Paradise Cursed – Snippet 20
Ship-time stays rather flexible on the Sarah Jane, with passengers coming from various time zones. As I made a quick round, I found a number of people on the upper deck, fast asleep on our bright blue deck cushions. Fresh sea air and a canopy of stars is better than Ambien. Stragglers sat at the bar in deep conversation with Burke, who knew to start watering drinks after he decided enough was enough.
Down in the dining room, a late-night card game was in session, which looked like going on for a while. Cookie had left snacks on the counter for easy grazing.
Once again, Ayanna failed to respond to my knock. Probably sleeping, but I needed to see that she was all right. Using my passkey, I gently opened the door. Her light was on. She wasn’t in bed, nor at the makeshift altar.
Then I realized the shower was going. First mate and first-class passengers have private facilities, such as they are. In a space of twenty-four by thirty-six inches, you can sit on the commode, stand and, without moving a step, wash your hands or shower. An economy of space is required, but at least my guests aren’t slung side-by-side as in the early days, a fourteen-inch space allotment for each hammock and only one head forward, one aft, to service the entire population. We still keep it “real” by showering in cold water.
“Ayanna?” Calling it softly, so as not to wake anyone in the next cabin.
A moment later, the shower shut off.
Not knowing if she’d heard me, I said it again. “Ayanna?”
The door opened a crack and a hand groped for the towel hanging on a nearby hook. She emerged with wet hair, a bright smile, and the towel covering her most interesting parts.
“Captain!” Seeing me in my dress whites for the first time ever, she quickly snapped to attention and saluted, then grabbed the towel before it could fall. “Shaman Demarae is going to do it, yeah?”
“We need to talk.” Her left arm, which had been clear a couple of hours ago, now had mottled green skin from just above the elbow nearly to her shoulder, as did the other one. The scaly mottling on her legs also was higher, stopping at mid-calf. “I’ll step out while you put on clothes, then we have decisions to make.”
“Decisions? What to decide?” Frustration turned her words brittle.
“Put some clothes on and we’ll talk.” I stepped out, lit a make-do pipe, having lost my favorite to the waves, then paced down the passageway and back.
Minutes later, she opened the door dressed in short cotton pajamas. I knocked my tobacco over the rail before re-entering her cabin.
“Sit down.” Taking off my hat, I absently ran a hand through my hair and gathered my thoughts. I couldn’t help glancing at her abnormalities.
She sat stiffly on the bed and looked up at me, waiting.
“How do you feel?”
“Stronger in here,” she said, pointing to her head. Then, placing a hand over her chest, “Also in here. But you see what’s happening, and the dark dreams come now when I am not even sleeping.”
Attempting to keep my own leanings private, I laid out the two choices presented by the shaman. I couldn’t help noticing that the mottling of her skin, though horrific, was actually rather attractive, greenish brown tones blending into her natural golden-brown coloring. Touching it, of course, was an entirely different matter. And how would she look when it covered her face?
“If this is true, what Shaman Demarae says, who can know how much time I have before the Bokor takes me entirely? Roatan is another night sail away, and maybe this Shawnte is too busy, or is no better than Demarae. Before coming here, I asked everyone, ‘who is the best?’ Demarae was the name I heard. We need to do this again now.”
Not what I’d hoped she’d say. Although I had spoken confidently about having the ceremony on the ship, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do. The passengers would all go ashore tomorrow, and weren’t expected back until Swizzle Time, five p.m. I could take stalling measures, but quite feasibly they could return anytime they wanted.
“If Demarae were to hold the ceremony at a proper church,” I suggested, “with more participants—”
“I believe he did the best possible on the island.” Her beautiful face became a study in fear, eyes rounded, mouth quivering. She clamped her lips tightly, then said, “Captain, we need the Sarah Jane‘s power.”
Ayanna was right, of course. We might have to move a few mountains to get it done. Even so, would it be enough?
*
Morning came sooner than I would like. My first task was putting Jase Graham in charge again as temporary first mate. His smirky grin made me wish there was someone— anyone—else who could do the job. As expected, he questioned my orders when I informed him that all the staff would have a shore pass, but he had the good sense not to question me twice.
