Wild Bells to the Wild Sky (18 page)

Valentine stood for a moment longer by the windows as he watched his aunt walk away. He stared out into the darkness, hearing the restless sound of the sea in the distance. Never before had it sounded so mournful to him.

Full fathom five they father lies'

Of his bones are coral made:

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

S
hakespeare

Chapter Nine

E
astward
, as far as the eye could see, there was shimmering, turquoise water. Closer to shore, the colors changed in hue, from palest green in the shallows, to indigo where the deep-water channel cut through the purple and rust of the sunken coral reefs ringing the island. Bright splashes of sea foam curled around the rocky headlands where tall pines bent to the winds. But it was now a gentle breeze that whispered through the palms fringing the sun-warmed, white sands of the beach.

A wandering trail of footsteps
patterned
the smooth surface of the sands until the tide swept high, washing away any trace of human trespass.

"He's been here, Lily! Look! Here are his tracks!" Tristram cried out as he raced ahead, his thin brown legs sending the sand flying out behind his bare heels.

Dulcie, who had been hunting for shells, squealed with fear. Her shrill cry startled the woolly monkey that had been contentedly grooming himself on the edge of the tidal pool. His frightened squeal echoing Dulcie's, Capabells scampered along the sand and reached Lily's side before the little girl. Clinging to Lily's shoulder, his long tail
wrapped
around her neck and one of his small black hands entwined in the thick braid hanging down her back, he scolded Dulcie as she grasped Lily's hand and pressed close.

"Choco won't hurt you," Lily said reassuringly, but her gaze searched the densely wooded inland areas. Her eyes, the same shade as the shallows, were narrowed against the glare off the water as she sought a swiftly moving shadow, one that was far darker than those cast by the trees or the thick undergrowth.

"He'll eat us alive! I don't like him, Lily. Why can't he stay away?" Dulcie cried, tears threatening as she pressed closer to her sister.

"Sshhh, 'tis all right. I won't let
him
hurt you. He likes you."

"He only likes you, Lily. He woke me up last night. He was right outside the window, and he sounded mad. He was
screaming
for a long time. I thought he was going to come inside and get me. Did you hear Cappie? He was chattering and running around the room. He knocked over the dishes, then he hid under my blanket," Dulcie said, shivering despite the warmth on her shoulders from the noonday sun.

Lily smiled slightly. She had heard Choco prowling close last night too. The bloodcurdling cries had sent a shiver down her spine, but she hadn't been frightened like Dulcie. She liked to hear the wild sound of the jaguar's cry in the night.

Black as the night he roamed freely, his eyes glowing like topazes; Choco was seldom seen or heard during the day. It had been different when the jaguar had been a half-drowned cub rescued
from
the surf a couple of years ago. She had held him in her lap then, snuggling him close while hand-feeding him bits of fish and crab. He had mewed and purred like a kitten, but her mother had warned her that Choco was a wild cat, a
tigre enojado
, captured from the jungles of the mainland. Basil had said the cub was a rare jaguar. Most were spotted, but Choco had soft dark fur with black rosettes that showed just faintly. For months Choco had followed her around like a puppy, jumping playfully at her feet, tripping over his own clumsy paws as he'd raced along the sands.

As he had grown, his muscles had thickened and rippled beneath his sleek coat. Soon he had been leaping into the surf and jumping into the tidal pools to catch his own din
ner. S
eldom did Choco come away without a struggling fish hooked on a curving claw before his jaws clamped down on the tasty morsel, which he guarded with an outstretched paw and warning growl should anyone have strayed too close.

With the passing of the years, the jaguar had sought less and less the company of the human castaways on the island. Every so often Lily caught the flash of something black in the tangle of lush undergrowth, but just as quickly it had vanished. Once, when she had been exploring deeper into the pine forest on the far side of the island, she had been startled to find Choco crouched menacingly above her on an overhanging bough. His golden eyes had been little more than glowing slits, and never before had she realized how long and curved his fangs were. For an instant she had thought he was going to leap down on her. Then he had caught her familiar scent, and making that strange, hoarse cry, his long tail twitching as if irritated at having been cheated out of his prey, he had disappeared.

