The Jezebel's Daughter (22 page)

I opened my eyes and looked at the men. “How long have you been gone?” I asked.

“A month,” Ben said. “We went to sea after Captain's trial and took a ship. When we come back to Le Cap to sell off cargo, there was word you died.” I watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed with difficulty.

I looked at Sebastian, my eyes tracing his face, lingering on his eyes and his lips. “What happened at your trial?”

The men exchanged a look and Sebastian took a deep breath before turning back to me. “I was found guilty of misleading the crew. They wanted to maroon me, but Ben spoke up. He reminded everyone that since I took over for Graves, our profits have increased tenfold and we've only lost a handful of crew members. If they marooned me, they'd lose my spy network.” He shrugged a little. “They saw the error in their decision and welcomed me back.”

“Were you punished?”

“Forty lashes,” he said. I nodded, my brow furrowed with sympathy. The lashes explained why he was holding himself strangely and moving with exaggerated care.

“You be welcome back, too,” Ben added. “You be who come up with the idea for the spies. You the reason we all fat and happy now.”

“They don't care that I'm... That I'm a woman?”

“They've seen you fight,” Sebastian said. “You've proven that you're capable of keeping up with them. They want you back, demanded it in fact. They don't care you're a woman.”

I sighed softly and turned to look at the ceiling for a moment. “What about Hamilton?” I asked. The sight of Sebastian battering Hamilton's face and leaving him bloody flashed before me. He didn't seem the sort to forget that Sebastian had lied for so long and that I'd been complicit in those lies. I knew there would be trouble between us and his presence on board might eventually poison some of the crew against me.

“Mr. Hamilton has elected to leave the
Jezebel
and seek employment with another crew.”

I turned back to Sebastian. “He left or he was forced out?”

“He left,” he replied. Something in his eyes told me not to push him on the subject.

I returned to my study of the ceiling. I was silent for a long moment, thinking about returning to the sea and the
Jezebel
. It was my home and the crew was my family. I wanted to go back but at the same time, I was terrified of returning to that life. I'd almost died once. I wasn't keen on doing it again.

Ben smoothed his hand over the crown of my head and stood. “We give you time to think it over.” He tugged at Sebastian's sleeve and the captain carefully got to his feet. He leaned forward gingerly, and pressed his lips against my forehead and whispered, “I love you,” before turning to go to the door.

“Wait,” I said. “If Hamilton left, who is quartermaster now?”

“Me,” Ben said simply. “And I still be ship's master, too. But only until you come back. Then I just be ship's master.”

I stared at him, slack-jawed with dull incomprehension. “I'm... I'm to be quartermaster?”

Sebastian nodded. “You were elected
in absentia
. The men insisted.”

I swallowed with difficulty, an up-welling of emotions clogging my throat and making it nearly impossible to speak. I turned back to Sebastian and coughed a bit, wincing at the pain in my belly. “Do they know about the—”

“We'll talk more in the morning,” Sebastian said, cutting off my question before I could ask it. “You heard Vivienne; she said you need your rest.” He herded Ben out of the room and closed the door with a soft thump behind him.

He must have known I was going to ask about the Jacobite money. The quickness with which he cut me off made me think the crew didn't know anything about it. Somehow Hamilton had kept the secret, even after leaving the ship. Did Sebastian expect me to keep up the ruse and continue embezzling from the crew? I would have to, or they would hang him. There would be no getting out of it this time. Greed was the sole motivation for most of the men and they would treat the loss of their shares—no matter how small—as a grave insult.

But that was something to think about and deal with at a later time. I was alive. I was whole. I was safe. I had my family and my home back and I no longer had to live as Luke Jones, master's mate. I could be Loreley Jones, quartermaster of the most feared, most successful ship in the entire Caribbean. The corner of my mouth lifted in a smirk and I wondered if my uncle would ever receive word of my exploits. What would he think of me if he did?

