by D. J. Holmes
As Jody follows the pirate she quickly turns and signals to her sisters that she will be back in one minute. Her sisters become concerned.
“Do you think that she will be alright?”
“I don’t think that Jody would go anywhere that isn’t safe. Remember how strong she has been all of these years?”
“Yes, and the pirate didn’t push her downstairs, she was following him.”
“Let’s give her five minutes. If she doesn’t come back on deck we’ll tell father.”
“That’s a deal.” And all of the sisters hold hands as they watch for Jody’s return.
Following behind Jaci, Jody is taken to the Captain’s Cabin.
Opening the door Jaci runs up to Diana and Jaimie, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Turning around she gestures with her right hand, “This is Jody. And Jody this is Jaimie and Diana.”
“Oh, I know what her name is Jaci, Gray Wolf told me,” Diana sadly states as she thinks of her little sister.
“No, I mean…” Jaci’s eyes widen and her smile broadens, “THIS IS JODY, OUR JODY! … Jody, show her your necklace.”
Pulling her necklace back out Jody says, “I know that you told us to never show our necklace but I’m too excited.”
Jaimie walks over to her to inspect it. “This is the necklace that I made from grandmothers necklace, Diana.” Looking at her almost forgotten face, she grabs Jody and hugs her. Then she asks, “Where did Black Beard take you?
“He took us to Haiti. We have been living there for years…well I really don’t know how much time it’s been… we grew up over night for some strange reason.”
“How did you come to be with Gray Wolf?”
“Oh, he picked us up about a week ago. Black Beard was killed in a battle and he finally had a chance to take us back to our home…but do you mind if I answer all your questions later? I have a surprise for you.”
“…A surprise?”
As she runs out of the cabin, she yells back, “You are going to be blown away.”
Looking at Diana, Jaimie smiles, “Now I know for sure that she is Jody, she always talked that way.”
Smiling Diana adds “She always made me smile when she used words like that.”
Going up on deck Jody motions for one of the older men, who is talking to Gray Wolf’s crew, to come to her.
“Oh, Jody wants me. Would you excuse me please?
Her sisters see their father walking in her direction, “There she is and father is walking toward her, she must be alright.”
“What do you want my sweet daughter?”
Grabbing his hand she says, “Just come with me.” Walking back down to the Captain’s Cabin she opens the door and stands there with the older man.
Not knowing what is happening, both Jaimie and Diana put their hands on the handles of their swords, ready to defend themselves if need be.
“Oh, there is no need for that Diana…this is father.”
Diana’s eyes widen trying to see the face of the man that she knew as her father behind the long hair, beard and mustache.
“Diana?” he questions.
“Yes father… our Diana,” Jody responds with excitement.
“Jaimie, would you take over again?” Diana walks over to this man, still trying to see something familiar as she asks, “Ian, father, where have you been?”
“Our ship wrecked in a huge storm off the southern tip of Cuba, shortly after we left Martinique. We would be there still if it wouldn’t have been for Gray Wolf.”
“So all of our sisters and our fathers are with us now?”
“Yes, Diana we are all here because of Gray Wolf, and of course because you came to our rescue…I must say this is a magnificent ship.”
“Yes. I’ll have to tell you its story. We’ll tell you all of our adventurers, but for now would you and all of the rest of our fathers like to get cleaned up, we’ll be at Martinique soon?”
“That would be wonderful. I haven’t shaved in years.”
“Well, down the hall in the second room to your left you will find razors, and a change of clothes. I always wondered what they were for, but now I know that Daniel knew that this would happen and he wanted you to look your best for mother. He wanted all of you to look your best for when you arrived home.” Looking over at her long lost sister she smiles, “Jody, there are also clothes for you and the rest of our sisters…go now, get cleaned up and we will talk later.”
Love, electricity and a feeling of gratefulness that God has brought them back together manifests itself as everyone is told the news. Though they can neither see nor feel it, they sense the thunderous applause of everyone in heaven clapping because of their reunion. Knowing that it was only because of their efforts and their faith in God that this had such a happy ending, they are extremely grateful to be going home to Martinique, to their wives and mothers.
While all of the fathers and sisters are getting cleaned up, Diana walks up to the deck to find Gray Wolf.
“I owe you an apology,” she says as she stands face to face with him.
“What? The great Captain is apologizing?” he says as he looks directly at her with his gorgeous smile.
“Yes. It is because of you that I have my whole family back.”
Becoming serious he states, “Diana, it is me that should be apologizing to you. It is because of me that your sisters were taken in the first place.”
“Gray Wolf, you were a young boy and you weren’t from here. You didn’t know what Black Beard was capable of.”
“I’m glad that you feel that way Diana, because it looks like we’ll be staying in Martinique for quite a long time while we build another ship.”
“My sisters and I will be very happy to have men on the island that are our same age.”
“There are no men on your island?”
“Only our fathers…” She says as she looks up and to the side, finally becoming a little shy.
“Now this should be very interesting. I hope that you won’t mind if I spend a lot of time with you.”
Looking toward the stern Diana sees two people, that because of all of the excitement, she has completely forgotten about.
