The brig rolled. Grace stumbled and raised her hand to the bulkhead to keep from falling. Rain pounded on the deck above her, sounding more like grapeshot than drops of water. Clutching the chain around her neck, she withdrew her cross and wobbled toward the porthole. Through the glass, lightning wove a smoky trail across the darkened sky. “Just a tiny squall,” Father Alers had reassured her. “Nothing to worry about. This brig has been through much worse.” Grace rubbed her fingers over the cross. Thunder growled. “Protect us, Lord,” she whispered. A moan sounded from the other side of the cabin, reminding her she was not alone.
Turning around, Grace held her arms out in an effort to keep her balance over the teetering deck and ambled toward the mulatto woman who sat on the floor in the corner by the armoire—where she had been for the past two hours. Grabbing the table, Grace sank into the chair beside her.
Annette smiled but continued her work. In the light of a lantern she had tied to the armoire, Annette arranged a series of articles across a multicolored flag: an amulet, a string of beads, a rattle, and various polished stones.
The hairs on Grace’s arm bristled. “May I ask what you are doing?”
The lady frowned but said nothing, as she had every time Grace had attempted conversation with her during the long night.
“There is no need to be frightened of me,” Grace assured.
Annette’s dark eyes lifted to hers as if searching the validity of her statement.
Grace forced a smile to her lips and wondered why the lady, who must be near her own age, held such a timid manner toward her. The brig pitched over a swell and Grace gripped the arms of the chair. Thunder hammered overhead, drowning out the sound of her nervous breathing, but only increasing the weight of heaviness that had fallen on her since the storm began.
“Living aboard this brig is quite a change from living at the Dubois estate.” Grace once again attempted a light tête-à-tête with the woman. So often maligned by Madame Dubois and ignored by everyone else, Annette appeared lonely, withdrawn, in need of love and encouragement. And to think she was Captain Dubois’s half sister. Did the captain know of the relation? If he did, he certainly made no attempt to acknowledge Annette.
The lady nodded and completed her arrangement. Black hair the color of coal tumbled over her left shoulder onto her plain cotton gown. With full lips, an aquiline French nose, and dark, mysterious eyes, the woman’s beauty was unquestionable. The fact that she had been bred for that very quality made Grace’s stomach sour. Yet, she reminded herself, regardless of the nefarious purposes for which man chose to bring life into the world, God had His own glorious plan for each precious soul. And this woman was as much a child of His as anyone else.
The sea roared against the hull. The deck rose and plunged, and Annette laid her hands over her trinkets, keeping them in place. Then staring at her display, she muttered words in a language Grace could not understand.
Words that sent a chill coursing through her.
Grace hugged herself as another blast of thunder rumbled through the planks of the brig.
“I cause the storm to cease,” Annette said.
Grace eyed the lady, waiting for the smile, the laugh that would accompany such an astonishing statement, but with her lips in a firm line and her eyes staunch with sincerity, Annette remained unmoved.
“What do you mean?” Grace finally said. “How can you stop the storm?”
“With these charms.” Annette waved a hand over her treasures. “And my prayers to the spirits of my ancestors.”
Grace’s stomach shriveled. The lady engaged in some kind of primitive religious ritual. No wonder Grace had felt a darkness, an oppression whenever she’d been in her presence, for she had learned from Reverend Anthony, her pastor in Charles Towne, that many of these ancient religions were mere covers for the worship of demons. An urge to rise and dash from the cabin surged within her, but she willed her breathing to steady and her face to remain placid.
Lightning flickered a deathly pale over the scene. Perhaps this was why the Lord brought Grace all this way—to deliver this girl from spiritual bondage. Grace’s heart thumped wildly in her chest.
“Annette, I serve a God more powerful than the spirits of our ancestors.”
The woman stared blankly at Grace. “I know. I felt His power when I met you.”
Grace flinched even as a thrill went through her. “You did?”
“Why do you not pray and sacrifice to Him to stop the storm?”
Grace fingered her cross, appealing to God for the right words to say to this girl. “I have been praying. But there is no longer a need to offer sacrifices to God, because He offered His own Son as a final sacrifice for all people everywhere.”
“He sacrifice His Son?” She shook her head, her brow pinching. “Why would He do that? C’est fou.”
“He did it because He loves us all so much.” Grace reached out her hand to Annette. “He loves you, Annette.”
Refusing Grace’s hand, Annette lowered her gaze. “No one loves me. I am a possession: one of Monsieur Dubois’s prize mares. I am caught between two worlds, the ones of my ancestors and the world of the whites.”
She said the last word with such hatred, it made Grace jump. “God loves you, Annette. Of that I am sure. He wants you to become part of His family. And if you do, you’ll never feel lost again.”
Annette tossed her long hair over her shoulder and sighed as if considering Grace’s words. She lifted her chin, and her eyes glistened with tears.