I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I listened to the thump of my heart and imagined I could feel my blood flowing through my veins. I flexed all the muscles from my toes up to my brow, reveling in having muscles to feel again. I inhaled deeply, smelling woodsmoke and the lingering scent of sickness and death. The first thing I needed to do in the morning was bathe. My stomach grumbled with hunger. The second thing was to eat something.

XXVII

Bwa Kayiman, Saint-Domingue

August, 1717

The next morning, Vivienne helped me bathe. I was weak and my stomach hurt with every movement. Just getting off the cot to my feet exhausted me. I moved like an old woman, and I had to take frequent rests as we trundled across the yard outside Vivienne’s hut. She was endlessly patient with me, even when the pain in my belly made me snappish and grumpy.

As Vivienne washed my hair, I examined my wound. It no longer wept thick, foul-smelling pus, but neither was it completely healed. It was an angry red slash, just below and to the left of my navel. From my vantage, I could also see just how much I had wasted away during my illness. I could feel each of my ribs and my hip bones jutted out alarmingly.

“Don't worry about that,” Manman Vivienne told me when she saw the look of dismay on my face. “I get you fat again. You stay here for another month, and when the rains come again, you be ready to leave.”

I was clean and had eaten a few bites of gruel and banana before Ben and Sebastian came back. Vivienne had stationed me outside the door of the hut, sitting on the one chair she owned, helping the young girls shell beans while the sun warmed my bones. A man who had been introduced as Jacques, Vivienne's husband, drew Sebastian aside and Ben came to sit in the dirt at my side. His right eye was swollen and there was a raw spot on his cheekbone. I reached out to touch it and he hissed in pain and pulled away.

“Who hit you?” I asked.

“Captain did.”

“What? Why?”

“He tell me I be asking too many questions,” Ben answered sullenly.

“Questions about what?”

Ben shrugged and the stubborn set of his jaw told me that I would get no more answers or explanations from him. I frowned and shot Sebastian a withering glare, which he missed entirely. His attention was solely on Vivienne's husband and he was wearing a frown of his own. I nodded to them and asked Ben, “What's that about?”

“Jacques be wanting some money for his wife taking care of you. He be telling Captain there be talk about you, worrying that you tell the other
blan
where the maroons be. The plantation owners be looking for them. They find them, they come haul the maroons away.”

“Maroons?”

“Escaped slaves,” he explained. “They all be that here.”

“I would never do that,” I said vehemently, the strength of feeling making my stomach hurt. “You know that, right?”

“I do. They don't be so sure.”

I sighed heavily and went back to shelling beans. The girls who had been helping me had melted away when Ben sat down, making themselves scarce. I nudged the bowls of beans closer to Ben, who smirked at me and grabbed a handful, expertly shelling them. We worked in silence for a moment and then I said tentatively, “I saw Ezili Danto.”

Ben's hands froze and he slowly turned to look at me. “You saw her? Where?”

I finished shelling the last handful of beans before answering his question. “I think it was when I was dead. She came to me, in a vision or maybe a dream. Maybe it was real. I don't know. She and Papa Legba and Bawon Samdi were all here, in Vivienne's house.”

Ben's eyes grew wide and he stared at me. “What did they say to you?”

“They argued. Samdi said he was there because he'd dug my grave, but Papa Legba and Ezili Danto said he couldn't take me yet, there was still something I had to do. They said I had a destiny that I had to fulfill before I could die.”

Ben made a thoughtful face and glanced towards Sebastian and Jacques. “You tell Manman you be seeing the
lwa
. Maybe she tell you what your destiny is, how you fill it.”

“I'm—” I swallowed hard and reached for the water bottle at my feet. After taking a deep draught, I licked my lips and tried again. “I don't think humans are meant to know that. Only God can.”

“Nonsense.” He settled into the cross-legged position that I had come to associate with his story-telling. “There be a
griot
man—a story-teller—near Ocho Rios, who say he can read destinies. He tell me once that I be destined to protect one of Manman Danto's favorites. He say, 'Ben, you do your best, keep this girl safe. She be important to Manman Danto. You take good care of her. You treat her like she be your sister.' And I do.” He shrugged and glanced up at me out of the corner of his eye.

