Pirate Curse

by Kai Meyer

  She held out her hand to help him stand up. This time he took it. “That was nice of you,” she said.

  Munk blushed. “You aren’t the moll my father said you were.”

  “Moll? He said that?”

  He nodded, “He meant women who get mixed up with pirates”

  She gently loosened her hand from his when she felt that he wasn’t going to let go on his own. “Your father probably doesn’t know all about everything. And he really doesn’t know anything about me yet.”

  “Just like me.”

  She nodded silently, avoiding his eyes, and started back to the farm. After a while she finally broke the silence. “I’ll tell you something about myself,” she said, grinning. “I’m dying of hunger.”

  The Great Earthquake

  Jolly decided not to steal the spider box. As long as there was no trading boat to take her from the island, there was no point in taking possession of the dead spider. Besides, she didn’t want to vex her hosts, least of all Munk. He was so completely different from the pirate boys she knew, not a braggart or a loudmouth. He seemed almost embarrassed about his knowledge of mussel magic. He was friendly and nice, and he went to great pains to make her aware of it.

  On the third day after she regained consciousness, he led her through the banana jungle up to the rocks over the bay and showed her the old cannon. The rusty gun was waiting up there in seclusion for enemies who would probably never come. Jolly shared Munk’s opinion that the island might once have been a pirates’ base that nobody remembered anymore. Silently she wondered if perhaps Munk’s father were concealing something. Was he actually only the captain of a cartography ship? Or were there other reasons why the then emperor Scarab was hunting him?

  Munk confessed to her that he’d often dreamed of firing the cannon. However, he had no idea how to operate a gun like that. Worrying that he might blow himself up, he’d preferred to keep his hands off it. Besides, the explosion of the cannon would certainly not be the only one that occurred on the island if his parents got wind of it—and that could hardly be avoided if it were fired.

  Jolly weighed it this way and that; then she decided that she really had nothing to lose. They would just claim that Jolly had stumbled on the cannon in the underbrush and wanted to show Munk how to fire one. She’d take all the blame. The worst that could happen would be that Munk’s father would send her away on the next ship, but that was her plan anyway.

  “Have you got any gunpowder on the farm?”

  “A keg full,” Munk said.

  She explained to him how much she needed. While he went to get it, she cleaned the gun barrel, wrapped leaves around a branch until she could use it as a ramrod, and discovered in the underbrush beneath the cannon an old copper ladle that came from the former cannoneers.

  When Munk came back, breathless and red to the tips of his ears, she used the ladle to fill the breech with gunpowder, enough to equal about a third of the weight of a cannonball. Then she stuffed leaves in place of the missing wadding, followed by one of the iron balls that were still piled up in a rusty pyramid beside the cannon. Finally, Jolly filled the touchhole with gunpowder and ordered Munk to help her bring the cannon into proper position, and carefully enough so the rotten base didn’t collapse. She aimed straight across the water to a tongue of land on the other side of the bay. On its highest point there were three gigantic palms growing out of a thicket of ferns. Jolly told Munk she’d hit the middle one.

  With flint and steel she set a branch alight, then ordered Munk two steps back. She used the burning branch tip to light the powder, then put her hands over her ears.

  The cannon shot thundered, and it seemed to have torn the blue heavens in two. For a long moment the world consisted only of smoke and splitting wood. The echo of the shot’s thunder rolled over the bay, over the entire island. The force of the explosion burst the mounting of the cannon and smashed the pedestal. The gun’s barrel leaned at an angle in the debris, only to overbalance a moment later and roll down the hill, mashing several bushes and shrubs before the trunk of a mahogany stopped it; the impact shook a swarm of red insects out of the crown of the tree.

  “Phew,” said Munk, but his fright was already displaced by an expression of radiant joy. “That was fantastic!”

  Jolly coughed and waved the smoke away with her hand. When the clouds had dispersed, she saw that on the other side of the bay there were only two palms still standing instead of three; the left was snapped off like a blade of straw.

