Plundered Christmas

by Susan Lyttek

  As Mary and I neared Margo and the front of the house, I could tell that the wind had subsided quite a bit. Finally. The storm appeared to be ending. Maybe tomorrow would have warm sun and the real feel of vacation. Tomorrow? It was today. And today, as the young lad told Scrooge, “Today? Today, sir? Why today is Christmas Day!”

  Somehow, I thought that London with some snow on the ground and the crisp winter air would feel more like Christmas.

  “Go on and lie down, Jeanine,” Mary said. “It is almost morning, anyway.”

  Margo confirmed Mary’s words with a slight nod.

  Just the thought of snuggling down next to my kids made me yawn. I knew Margo didn’t feel safe, but surely, her own daughter would watch over her. Maybe it was the conversation and the hour of the night, but no one and nothing seemed wholly trustworthy. “OK,” I said slowly. “I am tired. But I was supposed to stay on duty with Aimee for another hour.”

  However, Aimee, as I could see, was sound asleep on the edge of the couch.

  “Don’t fret, dear,” said Margo. “Mary and I have plenty to talk about, and I doubt we’ll go back to sleep before someone else wakes up.”

  I didn’t argue anymore. I stumbled back to my pile of blankets under the tree. I wasn’t going to bother with changing into sleeping clothes for just a couple of hours, and blankets or no blankets, I was cold. The jacket was staying on, too.

  My stumbling woke up Josie. “Mommy?”

  “Shhh. The storm’s over. And it’s Christmas Day.”

  She sidled into me.

  Hugging my little girl, who was less of a little girl each day, I fell into dreams.

  ****

  I found myself on the deck of an old-fashioned sailing ship. Above me, great white sheets of cloth billowed open in the wind. Below my feet, clad in black leather boots, were wooden planks, faded from constant exposure to the salt air. The craft plunged through each swell as if it belonged to the sea. Or as if it and the sea were one and the same.

  “Oy, Captain!” someone called near me.

  I turned. It wasn’t me that the person wanted, but a tall, handsome man with a black eye patch and colorful clothes. His sandy hair was longer than I thought fitting for a man, but it looked good on him.

  “Aye, Bones?”

  A crumpled man hobbled down from the pole next to me faster than I would have believed possible. It was then I noticed that the pole led up to a basket. What did they call those things again? The bird home?

  “Spotted a Spanish galleon off to the fore starboard.”

  The man called Captain smiled.

  I didn’t like the smile.

  “Do you think we could catch her?”

  “Aye. Give Skippy someone to help him with the sails and we’ll be on her before she sees us comin’.”

  The captain pointed right at me. “You lad.”

  It took a moment to find my voice. Finally, it squeaked out. “Me?” I looked down and sure enough, I wore old-fashioned trousers that billowed out around my legs. The suspenders that held them up crossed over my chest in a deliberate way. I had a feeling that even in this dream world I was still female, but that I needed everyone to think I was a boy.

  He marched over and grabbed me by an ear. “No. I was speaking to the air and expecting it to help the skipper.” He used my ear to propel me one hundred eighty degrees, and then shoved me forward toward a disreputable looking man who was unwinding ropes.

  “You’re Mark, ain’t ye?” asked the man I presumed to be Skipper. He was missing a couple of prominent teeth and some others were various odd shades of brown. The smell that came from the rot in his mouth made me stagger.

  But I camouflaged it as best I could. “Yes, sir.”

  “No sir here. Just Skipper.” He grabbed my hands with one of his big ones. “Now take these ropes, finish unwinding them and then hold on until I say pull. I’m goin’ to tackle the next set.”

  All around me, men were moving quickly to some unseen dance. They had no doubt about what to do or what needed doing. I, on the other hand, felt lost and uncertain. Therefore, I simply did what Skipper told me and unwound the ropes from off of the large metal anchor or frame that they had been twisted onto. It seemed to take forever for me to get the ropes off.

