Chapter Text
Walter Shirley did not mean to die when he did. In fact, he was determined to do anything but succumb to the bitter illness that had taken his wife three days ago—not that anyone would know the truth of dying heart. The daughter he left behind would be forced to suppose with her optimistic heart, the one her mother had given her, that her father had fought his illness with everything every ounce of draining strength he had. His last minutes were ones of peace and apprehension as he laid down to rest his swirling eyes and pray the Laird’s Prayer in hopes of a miracle.
“Ar n-Athair a tha air nèamh, Gu naomhaichear d'ainm. ”
He would die not knowing if his daughter would soon sicken with the disease on his breath—the poor redheaded baby laying beside him with thunderhead grey eyes and Bertha’s freckles.
“Thigeadh do rìoghachd. ”
He would die not knowing that she would live. But the girl would live, growing the way trees do, slow and strong, until all that was left was Captain Anne Redford, temptress of the Atlantic. She wouldn’t know her father’s name, but one day, she’d learn it.
~☽⚓☾~
A redheaded child was not worth much compared to other children. Anne wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe she just wasn’t old enough to understand that objects and sellable things bore value, that red hair was a disparaging trait. But then, she was old enough to have a feeling that people shouldn’t be merchandise sold to the highest bidder. She had thoughts, feelings, imaginations, laughter and tears. The chest of Mrs. Hammond’s heirloom jewelry being sold with her did not.
Anne peered up from behind Mrs. Hammond’s thick grey skirts at the lanky man rifling through the chest of necklaces and brooches. He swooped his greasy long hair away from his face and held up a pair of silver cufflinks.
“How much for the lass?” he asked tiredly, holding one of the cufflinks close to his eye to check for scratches. Whatever he saw displeased him, and he tossed both buttons back into the chest without a second thought.
“Five pounds,” Mrs. Hammond answered. The man paused, glaring at her through his long unimpressed lashes.
“She’d better spin golden straw for that much. I’ll give you two.”
He plucked the coins from his inner pocket and tossed them down at Mrs. Hammond’s feet. She scoffed, plucking the gold pieces off the ground and shoved them into his chest.
“The price is five. She can cook and clean. She canna read yet, but ye won’t have to worry about her snoopin’ around your business or wastin’ yer time.”
The man looked as though he might spit in her face.
“Two pounds. Final offer.”
“I will not go home without at least five pounds.”
“And I wilna be swindled by a common whore willin’ to jump at the opportunity to sell her own kin.”
“She’s no my kin. Just a brat I got stuck with.”
The man paused.
“Aye, that so?” The man’s crooked gaze lowered down to Anne, who swallowed under the inspection. He offered her a mirthless smile, then yanked her wrist to extract her from her hiding. “Come here, lassie.”
Anne stumbled into the open, feeling as if the man could see through the dirty fabrics of her clothes all the way through her skin and into her soul. Up close he smelled of the worst parts of the sea, salt and rotting fish mixed with body odor and musk.
“Well, there’s not much to her. Usually a weedy girl like this is a sign of a weak constitution. But I suppose if she can stand to be this skinny and survive under your hand, madam, I willna have to feed her over much.” Anne felt no better than a common mule as the man poked and prodded at her side and limbs. “Not very strong in the arms, a bit unsteady on her feet. Definitely not worth five pounds.”
“If ye won’t agree to my terms, I’ll take the trunk and the girl to someone else who can be reasonable.”
The man pressed his lips together and scrunched his nose in Anne’s direction.
“I’ll give ye five pounds for the girl and everything in the trunk.” Mrs. Hammond opened her mouth to argue, but the man held up a hand. “My patience and my generosity quickly run dry, madam. This is my final offer.”
Anne saw the moment the decision was made in the dulling of Mrs. Hammond’s eye. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She shook her head, a small whimper escaping her lips as she clutched her weak fingers into the woman’s sleeve. The broad shouldered woman only swatted her to the side, sending her tumbling against the rank sailor. Mrs. Hammond stretched out an open hand, waiting for five golden coins to be deposited into her waiting fingers. Paying no heed to Anne struggling under his grasp, the man nodded down to the trunk, which Mrs. Hammond kicked across the dock to his feet. A sick smile of satisfaction turned the man’s stony face upright and he dropped his payment into his buyer’s hand.
Then, Mrs. Hammond was gone, spun away without a single parting word.
