Wild images kept firing in her mind, and the realization she must be hallucinating dawned on her. In every direction, wailing women in ripped white dresses pulled their hair out. To her right, a blonde in a tattered dress, to her left women who looked like gypsies. She was unsure whether they were real or not. Then she saw fairies soaring through the canopy of the cypress trees... beautiful women with wings, all crying as they stared at her. Their tears burned as they hit her flesh. And millions of fireflies seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. They lit up the path on which she plodded along.
Hallucinations. I have passed into the world of my grandmother.
Collapsing to her knees on the roadside, her gut contracted and she retched. Relenting, she quit the fight and vomited, again and again.
Memories her mind only permitted in the form of dreams began to break their way through into her conscious mind.
~ * ~
“Come here, poppet. You know that all I teach you is a rare privilege for a woman, but I think we both know you are no ordinary woman. You would never be satisfied with needlework and mending and cooking. I know the thoughts in that head of yours.”
Constanza obediently came closer to the recently dead body. This is the perfect time to review the musculature of the arm.
The man had been in a carriage accident—crushed by the weight of the carriage. Her father had done what he could, but the poor man was almost dead when he arrived in their office.
His arm was torn open at the forearm. It lay palm up on the table. Her father used the other end of the scalpel to lift each individual muscle from its resting location.
“Here is flexor digitorum superficialis,” he said, concurrently pulling at the muscles to flex all of the fingers.
“This other below it, is the profundus, which I cannot reach without removing these. Also, very important is almaris longus. This is an extra muscle, not everyone has it, but fortunately for you, this man does, or did. What a great opportunity for you. I know you are not the least bit artistic, but quickly draw yourself a sketch for future reference, and add it to your notes.
“Someday you will thank me for this.”
~ * ~
“Ha. Yes, thank you, Father. Every sixteen-year-old wants to see a cadaver’s muscles.”
The sound of her giggling sent gooseflesh erupting up her arms.
Like little rips in a curtain where daylight peeks through, little bits of memories slipped out from their protected spots. She was at their mercy now.
The face of the first woman that passed during childbirth appeared before her. Faces of all the dead who’d been lost on her father’s operating table—the old man with the blackened, infected leg, each level of amputation failed, and they sawed, and sawed. A young woman driven to madness, who no longer spoke, but only sang haunting songs. The upturned faces of the babes she'd carried through the snow to the orphanage, their eyes regarding her with all of the faith in the world...so much suffering.
Still on her knees, her head felt thick and heavy with the memories and she let it droop into her hands. She muttered, “No more suffering, please, please. No more.”
She rose to her feet. After a while, she vaguely registered her feet were raw and rubbed bloody, due to the rain. When had it started? She spied Taylor Creek over the hill to her right and started down the slope toward the water.
Trudging down the slope, her feet slid in the thick mud, and she made no attempt to stop her descent. In fact she welcomed it. She threw her arms wide. Enough of this torture called life.
Torture in the fact that anyone or anything she ever cared about had either been desecrated or died before her very eyes.
As she slid, she felt the stones rip at her back and head, but she cared not. She lay stone still, the freezing stream rising up her legs. If she refused to move, she would probably go under. The rain poured full force now and she opened her eyes and stared into the canopy of trees. Her entire body shook, almost like Megan’s in the throes of a fit.
Megan.
Lucian.
Will.
Ben.
They needed her. And if she died, what would become of them?
Her mind filled with thoughts of Megan, again.
Megan...the child who called her mother—a word she never thought to hear or want to hear in her life. She’d sworn that if she reared her brother and sister safely, she would never tie herself down to any responsibility again.
But love isn’t interested in responsibility.
Now she understood how you could adopt a child in your heart, and if you truly loved that child, it was as if you had brought him or her forth from your own body.
This was how she loved Megan. And she now realized the extent of the love she had for Will and, yes, even Katrina, and especially Lucian. She would die for any one of them if it came to it. She loved them as she loved her own flesh. Who else would love them that way, if she permitted this surreal reality to take her mind? Who would be brave enough to fight for them every day?
No one.
There were still principles worth fighting for.
She fought the blackness attempting to close her eyes, never to open them again.
Sudden anger blazed violently, and she knew if that devil Teache were in front of her she would be capable of murder. Anger, not only for herself, but also for that pitiful creature swinging in the wind in front of Hammock House. And for who knows how many children and women Teache had fooled and abandoned. Anger for her own lost childhood, her foolish mother, and her irresponsible father who had subjected her to pain and abuse that no child should ever have to bear.
The desire to return home blazed within her...but not with the stench of him still clinging to her. She refused to contaminate her home with his reeking funk. She climbed full into the freezing stream and began to scrub. With all her might, she tried to wash him off of her. She came back to her senses when she saw blood trickling down her arm. She’d scrubbed her skin until she bled.
Slowly she stood and made her way up the hillside to the road. Horses were coming...she could hear them...but didn’t bother to get out of the way. Trampling would be preferable. She had to quit thinking like this.
