by Anne Groß
“Then let us go now. There’s no time to waste. Quidico awaits.”
The woman cornered Elise in the narrow passageway and grabbed her upper arm with her claw-like hand. Back in the cabin, Adelaide was struggling to get out of her swinging bed and was dumped onto the floor.
“I need time to think,” Elise said, twisting out of Avó’s grip.
“Didn’t I already tell you? Time is elusive. It doesn’t exist in the way you think. It exists in circles, not lines.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Elise said as she sidestepped down the passage. “You’re just trying to confuse me. You’re making things up. I don’t believe you can send me into the future.” She turned and ran out to the weather deck and straight to the rail.
The ocean reflected the late evening sky in dark grays and calming pale pinks. The regular rhythm of the surf rising and falling against the side of the ship’s hull soothed. Time existed in the ocean, metronomic, eternal, and definitely not in circles. Elise gazed out towards the shoreline. It wasn’t that far. She could make it, but did she want to? What if Avó was telling the truth? Her mind spun in confusion. There were no good choices. When nothing was normal, when nature refuses to work the way you expect it to, how do you decide which foot to put forward?
“Attention, Elise!”
Elise heard Adelaide’s warning and whirled around just as Avó flung the contents of a glass vial at her. It splattered against her neck and chest and dripped onto her stomach. Without thinking, she touched the white viscous liquid. “Ugh. What is this?”
Avó tucked the vial back into a pouch at her waist and stretched her arms to the sky in prayer. “Goddess, I call upon you to bless this woman.” Behind her, sailors began to turn towards the commotion, scratching their heads.
“Oh my God. Is this what I think it is?”
“Plant this fertile valley with the seeds of my family.”
Elise felt sick. She tried to wipe the worst of it off her neck with the cuff of her sleeve.
Suddenly the old lady lunged. “Get off me!” screamed Elise, fighting to keep the woman’s fingers from worming their way down her bodice towards the gemstone.
Adelaide rushed to help and grabbed a handful of Avó’s hair. The old woman howled in pain, her back arching dangerously as Adelaide pulled her chignon towards the deck. Out flicked Avó’s hand from deep inside Elise’s cleavage, popping the emerald from Elise’s breasts and into the air like a round shot from a cannon. Six eyes followed the jewel’s trajectory into the sky, then six hands desperately reached for it over the rail.
Plouf
They stared at the exact place the emerald dropped into the ocean. After an initial silent pause to swallow the loss, the witches began speaking in a flurry of heated French. Although unable to understand the exact meaning of the conversation, Elise could interpret the general tone well enough, given the sharp gesticulations and unfriendly facial expressions. When Avó’s hand cracked across Mademoiselle Lenormand’s face, Elise decided she’d had enough.
Kersplash
The sudden silence was welcome relief from the high pitched noise coming from the fighting women. As the weight of her dive carried her towards the ocean floor, bubbles from her nose tickled her ears. Her eyes burned as she strained to see in the distance. The deeper she went, the more the pressure increased in her ears and lungs; the more the pressure increased, the less she wanted to swim. Just as she was about to turn around, she saw a green reflection.
She kicked and the ocean’s floor came into view, strewn with rocks and seaweed in dizzyingly divergent forms. The emerald was here, somewhere underneath the mass of undulating flora. Elise slid her hand over a boulder and the mucilage of the plant-life left a silver shimmer on her palm.
Suddenly instinct pressed her to turn around. The ache in her lungs became an urgent howl in her mind. Faster. “God, help me swim faster,” she thought. Her boots had filled with water, weighing her down. Frantically, she pulled them off. She broke the surface, gasping for air as she treaded water.
The loss of her boots hit her hard. As she circled her arms and kicked her legs to stay afloat, the waterlogged wool of her dress creaked uselessly. Her skirts tangled around her legs, frustrating her attempts to keep her head above water. Suddenly, Elise’s garments enraged her, a symbol for all that she had endured—all the self-doubts and supplicant behaviors, the simpering, the slitty-eyed scheming, the shirking, everything. Everything was now due to the dress.
