by Amy Vansant
Anne clutched her stomach and fell to her knees. Her knife clattered to the deck. She slumped and followed it to the ground.
The sounds of battle receded as she struggled to breathe. Her eyes fluttered shut. When she opened them again, she found the pearly-toothed grin of the strange woman inches from her face.
Anne lay on her back, her head bent awkwardly against the wall of the upper deck, powerless to move as the woman began whispering in a foreign language.
The woman’s breath smelled like cinnamon and ginger.
* * *
When Anne next awoke, it was daylight. She tried to move, but her arms felt bound to her sides. A scratchy fabric covered her face. Her legs, too, were immovable.
Anne took a deep breath and tried to find her voice.
“Help!” she croaked.
Anne heard a collective gasp. Hands fell on her, scrambling to rip the covering from her face. She felt a rush of relief as her bindings gave way and she could once again move her arms and legs.
Freed, she sat bolt upright.
Anne was on the deck of The Revenge, surrounded by what remained of the crew. On either side of her lay a dozen human shapes wrapped in burlap. They were very, very still.
Anne scrambled away from the bodies.
“Anne!”
Mary Read, a tavern server who had followed Anne to The Revenge, burst from the living crowd to embrace her friend. Anne hugged her, still reeling with confusion.
“You’re alive?” Captain Rackham moved towards her. “My God, girl, how?”
Anne punched the Captain in the chest with the underside of her fist.
“You were going to throw me into the sea?” she screamed. She was stunned by her own ear-splitting voice, but thought nearly being thrown into the sea, bound and alive, warranted a bit of volume.
Rackham plucked at Anne's middle where the fabric was torn and stained reddish brown. Anne pulled back the cloth to reveal her smooth, unmarked belly. She remembered being stabbed and searched for the wound.
“You were a goner, I swear.”
Anne didn’t know what to say, but knew rising from the dead would gain her no friends among the superstitious crew.
“It must be someone else’s blood? I am unharmed. I must have fainted. You should have checked more carefully!”
Calico Jack Rackham gripped Anne’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. He seemed to be trying to read her. She didn’t flinch.
“You should probably lie down,” Rackham said, pulling her toward his cabin.
Anne heard the splash of the corpses as she followed Rackham. She turned and saw the crew give each body a good poking before pushing it overboard, just to be sure.
In his cabin, Rackham had Anne disrobe and inspected her flesh for injuries. Anne could only shrug at his confusion. Physically, she felt amazing.
“What happened to the woman we pulled from the sea?” she asked.
“Gone. Missing.”
Anne tried to recall what the woman had whispered to her, but could only remember one line in English: “Find the angel.” She assumed the woman had been praying for her.
Captain Rackham admitted defeat in his search for Anne’s wounds. He kissed her, and pulled her ample hips against him for what would be the last time. He pressed his face against Anne’s neck and inhaled deeply.
“You smell fantastic. Like cinnamon...”
Anne pushed Rackham back to look him in the eye.
“And ginger?”
“Yes!” said Rackham. “Now that you mention it; cinnamon and ginger.”
Chapter Three
That same night, the British captured the entire crew of The Revenge. The British attacker, Jonathan Barnet, had retreated, only to reorganize and raid The Revenge once more.
Jack Rackham and the remaining crew, other than Anne Bonny and Mary Read, hanged.
Aware that pregnant women could not be hanged, Anne and Mary ‘pled their bellies.’ The two proposed the idea after Mary mentioned to Anne that she actually was pregnant with Captain Rackham’s child.
Anne let that go.
After a month in their Jamaican prison, Mary Read suffered complications and died, curled on the floor of the jail cell, wrapped in Anne's arms.
Anne was devastated, and for the first time in her life, truly alone.
Sobbing on her filthy cot over the death of her friend, Anne glanced up to notice the eldest jailer looking on her with pity. The white-haired Englishman with red, watery eyes offered a shy smile whenever he passed Anne’s cell, and Anne thought he might be her best hope of escape. She began to seed his mind with the idea of her freedom.
“I am a foolish girl, fallen in with a terrible lot who corrupted my soul,” she moaned to him as he passed one day.
He pretended not to hear.
The next day, when the old man brought her lunch, Anne sighed theatrically, shifting her bodice to slip artfully from her shoulder.
“Surely this jail will steal the light from my eyes, sooner than not,” she whispered as he passed her the tray. She touched his hand. He stared at her hand on his own for a moment before pulling it away and leaving.
“Strong men break under the pressure and heat of this tropical jail,” Anne said to her elderly jailer as he stood guard alone one steamy evening. “What chance does a young girl like me have? It has already taken my only friend and her unborn child. Soon it will take me and mine.”
The old man refused to look at Anne as he sat in his chair, chewing on his lip. Anne felt her heart sink. Perhaps the looks she and the old man shared were not looks of pity at all.
Anne was running out of creative ways to lament her fate.
She crawled into her small cot and stared at the dark brown stain on her cell floor, the remnant of Mary Read’s bloody end. Anne wouldn't meet her death by miscarriage, but she felt sure that the heat, poor food and filth of her miserable cell would leave her dead before her twentieth birthday.
