Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  “Dolly, Cudjoe was a man. They didn’t want him strong. These men won’t let you be strong.”

  I was small but I’d be more. “I want to grow big. I want to protect you until Pa returns. I want everything for us. The dreams I have are good, of houses, big ones. Fine clothes and boots, too.”

  “Dolly, they won’t let you. They’ll find a way to hurt you, to take all you have until you are grateful for no more pain.”

  Mamaí rubbed her elbows with the pomade she kept in the green calabash. Her skin shone in the candlelight. “No pain for you or Kitty. You must accept what we have. Suffer the bitterness in silence. It is the way.”

  She waved me forward. I came as if she’d lowered a scepter.

  “I died so that you can live. Don’t make my suffering in vain.”

  What was she talking about? Mamaí was alive, sitting before me, talking, breathing.

  I rushed and buried myself in her arms, clinging to her. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t let her go. My heart panicked, the rhythm in my chest raged like a drunk fool at celebration. “Don’t leave me, Mamaí. I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Anything.”

  She brushed my slick curls, looping my poorly done braids in her hand. “I’m not saying this right. When you’re older, you’ll understand. All our women understand.”

  “Don’t leave us, Mamaí. Don’t go to sleep like Mrs. Ben. Don’t. No. Mamaí.”

  “Your pa won’t let me leave, and he won’t sell my daughters, not like my own pa. So no one is going.” She sat me on her lap and started loosening my hair. “The outside world keeps calling you. I will press Massa Kirwan to free you. If you girls are free, then I’ll live again, too . . . even if I have to stay as Kirwan’s chattel.”

  Her words felt heavy, smothering. Mamaí’s voice was as wet as the rains of the hurricane. I grasped her neck like I was drowning.

  “Mamaí, tell Pa you miss him. Maybe that will make him stay?”

  Her eyes went wide. In the center, they held fire among the pretty tan rings and ash.

  “There’s much you don’t understand. Dolly, you made a story in your head of how things are. I wish it were true. It’s not.”

  I touched her face, the face that had my nose and the same shape of my deep-set eyes, but not my mouth or feather-thin hair. I got those from Pa. “Pa treats us good, better than the rest. You have the biggest hut. It’s nearest his owl house. I don’t understand.”

  “Dolly, you’ll learn how small the world is for us. I hurt for you.”

  I held my mother and let her sob all down my shift, but it was the closest I’d felt to her soul. Mamaí had shown me that secret place in which she hid. Now I knew when her face went blank, she’d fallen into a well of pain.

  A song rose in my throat. The melody I heard her hum to me and to Kitty.

  It took forever, but the joy of that wordless hymn ministered to me, to us. Her sobs stopped.

  I wanted to be big someday. I prayed that I could take Mamaí and Kitty and show them Pa’s world. We’d follow the stars across the sea. I had to prove that we could have a piece of this big world. “I will get us my good dreams.”

  Mamaí’s lips pressed tight. The fullness of them, pink and brown, were drawn to a dot like the bud of the Trinitaria.

  “Sɛ wowɔ ahotɔ a, nna woyɛ ahotɔ ni. Only if you’re free . . . then you can be.” She said this, over and over.

  The words drummed into my heart. I’d remember them and use their fire to go beyond our hut, beyond our provision ground, beyond Pa’s plantation.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  The door to the hut vibrated. Something angry wanted in.

  “No. No.” No more violence. No more rebellion. “Go!”

  “Shhh, Dolly. Shhh.”

  We were unprotected. Promises and prayers did nothing. I’d left Mamaí’s pitchfork outside, lording over the empty garden. We were exposed. I wrapped myself about my mother and sister. I’d be their shield and die in their stead.

  Montserrat 1761: A Return

  The door to the hut flung open.

  Pa stood there.

  Tall, thick arms bulging beneath his coat, his long black hair. “Betty, you and the girls are safe?”

  Mamaí stared, uttered no words.

  “Well, I can see you are,” he said. “I was mighty fearful the rebels hurt you.”

  The twang in his Irish brogue sounded happy. I was. Pa was here. My soul rejoiced. On those stars I watched from my window, I’d wished him home.

  My body relaxed.

