Wherever You Are

by Sharon Cullen

  A tremor raced up his spine. Even if Morgan wanted to, he couldn’t voice the words crowding his throat. A knock on the door relieved him of the burden. “Enter,” he called out.

  Thomas, Morgan’s quartermaster, stepped in. “Sir, if I may interrupt. What would you like me to do with the boy found in the manger?”

  Weary beyond endurance, Morgan rubbed his eyes. “What boy?”

  “The one you saved from burning.”

  His brows rose and his hand dropped to his side. He’d forgotten about the boy. “What of him?”

  “I have him in the hold.”

  Morgan stared at the young man who looked more boy than man with his bony shoulders and short hair. Yet he was a man, one who had earned his place as Morgan’s right hand.

  Morgan sighed. Damn but he needed a bath to wash away the stink of the fire. Never mind there wasn’t enough water and soap in the world to get the stench of his burning ship from his nostrils. He needed sleep as well. A few hours of hard sleep would clear the cobwebs from his mind and allow him to concentrate.

  “I didn’t recognize him as one of the crew,” Thomas added.

  “Are you saying you think this boy is a stowaway?”

  “Aye, sir. And I’m wondering if he may have started the fire.”

  “You’ve never seen him before?” Isabelle asked Thomas, her voice sharp and commanding.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How in the hell did a stowaway get aboard my ship?” Morgan asked quietly.

  When no one answered he looked toward the ceiling. It wasn’t coincidence his ship burned while a stowaway was on board.

  “Question him,” he ordered. “Discover his name and where he came from.”

  Thomas nodded and left. Morgan cursed. Isabelle looked troubled. “A stowaway,” he muttered. Could this day get any worse?

  Reed shifted and his chair creaked. “Why would a stowaway start a fire that would nearly kill him?”

  Morgan didn’t have an answer but in his bones he knew the two were connected. “Stranger things have been done,” he said.

  Reed shook his head in apparent disagreement. “I have to agree with Isabelle. The fire was an unfortunate occurrence. However, if you believe there is some threat to you and inadvertently—” Reed’s gaze cut to Isabelle, “—us, you should tell us.”

  Was there a threat to the Parkers? Morgan didn’t know. If Barun sent the stowaway to torch his ship then the vendetta was personal. However, Barun wasn’t one to lose sleep over incidental casualties. Morgan had to believe that if Barun indeed found him, the Parkers were threatened as well.

  “It is a possibility,” he admitted.

  Reed blew out a breath, clearly angry Morgan had put Isabelle in danger. “Then I’ll have to insist that, for her safety, Isabelle retire to my ship for the rest of the voyage.”

  Isabelle opened her mouth, no doubt to argue she was perfectly capable of defending herself while sailing a ship, but just as quickly she closed it when Reed threw a quelling glance at her. Reluctantly she nodded. “Let me gather my things and inform the crew that Morgan will take over my duties as captain. I’ll take a few crew members as well since the ship is already overly crowded with the addition of Morgan’s men.”

  The silence left in her wake was charged with Reed’s hostility. Morgan didn’t blame the man. He’d lost thousands of pounds of profit with the sinking of Morgan’s ship.

  “I also agree with Isabelle. We can help,” Reed said.

  “Thank you, but no. This is my fight.”

  Choking.

  She was choking. Couldn’t breathe.

  She clawed at her neck, the torn pads of her fingers ripping at the knot of the blanket.

  Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

  Can’tbreathcan’tbreathecan’tbreathe.

  Air. She tried to draw in a breath but the air merely trickled into her lungs. She heard herself wheeze. Once. Twice. Glued by the salt of the ocean the knot was stiff beneath her fingers, her panic making it beyond difficult to untie. Little by little it gave way. She rolled to her hands and knees and dropped her head between her shoulders to draw in huge breaths.

  Eventually, she lifted her head and rocked back on her heels, staring at…nothing. Blackness. Her heart picked up speed until it marathon-raced in her chest. Darkness. Walls surrounding her.

