Island Queen

by Vanessa Riley

  People threw up their arms and cheered. “The French have lost. Praise King George!”

  Pa clapped, maybe even pumped a fist in solidarity, but he didn’t seem happy. I’d seen him filled with joy as he swung me around. That was happy.

  This meekly raised fist was Pa pretending.

  Wasn’t the end of a war good?

  All smiles, Pa tugged at the reins, making his horse move faster. “I think we’ll do our business at the docks tomorrow. I’ll let the town celebrate.”

  None of anything made sense. Things that should be awful were good. Things good were awful.

  “Who do you think is Cudjoe, Dolly?” Nicholas asked. “I think it’s Gustavus Vassa, the shipboy who works for Pa’s friend, the captain of the Charming Sally. Vassa is black like you. Blacker. He’s spouting off his opinions, thinking he’s better. He’s not. You’re not, . . . girl.”

  He didn’t just call me girl. He used another word, the hateful N-word. I’d learned to ignore it ’cause it was tossed around so often. Like it was rain on my face, sweat on my palms, I wiped it away.

  And who cried at rain?

  “N’girl.” His voice cracked when he repeated it. His tone mirrored the hate of the overseers, the soldiers, the auction men hollering at Black and brown souls sold at the Marketplace.

  N’girl was to put the coloreds low. When some yelled back blancas, whites, white planters, it was to accept that those pale faces were above us, that their power could never be had by me, or those like me, ’cause our skin was warm and dark.

  I wouldn’t accept this.

  I’d never give Nicholas that hold. Nobody at all.

  My dreams were big, and no one would stop me.

  He growled again and repeated N’girl like I hadn’t heard him. The fool ground his teeth on the girl part, too, like it was a cuss. The boy had no respect for girls, white or Black.

  “You heard me?”

  Mamaí’s words about it mattering what they called you welled up in my chest. I cast Nicholas a slow smile. “Stupid boy, I heard. And why do you care about Vassa? Does he have power over you?”

  Nicholas winced like I’d slapped him. “Nothing Black and worthless has power. You need to know that.”

  That’s when I smiled at my brother. His hate came from fear, fear of me, fear of me having what was his.

  I just had to figure out how to prove him right.

  Montserrat 1766: A Ransom

  Trudging past the owl house, I wanted to kick down the spindly stilt legs under the porch, to smash the wide window of Pa’s study like I had a cyclone’s breath. He’d left again and hadn’t paid the money for our ransoms. Neither Kitty nor I nor Mamaí could be freed without those manumission fees paid, forty pounds for each of us. That was fhortún, a fortune of a hundred and twenty pounds.

  The past few years, I was permitted to sit in Pa’s study on Saturdays, and he’d teach me words in Irish like misneach, courage, or ragaireacht, for wanderers of the night. I liked that one. It sounded mysterious.

  He taught me numbers, too, and buying and selling, the tools for the free to gain wealth. It sounded as if he wanted me to help run the plantation. How could I do this if I was enslaved?

  Why wasn’t Pa’s word good? Did he not have the misneach to do it, to make us true family in the eyes of the law?

  Pa read me letters from his business friends and from Nicholas. My brother usually sent a sole cut of foolscap that asked for pocket money, asked to come to Montserrat, and asked not to be left adrift.

  I gloated.

  Then my heart whimpered for the hope of a big brother who could teach me reading and about the world. Pa didn’t have the patience to help me see the words. The letters flipped sometimes. The other children, the white ones and some lucky Blacks, could read, but I couldn’t, not easily, no matter how hard I stared at the page.

  But Nicholas would never share his book learning. Guess it didn’t matter if Pa never meant to better my lot.

  Heart pumping fast, I ran through the good side of the plantation, all the huts and fruitful provision grounds. The air smelled of sweet mangoes. My ears perked at the snap of the large leathery leaves of cracker bushes, some larger than my head and shoulders combined. The leaves were harvested by women to feed pigs, to wrap mango dishes, or to provide shade for garden chores.

  The good side of the plantation always eased my pulse and cooled my temper. I slowed my steps as I made it to the redbrick cistern.