  The death grip of my fingers eased from Mamaí’s shoulders.

  But her silent eyes told me not to move or breathe.

  “Betty? You’ve been crying. Are you well? Dolly?” He waved at me as if that could unglue me from Mamaí’s lap. “You all must be in shock. Terrorized by the savages. I’ll fix that.”

  With a kick, he knocked the pickney bar, strode inside, then slammed the door. He set a long-barreled gun against the wall and dropped his ebony jacket to the floor.

  The man came forward with his hands above his knees, heaving air as if he’d run from the shore. The smell of salty sea clung to him. Maybe rum, too.

  “Jumped off the boat. I had to see for myself the state of Kirwan Plantation. Had to see that you were untouched. Betty, I don’t know what I’d do—”

  “Mrs. Ben’s dead. Her husband, too. Could’ve been the rebels. Could’ve been the overseers or one of your fellow planters shooting down an old couple.”

  Pa’s lips thinned. He went behind us and took my sister up from the cradle. “Such a pretty baby. You are my Kitty.”

  Cradling her in his arms, he mumbled a jig or more of the Irish he’d been teaching me. These words, he said too fast to catch.

  He set my sister down and turned to me. “My Dolly, my beautiful smart Dolly. You’re going to act scared around me, too?”

  Mamaí hadn’t moved, but her iron fingers relented, her hold loosened. “Go on, Dolly. Greet your pa.”

  Caught between the father I loved and the woman who sacrificed for me daily, I sat not moving, holding my breath.

  Pa pulled up his gray pantaloons and then got on his knees and crawled to me. “What’s the matter? Dolly still frightened from the shooting?”

  Mamaí stood, slipping between us. The hem of her bright skirt flapped near the unlit coal pot. The sharp scent of peppermint she’d used to rid the ants drawn to the blood—the spot Mrs. Ben died—swirled. It’d choke me if I kept still. My ma knew how to clean good from her work in the horrible sick house.

  “You drunk, Massa Kirwan?”

  “No.” Pa reared back. “Not really. And you know I’d never hurt Dolly or Kitty. Or you. You’re my Betty, my one and only.”

  His head whipped to me. There was something strong and stinging on his breath. “You’re my Dolly. Such a pretty doll. The only black doll I’ve ever seen.”

  He stood, almost tipping over, but then danced about Mamaí before pulling her into his arms. “And you, Betty. I missed you, woman.”

  This sounded like Pa of old, how kind he was before he left, but that was months and months ago. Why was he always going away?

  Whipping off his tricorn hat exposed more of his wild hair. “Betty, you and the girls—no one touched you? You stayed safe through the rebellion?”

  “Through three since you’ve been gone. Three.” She stepped from him and picked up Kitty. “She’s grown bigger since you left. Dolly, too. Why are you just getting back?”

  Rolling the brim of his hat in his fingers, he seemed sad or unsure. “The long English War with France—the British set blockades. They aren’t letting all the boats through. When they do, if they find one thing wrong with our papers, they confiscate the goods. That happened with my first shipment.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he tossed me his hat, then he put his hands on Mamaí’s hips and leaned over her shoulder to peek at Kitty. “I came back as soon as I could. I’d have been here to put down . . . a rebellion, too.”

 
; “You’d want to shoot at men and women who want freedom?” Mamaí’s voice was shrill, not sweet and low like a hummingbird. She was no dove of peace, not tonight.

  Pa lit the oil lamp he’d given Mamaí, one she rarely used. “Betty, if the governor ruling Montserrat demands the planters be part of a militia, what choice do I have? The British planters are taking more control. They hate us Irish, and they’re winning the war against France.”

  He rubbed at his hair. “Looks like they’ll finally take Martinique. The British are constantly marching. They win, I could lose all.”

  “Always a choice, Massa Kirwan. Always.”

  I clenched Pa’s hat in my palms, my finger smoothing the brown pelt. It held the citrus smell of limes and salt.

  Was this the peppa for pickney dem, a bad child like me caught between my pa and ma? Then I realized Mamaí’s side was built on hurt.

  “Pa, say sorry. Tell Mamaí how you care for us, how much you missed us.”

  “I did. I do. You know that, Betty.”

