Page 41 of Trick of Light
“So, back to your original question,” Heather said as she stretched her arms overhead, after about an hour of herb sorting. “If you happen to come across something helpful, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with checking it out.”
“What about opening every drawer in the house and checking underneath loose floorboards? That was kind of my plan.”
Heather laughed and gathered up her things—bag and hoodie and truck keys. “I didn’t hear that, la la la la. Whatever you do after I leave this house has nothing to do with me, the constable’s girlfriend.”
Great. No help at all. She was on her own. “Watch out for the skunk on your way out!” she called after Heather. “He gets very grumpy around dinnertime.”
At least she was pretty sure that was one of Tamara’s warnings and instructions. The whole experience felt like a dream now. Had she and an elderly witchy lady really taken turns offering their laps as pillows on a wooden bench in an island jail cell?
18
She was sailing on a three-masted ship, made entirely of wood and painted black with red flourishes and the occasional touch of gold, like on the carved figurehead barely visible from where she stood. The ship sliced through the waves like a stiletto, like a racing horse bred to perform. She stood up front near the prow, resting her elbows on the railing, feeling the wind lift her hair off her neck.
The seascape they sailed through was unfamiliar to her—low gray granite islands topped with prickly deep green trees. Moody, somehow, with its scudding clouds and ominous choppy ocean waves. It suited her own mood, because soon she would be here alone, and for the rest of her life.
A man came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He nibbled the rim of her ear and whispered, “You will be safe here, my love, I promise you.”
“And you? Will you be safe?” The words tore from her chest, and she knew they were barely worth speaking because a pirate could never be safe.
“I am not important now. Only you are, you and…” He moved his hand to her swollen belly. “You and him.”
He didn’t know this, but they were having two babies. Twins, a boy and a girl. She couldn’t explain how she knew, but she was a midwife in her old land, and had an instinct based on experience. Would Joshua risk so much for just a girl baby? Her people considered the women to be the carriers of the family name. That was the only way to really be sure, after all, since both men and women did like to play. But his culture boxed women in with rules designed to make sure that the baby came from the man’s loins.
To her, it seemed like a lot of wasted effort that still couldn’t guarantee the proper result. Even the most virginal-appearing girl could have a secret. And there were so many ways to fake things and bring out the desired outcome. She was familiar with them all. In her view, and her people’s, a woman should be able to determine her own destiny. As a midwife, she knew how dangerous it was to bear a child. Women were free and powerful and none should be forced to do something not to her liking.
Was this new land to her liking?
To her eye, yes. The grays and the greens were so sober compared to the purples and reds of her home. But they spoke to her in a deep whisper of understanding. We know that you suffer. We will be here before and after.
“What are the people like here? Will they be kind?”
His people very often weren’t kind to her. She looked too different, behaved too different. Believed too different.
“There are no people on that island, only savages.”
She flinched, since that same term was commonly applied to her people too, and even to herself. How many times had a white man been stunned to learn she understood and spoke the British tongue?
“Apologies,” he murmured. “I spoke without thought. They are gentle enough folk. They won’t harm you.”
“Not with so many pirates at my beck and call,” she quipped.
“Indeed. Half my crew will be at your command. They know how important it is to guard my wife and child.”
She was silent. The crew knew perfectly well that they’d never exchanged the formal British vows that would bind them into an acknowledged marriage. Would they really stay with her? Or would they take their doubloons and bits of stolen goods and disappear?
“I would like to keep the trunk with their wages under my own custody,” she told Joshua. “I will pay their wages at the end of each month. But will there be anywhere to spend their profits?”
“They’re pirates. They can row or sail anywhere they wish. And I agree, you should have sole control over the monies. None of them can be trusted with that responsibility.”
“Good.” They hit a swell and an enormous spray of cold water washed across the railing. She shrieked and crowded back toward the strong warm body at her back. He held her as tight as he could without hurting her belly. How did he have such sea legs? He didn’t have to hold the railing as she did. He simply spread his legs apart and rode the deck as if it were a bucking horse.
She half closed her eyes and let the ocean spray sting her cheeks, where it mingled with her tears. How did she know this would be their last carefree moment together in this lifetime? How did she ever know the things that she knew? They were simply there, truths waiting to be seen as soon as she dared to open her eyes.
“There it is.” He pointed to a large island rising from the waves, forbidding bluffs on one end, thick forests on the other. “What shall it be, milady? Cliffs or the woods?”
“The woods,” she said firmly. “The trees will keep me safe even if the pirates do not.”
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