  “Hurry, lad!” Skipper shouted. “Our booty won’t wait all day!”

  Then, apprehensively, on one swing of the rope away from its tie, I looked up and saw a black flag with a skull and crossbones. “We’re pirates?” I moaned.

  Then Skipper, the Captain and all of them started laughing maniacally. With the next sweep, the rope pulled me away from the ship and it blew me into the wake like a loose sail. “Help me!” I shouted. I flew around and behind the ship, then above next, like the rope was a mindless amusement park ride designed to torment me.

  My poor hands could not keep a grip on the rope much longer. They were too soft. Too unused to such hard labor. “Please help me!” I cried again as I began to slip towards the water.

  In answer, the laughter grew louder and more persistent. “Get yourself up, sailor! Come on, now. Get up!”

  ****

  “Mom! Stop kicking! Get up!”

  Somehow, I didn’t think that voice had anything to do with a pirate ship. “Justin?” I forced open one eye and sure enough, my son stood above me, the light of the morning sun creeping through the windows and making everything easier to see. And less frightening.

  “Sorry. I was having the most terrible dream.”

  He patted my arm. “Well, it’s over and you’re in reality. And it’s Christmas!” He looked under the tree next to us. “Miss Margo says that we can open up some of the gifts right after breakfast. She said that some scary things are not going to stop us from having a real Christmas.”

  I sat up and looked around the room. A couple of people, like Charlie and Miss Anne, were still sleeping, but most everyone else was moving or had moved from their nighttime berth. “Does that mean you don’t want to hear my dream?” I knew the answer. Quasi-stuff was just not my Justin.

  “Mo-o-om,” he droned. “On Christmas morning?”

  “Morning, Mommy!” Josie gave me a big hug, a kiss on the cheek and then plopped onto my lap. I wondered when she would be too old for that. Oh, would I miss that! “I’ll listen.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  Not to be trumped by his sister, Justin said, “I’ll get you a cup of coffee, Mom.” He smirked. “I could call it your Christmas present.”

  He made me laugh in spite of everything. Satisfied that he had done what he could to cheer up his mom, he trotted off to the kitchen.

  What amazing children I had. I proceeded to tell Josie about the dream of the pirate ship and pretending to be a boy and getting bullied by the rest of the crew. She looked very solemn when I finished.

  “But Mom,” she said. “That’s what really happened to Anne Bonny and her friend Mary. In fact, Mary went by the name of Mark.”

  Something crawled over me. Grandma would have said that someone walked over my grave. By the time I finished the story, Justin handed me the cup of coffee. I took a sip to come back to the real world.

  “It’s weird you having a dream like that, Mommy.”

  “No it’s not,” Justin argued. “We just read that letter yesterday.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Josie. “Mom didn’t know anything about the pirate Anne Bonny. I read it last year, but she didn’t. The letter didn’t really say that much either.”

  “But Mom’s a lot older than us. She could have read about the women pirates eons ago and totally forgot about it.”

  I could have done without Justin’s ‘a lot older’ comment. However, in the nature of my two, they loved to have different sides of an argument, especially if one of them felt he or she was standing up for me. They would have kept bickering, too. Except, our very patient pet barked to remind us that it had been a very long time since anyone had let him outside. “Justin, leash,” I pointed. “Josie, get poor Jell
y. But watch out for…”

  “We know. We’ve had him forever, Mom!”

  I should have known.

  They only got slobbered these days when they wanted it. Or if they felt like Jelly had done something extra special to earn a chance to drool on one of his favorite people.

  The three of us took the pooch on a walk. Of course, I brought my cup of coffee.

  The storm had done a number on the island. Branches and leaves were down everywhere. With so many palm fronds littering the land, I felt as if we should be shouting “Hosanna!” and spreading our coats. Wrong season of the year, even if the weather felt as if it matched Easter’s spring bluster.

  We couldn’t follow the trail as we walked Jelly because of all the fallen and blown debris. Yesterday’s idyllic island had totally changed. Even a few tiles from the roof and a couple of rails from the balcony had made it on to the path.