"Looks like he caught himself a turtle," Tristram said as he examined an area farther up the beach and out of the tide's reach.

"We're next! We're next!
Prraaaa! Prraaaa! Praack!
He's goin' to eat us alive!"

"Keep quiet, Cisco!" Lily said as the bright green parrot perched on her shoulder squawked in imitation of Dulcie.

"Prraaack!
Keep quiet, Cisco! Lift a leg, Tristram!"

Tristram pushed out of his eyes the thick lock of dark red hair that had
fallen
across his forehead and glared at the parrot. "What are we having for supper tonight?" he demanded with a warning glint in his brown eyes.

"Prraaack!"
Cisco cried before beginning to preen his feathers.

"If you don't help me catch something, then we won't be having any dinner tonight," Lily reminded her young brother.

Tristram Francisco Christian, almost seven years old, stood up proudly. "Have I ever not done my duty?" he demanded, his bronze eyes flashing with indignation.

Just turned fourteen, Lily stood a head taller than her hot-blooded young brother. "How is it, then, that I found you snoring away the hours yesterday when you should have been watching for any sails on the horizon?" Lily retorted, her cheeks flushing with anger, for Lily and Tristram had not only inherited their Spanish mother's dark red hair but her quick temper as well.

"I didn't fall asleep," Tristram denied, but not quite as stoutly as before. "I was shielding my eyes."

"I am just thankful that you did not open them to find a French corsair's sword at your throat or a galleon flying the royal arms of Spain. Basil always said 'twould be far worse to be rescued by an enemy than not rescued at all. What if he hadn't been vigilant the day those French pirates came ashore. They murdered their own captain. A mutiny, Tristram! Father always said mutineers were worse than having the plague aboard. If Basil hadn't seen them before they saw us, well
.
.
." Lily left unspoken the rest of her speculations as she glanced down and met Dulcie's wide dark eyes staring up at her. "As captain of this isle, I may have to take severe measures to guard against such behavior happening again."

Tristram stared at his sister in growing dismay. "What do you mean? I am still first mate!" he squeaked. "I am, aren't I?"

"I may have to return you to the duties of a lowly swabber," Lily answered, apparently unforgiving. "Father wouldn't have had you aboard longer than it would have taken to toss you overboard. He'd the best crew that sailed the seas. He would have been very disappointed in his only son."

"Lily!" Tristram cried, crestfallen. "He would have been proud of me. He would've! He would've! 'Tis the only time I've ever fallen asleep while on duty. I won't do it again. I promise! I want to be first mate, Lily."

"I'm the bos'n's mate," Dulcie chimed in importantly.

"Well, I suppose you can still be my first mate. But I'd better not ever catch you not pulling your weight again," she warned, trying to keep her voice stern.

Tristram stared down at his bare feet and said sulkily beneath his breath, "I don't know who made you captain anyway. You're a girl. Captains are supposed to be men with beards."

"I hardly think you would make a very good captain, since I am the only one who has ever sailed the seas with Father," Lily reminded him. "Besides, you don't have a beard either."

"One day I will. I wish I had sailed with him. He would have let me, wouldn't he, Lily? He would've been proud of me. I would never have let him down. Basil said I was a good lad. He said I was just like father. Basil said he would have been proud to call me his son. Father would have too, wouldn't he, Lily?" Tristram demanded hopefully. "Wouldn't he?"

"Aye, he would have, Tris," Lily agreed, unable to hurt him, for he really was a good lad even if he did occasionally fall asleep while on duty.

"Do you think anyone is ever going to come and rescue us?" Tristram asked as he stared out to sea.

"One day we will see the red cross of St. George. 'Tis the flag Englishmen fly. Then, and only then, we will be rescued. Basil said not to show ourselves to anybody else."

"I thought the wild white horses were going to rescue us," five-year-old Dulcie demanded.