“Yer ma is easily swindled,” he whispered into Anne’s ear. She shrunk away, wanting to wipe away the feel of his breath on her skin.
“She’s no my ma,” Anne murmured bitterly, sniffling back tears. Anne didn’t have a mother. Mrs. Hammond told her the faeries had dropped her on their “compassionate” doorstep as a blessing. I needed help with my two sets of twins, ye ken, the woman had told her. God heard my prayers, alright, but maybe I didna pray loud enough since I asked for better help than you. I canna question his ways, though, so I suppose you’ll do. Mrs. Hammond didn’t hesitate to sell away “God’s blessing” the day after her husband died and she was in need of some quick coin.
“What’s your name, lass?” the man asked, interrupting the haze of Anne’s flashback. She thought back to the small locket that she kept hanging under her shirt, the one that had her likeness painted with a name written on the back that she’d only heard and never read.
“Anne,” she replied quietly. “Spelled with an E, I think.” Not that she knew what E
looked like.
“Last name?”
“None.”
The man quirked a brow, shoving her shoulder to get her to move faster through the crowd on the Aberdeen docks.
“Well Anne with an E, I’m Captain Nathaniel Redford of The Amethyst. The crew calls me Captain Nate.”
“Captain? Of...of a ship?” she asked meekly.
Nathaniel drew close to her, smirking when her eyes widened on her freckled face.
“Aye, a pirate ship. Ever sailed on one?”
She froze. Pirates?
Anne slammed her mouth shut against an onslaught of frightened tears, knowing that if she cried too loudly, she’d be the victim of a harsh beating. Two hot tears escaped her eyes, though, and she swept them off her cheeks, leaving trails of dirt in their wake. It took all the strength she had in her unloved body and soul to endure being an orphan. It might take more than she had to be a pirate too.
Her tired feet clambered up the gangplank of The Amethyst. Just as the gangplank came into view, Captain Nate yanked her back by her collar. Anne heard the shrill scraping noise before she could process the Captain’s cold blade up against her throat.
“Hold still,” he muttered. Anne dared not move for fear she might accidentally puncture her own skin. But the Captain did not cut her throat as she feared he might. Instead, he gathered her long, tangled hair and sliced it at the base of her neck.
“Shame. If it were yellow, I could’ve sold it.” Nate ordered. As a fisherman tosses unwanted catches back into the sea, he casted the whole handful of her hair into the sea. “Don’t go crying about it now. Girls are bad luck on a ship, ye ken.”
Anne watched the copper locks disappear into the algae, red and green braiding together at the pulling of the waves.
“I didn’t like it anyway” she murmured distractedly.
Moments later, the captain was shoving her with a harsh hand onto the deck where a whole motley crew of stinky, roguish men watched with amused eyes. Too tired and stressed to pay attention to where she was going, Anne tripped against a loose board, scraping her knees against the rough wood. Nate grabbed her by her sweaty underarms and pulled her back to her feet.
“Don’t make me regret wastin’ my money on ye,” he whispered low. Anne raised her chin, gathering what was left of her dignity in her thin twelve-year-old body. Then, the captain turned to his crew and gestured at the wee, shaking child. “This is Anthony. Our newest, lowliest deckhand. Go on, lad, pay the men their respects.”
Anne’s frightened eyes darted from one man to the next, finding no friendly face or welcoming countenance. Nate shoved her back and somehow, she managed to pull her voice from the depths of her throat.
“Madainn mhath ,” Anne said quietly.
“Aye, good morning to ye too, you red rat,” the helmsman called with a chuckle, trilling his r’s for effect. Another man threw a dripping wet rag at her, which she caught against her stomach. Dirty water bled out, soaking the crotch of her pants, much to the amusement of her fellow pirates.
“Ach, look men, the poor lad’s pissed himself,” a young man no older than twenty jeered. Red bloomed underneath Anne’s freckles. Was she to be sold, degraded, and humiliated all in the same day? With no friends or allies?
A man beside her sensed her weakening spirit. He placed a strong hand on her shoulder before ringing out the water from the rag and handing it back to her.
“Dinna fash, wee one. Your trousers will dry out soon in this heat,” he said. “I’m Dunlop, Captain’s first mate. If any of these no-good picaroons give ye too much trouble, tell me, and I’ll straighten them away.”
“Enough, enough,” the Captain groaned. “Anthony, make yourself useful and scrub the deck. The rest of ye, get back to work!”
