by Rima Jean
Take good care of her, Jake. I love you both.
Chapter Three
My first conscious thought was: I hate boats.
My head pounded, just at the crown. Illogically, I wondered if there was a hole in my skull. From the neck down, I was submerged in cool water, and waves tugged at my body rhythmically. Sunlight lit the inside of my eyelids to a bright, veined pink and warmed my face, which was pressed against the smooth nylon of my life jacket.
Was I dead? I tried opening my eyes, but it felt as though they were welded shut. I wanted to rub them, but wasn’t even sure I knew how to move my hands. Hell, for all I knew, I didn’t have hands anymore. I thought idly about sharks as I bobbed about, wondering if anyone would find me, and if not, how long it would take to die. Slowly, I was able to crack open my eyes. From between the strands of hair that wrapped across my face and stuck to my parched lips, I could see a blurry blue sky with scattered clouds above, and nothing but sea stretching before me. Water sloshed around in my ears, and I could barely hear anything over the roar in my head.
Was my death to be prolonged? Would I die slowly at sea, with various sea creatures nibbling at me like an open buffet? I tried to moan, but no sound came out of my mouth. What had happened to Sky and Tanya? To everyone else on the catamaran? Were they okay?
Then I heard it. Gurgling water, and a distinct creaking. I saw the shadow it cast on the waves before I saw the dark hull, painted with a stripe of black. The ship was approaching, and while I wanted to call out for help, I could do nothing but wince at the pain I felt as I tried to move. I heard voices, and knew that I’d been found. Funny, how one’s brain works when water-logged and beaten to a pulp: I remember thinking it was remotely odd that a wooden sailing ship had found me, but not exceptionally odd. My eyes tried to focus on the ship as it came dangerously close, creaking and groaning balefully, the sails shuddering as the ship turned into the wind.
I saw men’s faces peering down at me from the sides, speaking in what I thought was English. I couldn’t be sure, because my ears were partially submerged in water, but I thought I heard someone say “Avast ye!” The ship was within arm’s reach when I managed to focus my eyes enough to see a flag flapping urgently in the wind: black, with a skull and two crossed bones beneath it. I tried to clear my head, blinking.
I was being rescued by pirate re-enactors. How droll.
Two men, clambering down monkey-like along the side of the ship, grabbed me by my vest and pulled. I was jerked from the water, my legs slapping against the wood of the boat. “Steady, clods, or I’ll cut ye in sunder!” a gruff male voice yelled.
I was then on my back again, looking into the curious faces of my rescuers. And, holy heaven, did they stink. I’m not sure I managed to keep the look of disgust off my face. My stomach began to churn again as I felt the ship rock beneath my body.
“Damn me, if it isn’t a bit o’ girl!” one fellow cried, blowing sour breath into my face.
“Close that yawp, dog!” another one growled. “Back to your post, and be quick about it!”
I turned my head to the side, groaning. I found my voice – along with my healthy dose of sarcasm – and croaked, “Seriously, guys. Enough with the pirate chatter. Get me to a hospital.”
The men exchanged looks, and a man who hadn’t spoken yet examined me, touching the vest, eyeing my terry cloth pants and t-shirt. The others hovered around, muttering oaths to each other. What was with these people? I tried to push myself up on my elbows, and the men instantly stepped back. All but the silent man, who, my addled brain assessed, was in a position of authority. Unlike the others, he maintained a calm look on his face, speaking gently to me. “There, now. Whatever ails you, cailin? Have ye need for the surgeon?”
Surgeon? And what did he call me? “Uh… No. I was… I fell off a boat… I don’t know how long ago… during a storm. I was staying on Paradise Island with my friends. They probably think I’m dead.”
