by Kitty Margo
Joshua leaned over the rail, peering into the swirling fluorescent water as it lapped against the hull of the Windjammer. It was a lazy, slapping sound and one that had lulled him to sleep many restless nights. Now the sound was bittersweet. For after today there would be no more salty sea breezes, no more moon swept nights listening to the wind fill the billowing sails, and no more late night walks on deck where he would spend countless hours gazing into the constellations. He was going home.
Home.
Where instead of being surrounded by a brilliant sea and sailing to exciting new destinations, his feet would be firmly and permanently anchored on dry land. Realizing that it might be years before he felt the deck rolling with the easy swells again, he had left the job of sailing the ship to his first mate as he contemplated his future.
Gazing out across the ocean that he loved so dearly, he was convinced that the best years of his life were behind him, a part of his carefree past. His parents needed him and that was where he belonged. Joshua blinked several times as his eyes misted at the thought of his beloved parents, Jeremiah and Patricia.
His boisterous father, tall, robust, and the picture of health had always enjoyed life to the fullest. Ever the jokester, his love for pranks was well known throughout the plantation, especially by his wife, the recipient of the majority of his shenanigans. Joshua couldn’t have asked for a happier childhood or better parents.
He hadn’t learned of the tragedy until the previous Christmas when he had returned home for the holidays after an extended sea voyage. He remembered galloping up the dusty road toward home, filled with excitement at seeing his family after a rough year at sea. Yet, something was amiss at Sea Grove. He had sensed it even before entering the silent house.
It was too still. Too quiet. No joyous Christmas hymns filled the air. No freshly cut Christmas greenery and mistletoe, or the scent of cedar drifting through every room. No sounds of the children’s gay laughter echoed from the slave quarters. It was as quiet as if the plantation was in mourning. Mourning. “Mother!” he had shouted, taking the stairs two at a time.
Flossie, his childhood nanny, had met him halfway down the stairs with a worried frown puckering her wrinkled forehead. Giving him a heartfelt embrace, she whispered, “You sho’ is a sight fo’ so’ eyes, Mast’ Joshua. We is mighty glad ta have you home. Yassuh.” She sniffled into a handkerchief. “Mighty glad.”
“What’s wrong, Flossie?” Holding his breath, Joshua’s heart had hammered against his ribs, fearing her answer.
“Go on up ta yo’ Pa’s room, Mast’ Joshua,” she murmured, wiping at a torrent of tears. “You jes’ go on up an’ see yo’ Pa.”
A cold sheen of sweat had covered Joshua’s body as he slowly climbed the curving staircase, apprehension building with each step until he had finally stood outside his parent’s door. Even though he had tried to prepare himself for anything that he might find on the way up that long flight of stairs, he had come up short.
The sight of his father’s stump of a body lying on his bed, deathly pale with his eyes open but seeing nothing, had sent a shockwave through his body that left him stunned and chilled to the marrow of his bones.
In a flash, Joshua recalled how his father’s laughing eyes would twinkle with mischief when he chased his daughter around the yard with a harmless green snake, or when he was slipping a June bug down his wife’s bodice. He remembered as a youngster when his father would hitch him over his broad shoulders and carry him through the fields explaining the intricacies of growing cotton.
In the past his father had loved to dance at the numerous balls held at Sea Grove with every family in the county attending. Now he didn’t even have legs. There would be no more dancing at Sea Grove.
Whether his father was joking with friends or grabbing his wife in a hug that lifted her clear off the ground, Jeremiah always had laughter in his eyes. Now those eyes were dull and lifeless, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Joshua’s mother had risen from her seat beside the bed, a woman whose appearance had aged several years in the short span of twelve months. Dark circles lay under her eyes and her shiny brown hair, that had once been the envy of many, had turned the color of snow. But what disturbed Joshua most was her dramatic weight loss. She was almost skeletal.
“Oh, my darling, I’m so glad you are finally home,” she had cried upon sight of her only son. “Please tell me that you are home to stay until your father...” Stopping abruptly, his mother had quietly ushered him into her adjacent room where she had proceeded to fill him in on the gory details of the accident. A shiver rushed down Joshua’s spine as he listened to his mother tell the story of how his father and several of the slaves had been cutting the winters supply of firewood in an area that the slaves referred to as the voodoo woods on that ill fated morning.
Having spent the greater part of his youth clearing fields with his father, Joshua knew that Jeremiah was an expert at felling trees and always steered well clear of their intended path. But with no thought for his own safety, he had rushed into the shadow of a giant falling oak after spotting a little girl standing precisely where the tree would land. Jeremiah had moved with a speed that had surprised even him, but still not fast enough.
Evidently he had just had time to shove the child to safety before a blinding pain struck as the massive oak splintered around him. He never saw her again and there was no… body.
Although to this day, he swore that his hands had never even touched the child.
One of the limbs, twelve inches in diameter, had knocked him to the ground, crushing every bone in the lower half of his legs. As blessed darkness had washed over him, Jeremiah was certain that he was going to meet his Maker. Instead, he had awakened a fortnight later with both legs amputated from the knees down, wishing fervently that he had.
He did have an occasional good day. When Jeremiah was awake and lucid, he talked endlessly of the beautiful little girl, concerned for her safety. At night he would wake everyone in the house shouting to the child, “Run! Get out of the way!” The bewildering part was that no one else, none of the eight slaves working side by side with him that day, had seen the little girl, only Jeremiah.
The slaves, being a superstitious lot, swore that the conja woman had cursed the child making her angry spirit haunt the voodoo woods. They firmly believed that not only had her spirit caused Jeremiah’s accident, but that she was still roaming the forest looking for her next hapless victim. No matter how many threats were issued the slaves adamantly refused to go near the voodoo woman’s house or return to the patch of woods where the accident had occurred.
The sight of his mother that night would be etched in Joshua’s mind forever. The dark circles around her eyes contrasted with her too white skin. It was painfully obvious that she rarely ventured into the sun as her days and nights were spent in the darkened room, sitting quietly beside her beloved husband and praying for a miracle.
Jeremiah was a proud man and Joshua knew his mother worried that he would no longer have the desire or will to live. A small glimmer of hope had shone in her lifeless green eyes when her son had walked into the room. A hope that the responsibilities of running a cotton plantation the size of Sea Grove could be lifted from her weary shoulders, thus allowing her to devote all of her time and energy to making her husband somehow see that life was worth living again. She hadn’t found it necessary to ask for her son’s help. He was there when she needed him most.
It had been impossible for Joshua not to return to sea after the Christmas holiday, having several binding commitments that had to be fulfilled. But he had not departed until he had employed Jake Almond, a man he trusted implicitly to oversee the plantation until he could return in the spring.
“Land ho!” The first mate shouted from the crow’s nest, bringing Joshua back to the present.
Gazing across the gracefully rolling swells to see the barely visible landmarks of Charleston in the early morning fog, Joshua could just make out Saint Michael’
s steeple towering majestically over the waking city.
They would be docking in a few hours, and after battening down his ship for a much needed rest he would bid farewell to the Windjammer, along with his old way of life, and plant his feet on solid ground.
Chapter 10