All around the ship, a dozen hands made themselves useful, furling rigging and stitching sails. Anne swabbed each crooked plank of the deck until she began to blend into the rest of the crew, losing the Anne of this morning more and more until there was nothing left but a half-lad, half-lass sailor with nothing to her name. Her dreamings and imaginations were far away, unattainably distant as the ship headed northward.
By the time the shadow of Scotland was lingering on the horizon, Anne wasn’t sure who she was, what she might become, or if there was any hope for her at all. Her home disappeared into the indigo blueness of the evening, taking with it all certainty and steadiness.
Each day, Anne grew stronger, chipping away the old skin of her dreamer self and carving her body into a bold pirate. And that was the way it stayed for eight years until the sunny day Diana Barry arrived.
~☽⚓☾~
“Ye ken our new mistress has her sights set on ye, right?” said Cootie Moody, the clumsiest sailor in the crew. Anne sat beside him, using all her willpower to keep herself from looking up at the gentlelady standing at the edge of the ship.
“A lady like that knows better than to fancy a pirate like me,” Anne replied as evenly as she could. Unable to help herself, she looked up and met a pair of beautiful round eyes smiling down at her. She tore her gaze away, fixing it back on her handful of knotted rope.
“Come on, Anthony. When was the last time we had a woman aboard?”
“Charlie Sloane just brought that brunette strumpet from Boston aboard not but two days ago!”
Moody ignored this.
“Ye’ve got to take your chance now while you have it! Otherwise, it’s unlikely you’ll have another.”
Anne tossed her armful of untangled ropes onto the deck at Moody’s feet.
“If yer so eager, why not try to catch her attention yourself?”
Moody groaned, kicking the pile of rope at his feet, but getting his ankle caught in the mess.
“I’ve tried! She won’t have me! It’s always Where’s Anthony? and I promised Anthony this and that! No care in the world for Cootie Moody.”
“Ye might want to start by callin’ yourself somethin’ decent. No woman wants to be with a man named Cootie. That, or ye can always take a page out of Charlie’s book. I bet that American lass Gretchen has a sister.”
Moody swatted her away, wanting to ruminate on his perpetual loneliness in solitude. With his attention turned elsewhere, Anne finally allowed herself a good look at the woman leaning against the railing. The fine-clothed brunette had long since turned her attention back to the unchanging horizon. Anne came up beside her, careful to keep an appropriate distance between them.
“Miss Barry,” she greeted evenly.
Diana Barry was a French Canadian born in Toulouse but raised on a PEI cliffside. She was the first female passenger in The Amethyst’s recorded history—other than Anne—and if Captain Nate had his way, she’d be the only female passenger. Diana had sought Nate out in a squalid tavern just outside Charlottetown and begged him to take her back to France. The captain was only convinced the way he usually was: with gold, which Diana had plenty of. Knowing exactly what he was doing, Nate also appointed Anne as Diana’s personal guard, much to the surprise of the rest of the crew. Two weeks into their journey toward France, Diana and Anne were the best of friends, inseparable in ways Anne had only dreamed about. Anne had intended to keep her secret from Diana, but the other woman had taken one look at her and known. Thus, the count of heads aboard the ship who knew Anne’s secret had gone from two to three.
“I must say, seaspray is becoming on you, Anne,” replied Diana.
“When ye say such nice things, it makes me wish I were really a man so I could marry ye proper,” teased Anne. She spread her arms out wide. “But alas, it’s me and the sea until death do us part! And even then, when I die, they’ll toss me under her white waves and we’ll have eternity together. Isn’t it somewhat romantic? The thought of not taking a human partner, but instead letting the perfect nature of the world love you and cherish you. I’m sure the sea could love me better than any man, all warm and powerful at the same time. Men aren’t nearly so sweet.”
Diana only turned her head, holding onto her hat as she listened to Anne continue.
“There’d be fights, sure—that’s what hurricanes are, ye ken. But I think there’d be many days of smooth sailin’ and bathin’ in the yellow sun. Kinda makes this pirate’s life worth it.”
“You can’t really be a pirate with such a beautiful turn of phrase,” complimented Diana. Anne only shrugged. “Where ever did you learn to speak in such a fashion?”
A wave of white brine crashed up against The Amethyst, and Anne reached out to catch some of it in her hand. She wiped it across her sweaty brow and smiled.