  “Kirwan, why don’t you head up to your house? Come visit another day.”

  “Nonsense.” He bent and lifted me in the air, swinging me about. His hat went sailing to the floor and he put me down.

  Fingering the buttons of his shirt, Pa stared at my mother. “Betty, we need to talk. There’s much I need to say.”

  With a pat to my head, he spun me like a top toward my room, then he took Mamaí’s hand, lacing their palms. “I missed you.”

  Mamaí’s expression was stone. Her eyes and lips had settled to nothingness. She’d fallen inside herself, back to that place that held secrets.

  I tugged his coat. “Tell her you’ll stay and make it better.”

  My father nodded and kissed Ma’s knuckles. “This trip selling goods was hard. Many barrels of salt pork gone, many hogsheads of sugar—gone. Then I come back to Montserrat to insurrection. They burned a good part of Kirwan Manor.”

  Mamaí’s eyes sharpened. Her gaze wasn’t distant. It held flames. “The enslaved want to be free, Massa Kirwan, like you want to be free of the British. Like our girls should be.”

  He put his arms about my mother’s waist again. “Betty, I promise on my mamaí’s grave, I’ll take care of the girls. I’ll free them in time, but first I’ll fix the birth records. The Tuites have a priest coming. They’ve used their money and connections to bring a Catholic priest. Might have service in the woods, but the records will be done before the British force all to be Anglican.”

  The Tuites were rich neighbors, probably better off than the Cells.

  Kitty cried, whooping. My ma moved to her, away from Pa.

  “Betty, the girls’ births will have papers blessed by the pope. You said that’s what you wanted. I listened. Everyone will know Dolly and Kitty are mine. They are Kirwans. They are my blood.”

  Mamaí blinked several times, then she extended her hand to him. “You’re going to do that?”

  “Yes, our girls.” He clasped her fingers and put them to his chest. “Now come on, lass. I missed you.”

  He kissed her neck. “I always miss you.”

  She stepped away, scooped up Kitty, and led me to my room. She settled my sister into my bedroll. “Take care of your sister.”

  Mamaí closed the door.

  Then I heard her sandals leading Pa’s boots to her room.

  I plopped down beside my sister. She stirred and put her little palm in mine. Her warm face pressed into my knee.

  Her snores became a whisper, but the rhythm wasn’t loud enough to smother my thoughts. I flopped down and counted the times Mamaí never said she loved Pa. The times Pa didn’t say it either.

  What did fixing the birth records do?

  I was Pa’s. Did paper change that?

  Maybe it would stop my brother Nicholas’s teases. He wasn’t very kind to me the last time he came to Montserrat.

  If we all could get along, if Mamaí and Pa could be sweet to each other, maybe we could go live in Pa’s owl house.

  When I get big, I wouldn’t go to bed hungry. The right and left fields on my plantation would make enough food for all.

  Pa’s owl house sat below the brightest stars. I’d have enough money to repair it for him, then he wouldn’t have to go away.

  Closing my eyes, I tried hard to see nothing, but Mrs. Ben was waiting. She had no sweet preserved ginger for me, just that awful look that nothing could ever fix.

  Montserrat 1763: A Realization

  Only looking to the right, the side of Pa’s plantation with huts and provision grounds, I held on to the sidewall of his dray for my dear life. Pa’s rickety wagon walls felt rough against my palms, but I dug my nails deeper into the wood.

  I wouldn’t shame him by falling and giving my half brother another thing to crow about. He’d teased me so bad this morning. He didn’t want me coming with him and our father.

  Reins tight in his hands, Pa looked over his shoulder at me. A smile settled on his face, a wide one cresting under his hook nose, which I blessedly didn’t get. Thanks, Mamaí.

  “We’re almost through town, Dolly, Nicholas. Then we ride to the top of Kirwan land. You both must see this.”

  The wagon pressed forward, shaking and shimmying as it crossed another gully in the dirt road. My bones shook.

  “A tarn loch,” Pa said with a mumble. Fancy Irish for a lake. Boy, I wanted to be taught more of the language of his ancestors, mine through him. I tried to talk like him and sound proper and I wanted to understand what the Irish planters said when the men in red uniforms were near.