I was glad to find Dayna Kohl helping Cookie. That meant he’d be less disgruntled when I sent him with Graham to keep the passengers corralled ashore. Once they left the launches, most would take off on their own. But for those who preferred a chaperone, no one was better than Cookie. He knew the islands, he knew the sunken-ship lore, the pirate lore, and he could point our guests towards the best diving and snorkeling options.
Mostly, I wanted him off the ship. I wanted everyone off the ship.
Story Time, I would make the announcement that repairs were being done today, would be completed by five o’clock Swizzlers, and at that time everyone could pick their entry for the crab races.
Meanwhile, there were two people I needed to talk with. The call to Shaman Demarae went well enough.
“Captain, after giving this some thought, I am grateful to have this opportunity. Many stories are told about your ship, and I welcome the chance to test its legendary magic.” He agreed to come at noon and bring everything necessary for the healing ceremony, including the best live goat he could find.
So Demarae was in. Now there was one more.
At first bell, I tapped lightly on Erin Kohl’s door and asked if she would join me in the dining room.
“I have an important question for you,” I said, “so I asked your sister what your favorite breakfast dishes might be. Cookie is preparing a Swiss and mushroom omelet, crispy home-fries, and English muffins with raspberry jam. Dayna said you prefer blackberry, but we don’t have it on hand. I hope that won’t be a deal breaker.”
Erin’s perplexed frown was almost comical. “With an opening like that, you know I have to ask what could be so important. And you won’t tell me until I agree to accept the bribe?”
“Let’s not call it a bribe. More of an incentive, which you will be free to enjoy even if your answer is no.”
She collected her purse and joined me in the passageway, a good sign. We strolled to the dining room in silence. Only after we were at the door did she finally turn a smile in my direction.
“Thank you for the invitation, Captain McKinsey. I will enjoy joining you for breakfast.”
Excellent. But that was the easy part.
Sitting eye-to-eye with her across the breakfast table, I found myself groping for words and reaching to the past for guidance. Way back, when Stryker was captain, a French fellow named Jem sailed with us. The old man was quite hard on Jem. Anything he wanted done, it’d fall on Jem to do it. One day ashore, Jem and I were headed towards Sailors Haven for a pint when he spied a book in a shop window. Right away, he had to go in.
The book was about hypnotism. It vowed that a man could learn the trick of putting his friends to sleep and making them do his bidding.
“Wonder would it work on a blighter what ain’t no friend atall,” Jem said, and bought the book on the spot.
Jem wasn’t all that good at reading, but once in the pub with a pint in front of him, he started sounding the words out loud. The book told how to go about mesmerizing by making your eyes go wide and glaring at your subject while burning a candle on a table between you. “Then you say in a firm but soft voice, ‘Yer eyelids look quite heavy, my friend.
Holding them open is verrrry difficult, near impossible, so just shut yer eyes for a bit, let’em rest, and let yer mind go empty ‘cept for the candle flame, which ye can see even with yer eyes closed, ye can see it right there in the darkness of yer mind, as it flickers slowly, verrrry slowly soothing like, and…’”
Jem’s voice tailed off. If I hadn’t moved the mug right quick, he’d have been face down in his ale. The first time he tried that mesmerizing trick on Stryker, the old man reached out his meaty hand, snatched Jem by the throat and threatened to throw him overboard if he didn’t quit giving him the evil eye.
All this passed through my mind as I was deciding how to broach an entreaty that I feared might scare Erin Kohl into jumping ship. I stalled until we’d finished eating and started on a second cup of coffee.
“The amulet Ayanna gave you—”
“Is it valuable?” She quickly grasped the gold chain with both hands as if to remove it from around her neck. “I don’t mind giving it back. We’ve hardly met, so I’ve no idea why Ayanna gave it to me.”
“No! I mean, I don’t know if it’s valuable, but I know she meant you to have it.” I took a breath to start again. “You see, Ayanna recognized something about you, a gift you have that might sometimes seem, well… like more of a burden than a blessing.”
Erin Kohl’s eyes grew wide, and she clutched the chain tighter. “No. There’s nothing. If you think I can do psychic readings for your guests, forget it. Tarot and astrology are not a form of psychic phenomena. I don’t conjure up spirits of lost loved ones or make predictions that someone will win the lottery by betting certain numbers or that they shouldn’t fly on certain days. It’s not like that, and I didn’t actually agree, did I?”