  “You hit it!” Munk cried excitedly.

  Jolly frowned. “I really wanted to hit the one in the middle.”

  “Oh, so what! As if it made any difference at this distance.”

  “There is a difference between hitting the mainmast or the foresail of a sailing ship.”

  But Munk paid no more attention to her as he danced in circles with joy. “Crazy! A real cannon shot! Wait till I tell that to the Ghost Trader!”

  Jolly walked skeptically around the remains of the cannon. “This could have gone awry. If we’d been standing on the wrong side—”

  “But we weren’t!” Munk walked over to her and rubbed his neck, “Hm, you think we could rebuild it and try the whole thing over again?”

  “Absolutely not!”

  At that moment a third voice broke in behind them.

  “That was foolish,” said Munk’s father. “You don’t know how terribly foolish that was.”

  They were sitting on the palm-thatched veranda of the farmhouse. Night was striding in with giant steps, but no stars illuminated the dark blue sky yet. Only the moon had risen and now silvered the tips of the trees with its light. The sounds of the deep jungle could be heard behind the toothed crest of the palisade fence that surrounded the wooden house and the farmyard. It was the hour in which some of its inhabitants lay down to sleep and others awakened to the nightly hunt. A few indignant monkeys were chasing each other wildly through the treetops and shooed up a whole cloud of white butterflies with wings as big as Jolly’s hands. A spicy smell arose from the rain forest, the warm air was moist, and every few minutes there was the sound of a slap when Jolly or Munk or one of the two grown-ups slapped at a mosquito.

  “Perhaps we should have told you everything earlier,” said Munk’s father. “But your mother didn’t want to.”

  “Don’t let yourself off so easily,” said his wife. “We were both of the same mind.”

  The farmer took a drink from his rum cup, then shrugged. “It began with the destruction of Port Royal in the year 1692, fourteen years ago. At one time, Port Royal was one of the nastiest pirate nests on Jamaica—in fact, in the entire Caribbean. But at the time of the disaster, that was already past, and the pirates had gone looking for better harbors: Tortuga, and later, New Providence. By ‘92 Port Royal was declining, but it was still a big city, and when the huge earthquake struck, more than two thousand people died in it. The northern section, where most of the docks were, slid into the sea, and a gigantic tidal wave rolled in over the city. It was one of the greatest catastrophes this corner of the world had ever seen, at least since we white men have been knocking around here.”

  He interrupted his account to light his pipe. Jolly and Munk exchanged uncertain looks. The dressing-down they’d expected hadn’t come. Instead, Munk’s father had sent them back to the house, and he himself had spent the entire afternoon standing on the highest point of the island and watching the sea. Only when he’d been certain that the cannon fire hadn’t drawn any ships did he come back to the house and sit down on the veranda with them. He didn’t threaten, he didn’t even scold, but he made it forcefully clear that they’d had much better luck than they deserved, by God.

  After taking several puffs on his pipe, he went on with his story. “At the time, everyone was afraid of more tremors, and when none came, the relief was enormous. No one could know that this quake had set something else free, something that in the long view could turn out to be worse than the deaths of all those peo
ple.” Glumly he rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’m a simple man, I make no secret of it; wiser heads than mine have explained this to me.”

  His wife placed her hand over his and sent him a loving look. For the first time, Jolly became aware of how very much the two cared for each other.

  “Well, anyway, somehow magic was set free at that time … witchcraft, hocus-pocus, whatever you want to call it. And because of this magic, there arose what people soon were calling polliwogs.”

  A box on the ear couldn’t have hit Jolly more unexpectedly. What did he know about the polliwogs? She was the last one, Bannon had said. During her days on the island, she hadn’t set foot on the water, and she hadn’t even told Munk about her ability.

  Munk’s mother looked at her and smiled. “We know, child. You were delirious for two days and talking to yourself. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. You kept talking about walking on the water … and about two ships … and about spiders.”