“I learned how to read much later than most children, right here aboard this vessel. Mr. Dunlop taught me in secret. There was just somethin’ that drew me to the words. At the time, I didna have many friends. So the words were my family, and I loved them. The more I used them, the less far away they seemed and the less lonely I was. I was dreadful lonesome before you arrived. Yet, now I find there’s plenty o’ room in my heart for the words and you. Makes me content enough to think I’ll never need anything or anyone again.”
Diana smiled. “You are most certainly not a pirate, mon cher . Why don’t you leave this ship and come join me in France? Join the gentry with all their extravagante dresses and delicious food! You could tell them stories and they’d love you immediately.”
“I don’t speak French,” argued Anne.
“I can start teaching you now and you’ll know enough by the time we arrive!”
The light on Anne’s face dulled.
“I can’t go wi’ ye,” she said simply. Diana cocked her head to the side, unconvinced.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”
“It’s not for a lack of want, though I don’t think I’d make a very good gentlelady.”
“Then what’s holding you back?”
Anne took Diana’s hand and pressed it against her lips.
“I appreciate that you have such faith in me. But I’m Captain Nathaniel’s property. He owns me. I canna leave unless he gives me his assent.”
“That’s absurde ! You can’t own another person.”
Anne scoffed. “Tell that to the entire world, Di.”
“It’s not right.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s right or no. I’ve no choice.” Anne took a few steps away, unable to withstand feeling the strength of Diana’s pity. “But dinna fash about me, love. We drop anchor in France several times a year so we’ll see each other plenty. Though you must promise if you ever travel back to PEI, you must take a real, distinguished vessel.”
“The only reason I paid a pirate was so that he’d let me travel alone without my mère folle knowing. You know that.”
“Aye, I ken.”
“Besides, meeting you on this ship was well worth it.”
A sick feeling settled in Anne’s stomach. Worth what? She knew that Diana’s time sailing with their crew had not been pleasant, what with seasickness, unwanted flirtations, and leering from the women-starved men aboard. The worst culprit of them all was the captain who’d made many attempts to lure her to his quarters. Diana was not a fish to be lured by a baited hook, however, and when Nate’s attempts were unsuccessful, he reminded her that he was a pirate and not a fisherman. His hands had grabbed, his tongue had threatened, and his patience had grown thin.
Luckily for Diana, Anne had always appeared just in the nick of time, a most dutiful protector. She didn’t know how much longer she could subdue the captain as each failed attempt seemed to spur him on even further.
In a low voice, Anne asked, “Has the captain still been giving you trouble?”
Before Diana could answer, a voice broke into the space between them.
“Anthony, you’d do well not to monopolize Miss Barry’s time.”
Anne’s head snapped up, only to look upon Nate’s hard set expression. Over the course of the six years she’d known him, his clothes had only grown more extravagant—some of which could be credited by Diana’s weekly fare—and he’d begun to look less like a pirate captain and more like a seafaring aristocrat. Anne couldn’t be sure how he obtained such wealth. Most of his dirty work occurred in the darkness of night, far away from the ship. The other pirates the crew occasionally stumbled upon would see the name of the ship or hear the name of the captain and sail away. Any further convincing that Nathaniel was a ruthless man was unnecessary, though Anne had seen hints of it for herself peppered in talk of violence behind closed doors.
“Did you hear me, sailor?” Nate asked when Anne didn’t respond. Diana had fixed the captain with a withering glare, likely thinking of Anne’s servitude. If he noticed, though, he said nothing of it.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain,” Anne replied finally. “Miss Barry is free to roam as she pleases, and as her protector, I follow. It’s at her discretion.”
Nate leaned in until his rotten breath hit Anne’s nose. He snarled his teeth so close to Anne’s face that she could feel drops of his spittle land on her lips and nose. A low laugh resounded beneath his lips.
“And if I took her into my quarters, would you follow then?”
Diana’s hand found the pale green shirt at Anne’s back, gripping the fabric under white knuckles.
“Aye, I would, if that’s what the lady wished.”
“And the lady doesn’t wish to be taken to anyone’s quarters,” Diana cut in. “I’ve paid you in full for this transport, thus I have no further obligation to you. If you’re so desperate, find a whore when we dock and put that coin I’ve given you to good use.”
Anne watched Nate squirm under the interested gazes of the other sailors. As slowly as she could, she raised her hand to the hilt of the cutlass at her side. Whatever fiery rage was simmering in Nathaniel would yield unpleasant results, most likely at Diana’s expense.
