Pirate's Wraith, The (9 page)

“I guess I got lucky. What happened to my cotton sweats?”

“Sweats?”

“My exercise outfit. My black pants and shirt. What did you do with them?”

“You were ...” The doctor coughed and then whispered. “...naked, but unhurt. It is incomprehensible—unless ... the clothing protected you but was burned away.”

Her cheeks grew hot. “Who saw me naked?”

“Only the captain and I.” The doctor stilled her hand. “I will take that now.” He lifted the pot and poured the contents into the cloth-lined bowl. “As soon as this cools, you squeeze out all the liquid. Make sure to get out every last drop.”

Lesley figured it would be best to keep her mouth shut about her origin. Otherwise, he would accuse her of being a witch just like the captain. Still, the lightning business intrigued her. After all, lightning hit her car as it spun—in 2011. The doctor deliberately attracted lightning in 1711—same calendar day, same place, same hour of the day as near as she could guess. Was it a coincidence? Did a logical explanation exist?

Could she duplicate the circumstances and return home? She shivered. More than likely, if she tried to return she would kill herself in the attempt. Her lower lip trembled as she thought of all she had left back in 2011. If only she could send her sister one last text message.

I <3 u. Kiss the kidlets 4 me. Send them 2 Harvard w/my blessings. Miss u 4 ever.

Her throat ached as tears threatened and she struggled to hold them back.

She thought about her missing sweats. They were manufactured in a way not invented yet in 1711. Maybe that’s why they vanished.

Maybe.

But the captain had seen her without a stitch and evidently enjoyed the view. A lot.

But why was she here? Why wasn’t she killed in her journey through time?

The doctor knelt at the side of a sailor who looked about seventeen, if that. The kid should be graduating from high school. Instead, he lay dying in this horrid ship from a gruesome wound. What would his poor mother do when she found out?

“Ach, I hate to see these young fellows suffer,” the doctor sighed. “I had hoped the lightning held a healing power capable of curing their wounds.”

She ground her teeth together. “What’s with all this fighting business? Why can’t it stop?” She briefly considered the fact that it might be better to die quickly in 1711 rather than to suffer through a life of terrible hardship.

Dr. Gilroy placed two coins on each of the young sailor’s eyes. “The forces of darkness and the forces of light have been battling since the beginning of time.”

Lesley fought the inclination to weep. She reminded herself that she had to play the part of a cabin boy—and boys did not cry.

“Is this heaven or hell?” Her words came out tight and high.

“Many have wondered, but it matters little. We must live out our destiny.” He sounded like a New Age spiritualist. If he lived in 2011, he could write a bestselling book and appear on talk shows.

He boiled herbs and bark. Why hadn’t he been strung up for being a witch? Or were only women considered witches in this chauvinistic society?

The doctor went from patient to patient, tending each of them in some rudimentary way.
Some other crewmembers came to remove the dead.

The liquid in the bowl cooled and Lesley lifted the cloth edges to
twist the herbs into a tight knot. The brew looked like muddy tea as she squeezed out the juices, but it had a pleasant aroma. As she finished, the doctor came back. He added a splash of rum to the mixture along with a dollop of molasses. Then he dipped mugs into the decoction.

“Help the men drink from the cup—those that are able. This will bring down the fever.”

She nodded her understanding and proceeded to dole out the medicinal cocktail as the doctor did the same. 

“Did you know you remind the cap’n of someone?” he asked as they made their way along the rows of wounded men.

“No.” The captain reminded her of someone, but she would not reveal that to the doctor.

“It is someone who caused him much pain.”

Terrific.
Obviously, she reminded the captain of a witch. Just her luck.

If she was a witch, she would be sitting on the couch back home with a huge slice of pizza and a cold beer. Her pizza would be covered with pepperoni, meatballs, crumbled sausages, and roasted red peppers. It would be coated with a generous helping of Parmesan cheese—so liberally applied it would resemble snow. 

Dammit.
She would never taste pizza again. How could she survive in 1711?

Then she remembered the funerals. She stood.

“The captain expected me to show up for the burials on deck.” 

Dr. Gilroy frowned at her. “Did you not hear the boson’s whistle?”

She shook her head.

“No matter. The cap’n knows I need assistance with the wounded and you seem to have a gift for healing.”

“I wanted to become a doctor.”

“But ... that would be impossible.” He chuckled.

She glared at him. In this backward era women had babies, cooked, cleaned, and died. Oh, and maybe they did a little embroidery along the way if they had the chance, but without washing machines, microwave ovens, and the usual timesaving devices of the twenty-first century, women worked from dawn till dusk without any let up.              

Good thing they disguised her as a boy. She ought to continue in the role for her own well-being.

Lesley rubbed her forehead. Why didn’t it hurt anymore? Had the pressure of being the best pharmaceutical rep for Quixotic caused her more stress than she could handle?

Or had trying to love Jim been the root of her migraines?

“Tell me who the boson is and what the whistles mean.” She went back for more of the decoction for another patient.

“Our boson is Mr. Lallyput.”

For no reason at all, she started to laugh when she heard the name. “Are ... you ... serious?” She tried to stop laughing but found it impossible. “It ... sounds ... like Lilliput ... or lollipop.” Tears eked out of the corners of her eyes. Her emotions had gotten way out of hand.

“He’s a good bosun. Always fair to the men.”

It took a few moments, but Lesley finally got a hold of herself and calmed down.

“Sorry I laughed, but this whole situation is so unreal. It’s like I’ve been dropped down into the middle of Oz
.
”

“Oz?”

She nearly winced. She had to be more careful about what she said. “It’s a fairy tale I heard. It’s not a real place. Just imaginary.”

“The men enjoy stories. You should entertain them.”