Before she could yank off the amulet and fling it at me, I placed my hands gently over hers. “Ms. Kohl, Ayanna wants you to have this. And no, you didn’t quite agree to my offer but said you’d think about it.”
I let go of her hands and sort of patted them in a feeble attempt to calm her.
“The thing is…” I fumbled for words. “Ayanna is ill. She needs a particular type of healing, which we attempted to obtain last night. We weren’t quite successful.”
“She looked fine when I saw her in the dining room. Flushed, maybe, but in great spirits.”
“We both thought the healing had worked. Later, she had what you might call a relapse.”
A deep furrow appeared between Erin’s eyebrows. Her eyes filled with concern.
“Is there something I can do? I don’t know anything about medicine, but I could sit with her if you want. Maybe there’s a doctor or nurse on board the ship.”
“I’m afraid that’s not the kind of medicine she needs.”
I let the statement lie there between us without further explanation and watched her face harden as she slowly took in my meaning.
“Captain, I told you, I’m not… I don’t… I mean, I can’t—”
Once again I took her hands and held them on the table between us.
“Ms. Kohl, how did you come to be on the Sarah Jane?”
“What?”
“Did you get bumped from another cruise that was overbooked, or win a contest, or—”
“Well, yes, a honeymoon drawing, but I’m not sure why we won. I don’t remember—”
“You don’t remember entering the drawing.”
“How did you know?” She retrieved her hands and put them around her coffee mug as if to warm them. “I thought it was weird. Is it a scam of some sort?”
“Not at all in the way you mean, but let me see if I can put this in a way that won’t seem frightening. I mean…” Her gasp told me I’d already failed at not scaring her. How many times had I attempted to explain the unexplainable? Thousands? Yet it was never easy, and every person reacted differently. “The Sarah Jane is an extremely old ship with a colorful past. During the days of piracy, a lot of men died here, and her decks soaked up not only their blood but perhaps some… essence, if we might call it that… of the men themselves, or at least their spirits.”
“Surely, you don’t mean there are ghosts on board. That’s just silly!”
“No, not ghosts, at least not today, and now please don’t negate what I’m saying until you hear me out. Is that fair?”
She hesitated but then nodded. “Fair enough.”
“For whatever reason, the Sarah Jane seems to act as an amplifier to certain energies that come aboard. And while you may not believe you have psychic abilities, there is an energy within you that draws you to tarot and astrology as a way of divining the unknown.”
“No, I—” She put her fingers over her mouth, then smiled. “Sorry. Go on. I won’t interrupt.”
I returned the smile and wished I could light my pipe.
“You may even have noticed that your natural human intuition— which we all have— is heightened since you arrived.”
Her eyes widened again but this time with what I took for interest, not fear.
“If so, you certainly aren’t the first passenger to feel that way. It happens so often I’ve come to expect it. And in some cases, such as yours, I hope, the amplification turns out to be a benefit, often with quite happy consequences.” I waited for the words benefit and happy to have an effect before continuing. “How much do you know about the religions practiced on the Caribbean islands?”
“Nothing, really.” She lifted an eyebrow quizzically. “Unless you’re talking about voodoo. That can’t be real, can it? I mean, I know it’s real, it’s practiced here, but no one really believes people turn into zombies. That’s even crazier than ghosts.”
I didn’t want to lie, so I decided it was time for her to see rather than merely listen.
“Will you walk with me for a moment?” I rose and held out my hand.
“Okay. Sure.” She took it, allowing me to help her up.
A good sign, I hoped. Once we were outside the dining room, I answered her first question and hoped she’d forget about zombies. “Voodoo is one of many religions here, and the movies have presented it as much darker that the reality, but most religions do have a dark side. Christianity has Jesus but also Satan, angels but also demons, so to speak.
“And some island religions have practitioners who entertain the dark side. The worst of the lot will summon a dark saint and, for a price, will place a curse upon a chosen victim. Ayanna is experiencing a curse that’s making her ill and causing terrible dreams as well as other problems.”
Erin Kohl shook her head, despite having more or less agreed to keep an open mind. I had expected such a reaction.
“Would you go with me,” I said, “to look in on her?”
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