  My sister Kitty, bright laughing Kitty, poured water into her calabash from the pump, then poured it into the base.

  She looked at peace, playing.

  Something in my spirit rose. I needed to save Kitty. She wasn’t in danger of tipping over and drowning in the cistern, but I needed to be the kind of sister to cover her, to feed her, and give her more than me.

  Moving close, I straightened her scarf, blue and white checks that wrapped her wonderful brown braids. Her olive face lifted and she grinned. Her heart showed in her smile.

  “I’ll always protect you, Kitty. I always will.” That was my vow. I’d keep this promise in my pocket like a shiny pebble.

  Three women came toward us. Two had pots on their heads to draw water. The middle woman wore a hat, a beautiful straw hat, not scarves, like me and Kitty.

  The wide brim had bright orange banding. I’d only seen such on a planter’s wife, never a colored woman’s head.

  I couldn’t stop staring.

  Kitty’s topaz eyes widened and she pointed. “See, Dolly. Nice pots.”

  Painted blue and red, the clay vessels shone with a glaze. “They’re lovely,” I said. “They’ll fetch a fair penny in town.”

  The three smiled at us, even the ones who’d talked bad about Mamaí last week when I gathered water.

  “Dolly, you like my hat? I’m a freewoman. I get to wear a fancy hat.”

  The older woman sat, plopping down on a stone bench. “Girl, don’t brag. Your lover has done what he needed to do.”

  The hat woman’s face twisted with a smirk. “Guess your Betty doesn’t know what she needs to do, Dolly. De lard gib beard a dem who na hab chi fe wear i! That is, Massa’s favorite has all the advantages but can’t make him stay.” She laughed, haughty and loud.

  This hat-wearing lady knew my name. I didn’t know hers, but I recognized a mamba snake and a mean spirit. “Nothing for you to ever have worries about,” she said. “Creole lover don’t love no tar. White man, he’ll never take you this far.”

  The third thin young woman giggled and repeated the awful rhyme. She was new to the plantation. Pa had bought her last month for fifty pounds. That was money he could have used to free Mamaí.

  Slipping to Kitty’s side, I opened the cistern’s brass tap, splashing water onto my hand, forcing my mother’s empty smile to show.

  The mean hat woman hummed again, but I’d have to forget her awful song. I couldn’t hear it, couldn’t think on it, and forced my gaze to my pretty reflection in the water puddling near my feet.

  Yet the hat was something to crave—something to add to my dreams. The desire to earn forty pounds times three seeped into my empty chest.

  This feeling had to fill me before gossip and doubt took root.

  Montserrat 1767: A Road

  A week of aching was done. I couldn’t sit in the hut any longer. I started to town. The gray black dirt of the road looked good.

  I had items to sell in my sack. Too many British planters were coming. As they squeezed out the Irish settlers, these newcomers needed things like Mamaí’s blankets to decorate their confiscated homes.

  My sandals kicked up clouds, but I didn’t care. I was glad to be up, done with the uncleanness of my menses. My ma gave me teas to make it better, but not much helped. The changes in my body were unbearable. She called me a woman now.

  Me. An eleven-year-old misfit, a misfit on a mission—a woman?

  “Dolly, wait!”

  I set down my sack, easy. The fine pot inside couldn’t bre
ak. I paid a woman two shillings for it. I intended to sell it for six.

  Kitty’s spindly little legs pumped up and down as she skidded into me.

  I wrapped my arms about her shoulders and kept her from slipping. “You’re supposed to be working Mamaí’s garden. If we grow more yams, we’ll have enough to eat and sell in town.”

  “Always town. Always sneaking off and selling. Dolly, you used to play with me. It’s Sunday. We don’t have much chores.”

  “Kitty, I have made a little more than twenty pounds in a year. I need to make more. When Pa comes back, I can give him money for our ransom.”

  Her chubby face looked like it would burst. She couldn’t understand what I had to do, what I’d appointed myself to do.

  “Dolly, play.”

  “I have to huckster, Kitty, buy for pennies and sell for much more.”

  “You work too hard. Doesn’t Pa provide?”

