Paradise Cursed – Snippet 11
CHAPTER 9
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?” I kept my voice low but drilled Ayanna with the hardest stare I could summon. “You skive off on our busiest night then show up this morning scabby and late, with hangover breath and eyes like bleeding road maps. I’ve a mind to toss you over the rail and see if you’re as good at swimming as you are at piss-arsing about.”
We stood at the wheel, my steering hand calmly holding the ship on course, a golden morning sun beaming off the gentle swells, while my left fist secretly and furiously balled around a wad of her shirttail. Dressed completely in white today, long pants rather than shorts like everyone else, my first mate had twisted her long dark hair into a knot at the back of her head. No makeup. To anyone looking on, we were two sailors discussing the wind.
“Captain, I am not drinking last night. I am sick with the stomach.”
“Sick? Too sick to stop at my table for two seconds and tell me? You appeared well enough yesterday, spinning your story of why I should hire you.”
“I am not sick yesterday. Only last night.”
“Look at me.” I yanked the hem of her shirt and she turned to meet my eyes. “I should have trusted my first impression. I knew something was off with you. If you’re not a boozer, what the devil is your problem?”
She hesitated. Her lip quivered, and I expected tears to come next, but she surprised me, grimacing hard around whatever emotion she was hiding.
“Devil?” she said softly, pausing again before continuing. “Yes, my problem is a devil. A devil Bokor crosses me. I am needing the Sarah Jane’s magic.”
She had hinted at this yesterday with much better language skills. I’d noticed Ayanna purposely using Jamaican patois to charm the passengers, but now she was also slipping into it. From being stressed? Maybe she was one of the Sarah Jane’s chosen. She wouldn’t be the first to believe my ship possessed a power to be siphoned off like wine. Arguing with such believers was useless.
“Why not board as a passenger? Or hire on as a seaman without command duties?”
“You are not posting a cruise plan. One time you go to the Caymans, other time Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas, other time Roatan. As first officer, maybe I have a chance of…choosing.”
I laughed and let go of her shirt to stretch my cramped fingers. “Like what, mutiny? You were going to make off with my ship?”
Again, she hesitated. “Captain, I am needing magic.”
This time the crack in her voice held so much despair that I wished she would simply let the tears flow. I could deal with tears. Ayanna’s need, raw and compelling, was the sort of problem I’d come to anticipate and felt committed to help heal. Special-needs guests that somehow found their way to the Sarah Jane seemed the only point to my existence, helping them the only achievement that might appease whoever, whatever, had cursed me to live out eternity. But why did it have to be my first mate, the sailor I depended on most to keep the ship on course while I battled these weird occurrences?
In her defense, Ayanna had not lied. I need you as much as you need me, she’d said during the hiring interview. They say an angel rides the Sarah Jane. Some say a devil.
I’d seen examples of both. Apparently, extreme good and extreme evil danced merrily across time and space, randomly scooping up unwary humans in their eternal tango. Clearly,
Ayanna needed my help, so my lot for now was to go along.
“A shaman living on Grand Cayman,” she said, “possesses strong magic, maybe strong enough to break the Bokor’s curse.”
I’d heard rumors of this shaman’s strength. Perhaps he did have fierce magic. Surely not fierce enough to break my own curse—I’d been down that road too many times to be swept away by rumors.
The Caymans were a world of their own, however, with commercial lodges that provide shamanic rites to tourists. While the shamans who worked those venues were probably trained in certain medicinal cures, I had my doubts about their abilities in the darker arts. Ayanna might be chasing a fairytale.
Also, I sensed with a measure of certainty that Erin Kohl was somehow equally in need. As yet, I didn’t know the cause or extent of her fears, but she would spill them before this cruise ended. In earlier days, the Sarah Jane’s helping-magic, if one could call it that, had attracted pirates, refugees and other lost souls. When I ran the ship as a deep-sea fishing vessel, guaranteeing my guests would take home Mahi-Mahi, Wahoo, Barracuda, Black Fin or possibly a Marlin, fishermen from around the world sought us out. The fishing was excellent, because I know the Caribbean as well as I know the many ways one can die. One or more of my guests always brought a dark secret aboard, and the Sarah Jane’s magic would somehow unravel it.
My part was to listen for cues and hold tight to my sanity while assisting in whatever manner I was needed. So now I would apply all my resources to rescue Ayanna from a Bokor’s curse. But what if assisting my new first mate sent us in a direction that would endanger my passenger, Erin Kohl?
Dayna’s ears burned, exactly as Mom had always warned. Just beyond the wheelhouse, she scrubbed the deck listening to Captain McKinsey and Ayanna. In truth, the deck was clean enough to use as a dinner plate long before she was finished listening. And wondering.
What sort of magic was aboard the Sarah Jane? Did it have anything to do with Erin’s anxious behavior since boarding? If so, was it a good kind of magic or something that would harm her sister? And what the blazin’ heck was a Bokor?
The ring of a bell and the clatter of deck chairs being pulled into a circle on the upper deck told me Story Time had come. Aboard the Sarah Jane, Story Time is the occasion when I divulge to the passengers our cruise plan for that day.
Leaving Ayanna to mind the helm, I claimed my perch on a stool under a blue awning that shades a twenty-by-thirty-foot area near the bar and provides respite from our blinding Caribbean sun and the sudden showers that can douse the fun out of a gathering. The crowd chatter quieted and some thirty pairs of eyes watched me as other passengers drew their chairs near.
I found myself delaying my decision. In truth, we were headed toward Puerto Rico at the moment, where a morning’s sail would take us to the Virgin Islands, or an all-night sail to the Antilles, every island offering a distinctly different European spirit with tourist-pleasing shopping venues and water sports. Personally, I had a particular liking for Saint Eustatius. While still a lad serving under Stryker, we came to the island affectionately known as Statia shortly after plundering a ship owned by the Dutch West India Company. I smoked my first tobacco there and tasted my first sugar-laden cup of tea in months.
Today, we were not so far into our journey that we couldn’t easily change course. Another hour and that would not be feasible. Passengers had a right to know where the captain was taking them.
Holding the clapper silent on a heavy brass bell, artifact from the Sarah Jane’s early days, Jase sidled up.
“Did you spot her?” he asked pitching his voice to a furtive low, like a character from a spy novel. “The redhead in the t-shirt?”
“Of course.” Missing Dayna Kohl’s black shirt, with I KISS on the first date in bold white letters, would not have been possible, even if I didn’t have my eye on hiring her if she remained as enthusiastic at the end of our voyage as she was now. A voluptuous pair of rhinestone-emblazoned red lips positioned over Dayna’s left breast guaranteed she wouldn’t be missed in a crowd. “But don’t forget your job description, mate. Spread the charm around.”
“Can I help being a sap for redheads?” He let go the clapper and the bell rang out signaling again for Story Time.
On the trail of its peal, the shuffling of chairs and feet quieted. I raised my mug in the usual toast.
“To clear skies, balmy nights, the wind that blows, the ship that goes, and lifelong friends in the making. May our adventures together bring fellowship and return us safely home.”
As I spoke, my eyes sought out Erin Kohl’s. At present, I was only guessing that she carried a problem needing my attention. Unfortunately, her steady gaze told me nothing, so I made the decision. “Grand Cayman, our first island destination…”
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