Chapter Three

William let out a slow aggravated breath.

Trapped, with no plan in place for change, he felt a dangerous level of tension building up inside of him. He looked around the Maroon camp, its semi-circle of huts made nearly invisible by the camouflage of the surrounding tropical vegetation.

How long have we been here anyway? It was hurricane season when we were shipwrecked in the first place, but since then? Tess would know. She kept rough track of time with her woman’s cycling.

Time seemed to stand still here. Every day was the same as the one before it. Except for the day they had gone to collect the croc teeth. Now that had been a break in the monotony. William sighed again.

So often, like now, he missed his family back in England so badly that he couldn’t ignore the burning in the pit of his stomach. And then the horrible weight of reality would come crashing down as it always did. His mother and little sister had been abandoned, forced to fend for themselves after both he and his father had been abducted by the British Navy’s press gang. A fresh bolt of pain seared through him–his older brother had not survived the gang’s attack.

William clenched his eyes shut in a useless attempt to stop the next memory from forcing its way to the forefront–that of their bloody escape from the Mary Jane, and the ensuing fight in which William’s father had given up his own life to save William’s.

Another one lost. The only person that he had left now was Tess.

Tess.

He fumed. She was the only good thing to have come out of the damned sea voyage from England to these islands of the West Indies. And, William had to admit to himself, that violent journey stripped her of her family as well. Tess all alone now except for her grandmother, known to most as Emma, and Cassie. Sometimes, however, it was hard for him to share Tess’s attention with the others.

Tess was already a survivor. Courageous. Strong for a woman, William thought, and beautiful. He’d been attracted to her as soon as he’d first laid eyes on her–tiny copper ringlets curling deliciously over her cheekbones, and her eyes as green as the emeralds in the peculiar ring that she wore–life in this wild place was so uncertain that it seemed to magnify every feeling that he had. Was it possible to care too much?

It was time to begin planning, he decided. Time to leave. Time to escape this island and make our way back home to England.

“Well begun is half done.” Emma’s words danced in his head. The older woman seemed to have an endless supply of folksy advice, but she was right–William knew that a change in events in his favor wasn’t going to happen unless he made it happen.

So just what am I gonna do? He’d have to give it some serious thought. And Lord knows, there’s nothing much else to do here other than think.

Startled, he tensed as his thoughts were interrupted by a piercing shriek that shattered the air.

***

Tess scrambled out of the hut’s open doorway and tried to place from where the outcry had come. Her heart thudded in her chest as her eyes came to rest on the scene at the foot of the path that led into the camp.

There, Mambo lay collapsed in a heap on top of something, and a strange keening wail throbbed through the air. Whether it came from her or from Jacko, who was kneeling beside Mambo, Tess couldn’t tell. The sound was raw, primal, and every nerve ending in Tess’s body fired in alarm. Even worse, as though the sound had awakened an omen of impending peril, the itch under her blue tourmaline ring flared.

With no memory of having broken into a run, Tess stumbled to a halt only a few steps away from Mambo. Tess dropped to her knees, her eyes widening.

The heap that Mambo had gathered in her arms was the bloodied corpse of a young woman.

Turning his grief-stricken face towards Tess, Jacko held the squirming sling out and ordered, “Take to dat young one. To save.” At that moment, a strident squeal erupted from within the sack, and Jacko’s voice cracked. “Take him now.”

Cradling the squalling infant, Tess remained rooted to the spot, immobilized by her confusion. Take this one to Cassie? What’s happening?

The sweat on her neck turned to ice as the band of blue stones burned on her finger, demanding her attention.

Not a good sign.

There would be a terrible vision soon.

***

The silver moon hung just above the horizon, draping her milky-white light over the small group that gathered in the small clearing further up the mountain. The rhythm of the wailing, a low moaning that alternated with bursts of high pitched trills, raised the hair on Tess’s arms. The woman’s corpse, lowered into the grave, settled on the bottom with a soft whumph.

The sigh of the dead, Tess thought as she watched the others gently toss in a selection of fruit, a roughly hewn spear, and finally the leafy amulet bag into which Mambo had put a short curly clipping of the baby’s hair.

So this is how they bury their daughter. Not so different from us. The baby will be raised by Mambo now. His grandmother. Like I was …

Tess watched as Jacko stepped forward once more and knelt by the pit’s edge. He reached up to accept the bundle offered to him by Mambo and held a dagger ceremoniously high above his head, its blade reflecting the moon’s silver sheen. A mournful wail escaped from his lips.

Raw grief.