I swallowed down the foul taste in my mouth, disoriented by what I saw. These guys weren’t kidding around. They clearly took this re-enactment business seriously, right down to the stench of putrid ass that emanated from every crevice of the ship. The deck was littered with coils of tarred rope and dirty sails. The ship seemed small, a lot smaller than Johnny Depp’s galleon, in any case. It had two masts, an immense amount of sail, and a long bowsprit. I didn’t remember much about sailboats, despite the instruction I’d gotten in Haiti as a kid, but it was clear the ship was built for speed. Speed, and battle, apparently – I spotted several big cannons and swivel guns fixed to the railing. The men, about a hundred of them, were ethnically varied – there were a few black and Indian guys – but they were strikingly similar in their appearances. They were all weathered, scarred, and filthy, and they were all clothed in variations of a loose shirt and baggy trousers. All of them wore something on their heads, either a knitted or felt cap. Most of them had on simple leather shoes, while others went barefoot. Some had dirty neckerchiefs, some sported short jackets. And every single blessed one carried a weapon, mainly knives and pistols that were hung around their necks or tucked in their belts.
I looked at the nice fellow, the one who appeared to be the captain. It wasn’t the way he was dressed that tipped me off – he was dressed like the others, except he wore knee breeches and knitted stockings – it was his presence. He was short but broad in the chest, with copper-colored hair that was tied back into a tail under a small tricorn hat. His face was creased and spotted from the sun, his cheeks ruddy from the wind, and he had a large, aquiline nose. He looked to be in his late thirties. His eyes, though bloodshot, were a bright blue as he surveyed me apprehensively. He had both a cutlass and pistol tied into a makeshift belt at his side, but he showed no sign of wanting to use them, thank God. “I need to use a phone,” I said, my voice sounding slightly choked.
The captain raised an eyebrow. The crew rumbled with… disapproval? Confusion? Fear? Oh, Jesus. Don’t tell me they’ve taken this so far as to not bring a damn cell phone. The throbbing in my head got worse, as did my nausea, and I felt my patience run out. “God, please, guys! I need to get back to Paradise Island. I need to use a phone. Don’t you get it? I fell overboard… My friends, Sky and Tanya. I need to find out if they’re okay. I need to find out what happened to the catamaran. This isn’t fun and games for me!”
One of the other men, a pale, rawboned man with a grand total of four teeth that I could see, leaned to speak in the captain’s ear. “The woman’s mad, Cap’n! What say you that we leave her ashore at Nassau – ”
“Nassau!” I cried, jerking upright and immediately wishing I hadn’t moved. My stomach heaved and every muscle in my body ached. “Yes, take me to Nassau. That’ll work.” Anywhere, really, so long I was away from these wackos. The captain sat still for a moment, seemingly surprised by my ardent desire to go to Nassau. His hesitation, however, lasted less than a second. He nodded, but before he could speak, I gagged and threw up on the deck. I had nothing to throw up except sea water, and the captain ordered that I be brought some ale.
“God no! Water, please,” I begged, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
The captain smiled, but was clearly perplexed. He said, “We’ve no sweet water, lass, just ale or rum. Here, Jameson, let’s get under way. I’ll take her to the cabin, where she’ll stay until we reach New Providence.”
There was a malicious cackle, and one of the men growled, “Aye, ye will… She’s a fair piece, that one!” The captain apparently chose not to hear the jeers as he easily lifted me into his arms and walked with a swift, rolling gait down the hatch and into his cabin. He smelled strongly of sweat and alcohol, and I held my breath, turning my head away from him. I heard the disgruntled Jameson cry, “All hands make sail!”
I cursed the fact that I was so nauseous and weak that I couldn’t think straight. Why wouldn’t these guys stop with the play-acting? They were obviously not American; the captain sounded Irish and the others… mos
tly British, I guess. But their English was definitely of a different century. Was I in danger? Clearly they weren’t mentally all there. A few fries short of a Happy Meal, if you get my drift. I concluded that I wasn’t in any more danger here than I was bobbing about in the middle of the sea.
If I’d expected some sort of luxury in the captain’s cabin, I was sorely disappointed. I guess in the back of my mind I’d hoped the Irishman would quit the pirate talk and offer me a bottle of Evian. The cabin was below the poop deck at the stern. It was cramped, hot and smelled like rotting fish, human sweat, and raw sewage. I retched again, but the captain seemed relatively unfazed. He set me down on a low bunk that was covered with dirty bedding. I ripped the life jacket off, panicking.