  “Besides, word had gotten around that Bannon had a polliwog on board,” her husband said. “Basically, we already knew before what you are, but then when you said you came from Bannon and the Skinny Maddy, the matter was clear.”

  Jolly sent Munk an inquiring look. He only nodded. So he knew too and hadn’t said a word about it over these last three days. But now he leaned toward her. “I’m one too, Jolly. I’m a polliwog like you.” An uncertain smile stole over his face. “And up till a few days ago, I thought I was the last one in the whole world.”

  Jolly swallowed before she found her voice again. “I thought that about me, too.”

  “Let me keep telling,” said Munk’s father. “The polliwogs are children who were born right after the great earthquake in Port Royal. This magic that came out of the cracks in the earth … somehow it got into you children, into the new-borns. And only in ones who were right in the vicinity. There were no polliwogs on Haiti or Cuba or here in the Bahamas. Only on Jamaica, and only in Port Royal.

  “It was two or three years before it became known that there were children who could walk on the water, before anyone was sure that for some reason the earthquake was the cause of it. The Spaniards had the whole business investigated. The English, the Dutch, each got their own groups of missionaries and military and the devil knows who else together to research the whole matter.” His mouth twisted in scorn. “The first polliwogs died in their experiments. But it didn’t stop there. A curse on them all, those slavers! Soon there were men who hunted for polliwogs and auctioned them off or used them for their own purposes. Some were taken to safety by their parents, at least for a while, and so they were scattered over the islands and the entire Caribbean Sea. Altogether, there must have been maybe twenty or thirty, not more. After five or six years, fewer than half of them were left alive. And now, today … I’m afraid you two are the last ones of all.”

  “Nobody ever hurt a hair of my head,” Jolly said hesitantly.

  “You were always under Bannon’s protection. Hardly anyone would have been crazy enough to take on the sea devil of the Antilles. Until a few days ago, anyway.”

  “You think …” Jolly shook her head, speechless.

  Munk’s father blew a smoke ring, but it disappeared right away. “I think that this trap was not for Bannon or his crew, Jolly, but for you. Someone is hunting for the last polliwog again, and he is presumably somewhere in the vicinity.”

  “But I’m … I mean, I’m only fourteen years old. I’m not important.”

  “Perhaps you are. Just like Munk.”

  The boys mother spoke again. Her voice was filled with anxiety. “We’ve always been afraid it would come to this sometime. You can’t hide from the entire world forever.”

  “Then that’s why you came here? To protect Munk?”

  “That was one of the reasons,” said Munk’s father, “It’s true that Scarab put a price on my head. But the most important reason for our coming here was Munk.” He looked his son firmly in the eyes, and now there was so much concern in his expression that Jolly’s throat closed almost tight. “Nobody was to know that Munk is a polliwog. That was the most important thing of all.”

  Jolly cleared her throat, trying to battle the lump that had settled there. “You think I could have led those men here, don’t you? That they’ll keep looking for me because I wasn’t aboard the ship and that they’ll follow me to the island.”

  “There is that danger. And after that nonsense with the cannon today—”

  “I’m sorry about that. I had no idea—”

  “Of course not,” said Munk’s mother. “We ought to have spoken with you earlier about it. Right after we realized who we were dealing with.”

  “That business with the cannon,” said Munk. “That was my idea, not Jolly’s. I’ve known for a very long time that the thing was up there and I kept wanting … I wanted …”

  “You wanted to play pirate,” said his father, but he wasn’t smiling. “What boy doesn’t?”

  Munk dropped his eyes guiltily.

  His mother looked from him to Jolly. “Maybe we’ll be lucky. Maybe the whole thing really was a trap the Spaniards set to catch Bannon.”

  “It was a Spanish ship,” said Jolly, remembering the steersman’s words, “but the men weren’t real soldiers. They were prisoners forced to go aboard and wait for us with sails reefed.”

  “That means that someone knew for sure that the Skinny Maddy would take this route,” said Munk’s father thoughtfully.

  “We were under way to New Providence.”

