The Casquette Girls (41 page)

The fiery feeling in my palms subsided, and my shoulders relaxed. I apologized and told him that we hadn’t meant to intrude.

“Do not worry,
mesdemoiselles
. I bring no harm to you,” he said. “It is quite da opposite. My name is Makandal, and I have a favor to ask of you.”

Cosette and I exchanged glances, and I motioned for him to continue.

“I realize dat what I ask of you is as enormous as da moon herself, but it is a matter of life or death. You have been blessed by Mother Earth, and der is no one else whom I can trust with this favor.” He came closer and bent one knee to the ground. “I will be forever in your debt if you oblige. I beg you. You must take my sister with you to
La Nouvelle-Orléans
. Dey will show her no mercy for my actions.”

(cont.)

After only a short sleep, I met Cosette in the vegetable garden, and we ran hand in hand down the property until we came to the first field of sugarcane, where we had promised to meet Makandal. When we arrived at the rendezvou
s
point, he was already waiting in the dark, hugging the girl we had promised to sneak onto the ship before everyone else boarded at dawn. I was shocked to see his sister was the same beautiful girl who had brought me the
crème brûlée.
She also wore a red scarf around her upper left arm.

“Je vous présente ma sœur, Marassa Makandal,
”
he said to us.

“Enchanté,”
we both whispered and then retreated back into the sugarcane to give them a moment of privacy and allow them to say their goodbyes. We all knew it would be their final exchange, although none of us had dared say so aloud.

From a few feet away, partially hidden among the stalks, we waited patiently in silence.

“I promise dat I will be right behind you to live our new lives together,” Makandal told the teary-eyed girl as he embraced her.

The girl cried and spoke words to her brother that we couldn’t understand, making giant tears roll from his determined eyes.
In that moment it somehow became obvious that the boy was a born martyr – he loved his sister, but was willing to let her go to serve a greater cause. Any doubts I might have had about our decision to help them were now feelings of the past.

“What have we here?” a voice bellowed, and suddenly a large white man was standing right behind them, outrage visible in his eyes.

Fear flooded Marassa’s face, and we shrank back, hoping he hadn’t seen us in the sugarcane.

“Surely, the makin’s of marooning,” the foreman yelled. “Just wait until the governor hears about this!”

With one solid shove, Makandal pushed his sister into the stalks toward us and yelled to the foreman. “This is no concern of yours.”

The white man’s lumbering fist pounded onto Makandal’s face, and blood gushed from his split nose. Cosette’s hand went around Marassa’s mouth to muffle her screams.

“Take her now!” I whispered. “I will be right behind you. Be safe!”

The disgusting man continued to assault Makandal, who did nothing to retaliate.

My senses were drawn to a rusty blade that had been left lying on the ground in the stalks – a tool used by the slaves to hack down sugarcane. Blood sugar. Anger rose inside me like a growing fire.
Could I really kill a man
?
I could not let Makandal die in a sugar field helping his sister.

There was no more time for thinking, only for action.

I focused on the machete, and it slowly rose from the ground. Up and up it floated until it was high above the crops. Then, with a flick of my wrist, I sent it plunging down over the man.

I watched in astonishment as the blade pierced the earth, missing the foreman – and yet he still landed on the ground with a bone-crushing thud. A flash of teeth gleamed before they sank into the flesh of his neck, spraying crimson across the tall stalks.

The sun began to rise, throwing a million shades of pink across the sky as the blond head bobbed up and down, feeding, feasting, finishing off the foreman. Goosebumps tore through my flesh. I told myself to run, but my legs seemed paralyzed. I hardly want to admit it, but I was oddly exhilarated by the display of sheer power.

“What have I done?” whispered Makandal, barely conscious but gazing at the creature with horror.

I rushed to him, promising that his sister would be safe with me. “Please don’t be frightened,” I begged, but my fingers trembled as I squeezed his hand.

The blond looked at us with rabid eyes as crystalline as the Caribbean Sea. He remained in a crouched position and edged our way, squinting in the dawn light.

Protectively, I hovered over Makandal, but the monster pushed me aside with one sudden movement. I protested, but my words tapered when I saw he wasn’t looking for a second course. Instead, the vampire looked kindly into Makandal’s dark brown eyes and said in a soothing hum, “Everything went as planned. You succeeded in your mission to get your sister off the island. She is going to be fine. You are free to do great things.”

An aura of triumph washed over Makandal’s face, and his breathing slowed.

The monster drew his own wrist to his mouth, bit down deeply, and then held the bleeding punctures over the boy’s mouth. He waited patiently as the blood dripped over his lips and seeped down his throat. I found myself inching closer in amazement as the boy’s ribs began to snap back into place and his wounds began to heal.

My senses were wildly confused as the vampire rose and I finally saw his face in the light. He looked so much like a man, and not at all like the hideous creature I had dreamt about all of those nights at sea. The burning in my hands pulsed as if unsure what to do.

He looked at the foreman’s corpse and then back to me and said in perfect French, “Every species has their monsters.”

I nodded and stood. “Are you the man— do I call you a man?”

“Well, I’m certainly not a woman,” he answered and taunted me with a devilish smile.

“Are you the man who met the triplets on our last night in Paris?”

“
Si, signorin
a
.
Stubborn, those three.” He smirked and licked the foreman’s spilled blood from his own hand. “Mmmm… sweet… tropical.”