Tess recognized the sound. The intensity of his pain tore at her, but the sight of the knife blade hovering above the bundle gripped her with fear. The baby! Before Tess could move, or even call out, Jacko’s hand fell and the baby screamed.

Oh my Christ!

Tess’s breath stopped, her own scream strangled in her throat. She stared, helpless. Reaching out, Mambo collected the crying infant and, bending forward into the pit, she held his tiny hand close to his mother’s face.

Crying! The baby’s alive?

And then, clearly illuminated by the plentiful moonlight, Tess watched as the child’s hand bled from a tiny knife nick. The drops of blood dripped into the small indent at the base of the dead woman’s throat. The drops made a small, dark circle, and although the actual intent was lost on her, Tess suspected that the circle represented a completion of sorts. She reached out and grasped William’s hand. He nodded ever so slightly as though agreeing with her thoughts.

It’s done.

At that moment the sky darkened as the silvery orb slid behind a layer of clouds. Out of the corner of her eye, Tess saw a hazy image of Jacko as he spun on his heels. He was brandishing something resembling a long blade. He slipped away from the gathering, blending into the dark indigo of the evening. His torment was palpable, even in the dark, and Tess shivered in spite of the early evening’s lingering warmth.

A machete? Why would he bring that to the burial? Tess blinked and squinted in the direction that she had seen him walk away. He had totally disappeared from sight.

Tess felt a searing streak of shock slam through her as she focused her attention back on Mambo. There, standing just behind the woman, stood Jacko, and at once Tess understood.

He hadn’t left at all.

Her ring’s vision had arrived.

Chapter Four

Warm as it was, the damned wind on the island blew to some degree every day.

William’s nostrils twitched as the breeze carried with it, the stench of swamp rot. The morning rain had saturated everything.

William, Smith, and the one-legged carpenter, Brigham Lancaster, had done what they could to reinforce their own pitiful huts, making do with the basics that nature offered to them. But in fact, everything was in short supply–food, clothing, medicines, and weapons. The swampy winds and the driving sheets of rain had managed to invade their primitive shelters in spite of the double thatching. Lost in his own thoughts, William startled when a voice sounded behind him.

“It’s the swamp fever, ain’t it? It followed us back here. Can ya not smell it?” Smith spoke of the obvious odor.

William raised his face to the sky and sniffed. “I can. It’s been on the wind a week or more.”

With a sudden push, Smith lashed out and shoved William’s head facedown. “Ya crazy bugger!” Smith’s brown eyes were wide with disbelief. “Don’t be suckin’ that evil air into yer body on purpose!” He semi-crouched in fear of the unseen sickness. Releasing his grip on William, he nodded toward the outermost row of huts.

“Did ya not notice that them what’s most sick are the ones stayin’ in the outer rows?” He snorted in disgust. “That’s where the poison wind settles first. That’s what’s got me Cassie ill. Woulda’ been safer to be on an inside one,” he grumbled. “She didn’t even come to the swamp yet she’s got the fever anyhow.”

“Yeah, well, we’re lucky that these Maroons let us stay anywhere at all,” William reminded his friend. “If you remember, both of us would have been killed right where these people found us washed up in that storm if it hadn’t been for Mambo taking a liking to Tess’s ring.”

“Yeah, that and Cassie’s brand matching the one that that friggin’ pirate captain burned into Mambo’s arm, too,” Smith recalled with a scowl. “It’s a damned right thing he’s dead, that’s all the good I can say about that one.”

But what about the child Cassie bore, sired by him? The son you now call your own? William didn’t dare ask out loud. There was no reason to bring up the baby’s parentage. Smith seemed as devoted to the child as he was to Cassie.

The three pairs of shipwrecked survivors–he and Tess, Smith and Cassie, and Tess’s grandmother Emma, and the ship’s carpenter, Brigham Lancaster–had been ‘married’ by Mambo, shortly after their assimilation into the Maroon’s camp. They had substituted the priestess’s ceremony for the church ceremony that they would never have.

The marriage ceremony, if it could be called that–Crikey, it was a weird thing!–had been, at the same time, both frightening in its strangeness, and exhilarating in its ferocity. It had taken place under a shimmering canopy of stars. Each couple had been bound, tied face to face, in the centre of a circle, its boundaries outlined with a collection of fruits, giant seed pods, shells, and flowers. The Maroons had chanted, and had begun to dance around them with feet and hands keeping time to a steady rhythm. A trio of men had clicked their tongues and pounded on a collection of hollowed out logs and dried stems.