“I’m afraid yer mistaken, m’lady,” said Nate with an unhinged lilt in his voice. “My rates have gone up since ye paid. Therefore, yer in my debt.”
Diana’s jaw dropped to the deck. Her hand on Anne’s back tightened.
“I don’t have enough money to pay you more, you cochon égoïste ” she whispered through clenched teeth. “I’ve given you more than enough!”
Captain Nate shrugged.
“I suppose that means you’ll just have to repay your debt through…” His eyes roved her body from her chest to her ankles. “Other means.”
Diana didn’t have time to process what would happen, but Anne—with more experience on the seas—was better prepared. Nate threw out his nasty, bloodstained hands toward Diana, but Anne had stepped between them, drawing her cutlass and holding it to his throat.
Nate’s shocked eyes fell to the blade under his chin.
“Anthony, move your blade,” he seethed, barely containing his rage.
“No,” Anne stated determinedly.
It was the most power she’d ever held over him, she realized. All those years of bending to his will, clenching her teeth as he sliced off her hair, taking the brunt of his aggression...Now she was the one with the upper hand. And for the first time ever, she was angry. It all flashed before her eyes, screaming in her mind—the lost years she spent in his servitude, the injustice of it all, the grief of the life she wished she’d had. Now, he’d even threatened Diana, the only person she’d ever loved.
She wasn’t just angry. She was on fire about to burn the whole ship down.
“Anthony, I give you one last warning,” the Captain hummed low in his throat. The crew backed up, knowing that fight between captain and crewman was not a place to interfere.
“My name is Anne ,” she hissed, ending on a roar. With a cry of rage, she swung the blade as hard as hard as she could down upon him, only to be blocked by his own curved broadsword. But the storm in Anne raged wilder. “I’ll no allow you to take anyone else hostage, ye bloody bastard.”
“Hostage?!” cried Nate. He made his own blow, but Anne’s was filled with adrenaline and matched his strength. “I own you. Five pounds for you and a trunk of trash, and for what? Another mouth to feed? Another person takin’ up space on my ship?”
The clash of blades raged on, Nate and Anne taking turns nearly overpowering the other.
“You should be thanking me!” Nate roared, forcing a particularly low blow toward Anne’s feet. She lept into the air and onto a crate, but Nate swiftly kicked it out from beneath her. Chunks of wood rained around them, but Anne’s stance was steady as she landed on the deck.
“Thank you for what? Stealing my life from me!?”
“You never had a life to begin with, you red rodent. I made you more than you were ever supposed to be. You would’ve been nothing wi’out me.”
His sword swept just in front of her stomach, but Anne surged backward.
“Nothing?” Anne stated, lowering her sword. “Nothing ?”
Nate heaved air into his lungs, blade limp at his side.
“Absolutely worthless.”
And just like that, two words sealed his fate. Anne blinked for a moment, feeling as though the rage might make her heart claw itself out of her chest and kill the man itself.
Then, she unleashed a hurricane of slashes and blows, raining them down nearly faster than he could block. Startled by her strength, Nate stumbled backwards with each blow, unprepared. Anne seized the opportunity, slicing her weapon toward his throat and drawing a thick line of blood from his chin to his ear. Nate doubled over, hissing in pain. The pause was all Anne needed to make the final blow.
Slamming the back of her sword against his head, Anne surged forward and kicked her foot as hard as she could into the captain’s gut. A gust of wind popped from Nate’s lips as he sailed backward over the edge of the ship. His body landed like a cannonball into the water. Anne lingered, watching the expanse of waves to see if he would resurface, but he never did.
Captain Nathaniel Redford was dead. It was over.
Remembering herself, and the company she was with, she spun around holding up her blade to the crew, but none challenged her. Anne, whose adrenaline was wearing off by the second, was relieved. Instead, she was met with a few dozen faces of pirates who weren’t sure what came next. Faces of pirates that never wanted to be pirates in the first place, but needed jobs, validation, a purpose. Faces of people who were just like her, people who’d been told by Nate that they’d never amount to anything.
Without Nate, though, was there to be done?
Dunlop stepped forward.
“Ye ken how this works, Anthony,” he said. Anne bit her lip as his meaning sunk in.
“It should be you,” she argued. “You’re first mate.”
“Nay, I think ye proved today that it can’t be anyone but you.” He laughed and shook his head, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Captain, Captain Anthony.”
