk strands of her hair. “In the light of the fire your hair reminds me of whiskey. I want to taste it and see if it burns me.” He drew closer.

  She backed away from him. “Let’s get a few things straight. Number one, we are not having sex on this island—”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You wanted a child—”

  “How do I know you don’t have syphilis? How many women have you slept with? I don’t want to get a deadly disease. I don’t want to get pregnant here in the middle of nowhere. I don’t want to die in childbirth if anything goes wrong.”

  A glowing ember of anger flared up within him. “I would care for the child.”

  “You will get back on another ship and never see the kid. Poor Elsbeth had it rough. You were not there for her when she needed you.”

  “Don’t speak of her!” he shouted. A wave of guilt washed over him, swamping him with the memories. Elsbeth had accused him of abandoning her, though in truth he had believed she had all she needed. He had to go to sea. What else could he do?

  A chill wound up his spine. Had that strange form issuing from the wooden pony been the ghost of Elsbeth? W
ould she haunt him forever?

  “You maligned her, calling her a witch and calling me one, too—simply because I bear a resemblance to her and because I talk of the future. I am not Elsbeth, but I have a lot of sympathy for her. Women were nothing but slaves for most of history. All they did was breed and work themselves to death. They didn’t get to vote until 1920, because men wouldn’t let them—and you are simply another chauvinist like the rest of them. All you want to do is use me because I happen to be convenient.”

  Desire licked at his loins but he would not take her against her will. He would make her want him. With his jaw clenched, he stood, turned, and left her. He intended to circle the entire island, no matter how long it took. He lengthened his stride as he reached the water’s edge. He would have her, but not tonight.

  Tonight he would chart his course.

  * * * *

  Lesley put another piece of wood on the fire and watched the sparks sail off into the night sky. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  Harlan infuriated her. While his chauvinistic attitude resulted from the culture of his incredibly backward century, she assumed he would have learned something from his experiences with love and loss. Obviously, he could not move past the superstitions of his age.

  The little horse warmed her heart as she clutched it to her bosom while a chill breeze blew in from the sea. In the quiet night, questions circled in her mind. Why was she here? How had she gone through the time barrier?

  Did the universe mete out punishment to those who had caused harm? She sold questionable drugs to doctors—drugs she knew did not work because none of them had worked on her own migraine.

  Could her migraine be connected to the purchase of the cradle with the toy horse? Had the horse brought her to this time? Or did she actually belong in 1711? Could that be why she had the migraines in the first place?

  Could she be the reincarnated version of Elsbeth?

  She shivered and tossed another piece of wood on the fire. She wished she had not driven Harlan away with her bitter tongue—not that he understood half of what she said. However, he made it quite plain that he wanted her.

  The idea of sex with Harlan had her hormones surging at high tide. She had seen his magnificent cannon and the thought of it had excitement dancing along every nerve in her lower regions. Would she spend the rest of her days on this miserable island hungering after Harlan’s cannon but afraid to experience it because the thought of having sex without any protection and giving birth without medical assistance scared her stiff?

  What if she was dead already? But why did her ankle still hurt? Why did her stomach rumble, begging for an ample meal? Her bruised face hurt. Her hand throbbed where the splinter had been removed.

  Dead people did not have any substance, but her body seemed to be in complete working order.

  The apparition issuing from the pony did not have a body. It manifested itself as a swirling mist—a fog—translucent. Harlan’s sword slashed through it without any resistance.

  Its cry of pain unnerved her but she did not believe it could hurt her. It wanted something. She stared at the small toy in her hand. “If you could talk without freaking me out, maybe I could help you. On the other hand, maybe you could help me. Maybe you could get me back to 2011.”

  She set the horse down in the sand, but though she waited for several minutes, nothing happened.

  “I guess the first step is to get you to glow. How do I do that?” She remembered that Harlan had been holding the horse first. Since he stalked off, she probably would not be able to get the horse to do anything special.

  “Well, he’s the one who believes in witchcraft. Maybe that’s the trick. I have to believe—like kids believe in Santa Claus.” Sighing, she picked up the toy and held it close while putting more wood on the fire. How could she go to sleep? She had to stay up all night and feed the fire. Otherwise some wild animal would creep out of the jungle and eat her. She shivered as she thought about panthers and wild pigs and pythons. She listened to the night sounds as they mingled together into a soft drone. Some she recognized like the rolling waves, birds, and maybe locusts or crickets.

  She hated bugs. Spiders terrified her.

  Then a noise unlike all the others caught her attention. A deep snuffle and a snort.

  Her pulse raced. Was that a wild boar, ready to gore her with his big tusks?

