Bring It Close

by Helen Hollick

  “Nicholas, put your hand here, do as I have been doing. Yes, press down, rub in circles.”

  “But it hurts her!”

  “It will hurt more if the bleeding starts again.”

  Tiola lifted the crying baby, hushed him and roused his mother. If Elizabeth-Anne could feed him the flow of breast milk would help to seal the bleeding. The poor woman barely knew what she was doing, but Tiola held the child and guided his tiny mouth onto the nipple. Once he was sucking she called Nicholas to come, help his wife and child, and she took over the rubbing.

  She was exhausted, her energy drained by the need to remain outwardly calm and in control while the fear and panic shot about inside her. Tiola was almost asleep, her eyelids were drooping, her hand working automatically. All she wanted was her bed…but she kept rubbing, pressing downward, going around and around. Nicholas helped his wife move the child to the other breast, a small whimper escaping the boy’s milky mouth as he protested.

  “He will be a boy to be proud of,” Tiola remarked, “though I wager he will lead you a merry dance as he grows.”

  And then she felt the lump reach the size of a man’s clenched fist and all the tiredness, the fatigue, the feelings of hopelessness fled. The bleeding had stopped. The womb was contracting, and when she looked into the corner of the room, Death courteously acknowledged her victory, and was gone. The relief was overwhelming. Tiola closed her eyes and made no attempt to wipe away the tears that trickled from beneath her lashes. But when she opened them again, she caught a movement in that same corner. Another shadow: one that was not neutral or benign. The squatting presence of the Dark.

  Anger, the aftermath of anxiety, replenished Tiola’s flagging energy. She stretched out her arm, fingers splayed, and sent a flare of light scudding after the Malevolence, sending its unwanted presence and sniggering spite away.

  As dusk settled, Tiola crawled into her bed; the blood had been washed away but her body ached with weariness. Elizabeth-Anne was safe in the care of her husband, and the newborn slept, contented. The Malevolence had gone.

  ~ Jesamiah? ~

  He answered her call immediately. ~ Sweetheart? You sound tired. ~

  ~ I am. I nearly lost her. After all this, I nearly lost Elizabeth-Anne. ~ She felt Jesamiah’s presence, the feel of his arms, his body pressing close. His breath, his smell.

  ~ But you didn’t? She is safe and well? ~

  ~ Ais, mother and son are asleep. ~

  ~ And so should be the midwife. Go to sleep, sweetheart. I love you. ~

  She was drifting, may have slept a minute or two. ~ Jesamiah? ~

  ~ I’m still here. ~

  ~ But where is here? I am afraid. The Dark is near you, I can sense it. ~

  ~ I’m fine. Go to sleep. I’m where I like to be. At sea. Go to sleep. ~

  Drowsy, Tiola did not realise what he had said, did not understand his meaning. She slept, but it was a troubled sleep. She dreamed of blood. Covering her hands and soaking into her clothing. Blood seeping into the deck as Jesamiah lay dead on a ship that was not the Sea Witch. This was a smaller craft with torn and battered rigging that moaned in the desolate wind of the open marshes. And throughout the dream came the black presence of the Dark.

  She awoke, screaming Jesamiah’s name. Screaming that Edward Teach could not be killed. Like her, his immortality was protected, except, his protection came from the hatreds and evils of the Dark.

  Teach could not be killed until the Malevolence was sent from him. And no living human could do that, only an Old One of Wisdom. But Jesamiah did not know it. He was going to kill Edward Teach, Blackbeard, but had no knowledge that Teach could not be killed!

  Forty Seven

  Tuesday 19th November

  Charles Mereno was having doubts. What if Phillipe had not been Teach’s child; had been sired by Carlos after all? Would it have made a difference? Possibly. Would it alter what he had to do now? No.

  He ought to have been truthful to the Witch Woman, for she had been kind and had helped as much as she could. But then, she was under the impression that all he wanted was to explain; make amends. He had deliberately misled her. She would not have helped had she known his ultimate intention.