Anne waited to feel overwhelmed or scared. But in that moment, in the face of a crowd of leaderless men, the only thing she could do was rise to the occasion. To her calling. She’d prove to the damned spirits of Mrs. Hammond and Captain Nate that she was worth more than five pounds.
“Actually…” She pulled the cap from her head, allowing endless waves of copper hair to tumble down her back. “It’s Anne. Captain Anne Redford.”
~☽⚓☾~
Over the last year aboard The Primrose, Dr. Gilbert Blythe had come to the realization that ocean liners were just massive, steel sea farms. He should know, having been a farmer for the better part of his life. The stiff ache in his muscles after tossing coal was unlike the dull pain in his shoulders after tilling soil for an afternoon. Coal was heavier than hay to be sure, but beasts were fed with both.
At the head of any farm, even the seafaring kind, there came the necessity for a strong-willed leader. Back home in Avonlea, Gilbert had only known the compassionate brand of farmers who loved their land and spoke love to their animals. Aboard The Primrose, kindness was a rarity. The foreman in charge of Gilbert and his best friend, Sebastian Lacroix, did not have the words empathy or humility in his vocabulary.
So when a string of events had left Bash slashed and bleeding in the middle of the Trinidad streets, it did not surprise Gilbert when the foreman said, “Ahh, just leave him!”
Gilbert could barely process the words, and instead was much more focused on maintaining pressure on Bash’s bleeding gash. His friend moaned in agony at the pressure, but the pain was an equitable exchange for his life.
“Bash, look at me. Keep your eyes on me.” Gilbert rushed hastily. “What happened? Someone robbed you?”
Sebastian struggled to hold himself upright against the pain and loss of blood, but he managed to nudge his face toward a tattered satchel on the ground.
“Hope that thieving son of a bitch enjoys the two copper pieces he got outta me,” Bash hissed hazily.
“Blythe, either you stay or you go. Pick one,” the sooted-nose foreman interrupted.
“He’s dying , sir!”
“He’s not even human.”
Gilbert gritted his teeth in frustration. It’s not like he could magically stop Bash’s bleeding. What did the man expect? That Gilbert just leave a man in the streets to die with no care, no chance for healing?
“He’s my brother ,” Gilbert argued.
“I don’t care if he’s your mother. You have a contract. Your contract says you’ll work for me for another six months or I’ve the right to withdraw your pay and his!”
“But all I’m asking—”
“And if I recall correctly, your contract says nothing about you saving some black bastard and putting an entire ship behind schedule.”
The crowds of the Trinidad docks gathered around the scene, scowling in horror and disgust at the gore dying Gilbert’s hands scarlet. They watched in silence, as if the dying man before them was not really real, but just a brief entertainment in an otherwise boorish day. How fun it must’ve been for them to watch a man desperately maintain the balance of two lives—leaving Bash here to die was out of the question, but not boarding the ship was another form of death to a black man who had freedom but no other source of income.
“Please! I just need help getting him aboard!” Gilbert begged. “I’m a doctor, I can treat him by myself without any more impediment to our voyage. Just lend me your hand. Is that so hard?”
“Who’s to pay for the bandages? Who will shovel coal while the two of you waste away in bed? Who’s to pay for the lost labor?”
“Me! Me! I’ll pay for everything, just help him!”
Gilbert watched the foreman with eyes brimming with angry tears. His hands seemed to work on their own accord, tearing another strip of his shirt away to press to Bash’s long gash, but his gaze never left the foreman. For a split moment, it seemed as though the foreman changed his mind.
But reality cracked the air as the foreman turned on his heels and walked away.
Gilbert gaped as the man moved further and further up the road. Below him, Bash’s eyes were fluttering closed as his blood stained the Trinidad soil.
“Rot in hell you depraved wretch!” Gilbert cried after him. “I hope the devil makes you his plaything when he drags your hateful soul down to hades. I’ll piss on your ashes when you’re dead!”
The foreman spun around faster than a stroke of lightning in a hurricane, drawing the pistol at his hip without a moment’s hesitation. In a last flash of desperation, Gilbert covered his body over Bash’s and squeezed his eyes shut. He waited for the deafening thunder of a bullet shattering air, but none came.
When Gilbert lifted his head, the entire world lost focus and there she was—red hair catching sea spray in each individual curl and shoulders strong against death itself. Gilbert was cowered in her shadow, peering up at her in her long leather coat and flowered tricorn hat. He couldn’t see her face, but the sun did frame the bits of her cheeks he could see into pale gold.