He focused on the task for another moment before raising his head back to me. “Luckily for me, I found someone else willing to oblige. Unfortunately, my brother wasn’t as lucky.” He searched my eyes for acknowledgment, of which I gave him none. “But don’t fret; I’m sure he found a willing passenger on the next boat out from Paris. My brother can be very… persuasive.” He walked closer and reached for my hand. “But apparently, so can you. Gabriel Medici.
Enchanté
.” He gently kissed it.

“Adeline Saint-Germain,” I whispered. The brush of his cool lips sent a shiver up my arm, clashing with the fiery defenses wanting to leap from my fingers.

“Of course,” he said. “We all know who you are,
bella
.”

“Medici?” I stuttered, not understanding why a vampire would know who I was. “That’s quite a famous name.”

“
S
i
.
But not nearly as infamous as yours.” He took another step closer, his leg brushing my skirts.

“You know, I had everything under control here.” I tried to assert myself, but my voice cracked at an unfortunate moment.

“
Si, si
. I didn’t kill that man because you were in over your head,
signorina Saint-Germain
. I killed that man so you wouldn’t have to.”

He licked the rest of the blood from his teeth, and my heart pounded so deep I felt like I was standing on top of a Kongo drum. His fangs slowly retracted, making him appear even more like a normal man. He came one step closer, causing me to step back. My shoulders knocked against the tall sugarcane stalks, but closer still he leaned until it was more than my skirts that he touched.

“I am sure one day you will have to kill a man, but there is no need for that day to be today.”

“
Merci beaucoup,”
I whispered, trying not to choke on my own breath.

A loud whistle grabbed my attention. “The boat is boarding!”

When I looked back to Gabriel, all I saw were the sticky stalks of sugarcane bending in the breeze.

I
lowered down to Makandal and kissed the top of his head.

“
Vive la révolution,
”
he whispered beneath the tremors of a breaking fever. He brushed my cheek, and his eyes rolled back as he began to chant words over me.

“We will be like sisters,” I promised, giving his hand one final squeeze before I took off running.

My lungs stung, pushing the humid air in and out as I raced to the ship. Frantic, I told myself Captain Vauberci would never set sail without me.

When I arrived at the dock, everyone was waiting for me. The governor and captain were talking by the boarding ramp – both looked relieved when I approached. I apologized for being late and told them I had decided to take one last stroll in the beautiful garden and lost track of time. The captain glanced at the state of my dress and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The governor accepted my excuse with good cheer and took me aside to present a gift he had loaded onto the boat for you, Father, as a gesture of goodwill. Six giant barrels of sugar, along with the message that you are welcome in the Caribbean any time. Papa, the vastitude of your reputation never ceases to amaze me.

When the crew weighed anchor, I hoped that, by some miracle, our stowaways had seen this tropical oasis and decided to stay on the island, but the chills that rippled up my arms as the boat set sail told me otherwise. As horrible as it sounds, I hoped that at least they had left the boat to feed. We still had five hundred leagues to go. At one time I would have celebrated this, but now that we had been forced back into the role of caged prey, every league might as well have been a lifetime.

That night when I dreamt, our monster’s face was no longer horrid. His face was Gabriel Medici’s.

(cont.)

For four weeks we hid Marassa in my private cabin with little effort. That was until one morning when the vessel jerked to a halt and flung us both from my bed.

I lifted myself up, and she rolled from underneath me. “
Désolée
,” I apologized. “I should have strapped myself with the rope.”

I quickly threw on my cloak and boots and ran out to see what had caused the jolt.

Half the crew, including the captain, were leaning over one side of the ship, while others flooded up from below deck.

“Captain, looks like we hit a sand bar,” said one of the men. “Good thing the winds are calm. No speed. No damage.”

Our vessel might not have incurred any damage, but we were indeed stuck.

Hours went by as the crew attempted to maneuver the ship without getting it to so much as budge. Finally, the captain ordered the men to start tossing things overboard to lighten the ship’s load and float us off the sand.

First, he ordered the thirty-seven barrels of pirate rum to be thrown over. Watching the crew lament the spirits, you would have thought they were throwing over their own mothers. Sadly, it was done in vain. Next went forty-two barrels of wine. When this didn’t change our fate, the captain ordered the cannons overboard. I stayed on the deck and focused on each of the iron weapons, lifting them up just enough to take some of the burden off the tired crew. Two more stagnant hours went by. People grew restless knowing we had abandoned our weapons, also in vain.

“
Mesdames et Messieurs
,
”
said the captain. “I was hoping we could avoid it, but it appears the time has come when we have no choice but to throw the passenger luggage overboard if we are to stand a chance at survival.”

“Isn’t there something we can do?” I whispered to the triplets.

“Unfortunately, I can only persuade the hearts of men, not sand,” Cosette responded, looking at me with hopeful eyes. “Can you not?”

“I don’t see how a fire is going to help get us out of this one.”

Being ladies of God and not attached to their material possessions, the nuns volunteered their luggage first. The orphans wept, realizing their
cassettes
would be next. The long boxes containing their gifts from the King were the only security they had going into the New World.

After the nuns’ luggage was tossed and the ship still didn’t move, the captain ordered the
cassettes
to the deck. The girls tried to hold back their emotions, as they knew our survival was more important than their dowries.

“But what kind of life are we surviving for?” one of them cried and burst into tears.

The men emerged from below, carrying the first wooden box as if they were casket-bearers. The mood was somber as they passed the mourners on the deck.