  She held her breath and waited. Again, she heard something, but it did not sound quite like a pig. Swallowing hard, she decided the stress had finally cracked her because what she heard sounded like the whinny of a horse.

  A horse could not be here on an island in the middle of nowhere.

  She rode horses at camp. She had enjoyed that part of the experience.

  A much louder neigh followed by another snuffle came to her from the right. She peered into the darkness and saw the animal. He stared at her, then shook his mane and whinnied. He was a beautiful creature, a brown and white pinto.

  “Sure looks real to me.” She smiled and put the toy horse next to the flap that served as a door to her shelter. Standing, she grabbed her makeshift crutch to get closer to the fine animal.

  “I wish I had a carrot for you, but there’s not much in the pantry here.”

  He did not move away as she hobbled near to him.

  “I guess you’re not wild, but where did you come from?”

  He nickered softly as she approached with caution. When he blew out through his nose, she figured they were friends. When she reached out to stroke him, he pushed her hand hard toward his back.

  “Something the matter?” she asked.

  He squealed and as she reached out again, he shoved at her once more.

  She ran her hand along his quivering flank until she felt the dampness on his coat. She lifted her hand and saw the dark stain of blood in the firelight.

  “Oh, poor baby. You’re hurt.”

  He squealed and flicked his tail. A thorny vine caught in his tail scratched her.

  “Ouch. I see the problem.”

  A vine spiked with thorns had become intertwined in the pony’s tail. Every time he squatted at insects, he tore his skin.

  “I have a knife, so I can cut away the vine, but it’s going to be tricky and take some time.”

  He nickered his agreement.

  Lesley worked carefully, pricking her fingers in the process, but the horse stood patiently as she ministered to him.

  Exhaustion weighed on her, but since Harlan had not come back, having the company of the pony cheered her. She wondered if he would let her ride him bareback. With her sore ankle, it would be great to be able to ride around the island. Otherwise, she could not go very far.

  When she finished removing the vine, she dribbled some seawater on the pinto’s wounds. The salt stung and he complained, but he did not try to bite her.

  At last, she could not keep her eyes open any longer.

  “I have to go to sleep. Please stick around. It would be nice to have a friend.” She put her head on his neck and kissed him. He smelled delightfully like a horse and all her memories of riding along sun-dappled paths in the woods swept over her and nestled in her heart.

  He nudged her gently.

  “Pleasant dreams.” Weary to the bone, she picked up the toy horse and crawled into her simple shelter. She rolled up one blanket and made a pillow for head, the other blanket she used for her bed.

  The minute she put her head down, she slept.

  * * * *

  Lesley smelled food. Waking with a start, she blinked her eyes as dazzling sunshine streamed in through all the cracks in her small sanctuary. Outside, Harlan’s deep voice ground out the words of a sea chantey. Gratitude warmed her. He had returned—with food. She smiled as she listened to him. He could not carry a tune, but that did not matter. She had company. She would not be alone.

  Straightening her meager bedding, she added the toy horse as an adornment on her pillow for a homey touch. She hoped the pinto had not wandered far du
ring the night. When she drew back the canvas door, she did not see her new friend. However, Harlan stood near the fire, slicing up raw meat into neat rectangles on a wooden board.

  He nodded as she crawled up to the edge of the fire. “I caught a turtle.”

  “It smells good.” She knew she would probably think cooked shoe leather smelled good after so much time with so little food.

  He pointed to some of the cooked meat on another wooden board near the fire. “Eat as much as you like. I will smoke the rest of it. It will last us for a while.”

  Lesley picked up a long strip of the turtle meat. Greenish grease slid from her hand and down her arm. She did not have a napkin. Dammit. She stuck out her tongue and licked it off. It did not taste like the grease from a pepperoni pizza, but it appealed to her palate.

  “Not bad.” She admitted once she bit into the meat. Closing her eyes with satisfaction, she savored every single calorie and every gram of protein. “Um—sustenance. Thanks.”

  Harlan stopped singing—or rather croaking. “You made a new friend last night?”

  Lesley opened her eyes and followed the direction of Harlan’s gaze. By a small tuft of grass near the edge of the jungle, she saw the pinto.

  “He’s back,” she smiled.

  “That is a mare.”

  “Even better. She came last night after you stamped off—”

  “I went hunting.”

  “You were mad.”

  “I was hungry.”

  For whatever you could get. She sighed. Arguing would do no good.

  “The pinto had a thorny vine tangled in her tail. Whenever she swatted the flies, the thorns tore her coat. Taking out the vine took quite a while, but she was very patient.” She picked up another piece of meat.

  “I saw the pieces of the vine mixed with horse hair in the sand.”

  “So should I call you Detective Sterford now?” She chucked as she chewed on the meat.

  “Another strange word.”