The Pirates and the Nightmaker (3 page)

When he next spoke to me, there was an edge to Mr Wicker’s voice, a deeper intensity.

‘Look at me, little Loblolly Boy,’ he said, and then to my horror I saw that he was raising his hand to me just as he had to Jacob Stone, lifting his open palm almost as though he were about to push me in the chest.

My instant thought was that his intention was to freeze me, as he had frozen Stone, but sensing my fear, he added, ‘Do not be afraid, little one. I very much want you alive even though you are little use to me as you are.’

I shook my head, unable to say anything. I was filled with an ominous dread that seemed to roar all about me.

‘There will be two changes to your being,’ he said, ‘and this is the first …’

I looked up at him fearfully and all at once I found his eyes locked with mine, locked so intensely I could not escape. His eyes were green, a strange dark emerald and the pupils a deep black and, even as I was drawn into them, they began to grow and swirl until the sun vanished, the
heat and the light disappeared and the world was slowly filled with darkness. For some time I was utterly lost in this darkness and then gradually, when it began to lighten into a pearly glow and then thin and clear, in that growing clarity I began to make out a figure, a single figure standing with arms upraised.

I had never seen such a creature or such dress before. The figure was clad in silky green garments that were loose and flowing, and they fell from his body like long soft leaves. The creature lowered his arms, turned and looked directly my way. Slowly, expressionlessly, he approached until we were face to face. His eyes implored
Look at me
and I did. Then, as if my looking were insufficient …
Really look at me
… I did so with growing wonder for I realised then, no not realised, I
knew
with utter certainty, just who this strange, unearthly creature was.

It was me.

I was looking at myself, but at a
me
completely transformed. The face was different but it was my face; the body was slighter, more slender, but it was my body; the filmy, leafy garments were beyond anything I’d ever known, but they were my clothes. This knowledge filled and almost overwhelmed me.

And then, the creature who was me backed slowly away with no expression still, until he, or I, was gradually swallowed again by the darkness.

‘Perfect,’ a voice breathed.

I must have closed my eyes at some point for I now opened them.

Somehow I knew what had happened to me. My white duck trousers and black boots had gone, and had been replaced by filmy green. I raised my arms and my calico shirt was no more. My arms were clothed in layers of silky green like the leaves of lilies.

I stared at the stranger.

‘What have you done?’ I whispered.

‘I have made you invisible,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘No you haven’t,’ I whispered. ‘Look!’

I lifted my green-cloaked arm, displaying it to him.

‘Oh, yes, I have, little Loblolly Boy,’ Mr Wicker said. ‘You can see you. I can see you. But,’ he gestured towards the others clustered at the other end of the jolly-boat, ‘not one of those benighted souls can see you.’

I didn’t believe him. ‘They must be able to,’ I whispered urgently.

‘Allow me to demonstrate,’ murmured Mr Wicker, and then he turned towards the other men and raised his voice. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘have any of you seen that little loblolly boy? I just wanted to ask him something but he appears to have completely vanished!’

As one, the men, the doctor and the captain lifted their heads from their lethargy to look my way. Their eyes registered confusion. They looked right and left and then apparently convinced that I was no longer on the boat, peered over the gunwales presuming me in the water.

Captain Lightower gave Mr Wicker a venomous look and cried, ‘What have you done with him, you devil?’

Mr Wicker merely shrugged.

‘You’ve pushed
him
into the briny as well! One thing I promise you!’ the captain raised his finger. ‘If we ever get off this cursed boat I’ll not rest until you’re swinging from the yardarm!’

‘Thank you for your offer, Captain,’ said Mr Wicker cheerfully, ‘but I rather like the collar I have! And I’ve no intention of exchanging it for a rope one, now or in the future.’

‘Where is he, dammit!’ said the captain, ignoring the jest.

‘Honestly, Captain,’ insisted Mr Wicker. ‘I do not know. One moment he was here, the next he was not. Perhaps he has become invisible?’

Dr Hatch stared with bleary eyes. ‘Man overboard!’ he cried.

‘I imagine he
must
have slipped overboard, Doctor,’ said Mr Wicker. ‘You are no doubt correct. I imagine too that your loblolly boy might have far preferred a watery grave to the fate some of his crewmates were planning for him …’

Meanwhile those crewmates had once again rocked the little boat about in their efforts to check the ocean for any traces of me and retreated to their places once it was clear that, like Stone, I had gone completely.

‘It’s true,’ I whispered. ‘They can’t see me …’

‘Nor hear you,’ said Mr Wicker, ‘shout as you may.’

I looked at him. ‘Why have you done this?’

He smiled at me. ‘Oh, for perfectly selfish reasons, little boy,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever done anything for any other reason, when I consider the matter. But be grateful … my selfishness has been your delivery.’

I raised my arms to look at them once more. What had happened to me?

‘There’s more,’ whispered Mr Wicker, ‘much more and more to come. But for the moment, why do you not try yourself out?’

I understood why he was whispering. Otherwise, the other men on board would think he was crazed, so crazed he was talking to the air itself.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Get closer to them. I’ll swear nobody will grab you now.’

‘I’ll rock the boat.’

‘Try …’

I tried. I made my way past him and stepped towards the men. The boat did not rock or wobble. It simply rolled gently in the ocean swell as it had before. It rolled idly from side to side as if I weighed nothing. I took a couple of paces further until I could have reached out and touched the nearest slouching sailor.

The jolly-boat gave not the slightest indication that somebody was standing upright and walking. I had no more effect on the boat’s motion than would a butterfly.