“I can’t stay down here,” I said, my stomach in my throat, sweat beading my upper lip. The rocking felt more pronounced away from the fresh air, from the view of the horizon.
The captain sat on a low stool beside me, his eyes hard. “Ye can’t stay on the decks either, lass. Ye saw the way the men looked at ye, surely. It’s here or back in sea with ye.”
I flinched, struck by the fierceness in his voice. He was serious. What was going on? Why couldn’t I stop the insanity? “Then drop me back in!” I moaned, clutching my scalp between my fingers. “For God’s sake, let someone else find me. Someone sane, who doesn’t think he’s a pirate!”
This made the Irishman laugh – a deep, slightly hostile rumble. His teeth were crowded and discolored, but he seemed to have most of them. A young boy – skinny and sunburnt, his bare feet black and callused – came in carrying a pewter mug and a bundle of cloth. I retched, nothing but spit coming out at this point. The captain said something about salt pork and hardtack, but “that with the fewest weevils.”
I moaned, shuddering in my sodden clothes. The Irishman produced a linen shirt and wide, knee-length trousers that were worn and sun-bleached to a faded blue. He said, “They’re the boy’s, they’ll likely fit ye. We haven’t got ladies’ silks and satins, to be sure, but it’ll do fine for now.” He raised a thick, unruly eyebrow at me. He seemed to think about something for a moment, and then disappeared up the hatch with a speed that should not have been possible on a rocking ship.
After struggling out of my wet clothes and slipping on those the captain had left for me, not knowing – or caring – whether to pat myself dry with something beforehand, I curled onto my side on the squalid bedding, away from the cabin, with its wooden chest and hammock. I watched as a large, speckled spider crawled its way in between the planks in front of my face. I shut my eyes. Maybe I really was dead, and this was Hell. Maybe this was all a nightmare, and I would awaken in my bed soon, my daughter Sophie bouncing on top of me. What I wouldn’t give for it to all just go away…
I’m not sure how long it took for us to get to Nassau. It may have just been an hour, but considering how I felt, it may as well have been a week. It simply couldn’t end quickly enough. I dwelled in the darkest pits of hell, trying my damnedest to breathe through my mouth so as not to smell the feculence around me. I didn’t – couldn’t – think about where I was and why I was there. The only thought that floated through my mind as I moaned, curled up in the captain’s bunk, listening to the creaking of the brigantine as it rocked from side to side, was that I undeniably, unequivocally, wanted to die.
At some point, I became aware that we’d dropped anchor. It was a fact that was hard to miss – I heard the eager cries of the men, the stomping of running feet up above me, and a great rumbling that made the whole ship tremble. I wanted to be excited, to jump and run up the ladder into the sunlight, but I was crippled by my misery. Get off the ship, I told myself. The sooner you get your ass up, the sooner you’ll feel better. The sooner you’ll be able to get back to your friends and your family.
Before I was able to work up the will to stand, the Irishman had glided back down the hatch into the cabin, looking at me anxiously. “We’re at Nassau,” he said, setting his hands on his hips as I rolled over and pushed myself up with my hands. I groaned at the effort, and nausea welled up as I moved. I met his gaze as he said, “So ye’ll have friends here, will ye?” I nodded and he rubbed his chin. He couldn’t hide the curiosity from his face as he asked in a soft, bewildered voice, “What are ye about, lass? Yer hands are soft like those of a lady, but ye wear the strangest garments my eyes have ever seen.” He glanced at the life jacket, so bright and orange and foreign in the surroundings of his cabin, and the pile of wet clothes on the floor. “Ye speak like yer from the Colonies, but much of what ye say is foreign.”
I looked at him, unable to hide the annoyance in my voice. “I’m an American who was on vacation in the Bahamas with my friends. I went on a booze cruise that got caught in a storm. I got knocked off the boat. What’s so hard to get?”
The captain looked like he didn’t know where to begin. He stammered a bit before asking, “What the devil is a ‘booze cruise’? I never heard o’ such a thing.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was completely dry. “Can I get off the boat? Then I’ll let the police explain everything to you.”
“How now?”
“What?”