Gilbert gawked at her for what seemed like an eternity, but it still took him too long to realize her cutlass was drawn to the foreman’s throat.
“Ye have some balls, I grant ye. Lettin’ a man die on your watch,” she said lowly. Sharply. Deadly.
“What do I care what you grant me?” the foreman replied, turning the barrel of his firearm to her chest.
“Ye don’t know who I am?” she asked. The foreman was quiet. The woman crackled like a fuse. “Answer me!”
“I don’t bloody know who you are!” snapped the foreman, eliciting a low chuckle in the back of the woman’s throat. She drew close to his face until her poison breath brushed his whiskers.
“I’m Captain Anne Redford.”
“Temptress of the Sea,” the man realized lowly, shrinking back in realization.
The name meant nothing to Gilbert, but it meant everything to his foreman who turned to stone in terror. Mind racing to keep up, the realization finally crashed down on Gilbert.
She was a pirate. Not just any pirate it seemed, but the pirate.
“Aye, that’s the one,” Captain Redford hummed low. “Last chance to reevaluate your choices right here and now. Help the doctor, pay them their wages, or you’ll be paying yourself directly to me. What’s it to be?”
“All this over a worthless negroid?” the foreman scoffed, frightened and panicked. “He’s nothing to me but another hog’s mouth to feed. Take him for all I care.”
Something in the pirate woman’s posture shifted. Gilbert saw flames around her as she lifted her blade and drove it down into the foreman’s left foot, pinning it to the ground. The man’s ear piercing cry shattered the silence clean through like the intricate bones of his feet. Amazingly, she had half a mind to nudge the hand holding the gun so that it fired right into the white clouds, swiftly avoiding her head when she drove her sword through.
Folding over on himself, the foreman wheezed for air. His blood spilled into the dirt, a pitiful compensation for the horror he’d wrought with his own hands.
“Eye for an eye and all that,” the piratess slurred, twisting her sword. “Men like you make me wonder if some people really aren’t human, after all. Oh, and by the way, I will your taking your men, but I’ll be taking this too.”
She plundered her hand into the man’s pockets, not finding any objection from her bleeding spoil. Gilbert wasn’t sure what she grabbed until she shook it, rattling out the clanking of more silver and gold pieces than Gilbert could earn in a lifetime. Then, to his surprise, she turned to him and tossed him the small satchel.
“Looks to be about 50 gold pieces and some change to spare. Will that be enough?”
But Gilbert didn’t hear her. Everything in his mind had gone silent when he took his very first look upon her face. The apples of her cheeks were laden with freckles, reminding him of wildflower fields in Avonlea that spilled over into the roads. The sun-blown pupils of her eyes were a clear, smokey blue, the same color as the eye of a hurricane. It was the first time Gilbert had looked at a human person and seen the entirety of the world’s possibilities—the past and future, the potential for the way of things to be good and beautiful. Somehow, this pirate of a woman with her blade through a man’s foot had made Gilbert’s world stand upright and upside down all at once.
Anne quirked a lip, dimpling her cheek with a smirk. She didn’t tease Gilbert for his speechlessness, though he suspected she had a mind to.
“Aye, yer right. No’ quite enough,” she joked slyly. She turned back to the foreman, yanked a silver chain from around his neck and threw it into Gilbert’s lap. “That should do it.”
“B-but...I...” Gilbert stammered, but the pirate ignored him. She slinked her bloodied sword back into its sheath, then draped an arm under Bash’s paling back.
“Grab his other side. We can take him back to my ship and ye can tend to him there. My first mate, Diana's her name, she can help ye. And if ye’ve a taste for it, maybe I’ll have ye stay aboard. It wouldn’t hurt to have a doctor aboard.”
Gilbert’s thoughts raced, swirling around so fast he couldn’t get a handle on them.
“I couldn’t be a pirate,” he gasped.
“Yer not foolin’ me, doctor. I heard the way you spoke to that man just now. It's not often I hear someone threaten piss on a man's ashes,” Anne replied with a smile. “Besides, I’m not a regular pirate and you don’t look like a regular physician either. But we have another thing in common, us two.”
Together they hoisted Bash up, dragging his feet in the dry dirt toward The Amethyst.
“What’s that?”
Anne smiled again and this time Gilbert almost tripped on his own feet.
“We both like to give bad men a bit of trouble.”