Howel Davis (Post 9)
As soon as Blaine left me, I rushed to the forecastle. Since Taylor became captain, I’d had to stash my knapsack elsewhere. It was no longer safe for me to keep my 2009 souvenirs, I realized. If Taylor or Blaine got their hands on my stuff… The Charmed Woman. Those words sounded far too much like witch to me.
I had no time to kiss my things good-bye. I had the most important thing among them — the picture of Sophie — stitched securely on the inside of my breeches. I took out Rovers of the Sea and tucked it under my arm. I wasn’t ready to get rid of the book. Not yet. Before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, I dropped my knapsack over the side of the ship. A sob escaped my lips as the canvas sack disappeared in the waves.
Then I turned my attention to Sky’s book, forcing my thoughts away from the fact that I was quickly losing the tenuous link to my past. I knew the passages about England and Davis by heart, since they were fairly short. The author hadn’t dwelled on them. I shook my head in disgust — apparently, the sinister pirates were far more interesting. I flipped to the index and nervously looked up Taylor.
Taylor, Edmund, 350. Edmund… Was Ned a nickname for Edmund? I flipped to page 350:
Taylor had a humble beginning aboard slavers, but his competency as a seaman was quickly realized. Taylor went on to pursue an honorable career as a pirate hunter for the new governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers… He was killed when, Jack Blaine, a former shipmate-turned-pirate, captured his ship.
Oh, man. I should have guessed. I then looked up Jack Blaine:
Blaine was a former London thief and gambler who found honest work aboard Bristol slavers before deciding to pursue piracy. He became one of the more notorious Golden Age pirates, quickly developing a taste for cruelty… plundered in the Caribbean and off the African coast… “gratified with the cries and groans of his prisoners…often murdered a man from the excess of good humor, as out of passion and resentment… danger lurked in his very smile…”
I found that I was holding my breath as I read. Fabulous. Just what I needed. My luck really couldn’t get any worse. Was I being punished for something? I finished reading Blaine’s entry in a hurry:
…captured the pirate hunter Edmund Taylor’s ship and killed Taylor, a former slaver-ship captain… Blaine was finally captured in 1720… hanged and gibbeted in Jamaica…
“Who goes?”
I shoved the book into my jacket and spun around, exhaling upon seeing the cook, an unhappy little man with patchy facial hair. The discovery that I was a woman made the entire crew uncomfortable — while they’d mercilessly harangued the boy Will, they had no idea what to do with the woman Sabrina. So they settled on avoiding me when possible, which was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. I began to wish I’d revealed myself several weeks ago.
The cook’s eyes darted about, trying not to look me in the face. “Er… I thinks I hear’d rats… They gets into the flour, ye know…” With that, he went about his business, trying his damnedest to pretend I wasn’t standing there.
I traced the outline of the book under the faded canvas. In the wrong hands, this book was dangerous. While I still had no idea whether the future could truly be changed, simply the knowledge of when and where… I thought of Blaine, of how he was bound to seek me out again. How much did he know? I simply couldn’t risk his getting ahold of it. All I needed to know was safely in my head.
In a single movement, I flung Rovers of the Sea into the air and watched, my eyes watering from the wind, as my last tie to Jake and Sophie was swallowed by the sea.
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4 comments More, more! She’s got to free Davis… I agree with debafield….more, more, more…you keep leaving me with so many questions….thanks for only giving us 2 days to wait instead of the usual 5…I think I can be patient enough…I think…. You never know with me, I could shorten the wait suddenly… Last tie? Not quite. She still has the photograph. Regards, Ulf Leave a Comment