  “That’s about two hundred miles from here. How come you were sailing around the Bahamas so far to the east?”

  “Bannon wanted to be very certain. He’d received news from the pirate emperor, Kendrick. It’s said there’s going to be a Spanish attack on New Providence, and Bannon was planning to fight on Kendrick’s side. He wanted to do everything to avoid running into the Spanish armada, so that’s why he took that course.”

  The farmer considered that. “Someone must have betrayed you. Did the whole crew know the route?”

  “As far as I know, only Bannon, the steersman Cristobal, and perhaps one or two others. But I’m not sure.”

  He sighed. “This all leads nowhere, I’m afraid. One thing is certain, anyway: If someone has set up such a devilish trap to get hold of you, he won’t be content with your disappearance. He knows that you’re a polliwog, and perhaps he thinks that you’ve tried to reach the next island on foot. So sooner or later he’s going to turn up here.”

  Munk’s mother covered her chin with the palms of her hands. “We have to leave. Find a new hiding place somewhere.”

  Her son’s eyes widened. “And the farm? You can’t just—”

  “I’d a thousand times rather lose the farm than you,” said his father.

  Jolly withdrew ever deeper into herself. “This all makes me so terribly sorry. If I’d known … I mean, then …”

  “Would you have let yourself be caught? That’s nonsense. How were you supposed to know that you’d land right here?” The farmer pulled on his pipe as if it helped him think. “Perhaps it’s a warning from fate, after all. Possibly God means to show us that we’ve become careless.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Munk said, “and certainly not at all in fate.”

  His father burst into booming laughter, “You’re right, my boy. We’re entirely dependent on ourselves. What your mother says is right: We have to leave the island.”

  Jolly turned to Munk. “You said you don’t have a boat.”

  “And we don’t.”

  “We can go aboard one of the traders’,” said Munk’s mother. “The next one should be arriving in a week.”

  “The Ghost Trader’s coming day after tomorrow!” Munk burst out.

  “Who knows who he’s in with,” said his father grimly. “He’s creepy, and I don’t trust him across the road. Could be that he’d trade us off to the first pirates who came along.”

  “He’s a
lways been friendly to me.”

  The farmer took his pipe out of his mouth and gestured in a way that made it unmistakably clear that he would tolerate no argument in this matter. “We’re going with the Dutchman, next week. He’s always served us well; we can trust him. Until then, we’ll have to keep our eyes open and watch the sea.” With loud tapping, he emptied the pipe. “Now it’s time for both of you to go to bed. Your mother and I still have some things to talk over.”

  Jolly and Munk stood up without objection and went into the house looking uneasy.

  In front of Jolly’s room, Munk stopped. “What my father said, that no one knows I’m a polliwog … that isn’t quite right. One person does know.”

  She felt her heart skip a beat. “Let me guess.”

  He nodded guiltily. “Yes … him.”

  The Ghost Trader

  The mysterious visitor appeared on the island two days later, as predicted. He sailed alone in a tiny boat that didn’t look as if it could really cover the wide distances between the islands. Jolly just had to take one look at him to know what Munk’s father had meant: She’d rather have trusted a gutter rat on Tortuga than the dark figure who came over the sea in the little sailboat before dawn and was onshore even before the first rays of the sun struck it.

  The Ghost Trader wore a wide, hooded cloak of dark, coarse stuff, which reached to the ground and hid his feet. He had the hood pulled up, despite the Caribbean heat that rose with the breaking day. Underneath the hood’s material, Jolly could make out gaunt features and weather-beaten skin. A diagonal black band across his forehead and cheek covered his blind left eye. He had the stubble of a gray beard and astonishingly white, almost radiant teeth, which didn’t fit with his dilapidated appearance.

  But the most unusual thing were the two raven black parrots sitting on his shoulders, one with yellow eyes, one with eyes of fiery red.

  “Those are Hugh and Moe,” Munk whispered to Jolly as they went to meet the Ghost Trader. “He always has them with him and he talks with them.”