CHAPTER FIVE

CARIBBEAN SEA—1719

MARY WOKE WITH A START TO THE TAP OF ROPES KNOCKING AGAINST A mast in a gray morning breeze. The pirates’ brigantine, the Ranger, creaked and sloshed in a steady rhythm. Material crinkled underneath her as she stretched. A bale of lace had come undone in the night, its drape forming a flimsy blanket. If it hadn’t been for the sounds of the ship she might have thought she was back at Granny’s house in Westminster, waking up beneath the covers—the smell of clean, fine fabric and its bright white color brought to mind her little bed in the garret.

Her head bumped against something solid as she curled to her side, and she reached out to find Paddy’s grubby feet were inches from her face. Mary felt a thrill, remembering he’d come. Ever since Paddy had found her in the dark hold of the Vissen, cornered by a particularly foul tar who’d had one too many rums, he’d kept an eye out for her. She’d been grateful for his vigilance after learning that passing as a boy was not always enough to protect her.

Mary curled away from him, blinking to clear her eyes, and pushed the lace back.

Across the deck and amid a tumble of damask, the rumpled top of Jack’s head and one bare arm were clearly visible. Mary tried to imagine Kapitein Baas sprawled in the same position, tickled at the thought of him snoring away in the company of his sailors.

The two captains couldn’t be more different. Baas treated the poor tars who worked for him as if they were barely human. The past three months Mary’s stomach had screamed with hunger, and her limbs had ached with cold worse than the days right after Mark had died. Baas had given his sailors only enough food and rest to keep them alive, and sometimes not even that. She’d watched sailors get tied to the mainmast and lashed for minor infractions at his command. Men had died from those beatings, or the infections that always followed.

Jack, in contrast, had given her a pocket watch. A gold pocket watch. She touched the chain she’d looped around her neck. She’d never had anything so fine belong to her—and it was just a tiny piece of the cargo that had been distributed among the entire crew.

Mary lifted herself further, looking for the red of Anne’s dress, but if she was there the fabric hid her. Mary stood, piled the lace on top of Paddy, and looked around. Damp, cool air skimmed across her skin; the sky was a delicate pre-dawn slate. Nothing but rocking water in all directions—but Nassau was out there. Nassau was so close.

She wondered how close, exactly. The cabin door was slightly ajar. Captains kept maps in their cabins, and a captain like Jack wouldn’t keelhaul her for looking at one. Mary hopped lightly to her feet and picked her way around the bales to the cabin door. It was dark and still within. With one last glance over her shoulder to make sure Jack hadn’t moved, she slipped inside.

“You’re up early, Mark.”

Mary stopped dead when she saw Anne in the shadows, Her hair was even bigger than the night before, curling wildly around her face. “Come here,” Anne whispered loudly. She held her hand out, something round and soft in it. “You’ve got to try this.”

Looking at a map was one thing—lingering in a room with the captain’s girl while he slept was another. But Anne didn’t seem concerned. With one last nervous glance behind her, Mary crept inside.

“I woke up starving.” Anne’s cheek bore the marks of sleep still fading across it. “I thought there was one of them left, and I wanted to get to it before Jack did.” Taught dair, not thought there. She spoke like the poor girls back in Wapping, just off the boat from Ireland, but her accent was muddled and hard to catch. She held a curious, pale-pink fruit, her face glowing with delight. It glistened strangely, a diamond-shaped network of grooves on its surface.

Anne pulled a knife out of her boot and sliced clean through the fruit, revealing a cream-colored flesh studded with black seeds. Placing one half in her mouth, she scraped a bit of pulp from the skin and handed over the other piece. The fruit was knobby against Mary’s palm, giving off an intoxicating scent.

“Mmm.” Anne held the fruit in her mouth for a moment, spat a seed on the floor, and swallowed. “Custard apple. I’ll bet you’ve never had anything like it before. I know I never had, not till Jack gave me one.” Mary imitated her, running her teeth against the skin to pull the flesh off. It really tasted like custard, eggy and sweet. Mary closed her eyes. This was what she’d imagined the New World would be like, all those times she and Nat had told their stories back in Wapping. Fruit like this, handed to her like it was nothing. Like there was more than enough for everyone.

Anne took another bite. “Since you’re here, tell me—how’d a British chap like you end up on a boat full of Dutchmen, and do you have a sweetheart what was the cause of it?”

Mary started at her bluntness. “A sweetheart, miss?” She turned away from Anne, looking around the cabin. “I suppose so.” The cabin was lit by a few smoking candles perched on the chandelier. “Ah, I have reason to believe me sweetheart is in Nassau. I came in here to look at a map, actually. To see if I was getting close.”

Anne clapped her hands. “I knew it! There’s always a good story, as long as you ask.”

Mary made a noncommittal noise and walked over to the great, dark table in the center of the room that was covered in parchments and clutter.

“Go on, then,” Anne urged, following her. “Tell me about her. I’ve tried to get good stories out of the others, but they’re all disgusting. I can tell you’re different. A romantic.”

Mary couldn’t begin to think of how to tell her story without giving herself away. She leaned over the table and flipped up a corner of parchment, revealing something that looked promising. “Would you be able to point out where we are on a map?”

Anne winked, circling the table. “Playing hard to crack, are you? Never mind, I’ll get the tale out of you soon enough.”

Mary uncovered the parchment and, sure enough, it was a map of the islands. “I’d rather hear how someone like you ended up on this ship,” she said. “That seems more like a tale worth telling.”