  This ritual, this cleansing – whatever name you put upon it – was it a test? Another doubt: what if he was wrong? What if this killing that he was meant to do was not for the peace he so craved but was some foul manipulation by the Devil to damn him forever? Hah! He was already damned, so what did that matter! No, he had to believe what he had been told – even if he was as mad as Teach, and the words he had heard were those of his own insanity.

  Where land became the sea, and the sea became land, where one was not the other…he had to take the life of his begotten son. His son. The boy he had sired. The boy he had abandoned to face his own fate.

  “I taught you to sail,” he pleaded to the keening wind and the roar of the sea as he stood at the tip of the Ocracoke and watched the dawn send her strands of light into the sky. “I taught you to load and fire a pistol, to use a cutlass. I ensured you could understand a sextant and chart a course. I taught you all those things a seaman needs, yet you despise me.”

  He had himself been abandoned. Was that why he had not been the father he should have been? He was wrong to be bitter, for his mother had loved him and the stepfather who had given him the name of St Croix had treated him as his own. But it had hurt as a child, as a youth, being aware that his natural father had not wanted to know him.

  Except, what he had believed had not been the truth. Only when Jesamiah was about to be born had Charles discovered the truth: that his father had not even known of his existence until it was too late. His mother had not told the man she had loved all her life of the son she had borne. She had not wanted to hold him to her out of obligation, condemn him to a loveless marriage – for her lover had given his heart to another. And so she had set him free. Charles’ eventual knowing of his father’s ignorance had not smoothed those years of bitterness though. And now, here he was paying the price for his own blinkered selfishness. Had he not been drunk that night when a good man was murdered and a good woman violated, had breeches been kept buttoned, he would have no need to be here, doing this. Ah, the consequences arising from one misdeed!

  More thoughts. More questions.

  Why had Jesamiah not read that letter? Why was he denying his father this last chance to explain? Jesamiah had always been so damned obstinate. What about when he had tried to send the boy to England, to school? It would have been an opportunity to get him away from Phillipe – but would he go? No!

  Jesamiah had been a brave boy. He had never tongue-tattled, had taken punishments for things he had not done without whining. Had masked his tears and hidden his fears.

  “I was so unfair to the boy,” Charles mumbled to himself. “I should have defended him. But it is too late now. Too late.”

  The sky was turning blue as the sun rose. It would be a while for them to come down from the Chesapeake, for wind and tide were against them, another day yet, two?

  “I wanted you to turn on Phillipe,” Charles said to the wisps of mare’s tail cloud building in the east. “I wanted you to prove to me that you could defend yourself; that you could fight back. But you did not, Jesamiah, did you? Why did you not?”

  And then the answer occurred to him. Jesamiah had not had anything to prove. The proving that he was brave enough to fight back was not what he had needed. He had wanted only fairness and justice and the love of his father – and his father had denied him because he, Charles, had been afraid. It was himself, Charles Mereno, who should have done the proving!

  Teach had always claimed that he had sold his soul to the Devil and Charles had readily believed it. From when he had first taken him on as a midshipman, there had been something different about the boy, and that same difference had been there in Phillipe’s eyes the day when Charles had brought Jesamiah home. It had been deeper than hatred or something born of sibling jealou
sy. The madness of evil?

  Oh yes, Phillipe had been Blackbeard’s son, and had Jesamiah fought back he would have been destroyed. He had survived only because he had submitted. He had endured until he had gained the strength and courage to retaliate. Endured until he knew he would win.

  Unlike his cowardly father, who had shut his eyes and hidden, pretended not to see; lain there, drunk, while evil was done.

  Forty Eight

  Wednesday 20th November

  Three captains refused to accept Tiola as a passenger, on account that it was too risky to take a woman aboard. Too unlucky! Many a sailor insisted a woman would bring bad fortune to a voyage.