The animals halted before her. Sitting astride them were Katrina, Lucian, and a man she’d never seen, as well as several others she vaguely recognized to be sailors. They dismounted.
“Stanzy, are you all right? Are you...intact?”
Intact?
Even as Lucian spoke the words, his face worked as if he might go mad. His contorted face looked as if the end of all things had arrived.
He knows. I do not even have to tell him.
Stanzy’s eyes met Katrina’s as she spoke, recognizing the same flat tones her mother had used when spilling lies. Stanzy looked at Lucian and said, “I escaped, darling, out the window, and they have all departed in their sloop out into the inlet.”
~ * ~
Stanzy sat staring out the window of the cottage, waiting for Lucian to return from the barn. The last nine months had slipped past, quiet and calm. Their homestead was finished, and Katrina had finally found love—hopefully for real this time. And to whom else but a sailor—the eldest son of one Abernathy Hornigold.
Their mother had always said, “You reap what you sow.”
The fall of Edward Teache at Ocracoke Inlet on 22 November, and how it had been a gruesome battle, was the talk of every town on the Banks. Two small sloops, the Ranger and Jane, leased personally by Governor Spottswood, had finally caught up to the devil, thanks to the recommendations of Hornigold. The larger, military ships wouldn’t have been quick enough to catch Teache.
Purportedly, he’d received multiple musket shots, and no less than twenty slices of a blade before going down for good. He was then beheaded and his head taken aboard the ship. It was said that his corpse swam the length of the boats three times before disappearing into the watery depths.
Maybe he had been real evil.
At times, she found h
erself shaking when all around her was peaceful, and at other times, any strong emotion could elicit irrational fear. A hot flush of heat to the side of her face ensued, and her heart raced as if she were in fear for her life. And she rarely slept, because at night the dreams were full of filthy pirates, lost babies and dead mothers with vacant eyes.
Her nightmares over the past nine months arrived from the moment she closed her eyes, until she woke sweat covered and shaking every morn. Her mind felt like splintered glass, just one sudden jolt might send it disintegrating into a million tiny bits.
~ * ~
The mother’s belly contracts as she howls in pain. Stanzy pushes down as she has a thousand times before, but nothing happens. It is not coming. She gets behind the woman and heaves her upright to speed the labor, but the wailing continues. Smells issue forth, not common to a delivery room—sulphur and gunpowder. The walls of the delivery room rip away like the sides of the manor in the hurricane, and in their stead is the horizon, and ships. Ships flying black flags of skeletons in different forms.
They are coming for her, the Brethren of the Coast, and there is nothing she can do about it. And she knows she will have to sail with them forever. She will not even have the peace of death.
The horizon is red and the sea churns with creatures. Not the creatures she so dearly loves, but horned, scaled creatures of unknown names that slink in and out of the depths, begging her to throw herself overboard. Then mermaids with pointed, razor sharp teeth that they open and close, gnashing them at her.
The woman yells again.
Stanzy stumbles to the bottom of the bed to try to deliver the child. But something is wrong; the woman’s water breaks and spills over the table, but it isn’t amniotic fluid, it is seawater. The baby is delivered into her hands and its tiny body is covered in black hair. And as she looks at the face of the woman on the table for the first time she sees her own face staring back at her.
Night after night, the dream recurs, and she cannot escape it, awake or asleep. She prays that when the baby is born, whomever the father, that the cursed dream will cease, and permit her some peace.
~ * ~
Stanzy ran her hands over her pregnant belly. Suddenly her water broke. Icy fear, instead of elation filled her. She prayed that when she looked upon this child, the hair would be brown, and his soul would be the salt of the earth, and not the son of the devil with a longing for the sea.
~ Epilogue ~
The baby cried as Lucian handed him to Stanzy. Tears streaked down her face blurring her vision as she cradled him to her breast. She took a wet cloth and began to swab his hair—fine, brown hair. When his tiny eyes met hers, she recognized the exact beautiful hazel color which met her own gaze each and every morning.
Lucian’s eyes.
She knew now she would be able to tell him the truth of what transpired at Hammock House and perhaps with that real healing could begin. All was forgiven. The baby was what they had wished for, a beautiful boy in whom their love could continue on for generations.
"He's perfect, Stanzy. He'll have your hair." Lucian bent and encircled the two of them.
Love beat back the demons raging in her head. A single beam of sunlight shone through the window, recalling one word to her mind.
Hope.
As she slept, for the first time in almost a year, no creatures plagued her sleep. Only green fields where four children frolicked, chasing one another’s shadows.
Author’s Notes
Lead Poisoning in the 1700s
As the parent of a child who has suffered lead poisoning, as well as other metal toxicities, I have seen the devastating effects of this problem firsthand. Symptoms of lead and mercury toxicity can be malaise, gastrointestinal problems, nephritis (kidney disease), and in extreme cases...convulsions, pica (eating non-food substances), paralysis and death.