  “Hold on, little d . . . girl.”

  My head snapped to Nicholas.

  On the other side of the dray, he grinned. He hadn’t whispered the word tarn. Nor the harder word, darn, that rhymed. No, he said the clipped version of the priest’s damnation in a voice heated with hell fires. If I’d done it, my ma would take a branch to me.

  But his ma was dead. She’d never visited Montserrat. I felt bad for him, but that feeling went away when he teased.

  Ten years older than my seven years, he sat stewing in a dusty brown jacket with a big straw hat covering his reddish-brown hair. The wide brim offered shade to his gray-green eyes and Pa’s awful hooked nose.

  I wished Nicholas liked me.

  He didn’t.

  He proved it a little more every day. He’d say awful things when Pa couldn’t hear, low jokes about the darkness of my skin as if I’d been burnt to a crisp in the sun. Tar and feathers and me, he’d say with a grin.

  But that wasn’t the worst.

  The lie on Nicholas’s pale lips that Pa wasn’t my pa—that stabbed through my gut straight to my soul.

  My brother wanted me to have no part of our pa’s love.

  It was hard not to hate Nicholas. The priest that righted the birth records, recording me and Kitty as mulattoes, as Pa’s daughters, preached about forgiveness and peace.

  How come Nicholas couldn’t stop his hate? He went to see the priest. He stood in the woods like the rest.

  “You going to fall, Dolly?” Nicholas’s mouth pursed like he wanted to spit. “Your mother knows about falling low. Whores always know.”

  Could I get one punch in and not get in trouble? His pale white skin would hold a bruise that would tattle on me and send me straight to the stocks. Coloreds couldn’t strike at whites, no matter whose blood you were.

  “Nicholas, what are you telling Dolly back there?”

  “That she shouldn’t be here,” he said in a growling tone. “Pa, she should be back with your whore, Betty.”

  “Nicholas. Don’t talk like that. You’re not too old for me to take a whip to you.”

  “My mother hasn’t been dead long enough for you—”

  “Nicholas!”

  Pa pulled the dray to the side of the road and stood on the seat. The big man’s shadow fell upon both of us. “Nicholas, I don’t want you talking such. Betty is special. Betty—”

  “Is property, Father. You bough
t her from a slaveholder in Grenada.”

  Pa was rarely angry, but now the veins on the side of his neck bulged. “Nicholas, she’s my business. You hold your tongue.”

  “Yes, sir.” My brother withered and put his head down.

  “Good,” Pa said and dropped into his seat. The dray started moving.

  I looked away from my brother, holding a little gloat in my throat. Nicholas didn’t like Mamaí. Many didn’t. There were snickers at her from the women at the cistern.

  My ma couldn’t help being Pa’s favorite person. He had to love her dearly. He gave her more cloth this morning, and she had the best provision ground on the plantation. Hearing Nicholas’s hurt over the loss of his own ma when I had one, I could understand his hate a little better.

  The wind, the one that always blew from the sea, cooled my hot, sticky skin. The sun was high in the sky. Only when we headed back up into the hills would the breeze overtake the heat.

  Nicholas sneered and hit sand from his jacket.

  Why did he and I have to be the sun and wind, always battling?

  With a few more jarring bumps, the dray crossed into town. Men gathered around the Marketplace. This evil square in the middle of town held their attention.

  But I looked back toward the hills, loving the roofs dotting here and there. Straw brown thatch on some, reddish clay tiles or palms on others. It was better to look at anywhere but the Marketplace.

  “Don’t you want to go and dance a jig on the stage, Dolly? Make it an Irish jig. The soldiers hate the Irish Catholics as much as the pickaninny coloreds.”

  Nicholas’s tease was a whisper, but his laugh was loud.

  “Son,” Pa said, “what are you saying back there? I love a good joke.”

  My brother looked at me with sheepish eyes that begged me not to tell.

  Before my charity fled, I turned to the stone steps of the government building.

  “Nothing, Nicholas? I thought so.” Pa’s easy smile faded.

  A soldier in a red uniform ran from the steps straight to the stage, waving a piece of parchment. He centered himself and cupped a hand to his lips. “The war is over. Seven years of fighting with France is done. The British have won.”