  No!

  Not this. Anything but this. She jumped to her feet. The damp, salt-encrusted blanket slipped to the floor, sliding down her legs to pool at her feet. Her hand touched rough wood. The tips of her fingers, already shredded from her climb up the rope ladder dug into planks. Splinters sliced through the torn skin but Juliana barely felt them.

  Sweat dripped down her back, gathering at the waistband of her pants. She skimmed her hands across the rough wood, searching for an opening. Small whimpers she didn’t bother to control escaped.

  Light-headed, dizzy, she pressed her face against the wood and sucked her lips between her teeth. She hated the dark.

  Her feet shuffled, making strange noises and she looked down, confused, until she realized she was pushing her way through straw. It wasn’t completely dark. Weak light shone through small cracks. She crab-walked toward the largest crack, keeping both hands on the wall, and pressed her eye against it. Nothing but another wooden wall on the other side.

  Her hands resumed their restless searching.

  Surely there was a way out. She’d been put in here hadn’t she? There had to be a door. Something. Something to get her out of here. If the walls weren’t surrounding her, closing her in, she’d be able to think.

  Think. Think. Think.

  It was too hard, the panic too much. Don’t give in.

  She found a larger crack and cried out in relief. A door.

  She pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge.

  No.

  She pounded with the flat of her palms and opened her mouth to call for help. Nothing came out except a jagged breath of air. For the first time she noticed her throat burned. Water. She’d been thrown into water. The ocean.

  A ship.

  She remembered now. Disreputable men armed with weapons. A ship on fire. Being trapped in the fire.

  She pounded harder.

  She’d been talking to Zach’s mom, Emily Langtree. She’d had to see Emily one last time before moving to Chicago to start her new life but so much stood between them. Zach’s memory stood between them. The boy Juliana had loved with all her heart, the boy who left her inexplicably. Who’d never been found.

  Her frantic pounding slowed, and her hand dropped to her side. She stared at the door in the very dim light.

  She’d fallen. In the Langtree home. Had she hit her head? Was she unconscious?

  Yes. That had to be it. She was unconscious, her mind taking her back to her childhood. To the closet in the barn.

  She sank to the straw. It scratched her through her linen pants. Her fingers curled around fistfuls of it. Her head hurt. Her skin burned. The straw poked her hands and the floor beneath her shifted just like a ship would if it were on the ocean.

  No, this wasn’t a dream. This was real. She was on a ship, locked in a small room. Her nightmare come to life.

  Her stomach churned, bile rose in her throat, and a cold chill raced up her arms. She surged to her feet and began pounding the door again.

  “Emily!” At first the words came out gravely and thin but soon panic made them shrill. “Emily! Let me out! Please!”

  Oh, God, oh, God. She needed out.

  “Emmmmmilllllyyyyyy!” The cry turned into a wail of desperation and ended on a sob.

  Juliana pressed her back to the door and slid down until her knees were tucked under her chin. Something to her right squeaked and ran over her bare feet but she couldn’t summon the energy to care.

  Rats. Big, fat, hairy rats with long, sharp teeth and ugly pink tails.

  She pictured the rats crawling over her cold, dead body. She felt their little eyes boring into her, waiting for he
r.

  The floor beneath her tilted and made her slide a few inches to the left. Her arms shot out for balance. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how she got here. She’d called Zach’s mother and asked if they could meet. They’d talked in the kitchen of the house that had been more a home for Juliana than her own dysfunctional home had been.

  They’d eaten cookies. Juliana smelled the sugary vanilla scent of fresh-baked cookies and the pungent aroma of fresh brewed coffee.

  At first the conversation had been stilted and Juliana had wondered if she shouldn’t have come. Zach, or rather Zach’s memory, stood between the two women who’d loved him the most.

  She rubbed her temples as if the pressure would release the memories. Why couldn’t she remember anything after that? What happened? How had she ended up here, on a burning ship, in the middle of an ocean?