Realizing this conversation was going nowhere, the Irishman rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s be off, then. I’ll help ye ashore. Will ye want…?” He indicated the life jacket.
I shook my head. “No, keep it. You guys could use it.” I wanted to add: “You guys could also use a good shrink and a padded cell”- but I chose not to speak the words aloud, since he was the one with the weapons. I picked up my clothes, still damp, from the floor and gripped them tightly in my hand as I stood.
I wanted to turn his offer of help down, but the truth was, I didn’t think I could make it up the ladder and off the boat by myself. I grudgingly let him hold my arm as I stumbled up the ladder, clutching my gut and willing myself not to collapse into a retching heap. I found myself leaning heavily on the captain as we shuffled along the deck. We reached the railing and I finally looked up, my eyes sought the bright pink of the resorts, the white cruise ships lined in a row, the two bridges linking Paradise Island to New Providence arching over Nassau Harbor.
Instead, I saw several wooden sloops and longboats, including an enormous three-masted ship, darkly painted and bobbing peacefully in the vast, sparkling harbor. Several dugout canoes sat on the shore, and a couple of looted sloops rotted on the nearby beach, their skeletons abandoned in the sun. A town of shanty taverns and huts was nestled amidst the palms and tropical foliage on the edge of the strand, along with tents made of torn sails and palm fronds. Cooking fires lit the ramshackle settlement with a glowing orange, their smoke curling slowly up into the sky.
I felt my heart thump erratically in my chest. Was there a Disney Pirates of the Caribbean part of the harbor I didn’t know about? I’d always wanted to take Sophie to Disney World, I’d just never had the time. Somehow, however, I had a feeling this wasn’t Disney World. Were we on the right island? I looked at the shape of the spacious harbor, with Potters Cay nestled between New Providence and Paradise Island. I stumbled forward, gripping the gunwale tightly between my hands, feeling the wood splinter into my skin. I stared as the ship’s crew clambered down into gigs. They were clearly thrilled to be here, their rough, hardened faces beaming, barely aware of my presence. I listened as they shouted to each other in a language that hardly sounded like English, some singing along to the distant playing of a violin.
I turned to the Irish captain, my eyes seeking an explanation, and saw that he watched me carefully, a peculiar expression on his face. I opened my mouth to say something, to curse, or beg, or scream, but all that came out was a weak, “What the hell…”
And then I fainted.
Chapter Four
The ground was solid beneath me.
I opened my eyes, my muscles tense, waiting for the rocking to begin. But it never did. Had it all been a bad dream? The panic was returning as I became increasingly cognizant of my surro
undings – I heard muffled music and voices, smelled stewing meat and the ever-present reek of human sweat. I looked around slowly, almost afraid of what I’d see. What next? Vikings? Knights? Scottish warriors? I was in a small, humid room with rough timber walls. As I turned my head, someone breathed in sharply, and I saw the woman sitting next to my cot, watching me warily. She stood and rushed to the open door, calling out, “Cap’n! She’s come to!”
My nausea was wearing off, but my throat was dry and I felt lightheaded. “Where am I?” I croaked.
The woman approached me once more, carefully. She was short and plump, with long dirty-blonde hair that was most obviously graying around her temples. Her face was dark from the sun, her skin like leather. In striking contrast, her clothes were worn but fine: she wore a pink brocaded silk gown, with a petticoat and stays that were laced so tight her breasts exploded into gelatinous heaps at her collarbone. She was not shy about eyeing me; she looked me up and down as she replied in a thick Cockney accent, “Nassau, New Providence. But surely you knew that? Cap’n said you ‘ad friends ‘ere…” The look in her eyes could only be described as smug.
The Irishman suddenly walked in, gliding on land the same way he did at sea. He removed his hat, and I saw that he was balding at the crown. He stood stiffly at my bedside as he said, “Ye’ll want to eat and drink something, lass. It’s been a while since ye’ve eaten anything.” He nodded at the woman, and she stood and bustled out in a huff, clearly put out by having to serve me. The captain reached for a tankard that sat on a wooden table nearby and held it out to me.
I was parched. I took it, flashing him a glance before drinking. “It’s not rum, is it?”