The captain faced the new arrivals and said, “Nanny?”
One of the shadows stepped forward—a woman, her hair bound tight to her head; wiry, with powerful limbs, wearing a long skirt and a full blouse. She was shorter than the walking staff she leaned on, but could surely use the length of wood as a weapon. She held it as if she could raise and swing it in a moment.
“Marjory,” the woman said in a low voice that carried over the beach. “You bring trouble.”
“I know, Nanny. I’m sorry for it,” the captain said, and Jill was shocked to hear the deference in her voice. Captain Cooper didn’t defer to anyone. She might have been the strongest person Jill had ever met—but Jill wondered if maybe this Nanny was the strongest person Marjory Cooper had ever met.
“Tell me the story,” Nanny said in a broad, round accent. The woman gestured to the central fire, still burning low in its pit of sand. Cooper led Nanny to it, and they sat in its light.
The others who had come with Nanny stayed around the perimeter of the camp, keeping a lookout.
Jill watched the two women at the fire. She didn’t dare approach, though she was fascinated. But now she couldn’t even try to sleep, so she sat up, wrapped in her blanket, and watched.
“We raided a ship of slavers,” Cooper said. “Abe and me raided it—you know how it is. We couldn’t take them back home so we brought them here. It’s the only safe place for them, Nanny. I know you won’t turn them away.”
“You take advantage of my hospitality. We’ve all escaped, we all fight every day to keep the freedom we won. There are still hunters from the plantations crawling through these trees looking for us. How am I supposed to hide all these folk? And how we going to feed so many new mouths?”
“You’ll find a way. We’ve got some stores on the ship we can give you. But I know you won’t let me take these folk to the market in Havana.”
The woman chuckled, a rich, sly sound. “Oh, you won’t do that, or you would have already. I know you, Marjory.”
The captain looked away, just for a moment.
Nanny said, “Let me meet them, speak to them.”
The group of Africans was still at their own camp a little way off from the others, away from the work, the fire, and the pirates. But they had not left; Jill had expected them to just walk away. Nothing was keeping them from leaving—except the jungle and the unknown. The same reason Emory had tried to signal a ship rather than simply walk away.
Jill supposed she could walk away, except that she still didn’t know exactly where she was, still didn’t have any idea how to fend for herself, how to get food or water, and she didn’t know how to get back home. So maybe she did understand them, a little. But then she didn’t have sores around her ankles like they did, from where the shackles had bound them, so maybe she didn’t understand at all.
Nanny went to the group and spoke in a different language. One of them answered her, and a conversation began. Occasionally one of the others would speak up—and the first one who’d spoken would seem to repeat, but with different words. They didn’t all speak the same language, and maybe Nanny didn’t speak the same languages that Abe did. Nanny asked questions, and the one who understood her answered. Even though Jill didn’t understand what they were saying, she stayed awake, listening to the voices lilting like music.
Captain Cooper remained standing nearby, watching. She sent her own crew to sleep, so Nanny’s people were the only ones keeping watch.
The sky had begun to pale when the conversation stopped, and Nanny turned back to Cooper. “You are a pirate,” Nanny said to Cooper.
“So you say,” the captain answered, tired. “What does that make you?”
“A young woman getting old,” Nanny said. “Your orphans, I’ll take them home with me, like you knew I would.”
“Thank you,” Cooper said, and seemed relieved.
“But you owe me,” Nanny said, pointing with the staff.
“Put it on my account, woman.”
The camp began to wake, the fires were fed, voices murmured with greetings of the morning. Jill watched, dazed, still in a dream. When she woke up, she’d be in her own bed, in the modern world, where she belonged.
Nanny had moved off to talk to one of her guards, and the Africans were standing, stretching, as if getting ready for a walk. Captain Cooper came toward Jill.
“Have you been up all night, listening in on us?” the captain said, looking down on Jill with a furrowed brow and a quirked smile. Jill nodded meekly. The captain shook her head. “You’re such a tadpole.”
Jill certainly felt small at the moment.
“Get up, then,” Cooper said. “There’s a group going inland for fresh water. You’ll go with them.”
Jill was tired of work, sweat and dirt, blisters on her hands, and not understanding what was happening. But following orders was easier than arguing. She picked herself up, stretched, tried to brush some of the sand off, and didn’t succeed.
Every new job she was given was worse than the last. Nanny’s people told them that there was a creek with clear, fresh water just a little ways into the forest. The mouth of it was up the shore half a mile. All they had to do was get one of the rowboats, row the barrels there, fill them up, and bring them back.
The barrels were as big as Jill. She could hide inside one if she scrunched up. While others continued scrubbing the hull, Jill helped wrestle the empty water barrels up from the hold, lower them into one of the rowboats, and row to the mouth of the stream, which was narrow, rocky, and crowded with overhanging branches and foliage. The others made her the guinea pig, testing the water every few yards, tasting handfuls of it until it turned fresh. She must have spit out a dozen mouthfuls of briny, mucky water. Then, when they finally reached fresh water that hadn’t been tainted by the tide rolling in from the coast, they had to fill the barrels, load them back in the rowboat, and return to the shore to load the barrels back on the Diana.
She hadn’t understood the phrase “backbreaking work” until the last couple of days. She was beginning to think she’d never done any work at all. She’d had an easy life, wandering on the beach on vacation; she wanted to go back to her easy life.
She had tied her hair up with a scarf to keep sweat from running into her eyes. Her clothing was soaked with it. She was so hot, she only wanted to run into the water and float there, rocked gently by the waves. After helping to guide the rowboat back to the ship, Jill rested at the edge of the sand, catching her breath, feeling the sweat drip off her in rivers. Her face was red and burning.
She didn’t notice that she had stopped next to Nanny, who was watching her, head tilted with curiosity, suppressing a smile.
“You look terrible, girl,” the woman said. Jill nearly cried. She might have whimpered.
“And what’s your story?” Nanny said, leaning on her staff. “Has Marjory found her apprentice to be the next pirate queen?”
Jill shook her head. “I don’t even think she likes me.”
At that, Nanny smiled wide. “Sit down here in the shade. Marjory won’t care if you rest a moment.”
Nanny moved to the edge of the foliage, in a spot of cool shade, and sat cross-legged. She waved Jill over, and Jill followed. The shade felt blissful. She closed her eyes to rest them.
“So, where are you from?” Nanny asked. “No real pirate would row a boat like you did, splashing the water all about.”
Jill sighed. “I’m from a long way away.”
Nanny furrowed her brow and said, “Just how far?”
Maybe because she was a stranger, a disinterested third party without a hold on her, Jill told her everything. Not just the boat tour from the modern Bahamas, falling overboard, and being pulled out by the unlikely Captain Cooper and her crew. But even before then, her frustration with her family, with herself, with her fencing and not qualifying for the world championships by half a second. And the realization that if she didn’t have fencing, she didn’t know what she had, or who she was. She didn’t know why she was here. She was adrift with strangers on a wide ocean.