The prison held other dangers. The youngest of the jailers entered Anne's cell late one night, drunk and lustful. They wrestled, and Anne surprised both herself and the boy with the speed and strength of her defense. Shocked at how quickly the tables had turned on him, the boy pulled a small dagger and slashed at Anne as he jumped out of her cell and slammed it shut behind him.
By the sliver of moonlight slipping through the small window of her prison, Anne could see blood on her hands and the deep gash where her attacker's blade had crossed her palm. She tore away a bit of dirty bed sheet to wrap the wound, still shaking with fear and adrenaline.
Anne spat on her palm and rubbed away the drying blood to prepare her wound for bandaging, only to find smooth, uncompromised skin. She knew the blood had not been the boy’s, but her own. She had seen the gash.
It was gone.
Anne fell to her knees and sobbed.
In addition to filthy conditions, poor food and fear of attack, Anne now worried her mind might be slipping. Certainly, she wouldn’t be the first person to go mad in prison.
Anne spent the rest of the night staring at her hand, a fog of depression descending on her. The next day, she didn’t respond when the jailer brought her food. She left the tray on the floor for the rats and insects. The old man watched her from his chair, but she refused to engage. Anne lay on her bunk, curled in a fetal position, staring at the chipping wall. Her chest felt tight. She sat up to take slow, deep breaths in a vain attempt to soothe her shattered nerves. Soon, they would move her to Fort Cromwell and she'd disappear in the dark stone belly of the fortress.
If she could not find someone to help, her odds of survival would decrease even further following the move.
That evening, as Anne listened to one of the other guards snoring in the room adjacent to her cell, she heard the creak of the main door. Anne sat up to find the old jailer creeping toward her. In the moonlight, she could see his eyes dart to the room where the other guard lay sleeping.
Anne stood, preparing to defend herself from
attack. This time, she would not be too stunned to overwhelm the guard, missing the opportunity to escape. This time she would run out the door the moment it opened.
Bracing herself, Anne watched the man pull a set of keys from his pocket and point to them. He put his finger to his lips to encourage Anne's silence. Gently, he turned the lock to Anne’s cell and opened the door.
“Be gone,” the man whispered. “I’ll lock the door behind you. They’ll think you a witch. Some already do.”
Anne stared at the man, her eyes welling with tears of gratitude.
“I know what they have planned for you, child,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “Tisn't right.”
Anne placed a palm on either side of the old man's face and kissed him hard on his forehead. As she released him, he stumbled back and wiped at the spot, embarrassed by her unbridled act of joy.
Anne scurried from the prison on tiptoes, her blood racing with excitement and fear.
Anne made her way to the docks. Slipping through the alleys, she found a fish cutting station and used the knife there to cut her hair as short as she could butcher it. She stole a cap from a man she found passed out in an alley. Seeing that he did not stir, Anne poked him. He remained still. Anne touched his face and felt his cheeks were cold. He was dead.
Anne removed her dress and pulled the man’s rough linen shirt, boots and trousers from his lifeless body. She tied the trousers tight around her waist, and slipped her feet into his boots, praying whatever had killed him did not still live in his clothing. She draped her dress over his nearly naked form and said a quick prayer for him.
Disguised as a man, she loitered near the taverns, her head tucked low beneath her stolen cap, until she identified a ship bound for Barbados. The ship was large, its crew filling the pub for a last night of revelry.
Anne ran to the ship and held her breath as she walked aboard with all the confidence she could muster. The lone crewman stationed to watch over the ship nodded as she passed, his eyes never leaving his whiskey.
Anne scurried to the belly of the ship and fashioned herself a hiding place made from strategically placed bags of grain and barrels of coffee beans. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest and fell asleep.
Anne awoke the next day to the rocking of a ship at sea. Cramped in her hiding spot, munching a bag of nuts she’d stolen, Anne had little to do but consider her future. In addition to suffering the loss of her lover, Captain Rackham, to the hangman, and the crushing death of her friend Mary Read, something very strange was happening to her.
She needed to know she wasn’t going mad.
Anne pulled from her waistband the fish knife she’d used to cut her hair. Moving into the tiny shaft of light that beamed through the boards of the deck above her, she carefully sliced the flesh on the back of her left hand. The cut hurt like any other, but she watched as the wound closed before her eyes.
Anne’s stomach lurched. She stabbed the knife into the side of a sack where it stuck, buried to the hilt. She stifled the sobs welling in her chest. Raising her hand to cover her mouth, she felt something brush her wrist.
It was her hair.
Forgetting to stay low and hidden, Anne sat bolt upright, and with both hands, felt the back of her head, her fingers tangling in the long tresses.
Anne swallowed hard to stifle the scream building in her chest.
The boat on which Anne had stowed away stopped in Barbados, and she disembarked as soon as she felt safe, her re-grown hair tucked in her stolen cap. She walked to the shore and bathed, the cool water doing much to improve her mood. In the sunlight, she washed and dried her stolen clothes and then lay down to sleep, nestled just inside the tree line. Exhausted and hungry, she slept for nearly fifteen hours, having spent most of her time during the long journey from Jamaica keeping a watchful eye for anyone who might discover her hiding place amongst the cargo.