  ~ I am coming to the Ocracoke, ~ she had told Jesamiah. ~ I have to come. ~

  ~ You are not! ~ he had answered forcefully. ~ You will stay away. ~

  She ignored him, did not bother explaining why she had to be there: because Edward Teach could not be killed by a mortal hand until the protection of the Dark was forced from him. She had resolved to walk the fifty miles to the coast when she overheard a man grumbling that Captain Odell was intending to set sail. Odell was known to be friendly with Teach, and no one trusted him.

  “He’s had a job getting a crew,” she heard the sailor remark. “I for one intend to stay out the way ‘til he’s gone. I’m not getting mixed up with no piracy schemes.”

  Odell was a canny man: he had a nose for business and was not afraid of following the scent. Teach could no longer come openly into Bath Town, not after what he had done. Piracy, stealing, plundering, rape – even murder was acceptable when it was strangers who suffered. But not when it was their own. Not a pretty young girl and a popular young man who had been born in North Carolina; whose savage deaths had left their respective fathers childless. Blackbeard had overstepped the mark and the tide of opinion had turned against him. Odell was from Charleston, he was not a Bath Town man and he intended to capitalise on that swing of opinion. Teach would be wanting to offload his ill-gotten cargos somewhere new and Odell intended to make his fortune by becoming the replacement middleman. All he had to do was convince Blackbeard that he needed a new partner.

  Several men who should have crewed for him did not agree with his thinking, so when Captain Sam Odell left Bath Town Creek, he had several kegs of best rum in his hold and six men and a boy as crew. The boy knew little of sailing, but was willing to learn and jumped to it when told to hold this or pull on that. Men saw what they expected to see, and what they saw was a quiet lad with a beardless chin, a lanky figure and slender hands. Tiola was adept at making men see what she wanted them to see. It did not take a skill of Craft to bind her breasts, wear a boy’s breeches and shirt; braid her long hair into a queue and lower her voice to a lad’s unbroken timbre.

  She would not be aboard long enough for them to discover any different, and by midday – evening if the wind slowed their passage down the Pamlico – they would be in the waters of the Ocracoke, where, somehow, she had to find a way of stopping Jesamiah getting himself killed by Teach.

  Forty Nine

  Thursday 21st November

  The Jane and the Ranger dropped anchor at the northern end of Ocracoke Island where trees would partially hide their masts. Teach, assuming he was where Jesamiah had left him, was sixteen miles away at the other end. It was mid morning and they had no intention of moving further down until the evening. Once they did move there would be need for stealth and as much quiet as possible, with a minimum risk of running aground. The aim was to attack Teach at first light, going in with the flood tide before he realised they were there.

  All the men were weary. The voyage had been as fast as they could make it and not one of either crew had shirked any portion of the work. They went ashore to relax for an hour, to eat, sleep, to check and load their weapons. Every man had at least two pistols and a musket. The grenados were placed in baskets ready for use, the Colours were laid ready. All they waited for was the sun to start sliding down the sky towards the horizon.

  Fifty

  Once the sun had begun to set, Tiola had managed to stay near Sam Odell’s brig – she had spent the afternoon with two of Odell’s men on what, on the Ocracoke, was termed as ‘inland’, snaring wild birds for supper. They had caught a fair few, and with campfires blazing, the evening had been heralded by the smell of roasting meat. But even staying out of the way she was aware that Blackbeard’s interest had been drawn to her.

  He had no fancy for boys; that she did know. Had he recognised her face? She dared not use her Craft to alter her appearance – she passed well enough for a boy without it. Unless someone ripped open her shirt or caught her relieving herself in the bushes, she was safe. Normally, even if they did, she would have used her ability to make them instantly forget what they had seen. But so close to Teach, she had to be careful. She could hear the whisperings of the Malevolents that possessed him. They were aware that something was not right; she had only to use her Craft once and they would have her. It was not that she was afraid, not for herself, but she could not kill Teach, to do so was against all the laws of Light. Another would need to do that – and for the doing she first had to defeat the Dark at the right time and in the right place. Neither of which was here as evening settled. And so she suppressed her Craft and stayed out of sight as much as possible.