“I would love to spend time with you Gray Wolf, but there are two people that I need to introduce you to.”
Walking over to Blue Cloud and Snow Flower, Diana says, “Blue Cloud and Snow Flower, this is Gray Wolf.”
“Yes, we have been watching him. He is quite a brave young man.”
“What did you say your names were?” Gray Wolf asks.
“My name is Snow Flower, and this is Blue Cloud…do those names sound familiar to you at all?”
The sound of drums, begin pounding in his head and pictures begin flashing of a family that always laughed and worked together; pictures of a kind loving father that taught him how to shoot a bow and arrow, to ride a horse, and dance the Eagle Dance; and a mother that loved him. Finally pictures of his twin brother, Running Deer, appear.
“Yes, they do sound familiar. Where is my brother Running Deer?”
“We don’t know where he has been, but we do know that he has returned back to Daniel’s Beach House and is safe there.
As their ship nears Martinique, Diana begins to worry. Will our mothers be able to handle the fact that our fathers and sisters are returning on the same day?
“Jaimie, Stacey and Jessica, I have a question for you. How do you think that we should handle this? I’m afraid that our mothers won’t be able to handle everyone returning at the same time. What do you think?”
Stacey responds, “I can see what you are concerned about. Why don’t we turn it into a presentation?”
“That would be perfect, Blue Cloud and Snow Flower and their magic swords can stand at the door of the Captain’s cabin holding their swords up to form a threshold.”
“So everyone would be invisible until they walk under the swords?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
�
��That would work, but I just had another thought. The last time we flew home our mother’s saw us and met us in the cove. So if we are going to do this everyone will need to be in the Captain’s cabin before we sail into the cove…”
Jessica adds, “What if we all dress in our pirate uniforms and stand on deck asking our mother’s to come aboard. Once they are on deck, we’ll have them sit on the quarterdeck looking toward the door that everyone will come through. We’ll explain that we have a surprise and want to share it with them. First, our sisters will come out and I am sure that our mothers will run to them, giving them hugs and asking them questions. After that calms down a little we will announce our final surprise as our fathers walk onto the deck.”
“That sounds great, Jessica… Our mothers will be a crying mess, but it will be wonderful.”
“What do you mean that our mother’s will be a crying mess, I think that everyone will be part of that crying mess.”
“You’re right, Diana.”
With the island of Martinique in view, Diana instructs, “everyone get in your places.”
Down on Martinique, Jasmine has noticed movement in the sky from her right eye… after looking again to make sure she calls, “Grace, I see the ‘Destiny’.”
“…Where?”
Pointing to the sky, Jasmine states, “right there.”
Grace shouts, “EVERYONE, THEY’RE HERE. I’LL BE THE FIRST ONE TO THE COVE.”
“Oh, no you won’t,” all of the mother’s chorus as they race to the cove.
Arriving at the cove they notice that their daughters are standing on the deck at attention.
“Grace, what are they doing?” Jasmine questions.
“I don’t know, but Diana is walking forward.”
“Mother’s, we would like to invite you aboard. We have a great surprise for you!”
Swimming to the ‘Destiny’ they climb the rope ladder. Once on deck they are taken to the quarterdeck. “We would like you to sit here and look toward the Captains door.”
The swords appear. “Mothers, we have completed our mission.”
With that said the sisters begin walking through the door.
Tears fill everyone’s eyes as they meet after such a long time of being apart.
“Oh, Diana we couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
“I think that there is something that would make you even happier, and that is our next surprise.”
“…Another surprise?” The mothers are already overcome with joy. What else could make them any happier?
Ian leads his men through the door. Grace stands up hardly believing her eyes as she runs, squealing, to meet him. Next Lucas appears and Jasmine runs toward him. As each man comes through the door his wife runs, crying, overcome with happiness, to be by his side.
Tears, crying, questions, hugs and a lot of kissing are part of this reunion. Blue Cloud, Snow Flower, along with Gray Wolf and his crew watch with joyful hearts.
Diana asks for everyone’s attention. “We need to thank Blue Cloud and Snow Flower for protecting us on our last journey. And we are so grateful to Gray Wolf and his crew for bringing our fathers and sisters back to us. Thank you all for what you have done to make our families complete.”
Grace adds, “Yes, thank you. If you will all come to the village kitchen, let us prepare a festival so that we can celebrate this great occasion.”
As the celebration begins, Diana walks toward Gray Wolf wearing a pink dress.
“The great Captain is wearing a dress?”
“Yes, I wanted you to know that I can be a woman also.”
With his heart pumping and a large smile on his face, he remarks, “Oh, I never had any question about that, Diana…would you like to walk along the beach and watch the sun set?”
“I would love to,” she says softly as she looks into his beautiful dark eyes.
Taking charge of the situation he suggests, “Then come with me, woman,” Gray Wolf says as he softly holds her hand, walking under the palm trees toward the beach.
Jaci can hardly believe what she sees as her mouth drops. Pointing in Diana’s direction she bends over the table… cups her hand up to her mouth and says, “Kristen and Marie, look at Diana, she is wearing a dress.”