  A tear of frustration slipped down her cheek.

  If she could figure out how she got here, she could figure out how to get back. But where was here?

  Footsteps sounded outside the door, the ring of booted feet against wooden planks. Juliana scurried to her feet and backed away from the door.

  Metal scraped as if a large key were being inserted into a lock, and slowly the door swung inward. Light pierced her small prison and burned her eyes. She threw an arm up to shield her face from it.

  A man shifted. The same man who’d brought her to the hold.

  He was taller than she, on the thin side with short-cropped hair and the face of a boy, yet with muscles roping his wiry frame.

  “What’s your name?” he asked in a British accent.

  Suddenly she felt as if she were floating above the scene, separated from her body yet still feeling the sweat on her skin, the erratic thumping of her heart and the stiff straw beneath her feet.

  “I know you are not part of Captain Morgan’s crew, so tell me how you got aboard his ship.”

  She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, because she had no idea how she’d gotten aboard his ship.

  He took a threatening step forward. “My name is Thomas Hamilton, I am—was—the quartermaster of the ship you set fire to. I need to know your name and who sent you.”

  He thought she started the fire? Her stomach dropped to her toes and suddenly the idea of being in a different time wasn’t nearly as scary as the thought of what these people could do to her if they thought she’d burned their ship.

  “I didn’t start the fire.” Her voice was raspy from the smoke and it hurt to talk.

  Another set of footsteps outside the door, heavy, methodical. Another man entered, so tall he had to bend over to get through the doorway and when he straightened his wide shoulders blocked most of the door, sealing off the light, making her heart stutter in her chest and her palms sweat.

  She’d recognize him anywhere. This was the man who’d thrown her into the water. She tried to step back, but was already up against the wall. With two men in here, the small room became smaller and the panic crawled up her throat.

  He turned halfway to Thomas, allowing more light to enter. Enough for her to see him.

  His long hair was pulled back at the sides, the rest hanging past his elbows. He wore strange-looking pants that hugged the powerful muscles of his thighs and slim waist. His white shirt had full sleeves that ended in tight cuffs at his wrists. Knee-high boots completed the strange outfit.

  He was speaking to Thomas in another language, French she assumed, when suddenly he stopped and stared at her with a predatory look, his massive body completely still but primed to move quickly. She dropped her eyes to his hands, hanging loosely at his sides. His long fingers were relaxed. A picture of those hands wielding a sword crossed her mind.

  And where had that image come from? Men carried Blackberries and briefcases. Not swords or pistols or daggers. But swords and pistols and daggers seemed to fit this man better than a Blackberry.

  “What is your name?” he asked, carefully spacing each word.

  She swallowed, her throat working, but no words escaping.

  He spoke to her in rapid Spanish, most of which she didn’t understand. In the middle of his tirade he switched to yet a third language, and after several moments of angry speech his voice trailed off.

  They stared at each other in the dim light with the ship swaying and the straw scratchy under her feet. She couldn’t read his eyes but his face was hard, his expression thoughtful.

  “I didn’t set fire to your ship.”

  His head tilted, the thoughtful expression deepening. “Didn’t you?”

  She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from his. That whole sense of the unreal descended on her, numbing her. More seconds passed. Seconds in which the large man stared at her with eyes that seemed to pick at her thoughts. Suddenly his face hardened, the thoughtful expression gone. With another hard look he turned on his heels and said over his shoulder, “Flog him.”

  Juliana gasped. “No.” She rushed forward.

  Thomas reached for her. Air. Air. Breathe. Breathe. Calm down. This isn’t happening. Her body did that separating-itself-from-reality thing again. Surely they weren’t going to flog her.

  Surely not.

  Thomas’s arm wrapped around her waist.

  “I didn’t do it,” she cried out, but the man was halfway down the corridor. She turned to Thomas. “I didn’t do it.” Panicked, running on raw terror, she shoved the heel of her hand into his nose. He stumbled back as blood spurted.