  I tugged the corded strings that corseted my sunny yellow tunic. The bright color would attract attention from shoppers.

  But that wasn’t a problem anymore, attracting attention. Hiding from men was.

  Kitty yanked on my skirt. “Dolly? What’s wrong.”

  It was like staring at five-year-old me.

  How do I destroy Kitty’s innocence? Pa didn’t provide enough for us when he was here, definitely not when he was gone.

  I couldn’t. I ran my finger over her lips until they bubbled, then spun my sister ’round and ’round. When she was dizzy, dizzy like a drunk, we laughed. “Walk with me to town, sis, then we’ll play.”

  She nodded her chin fast, faster than hens clucking.

  Kitty skipped around me. “My sister’s going to play.”

  I slung my sack over my shoulder and took her arm.

  Looking only to the right, the good right, we passed the Cellses’ land. The field looked freshly plowed and ready to hold ruts, the horizontal pieces of sugarcane the planters buried to sprout green shoots. In a few months, the cane plants would grow big like bamboo, their wispy leaves whipping the air.

  Were they back? The Cells family traveled as much as Pa. Some said they were with relatives in Barbados or a Dutch colony or even in a land across the sea.

  “Kitty, this place may not spoil this year. The Cells—”

  “Mr. Cells came back a few days ago. He was on the boat with Nicholas.”

  My hands became slick. My pulse throbbed in my ears. “He’s back, too?”

  “Yes. When you were sick, I saw them walking to the cistern.”

  Forcing myself to breathe in steady gasps, I pretended nothing was wrong. That I didn’t fear our brother stopping me from buying our freedom.

  After swiping my palm along my tunic, I clasped Kitty’s arm. “You’re right—no work today. Katherine Kirwan, let’s go play in the safe hills.”

  She smiled and moved with me.

  Back on Pa’s land, the good side, people had gathered at the cistern. One of the colored drivers brought out his flute. The tall fellow, whose sable skin shone with perspiration, blew fast notes.

  Another man came with his banio as Mamaí called it. The planters called it a banjo or fiddle. He plucked the strings and made the harmony, stirring and smooth. Drummers joined the fray, offering a rhythm worthy of sweat and losing all your breath.

  Women ran from their huts, dancing with their hands waving, skirts twirling. Like frigate flags the colors of French red, British blue, Spanish yellow, and Portuguese green, their colorful tunics flitted in the afternoon sun. Their osnaburg floated like the planters’ daughters’ silk.

  A call went out: “Sɛ wowɔ ahotɔ a, nna woyɛ ahotɔ ni.”

  Then in the deepest tones the response came. “Only if you’re free . . . then you can be.”

  Swaying and singing, the men and women looked happy. They’d transformed the gossipy cistern to worship. People praised with their bodies, whirling work-drenched limbs in a dance of joy.

  Lies.

  They knew the truth. They sang the truth, just like Mamaí.

  This worship would disappear with one blow of the overseer’s conch.

  Dance was a miracle, but it would never fill a soul’s empty well. This rhythm would leave them parched in the sun, damp in sweat, itching in the cheap osnaburg that clung to their skin.

  Part of me wanted me to forget, to leap and spin, letting the beat drill through me. It needed to dig deep, deep into my spirit to make me sleep.

  I couldn’t let it.

  The seductive rhythm was meant to deceive, to make me passive. I could never be content here, living without my dreams in this small life.

  “Sɛ wowɔ ahotɔ a, nna woyɛ ahotɔ ni.”

  I turned my back to them and focused on town. “Let’s work, Kitty. Then play.”

  She stopped clapping and followed.

  We’re running out of time. Unless being away had changed Nicholas, he’d do everything in his power to stop me. I could never let him win.

  Montserrat 1767: A Reveal

  Rain fell as if the sky had scooped up all the water in the sea and dumped every ounce onto Montserrat. I stood on the porch, hoping the storm didn’t worsen.

  The ghauts opened up and flooded the fields.

  Mamaí’s hut was fine for now, but Pa had us come up to the owl house. The stilt legs that lifted the structure six feet from the ground would keep us dry if the high waters came.