“And you think he was talking about me?”

“Who else? I never take care of no other girl. I don't have no blood sister.”

I sighed softly and stared off into the canes that surrounded Vivienne's family compound. Was it possible that some man I had never met, in some town I've never been to, could know something so startling about me? The Bible taught that humans had been created with the ability to make choices, to alter our destinies, and that we are responsible for the consequences of our choices. What Ben described was fatalism, that our destinies are set in stone, that no matter what choices we make, no matter we actions we take, nothing would alter the course of our futures. I was not comfortable with that concept and pushed it away, out of my thoughts. I was in control of my life, not some mystical, magical force that I could not see or touch or speak with. If I followed God's path, if I did what I knew in my heart to be right according to what Jesus taught, then I would be allowed into Heaven after I died.

But I
had
died, at least according to Ben and Vivienne. And I had seen pagan spirits, not God or Jesus or angels or saints. Those pagan spirits—some might even call them demons or devils—were the ones who had met me at death's door. They were the ones who explained that I needed to come back because I had left things unfinished. Because I had an important destiny that was still unfulfilled.

“Do you believe in God, Ben?” I asked after another long silence.

“Yes. I call him Bondye, the Good God. But He be too busy to talk to us, so the spirits—the
lwa
—they talk to Him for us. He be the same god you worship in your church, you know. He be the same god Sebastian worship in his cathedrals.”

“The
lwa
were doing God's work when they came to me?”

“I think so, yes. God have so much to do, see. The spirits make His job easier. He see you be in pain, you be hurting in your soul. He send the
lwa
to you, help you heal, help you bring you
bònanj
back together.”

I nodded and fell into another thoughtful silence. Ben broke it moments later and asked, “How long Manman say you stay here?”

“Another month. Until the rains come. Will you be go out roving soon?”

He nodded. “Next few days. Captain need the distraction. He worry too much. He want to be here all the time. Manman chase him off, tell him go to sea.” He chuckled softly and stood, picking up the bowl of bean shells and tucking it beneath his arm. “You rest now, think about Bondye and the
lwa
, and you God and the saints. Maybe you see they be all the same.” He gave me a gentle smile and then strode off in the direction of the pigpen.

Later that afternoon, Ben went back to where the ship was anchored just off the coast of Le Cap, but Sebastian stayed with me. Vivienne's family group slowly came to accept that we would not betray them to their erstwhile owners and welcomed us—however grudgingly—into their homes and lives. We shared a meal with them that night, and sat around the fire afterward, listening to stories of life in Africa before the elders of the group were stolen away to the new world.

At one point, Jacques stood up and banged his walking stick three times on a flat rock next to the fire. The others fell silent almost immediately. Sebastian, too, settled in and drew me closer to him, tucking my body against his side and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. I laid my head against his chest, right above his heart, and watched the others gathered around the fire. Something important was about to happen; it was in the eager, earnest lines of the children's faces and bodies, and the excitement that shone brightly in the adults' eyes.

“Manwu, the Moon goddess, was lonely,” Jacques said, his voice reverent as he gestured to the heavens. The skies were clear and the moon full and heavy as she hung amongst the numberless stars. “She call out to Ayida Wèdo, the Rainbow Serpent, to help her. Manwu want to build a world and fill it with creatures to keep her company. Ayida Wèdo agree, and she carry Manwu on her back. The earth, the soil, Manwu laid down first.” He crouched and dragged his fingers sinuously through the dirt at his feet, creating a miniature landscape complete with hills and valleys.

“The hollows, curves, and rises were created by Ayida Wèdo's body as she slither and slip through the dirt.” He straightened and smiled with almost childish delight. “And wherever Ayida Wèdo and Manwu stop to rest, the Rainbow Serpent leave behind mountains of her excrement, filled with precious minerals and gems.” The children laughed and I could feel Sebastian chuckle softly.