  Teach and Odell had eaten their fill and the drink the merchant had supplied was rapidly swamping any empty space in their bellies. Once it was full dark Tiola had made up her mind to slip away. There were not many places to hide on the Ocracoke, but not one of those men getting steadily drunker would bother tramping several miles in search of a missing boy.

  Teach looked at her again. She tried to duck her head, pretend she was busy, but he called to her. “Boy. Oi, boy, come thee over here.”

  Reluctant, she padded on bare feet across sand that was warm from the day’s sun. She stopped a few yards away, kept her gaze downcast.

  “They tell me thee caught an’ cooked these birds.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  “Speak up boy, let us see thy face!”

  Nothing for it, she would have to brazen this out. She lifted her head, but did not look direct at him. Instead, she shifted her line of sight to a vague point above his shoulder. Eye to eye, the Malevolents would link to her.

  “Thee be a pretty boy, bain’t thee?” Teach observed. “How old be thee then?”

  “Thirteen, I think, Sir, though as I cannot count beyond ten I cannot be certain.” She mimicked the Carolina accent; dared not allow any trace of her own Cornish burr to taint her voice.

  Teach peered at her more intently. “Where’ve I seen thee before then, eh?”

  She had been expecting the question, had her answer ready. “I’ve seen you many a time, Sir. I come from Bath Town, I’ve been pesterin’ my Ma to let me join your crew, but she were a bit dipsy about that. Said I’d be better off askin’ Captain Odell here. Which I did an’ he were good enough t’take me on.”

  It worked. Teach was losing interest. “Thee want to be a sailor then, boy?”

  Again she put eagerness into her answer, “Oh aye, Sir! That I do!”

  “Well then, get thee up an’ over them dunes there, and keep thy eyes peeled fer sign of a Navy frigate. There’ll be a moon risin’ later, thee may just see somethin’ that’ll be o’ great use t’all o’ us. Off thee go.”

  Tiola gave a little hop and a bow as an excited boy would do, then turned and ran, her heart pounding with relief.

  “A frigate?” Odell queried. “You expecting company?”

  Teach generously topped up his guest’s tankard. “Nay, I b’lieve it t’be all piss an’ wind, but tha lad may’n well be useful – just in case I be wrong.” He pulled a letter from his pocket, handed it to Odell, who squinted at it in the flicker of firelight.

  He could make out only a few words, “‘If this finds thee yet in harbour – Make thy way up as soon as –’ signed,” he squinted harder, “‘thy real friend.’ By Gad, Teach, this be
a warning! Is it safe to stay here? Who sent it?”

  “Tobias Knight, a jellyfish of a fool. Bain’t no Navy boats goin’ t’get close t’us ‘ere.”

  “Strikes me you might be the fool, Teach.”

  “What’s that? Thee callin’ me stoopid?”

  “Course not, but I do not want to get involved in no fighting.”

  “Thar’s bain’t goin’ t’be no fightin’, only drinkin’ and thee’s fallin’ behin’ me, ol’ mate – thee’s fallin’ behin’! Hie there, Tom, where be that fiddle o’ thine? Give us a tune eh? A lively tune fer us t’sing to!”

  Fifty One

  They had let the sloops drift in; Nat Crocker pushing the tiller over and Skylark whipping the mainsheet off the cleat, the line running through his rough hands. At the right moment, Jesamiah, standing forward in the bow and leaning so far over he had almost tumbled, had frantically signalled for the anchor to let go. The Jane had come to rest on the opposite side of the island to where Teach was anchored; the Ranger a short way behind her.

  In the darkness Teach’s exact position was uncertain, but the singing, the laughter and carousing from his camp was enough to guide them. As quietly as was possible the sails came down, a cold meal was passed around and men settled to sleep, but when the moon rose – not quite a half moon – Jesamiah whispered to Maynard that he was going to take one of his men to see exactly where Teach was and what he was doing.

  “Are you mad?” Maynard hissed back at him. “We know roughly where he is. That will suffice.”