“Miss Cecilia Lester,” she replied, shaking his hand and offering a small smile. “How old are you, Curly?” She let go of his hand, but not before noting how normal his skin felt.
He scratched his head, jostling his curls. “Not really sure. I’ve been here for a while . . .” His voice trailed away, and he glanced back up at her with a cheeky grin. “If I had decided to follow my omen, I would have chopped your hair off!”
“What?”
He nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, miss! Your hair’s really long and nice and dark, so I would have chosen to chop it off, braid and all! I’d either do that, or I would have ripped up your dress, or maybe I would have tripped you into a pile of dead fish or something.”
“I . . . don’t understand.” If she hadn’t already been backed against the door, Cecilia would have taken a wary step away from the blue boy. Maybe he was insane.
Curly went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “You’re lucky I decided to do the opposite of what my omen said and not play cruel jokes on people. You would have been in big trouble if I weren’t such a ‘rebel cur dog.’ That’s what William likes to call me.” The last sentence ended with an explanatory nod.
Realization knocked into Cecilia like a blistering wind. “So . . . so you’re breaking the curse by simply doing the opposite of your omen?”
Curly started whistling and crammed his hands into his pockets, but his curls gave a nod in the affirmative.
“But I . . .” Cecilia frowned. He did look far more ordinary than everyone else aboard the Rose. She couldn’t dismiss this as the ravings of a mad boy. “Does the captain know? Why isn’t everyone breaking the curse?”
“It’s not as simple as all that, miss,” Curly said, his voice carefree though he eyed her circumspectly. “It wasn’t just not doing my prophecy. It was trying to change. The way I see it, your outside isn’t worth loving until your inside is. That’s what my pa always told me, and I thought about that, and well . . .” He shrugged. “I’m getting better.”
Cecilia waited, sensing he had more to say. Curly tossed his hair out of his eyes and looked her boldly in the face. “When I started to change, lots of people tried to do what I was doing. But it didn’t work for them. They—Jack, mostly—got real mad at me and tried to hurt me. They thought it was another one of my jokes. The captain, though he was plenty angry that it hadn’t worked for him too, made sure to protect me. He put me in this room, and he tells everyone I’ve gone insane. He, William, and Frank are the only ones who know I’m fine. They bring me food and stuff to do.”
“But the captain implied that you were truly insane. He cautioned me against movements and noises and told me to speak calmly to you. Why would he do that?”
Curly grinned. “I’m not insane, miss. The captain wanted you to meet me. He does things like that. He says one thing but really means the other, and he’ll trick you into all sorts of stuff you’d never have imagined yourself doing. It’s just his way.”
An unbidden image of her father convincing her when she was only twelve years old that rum would help her grow, then laughing when the true effects of the drink took hold, crossed her mind. She shoved this thought away only to follow it with the memory of her mother screaming her father out of the house because of the incident. She understood Mother better now.
“I wouldn’t take it too hard, miss,” Curly said. “This is good, don’t you see? He had to get you to talk to me and still keep his story that I’m insane, in case anyone overheard him. Jack likes to spy on him, and it would be bad for both me and you if Jack knew I was right in the head!”
“I suppose it would be,” Cecilia mumbled.
Curly reached out suddenly and took Cecilia by the hand. It was a simple gesture, full of honest comfort. After a moment of hesitation, Cecilia squeezed the boy’s fingers in return.
“I know why Cap’n wanted you to see me,” Curly said. “You’re solid and I’m nearly solid. He needs you to help us find a cure.”
“You seem to have found a cure already,” Cecilia pointed out.
Curly made a face. “I thought I had. I know I’m changing. But it didn’t work for any of the other men, and I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense.” He brightened. “But now that you’re here, I’m sure we can work something out! I’m sure you can figure out how to save us all!”
“Maybe.”
“Aw, come on, miss. You got to! You’re the only hope we’ve got left! You’ve got to help us.”
Cecilia studied the boy, taking in his blue-tinted skin and freckles and bouncy curls. He was so young and he was trying so hard. Perhaps Pepin had meant well by manipulating her into meeting the child. She smiled at the thought of the captain saving the life of a ten-year-old boy. Deep down, he had to be a good person . . . even if he did believe in attacking before speaking.
“I’ll try,” Cecilia whispered.
Curly beamed and gave her hand another squeeze. “That’s all anyone can do, miss. Try.”
Chapter 8
“WE’VE ARRIVED.”
“We’ve arrived, Captain.”
