“I do not know. But I will come for you. I will.”
When we made the land, they put us off into what I found was a circle of Englishmen holding captives at sword’s point. The sailors with all haste started to make for the canoe again. I held August’s sleeve and looked into his eyes, trying to see what he might feel for us, his sisters, cast ashore on some strange land. There was something there, I vow, though what it was I could not say. Not a tear marked his countenance. Perhaps he had learned to cry on the inside as I had. Or perhaps he was keeping a stern face for those who might watch him. He whispered to me, “I will make my fortune and I will come for you both.”
I called out, “I will watch for you, August. Do not forget us, your sisters. Do not forget we are deserted here.” There was no time to hear his answer if he gave one, for he had turned his face to the sea.
On the beach we waited and shivered, sitting upon the sand. Cora and I sat on either side of Patience, who said nothing, staring at her feet. I felt an urge to lean to one side or the other, to make up for the swaying of the land. I knew the ground was not moving, yet my constant rolling with the ship had become such a habit that it continued here. I felt ill, so much did the ground seem to swell and sway.
Cora asked, “Feels like you still on the boat, don’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. Though in truth it was worse, for the ship would come to rights, but this ground moved with some scheme other than an ocean, some devilment of my mind, so that I could not guard against it. I lay upon the sand and stared at the sky, all gray and heavy with clouds. Only then did the earth seem to lie still beneath me. “August is gone, Patey. Gone with the rovers.”
“I know,” she said.
What a land this was. What a sea. Cold. Bleak. Black. Not a hint of a shimmering blue-green coral reef. Not a leaf hung on any tree. Dead trees stood like gray skeletons forked against a drab sky. I needed no further proof that we were indeed nearing the top edge of the world than the closeness of the sky, for the gray clouds caught and snagged on the tops of the trees. How much farther the edge was, God knew, but I feared we should find it and plummet into the abyss. I whispered to myself, to the sky, repeated it louder, “I hate my brother August. I shall always, always hate him.” As I said it, I squinted at the clouds, willing them in my imagination to part, for the sun to appear, for the sand to warm, and the voice of Ma to call me home for dinner. I would eat all my vegetables, this time. I said, “He will come back for us.”
Patey turned to me and let out a deep breath. “Yes. Keep watching for him. Watch for him always.”
CHAPTER 5
November 20, 1729
The men bade us stand. I watched money change hands, new voices and faces amongst the men who scrutinized us as if we were wild boars that might charge their drawn cutlasses at any moment. And then the walking began. Uncle Rafe came along at the rear of the line as we walked. He was the only one from the trip here that came; all the other pirates went somewhere else, back to the sea, I suspect. May they all drown. God send them the plague. The pox. A fire. A Gypsy ship loaded with Saracens, rats and plague, and blasting kegs and fire.
We walked any number of hours I could not fathom. I had no shoes. My feet ached but yet grew numb; I could not feel the ground I walked upon, yet every pebble made me wince. I began to imagine the drumming of each footfall as a pace in a dance. A chant came from some lost memory, and I began to sing something old that Ma sang when she walked upon the hills, mumming it with my lips.
Everyone stumbled. I began to believe Patience’s hand holding mine was the only feeling I had in the world. After a while we could go no other way but single file and so I had to let go of her hand. I got a stitching in my side and it spread to both sides. If I could have found time alone I would have eaten the rest of my pocket.
I stared at the ground in front of each step, wishing that Patience’s feet would stay long enough to warm it before I stepped there. I tried to step into her footprints, but of course, that was imaginary, for there was no print on the frozen ground. Her feet were as frozen as mine. I had never known such agony. The numbness and burning and bitter shivering never stopped.
With every step I thought of new ways to hate Rafe MacAlister, whose fault it was we were here. “Patience?” I whispered.
“Yes?”
“Do you think Uncle Rafe was a pirate always? Did he join them as August did?”
“I do not know. Be shushed, Ressie.”
“He was fighting the other pirates. I saw him do it. Right alongside Pa.”
“Nary the first man with duplicity of heart.”
I made her explain that as I stumbled onward another length of time, holding to my sides against the shooting pain that threatened to bend me. “I wish someone would steal us back and take us home again.”