She tore off the apron and it got caught on a wave, becoming nearly indistinguishable from the ocean foam in the fading evening light. Next to go was an underskirt, set free with a violent kick. The dress sank straight to the ocean floor, and good riddance.
The corset was from the devil and had a tight grip. Elise tore at its ribbons and they knotted in her hands. She scraped at its bones and they left long red welts along her ribcage. Her chest flared red-hot against the indignity of the irritating garment. She twisted and pulled. She pushed and wiggled. Finally, she pulled her knife from its sheath and used it like a letter opener to slice her corset from top to bottom. It drifted away like a manta ray, trailing pink ribbons for its tail.
Her one comfortable garment—her only protection against the scratchy wool of her dress and the tight boning of the corset—was her chemise. Elise pulled that off last, and with a small pang, let the ocean pull it from her hands. No longer encapsulated, she stretched wide. Her breasts floated and bobbed independently from each other with the shifting waves.
Above her, Adelaide and Avó were still yelling. Elise looked up to see them pointing in her direction as sailors squinted down from the ship, looking for her bobbing head. A knotted rope was tossed from the rail and missed her by ten feet. Elise ignored it. Instead she dove back down, striving once again to retrieve the emerald.
Now free from the burden of her clothes, she moved with more skill, undulating at the waist, scooping water with her hands and kicking her feet. The ocean was growing darker as the sun fell further towards the horizon. The waves had caused her to move from her position directly over where she thought she’d seen the emerald, and disrobing worsened her orientation. The ship had moved as well, drifting on the current, so she couldn’t use it to mark the position where the emerald had dropped. The area of ocean floor she needed to scan for a single, small gemstone was now much larger.
Her lungs burned. She kicked hard for life, for breath, and broke through to the surface again.
“There she is! No! There! THERE! She’s right there!” screamed a voice. The women were speaking English now, trying to engage the sailors.
“What’s she doing? Does she have it?”
“I cannot tell. Don’t just stand there, man. Do something.”
“Madam, please. . .” a masculine voice interjected.
“I’ll send Quidico in his boat.”
“No, wait! I think she has it!”
“Madam. . .madam, please stop pushing me.”
“There! She’s right there! Throw the rope again! Throw the rope!”
Elise filled her lungs again. She was about to dive when she saw a figure walking towards her from the beach. She released her breath and treaded water, squinting into the distance. It looked like whoever it was, was holding a white flag in one hand. A flag of truce?
It didn’t matter. She didn’t care. As she kicked up to dive under, a familiar sound cut across the water—a hiccupping cry, a kitten’s mewling. A baby.
Elise’s head whipped around to look at the shoreline once again, sputtering as a wave broke over her face. The man had gotten closer, now knee deep in the water, and was shadowed in pinks and grays from the setting sun. Even from her distance, she knew of only one person who could remain dignified even while kicking though the surf. For a moment she watched as he approached, until she realized it wasn’t a flag he was waving, it was her corset.
Down she dove. As her search became frantic, the wailing baby echoed in her ears, causing a suffocating guilt. It wasn�
��t just her underwear Thomas was carrying. That had to be Edwina tucked against his side.
She swam on instinct, the deepening evening increasing the murk and making it impossible to see the ocean floor clearly. Her heart sent her forward. Her body pulled her towards the gemstone and by some miracle she was able to make out a tiny gleam. She kicked hard, striving towards it as it winked at her teasingly. The tips of her fingers nearly grazed it, just three more inches, that’s all she needed to touch it. Five more inches and she would be able to scoop it into her palm. She was eight inches too far away.
Too late. Her lungs strained, her instincts turned her around.
Back on the surface she pulled in a long breath and let it out again in an angry explosion of curses as she slapped at the water in frustration.