The door crashed open and in flounced Madame Dubois. Turning, she slammed the oak slab in the face of whoever had escorted her to the cabin and then flung herself onto the bed.
Grace slouched in her chair at the woman’s poor timing. A few more minutes and she may have been able to lead Annette down the path to a new life.
Instead, Annette’s eyes widened as she shoved her trinkets into a burlap sack and jumped to her feet, no doubt in expectation of her mistress’s command.
Which came within seconds. “Annette, come here. Help me undress. These bindings are squeezing the breath from me.”
Grace cringed at the fear on the mulatto’s face. “How was your dinner?” She turned to face Madame Dubois, who stood and clung to the bulkhead while Annette began untying the laces of her bodice. “Horrible. Simply horrible,” she sobbed. “Rafe was in such a foul humor, and he barely spoke to me at all.” Annette removed the ties from Madame Dubois’s skirt and began unlacing the stomacher as the woman continued her groaning, only exacerbated by the rise and swoop of the brig that nearly sent her tumbling to the plank floor.
After regaining her stance, Madame Dubois shot a fiery gaze at Grace. “It was as if he blamed me for your not attending.”
Grace laughed. “I am his prisoner. What does he expect?”
“That is exactly what I told him.” Madame Dubois batted Annette away and sank onto the bed. “He barely touched his food—which was the same vicious sludge they serve us here, je vous assure—and his crew was quite désagréable.”
Grace could well attest to that. “At least you are free from your husband’s brutality, madame. Isn’t that what you wished?”
She dabbed at her tears. “Oui.”
Thunder roared from a distance, and the rain faded to a light tapping. Grace leaned toward Madame Dubois, trying to squelch her anger at the woman’s selfishness. “Captain Dubois will not allow you to go back to such suffering, I am sure of it.”
Madame Dubois nodded, her curls bobbing. “He intends to put me on a ship to Virginia when he makes anchor at Kingston.”
“That is good news, is it not? Then you can live safely with your relatives.”
“Non!” she shouted, causing Annette to jump. “I do not want to live with them.” Her blue eyes turned to icy daggers. She waved Grace away. “Zut alors, what do you know?”
Grace closed her eyes beneath the woman’s scorn as the depth of her deception became all too clear. “Then your plan was never to go to Charles Towne with me.” She muttered the words without question.
In reply, Madame Dubois lay back upon her bed and resumed her sobbing.
Forcing down her rising fury, Grace stood, grabbed her blankets, and began arranging them into a makeshift bed on the floor beneath the porthole. Though she had tried to sleep in the hammocks the captain had provided, she’d been unable to get comfortable, preferring the hard deck to the swaying confinement of the tight bands of cloth. Finally she lay down, ignoring her stiff back, and soon drifted to sleep to the rumbling sound of receding thunder, the pitter-patter of rain, and Madame Dubois’s incessant whimpering.
Hours later, Grace stirred, alerted by whispers across the room. Recognizing the voices as those of Madame Dubois and Annette, Grace’s heart settled to a normal beat, and she attempted to fall back asleep, but the content of those words kept her awake.
“Do you promise me this will work?” Madame Dubois asked.
“Oui, madame. It works for many generations.”
Silence for a minute. “Uhh, it tastes terrible.”
“Oui, what is that compare to love?” Annette said.
“How long before it begins to take effect?”
“It work right away, but you must also give this to the captain.”
A sigh. “I do not see how, but I will find a way.”
Shuffling, swishing of a nightdress, and Grace heard the creak of Madame Dubois’s bed as she crawled beneath her coverlet. Within minutes the sound of her deep breaths filled the room. Grace had just begun to ponder the meaning of what she had heard when footsteps tapped over the deck. The door creaked open and then thumped closed. Annette had left.
Grace sat up and braced her back against the bulkhead, gathering her blankets to her chest. Fear gripped her for the woman’s safety. Perhaps Annette had never been on a ship before. Perhaps she didn’t realize the dangers lurking among the less-than-scrupulous crew. Grace prayed for her. Minutes passed, and she stood and began to pace. But when Annette didn’t return after an hour, Grace donned her bodice and skirts, checked to ensure Madame Dubois slept peacefully, and slipped into the companionway.
Though the storm had long since passed, the lanterns in the hallway had not been relit, and Grace chided herself for not bringing one of her own. Groping her way along the bulkhead toward Captain Dubois’s cabin, she drew a shaky breath of the stale air. The scents of moist wood, tar, and a hint of tobacco filled her nose. Thunder growled in the distance, and Grace halted and hugged herself. A thick blackness crowded around her. Up ahead, a blade of light sliced the darkness beneath the captain’s cabin door. He was awake. A knot formed in her throat. She knew it was not only improper but dangerous to go to his cabin alone late at night, but she didn’t dare search the ship on her own, and she feared something terrible had befallen Annette.