“Soon, Manwu fill the earth with trees and plants, animals and birds, and finally people. But now, the world too heavy to stay up on its own. So Manwu ask Ayida Wèdo to help once more. She ask Rainbow Serpent to coil about the world, hold her tail in her mouth, let the world rest on her back.” He crouched once more and drew a never-ending circle in the dirt at his feet. “Ayida Wèdo agree and Manwu was so pleased by her sacrifice, she made the oceans and waters to protect Rainbow Serpent from the sun's heat.”

It was a lovely story. I wanted to reciprocate by telling them one of Perrault's tales or maybe one of Scheherazade's, but I yawned hugely and Vivienne shook her head in consternation. “Go to bed, girl,” she said. “You still healin'. Need all the rest you can get.”

Sebastian gently pushed me away and got to his feet. He nodded to Jacques and then to Vivienne before drawing me up against his side. “I'll get her settled,” he said. “Thank you for the food and the stories. Good night.”

“
Bonswa
,” I called out. Sebastian's arm around my waist supported my weight as he led me toward the hut that Vivienne had given to me for the length of my stay. I'd argued, told her it wasn't right that I put her out of her own home. She merely shrugged and said she'd stay with her husband. She wouldn't budge from her position no matter how I tried to convince her otherwise, so I accepted the shelter grudgingly.

Tonight, though, I was thankful for the privacy. I hadn't had a moment alone with Sebastian since I'd woken up... come back from the dead... whatever the truth of the situation really was. There were things I wanted to talk to him about, and my body longed for the touch of his hand again, or the soft brush of his lips against mine.

Once inside the hut, he shut the door and saw me settled on the cot. Then he moved around the room, lighting candles, taking off his coat and laying it over the back of the chair, building up the fire, and fetching me some water before settling down next to me. He didn't say anything for the span of ten heartbeats. He just stared at me, his eyes drinking me in like wine.

Just when his scrutiny became uncomfortable, he leaned forward and cupped my face in both hands, tilted my head up, and kissed me. His lips were soft and warm against mine, his hands gentle as they slid to the back of my head and pulled the pins from my hair. He broke the kiss, leaned back and stared at me again. The blue of his irises was so dark they appeared black and something hungry swam through their depths. Whatever he was feeling left his expression so intense that it stole the breath from my body and sent a fine trembling through my limbs.

“You were dead, Loreley,” he murmured, his gaze locked with mine, his fingers curled in my hair. “And I wanted to join you. I didn't want to live in a world without your smile or your sweet face or your sharp mind. I didn't want to be without you.” His breath caught in his throat and his arms suddenly wrapped tightly around me, crushing me against his body.

I blinked in shock at the depths of his feelings. I was left dazed and sluggish by his admission, and I was frozen in his embrace. Then the ice inside my mind broke, and I clung desperately to him, my hands fisted in his shirt, my forehead pressed against the side of his neck. “You don't have to be,” I said. “I'm here now. With you. I'm never leaving again.”

He kissed me again, hungry and demanding. I felt heat rising low down in my belly and my heart pounded in my chest. I made a tiny noise of desire in the back of my throat and crawled into his lap, desperate to feel more of him against me. There was a sharp pain in my stomach and I hissed and drew back, clutching at the wound.

Sebastian asked, his face a mask of worry, “Did I hurt you?” His hands moved over my arms and shoulders, touching me gently as if he was testing to see if I was still whole or if I had shattered like glass.

I scooted back, away from him, still holding myself stiffly and trying to calm my pounding heart. “No, you didn't hurt me,” I said, looking up at him with a tiny smirk. “I hurt me with my... eagerness and excitement.”

He chuckled softly and leaned forward to press a kiss against the tip of my nose. He took my hands in his and held them lightly. “I suppose we'd better curtail that particular activity until you are healed.”

I nodded sadly and sighed. “Will you stay with me tonight? I want to spend time with you, alone. Before we have to go back to the ship where everyone will be studying us and judging our every move.”