“…A dress? Where did she get a dress?”
“I don’t know, but she is walking hand in hand with Gray Wolf.”
“He’s so good looking I wish I had a chance with him.”
“I think right now they only have eyes for each other. I think they are in loooove.” Kristen puckers her lips and pretends like she is kissing the wind.
“Ah, so that’s the look on their faces.”
During all this time Marie has been listening to her sisters, but she has been looking at all of the young men that make up Gray Wolf’s crew. “I agree that Gray Wolf is a very good looking man, but have you taken a look at his crew? They are all good looking.”
Marie’s comment turns Jacie’s attention to all of the young men that are now on their island. “MMM, I haven’t had time to look at them, but now that I do…”
“So let’s get to know them,” Kristen suggests.
Grace and Ian, Jasmine and Lucas, along with the other mothers and fathers talk together as they watch their daughters mingle with Gray Wolf’s crew.
“It looks like our daughters are smitten with Gray Wolf’s mates.”
“They all seem to be good hard working men.”
“They saved us from the island we were stranded on.”
“We wouldn’t be here today on Martinique, if it wasn’t for them. And then to find out that the young girls that he had with him were our daughters… what a God send.”
Grace looks at her husband. “What happened to you and your crew, Ian?”
“Do you remember the morning we left to sign up as Privateers?”
“Of course, you had just returned from getting the island supplies and Lucas had picked up a poster advertising the opportunity to be paid for the same type of work that you had been doing as a Pirate.”
“Yes, I wanted to be on the right side of the law so that we didn’t have to worry about any soldiers coming to this island. They would have taken you and all the daughters, burning our village down.”
Looking at her husband with sad memories coming to mind, Grace points out, “Instead, Black Beard took them.”
“That’s the problem with being on the wrong side of the law, not only do the soldiers come after us, all of the other pirates try to take everything that we have won along with everything that is near and dear to our hearts.”
Listening to Ian, Lucas adds, “We’ve had some great adventures and we have always felt invincible until we found ourselves shipwrecked and stranded on that island.”
“We built a beautiful village while we were there.”
“Yes, we built our homes in the trees. After that storm we felt that it would be safer being above the ground in case the area we were in had those types of storms all the time.”
“Sweet heart… what happened to the ‘‘Mysterious’’?”
“Grace, it was so heart breaking… let me tell you what happened.”
“We had just filled out the Privateer papers and boarded our ship. We could tell that a storm was coming in, but we had weathered storms before while at sea, so there was no terror in our hearts, just the feeling of excitement and adventure with the possibility of making money on the right side of the law, to provide for our families,” his hand extended out and around to include his whole crew as they sat in a circle listening to their captain tell of their adventure. “The wind became quite strong. It reminded me of the storm that hit our island, the night before we left Martinique. The skies were full of lightning extending from one side of the sky to the other. I had forgotten, but Lucas reminded me that everyone was busy putting out the fires in our sails after the lightning had hit them.”
Ian’s crew nodded their heads in agreement, remembering their part in putting out the
fires.
“The walls of the sea felt like they were going to swallow us up, they were so high… the ‘‘Mysterious’’ was a large strong ship, but in the middle of the sea, in this storm, we felt like a single coconut bobbing back up to fill our lungs with air after a wall of sea water had breached the side railings of our ship and had covered our deck.”
“The ‘‘Mysterious’’ kept cutting through the waves, and I thought that this would be like any other storm that we had sailed through in our many adventures, but the next thing that I felt was sand on my face and water flowing up to my neck and then retreating down to my ankles, back and forth over and over again,” he looks over at his quarter master, “until Lucas tapped me on my shoulder and asked how I was.”
“I was concerned, Ian. You had banged your head pretty hard.”
Looking at Lucas and feeling his head, “My head?…Yes… I remember now flying through the air and hitting something quite hard, but that’s all that I remember.”
Ian’s other crew members begin to speak up.
“I remember your command ‘prepare to douse sails!’ when the winds became so strong that it was almost blowing the ship over on its side.”
“Yes, when I heard that command, I began to fear if we would never be able to return home.”
“The storm was a bad one, but every one of us knew that if we ever heard ‘man overboard’ that we could depend on our captain to rescue us,” he looks at Ian, “just like you did for Jody.”
“Thank you Terrance. We were just happy that Lucas found both you and Jib.”
“Ian, do you know where I finally found them?” Lucas questioned.
“Thinking about it, I’ve never heard that story, I was just happy that they were still alive.”
“Well, you have got to hear this. Jib, had tied himself in the crow’s nest and was unconscious. I found him with one leg still in the basket and the rest of his body hanging over the rim of the basket. We had a hard time untying the rope he had tied himself with. And Terrance was still in the kitchen inside a cupboard lying on a bag of white flour. I just let him sleep it off, once I realized that he was still alive.”
“…Inside a cupboard?” Ian began laughing.
“Stop laughing captain it’s not such a bad idea. I’ve talked with others that have said that the food in the cupboards didn’t even move around, so I thought that if I got in there that I would be alright.”
“You were just lucky, Terrance. Most of the kitchen is smashed up.”