In 1786, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to the political economist Benjamin Vaughan, in which he related recollections from his boyhood. At that time, Franklin recalled legal cases involving New England rum, where distributors had used leaden still-heads and worms in casks, and the lead had leached into the rum, causing illness and paralysis. The Legislature of Massachusetts enacted laws prohibiting this practice. Franklin also discussed the case of a family that had consumed rainwater, which had passed over their roof and had been caught in barrels, and were affected by lead poisoning. Thus the barrel in our story was lead laden...as well as the lack of moss on the roof, which could not grow due to lead as well.
Blackbeard’s Wives
The only account on record that I was able to locate on Blackbeard’s documented marriage was to a Mary Ormond from Bath. It is said that Blackbeard would go into ports and find the most desirable women, take them aboard his ship, and have one of his crewmen marry them. This happened so often, it was commonplace for his crew!
In the town of Beaufort, North Carolina, there is actually a walking tour you can take of Hammock House, and Blackbeard was rumored to have hanged one of his wives on a tree from a noose until dead (TourBeaufort.com). Hammock House was indeed at one time the home of Blackbeard, the time and circumstances are purely a product of the author’s imagination, however.
I encourage one and all to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina if you are a history buff, as the entire coast is steeped in tradition and folklore. It is breathtakingly beautiful.
US COAST GUARD
Lucian’s father, who drowned in a rescue mission offshore, was created in this writer’s imagination, but it is a matter of record that many truly brave souls have rescued stranded passengers for as long as the Outer Banks have been inhabited.
The Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station was in operation from 1874 to 1915 and was a precursor to the Coast Guard, which began around 1918.
Tactile Defensiveness
The behaviors of Megan—the inability to tolerate clothing, or having one’s hair washed or brushed or nails cut—is very much a reality in many disorders. It results from improper nerve transmission to a person’s skin, so they either react too much or too little to touch.
The exceedingly high pain tolerance is a reality as well—the author has witnessed children pound their heads on tile floors and never shed a single tear.
Tribute
Although the rape scene with regard to Katrina and Stanzy is a part of my fictitious novel, I have known in my lifetime a real story of rape, where one brave soul indeed took another’s place and endured the torture of this deed to preserve the innocence of a loved one. The telling of this tale is a tribute to that brave and courageous person. There are few like you on the earth today.
About the Author
Brynn Chapman
Born in Pennsylvania and raised by two school teacher parents, Brynn loved reading and writing from an early age. After reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time when thirteen years old, she was henceforth fixated on all fantasy stories and folklore.
Concerned over the practicality of becoming a writer when college bound, Brynn decided on a medical career instead of a literary one. As she grew older, the artistic side of her brain would not be silenced, so she returned to her first love—writing.
Brynn still resides in Penn’s Woods with her husband and three sons. She also works as an occupational therapist for children with autism and at a charter school for adolescents on the spectrum.
She is also the author of the young adult fantasy, Into the Woods, written as R.R. Smythe and Project Mendel as Brynn Chapman.
Praise for
Highland Press Books!
Through its collection of descriptive phrases, The Millennium Phrase Book by Rebecca Andrews offers writers concrete examples of rich and evocative descriptions. Browsing through its pages offers a jumpstart to the imagination, helping authors deepen the intensity of scenes and enhance their own writing.
~ Tami Cowden, Author of The Complete Guide to Heroes & Heroines, Sixteen Master Archetypes
~ * ~
To Wo
o A Lady – Erin E.M. Hatton has written a series of short stories covering Regency England and the historical standards and expectations that existed then. I especially liked how she made her characters vulnerable, yet strong. There are no wilting wallflowers here. The men are strong, stubborn and even a bit understanding about the women’s expectations and the realities of the times and world they live in. The author's storylines are believable, enjoyable to read, and take you to a world of time past, with all its warts and pimples as well as beautiful homes and good times at public functions. It's not all peaches and cream, but it's real.
~Aloe, Long and Short Reviews
~ * ~
Saving Tampa - What if you knew something horrible was going to happen but you could prevent it? Would you tell someone? What if you saw it in a vision and had no proof? Would you risk your credibility to come forward? These are the questions at the heart of Saving Tampa, an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller from Jo Webnar.
~ Mairead Walpole, Reviews by Crystal
~ * ~
Hidden Death - If you're looking for a good mystery with a twist of romance, this book just might be what you're wanting. With some books, it's easy to figure out who did it. Not this book! Jo Webnar kept me on the edge of my seat, not sure who was the bad guy and needing to find out. Loved it.
~ Long and Short Reviews
~ * ~
Sweet Salvation by Lis’Anne Harris is a fabulous Georgian romance that will leave readers begging for more.
~ Virginia Henley, NYT Best-Selling Authors
~ * ~
Timing Is Everything - A fun Western Romance with a nice dose of suspense. Highly readable, and highly recommended.
The Bride of Blackbeard Page 20