  Thunder crackled.

  My heart shook against my ribs. I wasn’t alone.

  “Why are you out here, Dolly?”

  I didn’t turn. Nicholas’s sullen voice made me not want to.

  I held on to the column. “It’s . . . it’s too crowded inside.”

  “Oh, I thought you’d run out of places to avoid me.”

  For two months, I had. “I know my presence always bothers you. I don’t want to ruin your time in Montserrat.”

  “Very kind of you, Dolly.”

  I heard his footfalls, his squeaky low slippers coming closer. Those things were meant for a social dance, not a rainy day. That’s what Pa said.

  My brother stood behind me, his shadow standing on mine.

  Readying to run, I turned. “I should go see if Mamaí needs help kneading the bread. The cassava meal takes a lot of work to shape and then we have to let it dry before firing.”

  He touched my shoulder. “It’s just a bad storm. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  His eyes were like Pa’s, just greener but with no hints of kind crinkles of wrinkles. He’d begun to sprout a mustache. Was that to look older? Wiser?

  I wanted to ask him why, why he hated me. Was having a little of Pa too much?

  “I need . . . May I pass, Nicholas?”

  He pointed and allowed me back into the house, but I had to brush his side.

  He was too close.

  “Dolly, bring tea to Father’s office. Perhaps as you serve me you can tell me what you do when you disappear.”

  With a nod, I tried to slip past him and held my breath to be as small as possible. But the back of my hand felt the smooth linen of his sleeve. Nothing coarse, not nankeen or osnaburg, but rich and smooth. That was the fabric that came from across the sea.

  Never had I ever envied my brother, but a feel of the weave was my undoing. He had the world, I barely had a bedroll.

  “Tea. I’ll have it readied, Nicholas.”

  “Thank you.”

  His voice was curt, sort of nice. It didn’t match his eyes, didn’t take away the unease settling in my chest.

  Inside, I did run, dashing down the whitewashed hall to the crowded olive-green kitchen. My sister and five other women were at the large table in the center of the room, peeling and dicing, working bread dough. The savory scent of roasted meat filled the air. Goat water stew.

  Forgetting my newfound hunger, I had the new girl take tea to Pa’s study. She always tried to smile at Pa. She welcomed the opportunity.

  I refused to be near Nicholas and reignite our feud, and I didn’t w
ant to see Pa either. He’d returned with more excuses of why he didn’t have money to free us.

  “Mamaí, I’ll get the long stick fork to help with turning the loaf.”

  “Take your time. It’s too wet outside for the bread to dry properly.”

  It was her rare smile, like she’d given me permission to flee. And I did. I scooted out of the rear and kept running.

  Trees bowed and stretched in the wind. Sections of thatched roofs of some huts flapped, but nothing danced like it did in a hurricane.

  My stride quickened, and I made it to the cottonwood tree at the Cellses’ fence. Fingering the gnarled white bark of the haunted tree, I searched its thick roots and heavy branches for an Obeah ghost.

  One could be there, like Mrs. Ben, since the tree stretched over her old hut. The plaster walls of her home had a fresh coat of whitewash. All traces of the rebellion fires of sixty-one were gone. The Cellses must be readying the plantation for sale.

  The wind lifted my orange skirt and spun the fabric about my knees like the ruffled feathers of a skittish oriole.

  The rain fell hard again.

  The Bens’ hut looked safe and dry, so I ran to it and scooted inside.

  It was empty.

  No coals for a fire. No bedrolls, no signs of the happy life that once lived here.

  Yet, were they happy, the Bens? Or had my younger eyes lied, seeing joy where there wasn’t?

  A splash, a splosh sounded outside.

  Had Nicholas followed?

  Would he tell Pa I tried to run? That would be stupid, being a foot or two off Kirwan’s property.

  The noise became clearer, harsher. Boot heels, not slippers.

  The door slung open.

  Tall, blocking the gray day’s light, a man stood in the threshold.

  Drenched worse than me, grumbling, stumbling, he marched inside and slammed the door. Coseveldt Cells lurched toward me with a gun pointed at my head.

  Montserrat 1767: A Remembrance