  I wondered how long and how many people it would take to clean this island and make it look like the paradise we had arrived at two days prior.

  “Wow,” muttered Justin as he stepped over a young palm, uprooted and stretched across our walkway. “I would never have believed that one little storm could do so much damage in one night.”

  Though daylight had arrived, the sky was still cloud-filled and the breeze kicked up in occasional gusts. Last night’s storm was over, but it looked as if we might be in for a repeat. I remembered watching on the weather reports how many storms circled back on themselves because of neighboring fronts. I could believe it the way things looked.

  “Let’s not stay out too long, OK?” I urged the kids. “How about we encourage Jelly to do his business and then get back inside with everyone. I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

  Josie grabbed my hand and held it while we walked. Sometimes she just understood what I needed. Or maybe she needed the contact, too.

  This was an odd Christmas. At least I had my family around me.

  We negotiated our way back to the house as soon as allowed. As we went around the bend closest to the front door, I saw something blue in the bushes. It seemed the wrong color for any storm debris, so I maneuvered over.

  As I got closer, the blue became more obviously blue jeans. Why would someone leave a pair of pants out here? Another step and I saw shoes, sandals, below the jeans with feet in them. And on the other end, a polo shirt with arms attached. I dropped my coffee cup in the mud.

  “Kids,” I panicked. “Stay back. Go get your dad.”

  “Why Mom?” asked Josie.

  I grimaced. “There’s a body here. I don’t think he’s alive, but I’d rather have your dad check.”

  “But Mom,” Justin protested. “I could tell. You know I could. Didn’t I do it with the younger Mr. Folger last year?”

  “Justin, Josie…” How did I word it so they knew I valued them, but would feel more comfortable with their dad’s objective view? “This isn’t our home. We don’t really have any say here, and I’m not sure how laws work on a private island. I’d rather your dad, as a member of the government, were the first person to come and identify the person and determine whether he’s wounded or dead.”

  They mulled over what I’d said and agreed to do it my way. They would have done it if I laid down the “mom” card, but I liked it better if they could come to that conclusion on their own, based on logic.

  Jelly barked, and tried to lunge for the sandaled foot, but followed his lead when Justin and Josie took him back to the house.

  I was left outside with the very still person. It looked like a man, but the face was obscured by the position of the bushes. With leaves and branches draped over his legs, I doubted his health. The situation reminded me a lot of the time in the graveyard by our home in Gentle Springs. There, too, I had to stand next to a corpse while I waited for the police to show up. Then, I didn’t know who would give me the third degree. Here, I waited on James. I guess I preferred this scenario. But the past, being over and done with, always seems easier somehow.

  Why did it take James so long?

  And was it my imagination, or was a new storm brewing? The wind swirled around my legs, twisting my pants close to my skin. The air felt chill and damp. It ate through everything like it was personal. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying for warmth both physical and emotional.

  “What’s the problem, Neenie?”

  How I loved the sound of that voice. I turned to see James walking out of the house. With him was my very bleary-eyed father. I knew Dad had tried to stay awake for Margo during the night. But I imagined James didn’t want to be the sole witness to whatever I had discovered.

  I pointed to the legs in the bushes behind me. I just had no words left after all the odd things that had been happening. My dream merged with the conversation I had with Margo and the letter became one with the storm. None of it made sense either individually or collectively.

  James moved the bushes to the side. He bent down to look at the face connected with the rest of my discovery. “I think we now know why we couldn’t find William.”

  As much as I didn’t want to see, I couldn’t stop myself from moving forward to look. The face that sneered at Aimee could do it no longer. It was frozen in surprise, or fear. The wide-open eyes stared into nothing.

  And though James bent over to check William’s neck for a pulse, I had confirmed for myself that the young man was no longer with us before my husband looked up at Dad and me, slowly shaking his head.

  “He’s cold, Robert,” James said. “And his clothes are wet, but the ground underneath him is nearly dry. He was out here most of the night.”