Having grabbed a stick from the ever burning fire pit, Mambo had held it high overhead and had whirled around them, spraying the helpless couples with a shower of sparks and chunks of glowing embers. It had been unsettling for the three brides to say the least, but their screams had been drowned out by the increasing volume of the chanters. Instinctively wrestling against their tethers but helpless to escape them, the grooms had bellowed out some very un-churchlike phrases.

Heedless of their dismay, Mambo had then produced a large dried gourd which contained a smoking wad of herbs. She had blown the smoke into the faces of each betrothed couple. Under the influence of the smoke, the rest of the ceremony had been cloudy to William’s recollection except for the moment that their faces had been forced into an awkward kiss.

Without warning, their bonds had been slashed and they had collapsed to the ground. William vaguely recalled that several pairs of hands had lifted him, and that he and Tess had been carried into the dark interior of a hut.

Stark naked. That’s how we were carried in. I do remember that part. Never did figure out how that happened though….

William smiled at the memory of it. Primal as it had been, he was sure their matrimonial ritual had been as powerful as a church’s and certainly as binding as any on earth. Literally binding.

The first few weeks with Tess as his new wife, or perhaps it been months–he didn’t know and it didn’t matter–had been wonderful. Sensuous. Full of their warm bodies intertwining, slippery with passionate desire.

William loved lying beside Tess. The late nighttime air of the island’s mountainous interior was often chilly and the two of them slept curled up together, as much to share body heat as anything. However, having her wrapped in his arms, his body in full contact with hers, her firm backside pressed back against him and his top arm draped across her breasts–well, the position was just not conducive to sleep. No matter how tired the rest of him was, his manhood was always eager and, he thought, considering their spooned position, impossible for Tess not to notice.

When he kissed her neck and nuzzled his way down her body her soft moans and gooseflesh announced her willing interest in him, too. Tess would turn towards him and slip her hand between his legs, and suddenly the chill of the night would be a forgotten concern as she straddled him. Her touch, her nearness–it was sheer pleasure and William never tired of it.

And then something had happened. Was it that there was absolutely no privacy here? Was it Tess’s strange dreams that scared her and occupied her thoughts? Or was it his greatest fear–that Tess was becoming tired of him as well as their life on this island? Whatever the reason, their intimate nights had nearly disappeared.

He replayed a favorite moment in his head. He and Tess had been walking along a high trail, hiking up the side of the island’s extinct volcano. On Mambo’s instruction, Tess had been looking for special herbs. They had found only a few handfuls of one particular kind, a broad, glossy heart-shaped leaf that grew on a tuberous vine low to the ground.

“What’s this one for?” William had inquired.

“Mambo needs it for the women at the camp.”

“Women?” William knew intuitively that he should ask no further, but sometimes his intuition didn’t seem to shout loudly enough. “Heart-shaped. Must be to make a love potion with, eh?” He’d grinned with what he’d hoped was his most flirtatious smile.

“Actually, no,” Tess had replied. “This herb, contrary to its shape, is called the baby stopper. The Maroons don’t want to go through the heart-break of having children to suffer the life of a slave as they have done, so ….”

Tess had shrugged and at that moment, had tripped and fallen into him, sending both of them tumbling back down the precarious pathway. He’d wrapped his arms around her and shielded her as best he could, as they rolled and crashed down the jagged surface of the hardened lava pathway. They’d come to a sudden stop in a collision with a rather large boulder.

Breathless, she’d asked, “Are you alright?” There was a moment of relief when he’d realized that neither of them had suffered serious injury. Up here, they were completely alone. It had been a bit frightening. Help would have been a long time coming. Still, having had Tess in his arms with her heart beat pounding so intimately against his own chest, he’d barely noticed his bleeding cuts and scrapes.

And then, to his delight, Tess had lifted her sweet lips to his and had kissed him. Delicately, at first. She’d run the tip of her warm tongue over his own. Had sucked his lower lip into her mouth and then released it, before trailing her soft mouth past his ear, lifting his skin in goose bumps as her wet lips made their way across his skin. William had felt his body respond and he’d traced the outline of her breast and hip with his fingertips. Softly. Just the way he knew she liked to be touched.

“I’m fine,” he’d reassured her. He’d kissed her neck and shoulders, had lingered as he’d drawn his own lips across the soft swell of flesh below her collarbone, pleased and further aroused to have her breathing increase with his touch. “I think we should lie here a bit, though, just to make sure.”

And completely alone on that trail, but now awash in gratitude for that solitude, with their bodies in perfect rhythm and sunshine splashing on their naked skin, they’d needed no help from anyone. No help at all.