She thought about that, but the story of Oz involved witches—granted there was a good one and a bad one, but the whole idea of witches might not go over well. Especially since the hangings in Salem occurred not that long ago.

She knelt beside a young boy named John who shivered violently. “This is warm and Dr. Gilroy says it will bring your fever down.”

Poor John’s teeth chattered but he nodded and tried to sit up by leaning against the bulkhead. He looked about fourteen. Lesley guessed child labor laws had not been enacted yet.

The kid could barely hold the mug and got more of the brew on him than in him, but he mumbled his thanks despite his misery.

As he drained the mug, she stood up and found Mr. Hooper glaring at her with his squinty eyes. “Come with me, boy. We need more hands.”

Lesley glowered right back at him. “The captain sent me here.”

“You’re going aloft.” The quartermaster made a move to grab her shirt, but she ducked and ran to the doctor’s side.

“I’m supposed to help you. Right?” she asked.

“They’ll be stretching new canvas, Lesley. You’ll do fine.”

“You told me I’ve a talent for healing the sick.”

“Indeed, you do.” The doctor sighed as he picked up another mug. “But orders are orders and we’ll be needing a new sail if we hope to get the sick to New Providence.” He gave her a weak smile but his eyes had the glint of tears in them. “It’s a weary road we’re on. Too much to do in this life and not enough hands to do it.”

“Get moving you sniveling excuse for a sailor.” Mr. Hooper growled.

She dashed for the stairway. If the quartermaster touched her his hands could land in the wrong spot and he would discover her deception.

Her heart pounded. How far aloft did she have to climb? She thought of that poor sailor hanging by his foot in the rigging. What if that happened to her?

Mr. Hooper must have failed in getting the prisoners to help out. Either that, or he had inadvertently killed them in an effort to coerce them to join the crew.

Her body shook far worse than that of the poor young boy with the fever when she glanced up at the mast she was ordered to climb. The rain fell lightly and left everything slippery.

She had no choice in the matter. Mr. Hooper stood over her and shouted. He used a number of very strange obscenities—none of which she had ever heard until now, but she got the message and climbed upward.

She wound up at the end of the yardarm, frozen in terror whenever she looked down.

“Like this, lad.” The sailor beside her, Aloysius Meeker, showed her what to do. It would not have been a difficult task if the ship did not sway and the rain did not make her fingers slide. Though she did not have long fingernails, working with the heavy canvas broke every nail down to the nub.

Still, the worst part of the entire procedure came from enduring the close proximity of Aloysius. He reeked of an odor reminiscent of broken sewers, decomposing flesh and mold. Whenever the wind blew in her direction, the stench had her stomach churning with nausea.

Aloysius had very few teeth in his mouth and he used the filthiest language she had ever heard. He grumbled about the first mate. In gruesome detail, he talked of how he intended to kill him. He intended to do away with the captain, too.

“He’s a high and mighty bastard, strutting on the deck, living a fine life—drinking wine while we is served putrid water. Join me, lad, and we’ll take over this ship. We’ll sail the seven seas, take what we need, and live like kings.”

She figured kings in 1711 probably didn’t have soap, lattes, central air or heat. However, more than likely they did have fine wine and other spirits to ease their distress. The potent liquor the captain had handed to her had been mighty soothing, but she far preferred the niceties of life in 2011 over living in an alcohol induced fog.

“Isn’t that mutiny?”

“And what of it?” Aloysius added a string of curses to his diatribe. “We know how to run this ship better ‘n they do. Why it’s us who does all the labor while they sits and eats fresh pork and washes it down with wine. What do we get? Water so putrid even the rats turn up their noses at it.”

“Didn’t the crew recently steal a whole bunch of rum and drink it until everyone became senseless?”

“Better to drink the rum than to puke on the water.”

Lesley admitted he had a good point there. She stared into his weather beaten face as the wind shifted direction away from her. She wondered if the venom in his heart had woven all the wrinkles on his face. “How old are you?”

“About thirty-five now. My mother said I was born around the time of Bacon’s Rebellion, in Jamestown.”

He looked more like fifty-five. She touched her face. Dry as a bone. Without her moisturizers and sunscreen her skin could become as creased and brown as that of Aloysius. He probably weighed far less than her. Maybe the putrid water had turned him into an evil, foul-mouthed gnome or maybe the man could use a slab of meat.

“What was Bacon’s Rebellion?” she asked.

“A terrible time
. My mother said I came early with her being so worried.”

Lesley had never heard of Bacon’s Rebellion. Had it even been mentioned in school?

At last they completed the job and she returned to the deck. Her knees had the consistency of gummy worms and could barely support her.

“Ya did well, lad.” Aloysius nodded. “Think about what I said to ya, lad.”

“I want to go home,” she mumbled as she sank onto a coil of rope.

Aloysius laughed and went below, mentioning something about sleep and food on the way, but Lesley did not feel like moving. She thought of gnawing on more of that dreadful hardtack, but sleep sounded like a glorious option and she could sleep right where she sat. She thought of her fine percale sheets and delightfully soft mattress at home. She slid down to the deck, and leaned her head back on the rope coil. When she closed her eyes the sounds of the ship faded and she began to drift off. She smiled as she stepped into her condo and headed toward the bathroom. Turning on the hot water to fill the tub, she poured in a capful of her favorite lavender bubble bath. Scented steam filled the room and she slipped out of her filthy sailor’s uniform.

“There you are.” The voice of Christopher Moody startled her and her heavenly dream faded. “So young, so soft ....” He smoothed his sweaty palm down her cheek. She edged away from him. “Come with me, I need you to help me with something.” His voice had a silky lilt to it, but it sent ice sliding down her spine. Every nerve in her body tensed as her own inner warning system went off.