Anne brushed aside crusts and a compass and helped Mary spread out the map. “Here, I’ll show you.” Anne bent over the parchment with great interest, pushing curls off her forehead.

Mary couldn’t see the map very well, so she inched closer. They were almost touching. Her heart was beating hard and she kept glancing at the door, but no one appeared.

The center of the map represented water, decorated by swirling mermaids and taloned sea monsters. The outer edges were ringed with shapes, what must have been islands and landforms. Most of them were colored red, with bunches of tiny words crammed into every corner. “It’s gorgeous,” Mary murmured. And mostly illegible—she couldn’t begin to make sense of it.

“Let’s see, I got off the boat from Ireland in Charleston.” Anne’s hand settled on the top righthand corner of the map. “With me da. Then I landed, let’s see—here.” Her finger landed on an island not far from the same corner. “With James. And now I’m here—” her finger slid to around the middle-left of the map, over open water. “With Jack.”

Mary thought about questions she could ask, but all of them felt wildly intimate. “So that’s where we are now. Do you know where we’re headed?” she asked, keeping her gaze fixed on the map. Say Nassau. Show me Nassau.

Anne’s fingers inched over to a tiny red blob off of a large red island’s southwest shore. “Isla de Cotorras. Isle of Parrots. We’re going to lay low there, until all the disagreement among the crew gets settled and we decide what to do next. It’s deserted, although the Spanish lay claim to it. That’s why it’s red. Cuba’s the island just beside it, also Spanish. As you can see, they own most everything.” Her fingers walked down the map to a small island in blue. “That’s Jamaica. The blue color means it’s a British crown colony—we’ll be passing that shortly, but giving it wide berth. And Curaçao is way down here, just off Terra Firma—that’s where we picked you up.” The island she poked at, one of three beside the swath of red on the left side of the map, was picked out in white—the Dutch color, Mary imagined.

“Where’s Nassau, then?”

Anne nudged her delightedly. “Oh, yes!” She pointed to a small blue dot among a cluster of them. “If I have me way we’ll be headed there next,” she added. “Don’t you worry. You’ll be reunited with your sweetheart soon.”

Mary stared. She was almost there, a fact that was exhilarating—and terrifying. “It’ll be thrilling to hide out on Isla for a bit,” Anne continued. Mary smelled the briny tang of her hair as she turned her head. “Rumor has it that Edward Teach buried some of his treasure there. Blackbeard’s treasure! Wish we had a map for that.” She nudged Mary with her hip, and Mary felt her cheeks color. “Might be worth doing a little searching anyway, while we’re there, eh? You up for a bit of treasure hunting?”

“I—ah—” There was something elastic about Anne’s skin, something round and smooth that seemed so young, up this close, for all her confidence and posturing. The barest hint of freckles dotted her cheeks. She can’t be much older than my seventeen years, Mary thought.

Anne tilted her head and turned to face Mary. They were almost the same height. The table’s edge dug into Mary’s buttocks as she leaned away. “There’s something about you that’s familiar,” Anne said, tapping her filthy fingernails on the table. Tap, tap, tap. Her breath was sweet, an echo of the fruity taste on Mary’s tongue.

Mary attempted a careless, masculine stance, but her pulse quickened. “Oh?”

Tap, tap, tap. “Hmmm. Not sure what it is …” Anne trailed off as she smiled. “But I’m quite sure I like it.”

Mary’s exhale sounded loud in the still cabin.

Louder still was the bang as the cabin door was thrust open. They both jumped and spun around. “What’s this?” Jack stood in the doorway, the beginnings of sunrise silhouetting him so that his face was dark in shadow.

“Oh, Jack!” Anne whirled around the table and flounced toward him. “Sure I was just showing the new lad the route we’re on.” She placed a coy hand on his arm. Jack didn’t take his eyes off Mary.

She began to sweat. “Morning, captain,” she said, dipping her head nervously.

“The boy that shot his captain for you,” Anne reminded him. “Mark, remember?”

“Mark.” Jack narrowed his eyes. “Ah, yes. I like the looks of you. You remind me of me, when I was joining the account.” He put his arm around Anne but kept his eyes on Mary. “Which makes me think I need to give you something to do, to keep you out of trouble.”

Mary didn’t like the way he said trouble. “Have you need of some mending?” she asked quickly. “Paddy was the sail maker on the Vissen, and I apprenticed under him. I noticed yours could use some work.”

“Perfect. I’ll lash you to the mainmast till you finish mending all our buggered sailcloth.”

“Now, Jack,” Anne giggled. “You ought to give this boy some gold and let him lie about, else Bill will get the votes he needs to maroon the two of us on some deserted island.”

“I had a good talk with Bill last night,” Jack said tightly. “He knows I’m only trying to do what’s best for the crew.”

“Oh, I know,” said Anne softly. “Sure, I was only joking. Besides, it wouldn’t be so bad to be marooned with me, would it?”

Jack’s demeanor cracked when he looked down at her. “That’s enough out of you,” he said severely, but he was smiling. “Mind you make yourself useful as well, or I’ll see you walk the plank.”

Anne placed her palms against Jack’s chest. Mary’s face grew warm as he pulled Anne in for a kiss, but she couldn’t look away. Anne’s dress crushed against Jack’s body as his grip tightened, heat flaring between them. Mary knew what it was like to want to kiss someone no matter who was watching. How nice it must be, to be able to just pull that person close.

She looked down at the map in front of her as Anne murmured against Jack’s lips. All that water, bits of land—so many places she could be in this new world. But for all of Anne’s geography lessons, Mary was still hopeless at figuring out where exactly she might fit in it.