  “Bloody hell!” He covered his nose with his hand but blood continued to pour down his chin.

  Juliana ran out the door.

  “Hell and damnation! Come back here!”

  Juliana raced down the narrow corridor in the opposite direction as the man who’d ordered her flogged.

  Flogged. How barbaric was that? Where the hell was she that men still flogged each other?

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Don’t let him catch you. Keep running.

  She stumbled. Her shoulder scraped the rough wooden wall and tore the fine silk of her ruined blouse.

  “Stop, I say!”

  She brushed at a stray tear with the back of her hand. Her legs trembled, threatening to give out, but she pushed through the weakness. Until a wall loomed before her.

  With a cry she flung her arms out. Her torn and bloody palms smacked against the wall.

  End of the line.

  She leaned her forehead against the wood, her shoulders shuddering from unshed tears. The pounding of feet had her spinning around. Her eyes widened as the two obviously furious males came closer.

  Thomas grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him, his face still smeared with blood, his gaze hard and unyielding. “Bloody fool,” he muttered.

  The captain leaned forward, brown eyes so cold and full of malice they made her shiver. “You may run all you want but there’s nowhere to go, whelp.”

  “I didn’t do it,” she said. “Please believe me. I didn’t do it.”

  He crossed his arms and leaned back. “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you get on my ship?”

  “I…” She didn’t know that either. Oh, Lord, what was happening to her?

  A corner of his lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “My orders stand. And you’ll get two extra for breaking my quartermaster’s nose.”

  The breath went out of her. Her body went cold and something inside her died. This wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. Somehow, someway this was real.

  Thomas yanked on her wrist and she was forced to stumble along behind him.

  The captain was gone. She didn’t remember seeing him leave.

  They ascended a set of steps and headed down another corridor. There were more signs of life up here. Men with hard eyes and even harder bodies who stared at her as she passed. Men who spit at her and cursed in languages she didn’t understand. She shrank closer to Thomas.

  After another set of steps they emerged into the sunshine. She blinked against th
e brightness until her eyes adjusted and she saw they were on one of the top decks. If she remembered correctly—and she wasn’t sure she remembered correctly—it was one hell of a drop to the ocean. An ocean she couldn’t swim in because she didn’t know how to swim. She had a choice. Flogging. Or drowning.

  Thomas led her to one of several massive poles. Masts, as they were called in sailing language. Still holding her hands, he bent and pulled something out of a canvas bag. A long rope, unraveled at one end so nine or ten very long threads hung loose, each end knotted. She swallowed. This was what he was going to beat her with. The rope and the knots would cut into the skin of her back.

  It was a no brainer. She much preferred to drown.

  Sailors were beginning to notice. Some cast speculative looks her way. One man’s gaze flickered away when hers met his. She didn’t have much time. Already they were beginning to drift closer.

  Thomas steered her toward the mast and when he released her hands she bolted.

  Behind her Thomas cursed. Men were laughing and jeering. One stepped in front of her and bent his knees, his arms wide. He looked like a football player ready to tackle but Juliana was lighter on her feet and she dodged him, managing by the grace of God to make it to the railing.

  Don’t look down. She threw one leg over. Before she had time to throw the other over, she was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled back.

  “No!” She struggled in her captor’s hold. It was the same man who’d tried to tackle her.

  “It ain’t so bad,” he laughed. “It’ll ’urt for a moment or two.” Everyone around him laughed as well. Juliana tried to kick him but he side-stepped.

  “Now that ain’t nice.” He dragged her back to Thomas, who was glaring at her, his nose bigger than ever. It took Thomas and the other man to spread her arms wide. She fought with everything she had but her strength was nothing compared to theirs. She was pushed against the pole. The breath rushed out of her. Her arms were pulled tight around it, her wrists bound. She could hardly breathe and her arms were stretched to their limit.

  She tried not to think of the sight she made, spread eagle on the mast of a sailing ship that shouldn’t be in existence in the twenty-first century.