“Hello.”
Anne heard the voice and rolled to her back, her fingers clamoring to find the fish knife.
“Are you looking for this?” said a woman standing above her. The woman held the fishing knife pinched between two fingers at the handle, dangling in the air above Anne.
Anne crawled away from the woman and scrambled to her feet, nearly falling as she tried to steady herself in her oversized, stolen boots.
Anne estimated the dark-haired woman holding her knife was only five feet tall. She wore a short black tunic tied around her waist with a black sash, black leggings and small black slippers. Her skin had a yellow hue. Though Anne scanned her from head to toe, she found her gaze drawn to the woman’s eyes.
“You have...” Anne’s mind failed her and she pointed to her own eyes.
“My eyes?” said the woman. “What about my eyes?”
“They squint.”
“I am not squinting.”
“I saw eyes like yours on another woman. We found her in the sea.”
The woman shook her head.
“I am Japanese. The woman you found, Jia li, was Chinese, but I understand your confusion. There are very few Asians in this region.”
“Jia li?” Anne echoed. “You’re saying the name of the woman we found was Jia li? How would you know?”
“I was there when she rowed out to find you.”
Anne snorted a laugh. “We found her adrift. We were miles out to sea.”
“No. She rowed to find you. This I know.”
For the first time Anne noticed the woman had a glow around her. Though subtle, it was as if she were backlit by a blue light. Anne blinked and rubbed her eyes. She was tired from her journey and poorly nourished from her time in jail. She was worried her eyes were playing tricks on her and concerned she might swoon before she could identify the tiny woman as friend or foe.
“Who are you?”
“I am Yuko.”
“How do you know about the woman on the boat?”
“Jia li was a Sentinel in my charge. She moved on to the next life. I told her to pass her energy to you, so she rowed out to you and gave you her light.”
“You don’t make any sense,” Anne said.
“I have much to tell you. Follow me.”
Anne shook her head.
“I am not going to follow you. I have to—”
Before Anne could finish her thought, Yuko threw the fish knife directly at Anne’s throat. Though she could not recall registering the movement, Anne found herself standing with the fish knife in her hand, the blade an inch from her throat. A single drop of blood dripped to the ground as she gripped the blade.
“How did you do that? Catch the blade?” asked Yuko.
Anne shifted the blade so that she gripped the handle and held it out towards Yuko.
Yuko rolled her eyes.
“How did you do that?” she asked again.
“How did I catch the knife? You tried to kill me! What choice did I have?”
“It was a good catch. Don’t you think it was a very good catch? And your hand is cut?”
Anne opened her palm and inspected it. Her hand, though bloody, had no wound.
She looked at Yuko and said nothing.
“You have noticed this before,” said Yuko, smiling. “Would you like to know how you move so fast and strong? How your wounds heal?”
Anne took a deep breath and expelled it just as quickly.
“Then follow me,” Yuko repeated, turning to walk deeper into the jungle.
Anne remained motionless for several moments, still holding the knife before her. As Yuko disappeared into the jungle she looked to the shoreline and then back where the tiny woman had walked.
Anne had a choice. She could run to the shoreline, try to find a place in Barbados to live and work until she could find a ship to Charles Town and beg her father to forgive her. Or, she could follow the strange woman who just threw a knife at her throat.
Anne turned and followed Yuko into the jungle.
Yuko made her way deeper into the brush and Anne did her best to reassu
re herself all would be well, her stomach growling its protests. Other than the knife trick, she had no reason to mistrust the woman who seemed to know so much about her life. With no other friends in sight, part of her felt grateful that someone had taken an interest in her at all. Although weak, she also outweighed the pixie-like woman by a good forty pounds, and felt that in a fair fight, she had a good chance of winning. But when she remembered the inhuman speed with which the woman had thrown the fish knife, she again felt her fears rising.
“Do you have any food?” asked Anne, finding it hard in her clunky men’s boots to keep up with the woman’s graceful stride.
Yuko stopped and turned to face Anne.
“Food. I always forget that,” she said, shaking her head. She turned and walked on.
Anne sighed and scanned the trees for something edible. Finding nothing, she stopped and removed the large boots to better keep up with Yuko. The sand felt good between her toes, though the rocks and thorns that littered the path through the trees made walking barefoot nearly as uncomfortable as her boots had.
Yuko continued walking. Compared to Anne's struggles, the tiny Asian woman seemed to glide through the foliage, unbothered by hazards. Anne watched as a thorny patch of vines passed through Yuko's body, leaving her unscathed.
“I must be hungrier than I thought,” Anne mumbled to herself. She yelped as she stepped on a thorn, and then dropped to replace her boots before continuing.
The pair broke through the tree line into a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a deep pit, its sides chalky with the coral that composed most of the island. Anne walked to the rim and peered down at the crystal blue water forty feet below.
“It’s known as a blue hole,” said Yuko. “Sit down.”
Anne turned to find Yuko seated on the ground. She walked to the woman and sat across from her.
“Tell me how you knew about the woman on the boat,” said Anne.
“I am here to tell you everything. What do you remember about the woman?”