I was suddenly aware of something else. All day, the heat had beaten down upon us and the Caribbean sun was still shining brightly, yet I felt no warmth, nor cold for that matter. Somehow this new thing I had become was beyond heat and cold.

I turned to Mr Wicker. ‘What has happened to me?’

‘We have more to do,’ whispered Mr Wicker. ‘Come back to me.’

I had no choice. I turned and retreated to the prow again and stood before him. Once more he stared at me gravely and then lifted that hand. Once more I was drawn into his eyes and again the swirling mist and then the darkness.

This time I felt I knew what to expect, and sure enough as the darkness dissipated and the mist began to swirl once again the distant figure began to emerge. But I had been too sure of myself. This time the figure was different, much different, and as it turned to look upon me again I could not help but gasp.

The figure now had wings, great green angel’s wings rising from his shoulders and falling down his back.

And the figure once again approached me through the ever-thinning mist. As before, his face was impassive, but unlike earlier I could now see the wings, beautiful green wings, outstretched behind him. As before the creature raised his arms as if reaching for the heavens, but this time he now leapt and as he leapt his wings lifted and beat at the air and the creature kept rising into a sky which grew darker and darker as he rose, until he was finally swallowed by blackness.

I was swallowed by this blackness as well. But then, as earlier, it began to fade and gradually the day returned.

‘Excellent,’ Mr Wicker murmured.

And this was how it happened. This was how I was transported, strangely, miraculously from a loblolly boy into the Loblolly Boy and my world changed forever.

I stood before Mr Wicker, blinking against the light. My body felt strange, different, and I glanced over my shoulder and then over the other shoulder, knowing even as I did so what I would find.

I saw the green feathers layered upon each other with an emerald iridescence. I flexed my shoulders and they rippled with the desire for flight.

‘I’m sure you’ll pick it up very quickly, little Loblolly Boy,’ murmured Mr Wicker, and in case I did not understand his meaning he lifted his hands to hold up the sky.

I did understand.

Some impulse within me needed no second bidding.

I leapt into the air and it was as if I had been leaping into the air all of my existence. My wings lifted me higher and higher and I turned seeking an updraught and found one and I rose and rose, my wings beating easily, effortlessly.

Then, stretching my wings like a gull, I let myself glide in a great lazy circle. I looked below. Bobbing gently on the glittering blue water, the jolly-boat floated, the men on board no bigger than buttons. Only one looked up to follow my flight: Mr Wicker. One hand shielding his eyes from the sun, he gazed up at me as if saluting, and in a way, I guessed he was. Clearly, none of the others on the boat had the slightest idea that I was riding the air high above them.

Stretching my wings and seeking another updraught, I strove even higher and higher until the jolly-boat looked to be little more than a dark leaf floating on the bright water. Now I could see the vastness of the ocean below me and scattered here and there patches of green ringed with gold.

These were islands, sometimes gathered in small groups, sometimes solitary. I could make out occasionally a tall ship and one of these I could see was not so far from the
jolly-boat
as the crow flies. I almost smiled at the idea. As the
Loblolly Boy
flies, I corrected myself.

I flew over some of the nearer islands and it was as if I were flying over a chart, but a chart such as no master mariner could have imagined. Nobody has ever seen the world like this, I marvelled, as the maps of islands spread out below me in wondrous colour and astonishing detail.

My transformation, my new body and being, my invisibility, and now my flying had all come upon me so suddenly I had no time to come to grips with what it all might mean, or how it might have happened. I had heard of evil magicians who were able to fix you with their eyes then put you into a trance like a waking dream. This is what Mr Wicker must have done, I imagined. I had been lost in the darkness of his glittering eyes, and I had entered that darkness in one form and emerged in another. This was all I could come up with to explain what had happened to me.

It must be some marvellous dream, even though such a dream I had never before experienced, for it was so utterly real. But at that moment, I did not care. I exalted in this sheer freedom of being a master of the air, I who had been a slave and drudge of a drunken sot. I was ecstatic in this sudden and wonderful erasure of terror, I who had been afraid for weeks of cuffs, of kicks, of the dreaded cat and, just minutes past, of being butchered, of being eaten.

I knew this dream would end, and possibly badly, but while I was able to soar and dip and dive in a blue sky high above a bluer sea I did not care a whit. I stretched my arms, I stretched my wings, and my silky garments and flowing hair streamed behind me.

I don’t know how long this first transport into the delight of flying took me. It did not really matter. I seemed to be beyond time as well as beyond the bounds of earthly existence. However, there came a moment when I thought,
And now
… and I realised that the only thing I could think of doing next was to return to the jolly-boat and the man who had somehow wrought this change in me: the stranger, the passenger, Mr Wicker.

However, no sooner had this thought of returning occurred to me then somehow it became more than a thought. It became something I had no choice about, a compelling summons. I felt myself being tugged, like a fish on the end of a line.

Obediently, I wheeled about and descended, scanning the sea below for the tell-tale leaf on the water that was the jolly-boat. I must have flown many leagues from it for it was hard to find. Eventually, however, I did spot the little boat bobbing far below and I lifted my wings and circled even lower, and then shortly thereafter dropped lightly into my spot in the bow and folded my wings against my back.

I was aware that Mr Wicker had been watching my descent keenly all the while, still shading his eyes.

‘Well, little Loblolly Boy, you have returned,’ he said. ‘And how was it for you so high in the air?’

‘It was wonderful,’ I breathed, still overcome with the miracle of it. All the same, remembering how I had been drawn back to the boat so insistently, I did glance apprehensively at the man who had brought about this transformation in me.