  That, I didn’t want to hear. We were inside, staying dry and out of the storm, comforting the wounded Margo and injured Charlie when William lay dying out here in the wet and wild. Also, if he had been out here that long, who or what tore through the house during the storm?

  “Do you have any idea how he died?” I heard myself asking. It felt unreal.

  “Not yet. We’d probably have to move him to figure that out. Unless the cause of his death was something like poison that doesn’t show up on the outside. Then we’d need the experts. And if we can’t get in contact with the authorities on the mainland, we’ll have to take as many pictures as we can before we touch the body at all.”

  Dad began to sway. It had all been too much, and I doubted he’d had enough sleep either since he got here.

  “Dad!” I held onto him as best I could, but as he surpassed me significantly in both height and weight, I worried that he’d crush me in the process. It was obvious he was about to keel over.

  James jumped up from the unmoving patient and got the other side of my father before my dad knocked me over.

  “Robert, hang on,” James said. “Jeanine and I will get you inside.”

  He shook his head wildly. “I’m OK. I’m OK.”

  “I don’t think so, Dad.” I tried to urge him to stop looking at William’s body and walk toward the house. “Come on. We can’t solve this right now.” I put my arm around him. “Let’s get you some breakfast. We’ll all think clearer with a bit of protein running through our system.”

  Step by step, we led Dad back into the house.

  It was only when we got back and started to get some food, that I realized two things: one, my coffee cup remained in the mud outside; and two, somehow the cook made coffee and food without the power being turned back on. No one had had time to look at the generator. The tree and all the electricity remained out.

  I couldn’t find her right away. But I stuck close to the kitchen and eventually Mrs. Smith returned. “You’re an angel for keeping us fed and all,” I began.

  “But you’re wondering how I did it, eh? No power and the generator out and I give you a hot breakfast?” She crossed her arms in front of her stomach and smiled the self-satisfied look of someone who knew they did their job and did it well.

  “Well, yes,” I said.

  Mrs. Smith walked over to the stove, or rather a s
et of stoves on an island in the middle of the great kitchen. She opened a cupboard door underneath it and pointed. “Tanks of gas. The stoves do have electric ignition but I can override it and start them with a match if I need to. And I did need to today. Right, ma’am?” She beamed at me. “Can’t let people starve on Christmas Day can I?”

  Her expression was so open and pleasant I couldn’t help but return it. “Absolutely not. Call me, Jeanine, by the way. I only let my students call me ma’am.”

  She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into a cabinet door and pulled something out. “You’re a nice lady, Miss Jeanine.”

  I supposed it was an improvement over the ma’am. But I’d probably have to stay in the kitchen a week to get on a true first name basis.

  “And I keep some special treats hidden that I share with only a few on special occasions like this.” She handed me a powdery ball. “Pfefferneuse. Shipped to me by my brother. I was originally Mrs. Schmidt, but madam had unpleasant memories from the last world war, so for her, I am Mrs. Smith. My Gustaf is in heaven so I don’t think he minds too much.”

  I bit into the sweet. It wasn’t my favorite in the combination of fruit, nuts and anise, but I could act like it was and appreciate the thought. “Thank you, Mrs. Schmidt. Now all we need is some strong German coffee to go with it.”

  I got my wish. That coffee was definitely worth the pfefferneuse.

  While I was in the kitchen finding out about Mrs. Schmidt’s unnatural cooking abilities, James had Dad sit with Margo and quietly let her know what we had found. Then he told Mary. With her relationship with Anne, he figured she could break the news to her better. Also, since Mary had managed to get the Internet last night, she might be able to get a hold of the Coast Guard or some other authorities.

  The room I returned to was a somber place.

  Mary had her arm around Anne’s shoulders. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, since they faced the southwest corner near the fireplace. She shook with emotion. I couldn’t see James or the captain. When I asked Josie, they had gone out to take pictures. Not exactly typical Christmas pictures.