“Elise!” she heard Thomas’s frantic call. Edwina’s cries echoed his urgency.
“I’m busy!” She treaded water, torn and irritated. She wanted to make one more try, but it seemed useless. The emerald was just too deep, the tide was high, and night was coming on.
Thomas pushed further into the ocean and her heart tightened in fear for his safety. A large wave hit him in the chest and knocked him backwards. Spray haloed his head as he wildly wind-milled her corset and danced on one foot before finding his balance again.
Behind her, the Brazen had drifted even further away and was now at the end of her anchor rope. Avó and Adelaide had fallen into a defeated silence. Quidico had circled around to investigate his grandmother’s screams and his little rowboat had been noticed by the sailors. He was now pretending his purpose, all along, was to trade his wares. A line of people all stood at the rail, squinting into the evening light as he offered up a rainbow of silk scarves and straw hats.
Elise dove one last time. Her eyes burned as she strained to see in the gloom. She could almost feel her pupils dilating as she fiercely willed them to take in more light, but it was futile. She could barely even see her hand as it reached towards the rocks below. Night was falling upon Portugal. The emerald was gone.
She swam towards the shore and, with the cresting of a wave, emerged from the ocean directly in front of Thomas. He greeted her with a choked syllable of surprise and joy, a throaty grunt that meant either, “you-fucking-idiot-you-scared-me-to-death” or “oh-thank-God-you’re-alive.”
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Her smile twisted as the sincerity of his response made her throat ache and her eyes prick.
“I saw you diving off the ship. I thought. . .” He squeezed his eyes shut and crushed her against him in a one-armed embrace, tucking her head under his chin. His body was hot in comparison with the cool ocean water. She could have lingered longer against his chest, but he pushed her away to look into her eyes, stirring another kind of heat. Then, impulsively, he kissed her.
A large wave broke against them. “Watch out for the baby,” Elise laughed as their kiss became a sputtering, wet mess. Elise tried to dry Edwina’s howling face. “Why are you holding her? Is Amanda back with the company?”
Thomas’s expression clouded. “The Collinses,” he paused as he hunted for the right words. “They wanted you to have her in the event that they. . .They thought you were the best one for it. . .” he paused, looking into the baby’s face with a mixture of wonder and sadness. “She’s yours now. Yours and Richard’s, that is.” He readjusted Edwina in his left arm, bouncing her expertly to quiet her.
Another wave hit Elise’s back and lifted her off her feet. She treaded water while trying to wrap her head around this news. She couldn’t help but think of Avó’s spell, cut short. “I can’t take Edwina,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” Thomas said awkwardly. “They say Amanda died peacefully. Collins will join her soon, I’m afraid. Death will take whomever he wants, good people and bad.”
“I don’t know anything about being a mother.”
“Don’t be daft. Of course you do. All women do.” He cooed at Edwina’s little pink face and his features softened, even as the baby screamed harder.
Elise sighed as she remembered Mademoiselle Lenormand’s words about generations of women struggling to be heard. She didn’t want to argue. She didn’t have the strength for it anymore. “That’s my corset.”
Thomas seemed surprised that it was still balled in his hand. “Would you like it back?”
Her feet found the sandy bottom of the ocean and she stood. “No thanks.”
Thomas’s eyes grazed her body. “Venus rises,” he whispered, letting the corset float away. He drew two fingers from the tip of Elise’s chin and down her neck, stopping at her breasts and sending a shiver of electricity through every nerve. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?” Elise glanced down and gasped in surprise.
Like a charm suspended on a long necklace, the gossamer wings of an insect hung between her breasts, burned onto her flesh in angry, red lines. Imprinted on her sternum was the scarab’s body. Hieroglyphs were clearly visible.
À Suivre
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With a French father and a mother from New Orleans, Anne Gross’s interest in the Napoleonic era was inevitable. Currently, she lives in San Francisco with her husband and beloved chihuahua, where she’s working on the continued adventures of her recalcitrant heroine.