"That's just a fable. There's no truth to it," Tristram told her bluntly. "I don't even believe there is a red cross of St. George. No one is ever going to come here. We're goin' to get old and die here, our bones sticking out of the sand."

"Now see what you've done," Lily said, trying to quiet Dulcie, who had started to cry.

"Are we goin' to die, Lily?" she wailed, her small shoulders shaking.

Dejectedly, Tristram looked down at his bare feet. Glancing up, he asked Dulcie, "You want to help me find some rock crabs?"

Dulcie raised her tearstained face from Lily's waist. "I can help you? Truly?" she asked, her tears vanishing.

"Do you want to come, Lily?" Tristram asked hesitantly, for he was never certain nowadays what mood his sister would be in.

"You and Dulcie go ahead. I'll follow," she said, playfully kicking a spray of water over Tristram's feet.

"You are not mad?" he asked, splashing her. When she shook her head, he grinned. "Come on, Dulcie! I'll race you!"

At a slower pace, Cisco and Capabells still clinging to her shoulders, Lily followed her brother and sister toward the rocky headland in the distance. Beyond that, where the waves broke against the hidden reefs, a Spanish galleon had gone aground and sunk.

Its rotting timbers were all that remained. Tristram said it looked like some dead sea monster, its bleached ribs broken against the rocks and picked clean by the sea. Lily had to admit that its desolate appearance, especially when there was a full moon and a howling wind through the trees, made her uneasy. Tristram, whose imagination ran wild sometimes, said the rocks where the galleon had sunk were haunted. He claimed he'd seen the ghosts of the drowned sailors and passengers walking out of the shallows, crying to be saved from the storm that had carried their ship to its watery grave.

Lily turned her gaze away from the ship's skeleton and climbed after Tristram and Dulcie. They were busy searching the rocky crevices on the lower slope of the headland. Finding a comfortable spot beneath a scrubby pine, Lily sat down. Capabells swung into the tree, chattering to himself as he climbed to the top. Sitting cross-legged, Lily leaned back against the gnarled bark of the pine and gazed out upon the empty horizon, wondering if Tristram was right and they never would be rescued from the island.

Lily glanced down at the jeweled locket that dangled from a golden chain about her neck. She held it tightly in her palm, then unclasping the tiny lock, she stared down at the miniature portraits of her mother and father. With a sigh, she closed it. Poor Tristram. He had never known their father. She had tried to tell him of their father's bravery. She had told him how he had fearlessly sailed the seas. She had told him how he had taken her high into the rigging to touch the stars.

But it had been Basil who had told them such wonderful stories about him. At first, he only spoke of his friend when they were alone, when her mother was resting. But after Tristram was born, and after her mother started to laugh again, she too spoke of the daring Englishman she had fallen in love with. Lily could still remember how frightened her mother was the night she gave birth to Tristram. Basil had been there to comfort her. He was always there to give a word of advice, to say something that had them smiling and looking forward to the morrow. Lily never felt afraid when Basil was there. They had become a family, she and Tristram, her mother and Basil. The days passed in contentment, and gradually Lily became aware of a change in the way her mother and Basil spoke to one another; the way one would always watch the other when the other wasn't aware.

Lily didn't mind that Basil loved her mother. And she thought her mother must have loved him, too, for they were always exchanging glances, and she had seen them lying together in the darkness. Basil said that they were his
family
, and when Dulcie was born, he said that he could not know any greater happiness.

Lily wiped away a tear. Basil had tried so valiantly to take care of them. He never seemed to lose spirit. He took such pride in building the palm-thatched hut that had become their home. He taught
them
how to start a fire, although not successfully at first. He wove nets and taught them how to catch and prepare the fish, crabs, lobsters, conch, and turtles that were so plentiful. He made a bow and arrows and hunted the wild fowl and pigs that roamed the inland forest. He made a game out of searching for fruits and nuts and discovered the fresh-water springs that bubbled up from the ground and made their survival on the island possible.