Jack turned an ugly sneer Pepin’s way. His quivering ink-heart pulsed with sudden loathing. “Captain,” he snarled.
“Très bien, my dear Jacques.” Pepin mockingly applauded. “Go and tell the rest of the men.”
Jack stormed across the deck and down the companionway, leaving Pepin alone on the quarterdeck. He squinted through the ever-present fog and could vaguely make out the shape of a jagged rock. The quay jutted out like an embedded thorn from the calloused skin of the stone, craggy and misshapen. Pepin raised his gaze and followed the outline of the slope until his gaze reached a point where the shack rested. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there.
He shuddered and turned away.
You’ve got to do it, he reminded himself. Weather that storm when you come to it.
Recovering himself and assuming an attitude of nonchalant disregard, Pepin watched his crew crawl like flies over deck and rigging, trying to find something petty to critique. But he couldn’t muster the energy. Odd—usually fault-finding bolstered his spirits.
Pepin shrugged and made his way down to the main deck, wondering if Cecilia had spoken with Curly yet and whether she would be more furious or less. Judging by what he knew about her, probably less furious. She was not like other women he had known. There was something in her eye he’d never seen in anyone else. She was both thoughtful and brash, and much braver than he would have given her credit for based on her petite and pretty appearance.
Frank and William had told him that she had seen London inside the omen room. The room usually showed everyone’s deepest fears, so it would stand to reason that Cecilia saw her greatest dream. But why London? Why was she so determined to leave whatever life she’d had in Bermuda for a new one in such a city? Her life must have been terrible. Either that or she was running from something.
If the latter were the case then Cecilia reminded him of exactly one other person—himself. But this would imply that he hated her. He certainly did not hate her.
Though she’ll hate me before this is all over . . .
Cecilia sat down on the beach and rubbed her aching feet, glaring ruefully at her discarded shoes. Her feet were sore and blistered, no doubt from sleeping in her shoes and dashing about all day. She gingerly dipped her toes into the cool water, relieved when, after the first salt-sting, the gently lapping waves soothed her burning blisters.
She felt watching eyes from the wharf. None of the crew members bothered her here on the sand, though they stared at her with expressions ranging from mild annoyance to barely contained hatred as they sat and lounged upon the rotting planks. But they could not follow her onto the island, not even so far as the sandy beach. Apparently the sand disagreed with the watery build of the ghost-men.
With a shudder, Cecilia forced herself to look away from the ghost-lined quay and out to sea, reminding herself yet again that she was solid. She fidgeted in the damp sand, litt
le caring about dirtying her dress or getting soaked. These were minor inconveniences compared to the freedom of movement she now enjoyed. What a relief it was to be free of the Rose and her confining spaces!
Thank you, merciful Father, she thought, and fingered her rosary, perhaps a little more fervently than was her habit. The rosary was a gift from her mother who, though raising her daughter in a Protestant English community, had given her as much proper Catholic upbringing as possible. Cecilia carefully counted the beads now, first making the Sign of the Cross, then whispering the Apostles’ Creed. From there she moved on to an Our Father, murmuring the words in Spanish as her mother had taught her.
“I might have known you were the praying type,” a now-familiar French accent drawled behind her.
Cecilia startled, dropping her crucifix, and turned to gaze up at the shadowy captain, who approached along the strand of beach. She blinked then offered him a short nod. “What are you doing on the sand? The other men cannot bear it.”
The captain laughed and settled on a flat rock near to her, stretching one long leg before him while he leaned an elbow on the upraised knee of his other leg. “Mademoiselle, if you have not yet noticed, I am not like other men.”
Cecilia pursed her lips and hmmed noncommittally. He certainly did not need her affirmation to inflate his ego.
“You pray to God, yes?” Pepin pressed. He indicated her mother’s rosary with a wave of his hand. “Your face looked like thunder. That may have been the angriest Our Father I have ever observed in all my days!”
Cecilia fingered the worn necklace once more, looking away from the captain to gaze out at the foggy sea. “I do not mean to be angry. Or disrespectful. But sometimes . . .”
“Sometimes a mortal soul feels the need to shout at God and not to pray, oui?” Pepin chuckled. “Every soul experiences this at some point in life, Mademoiselle. Otherwise, I would doubt that particular soul’s humanity. Which is saying a great deal, coming from me!”
This speech might have shocked Cecilia a few short days ago. But her life had progressed far beyond such little surprises now. “Do you shout at God?” she asked curiously, tilting her face up toward him.
“Non, jamais. Never,” Pepin replied, a mock-terrified tremor in his voice.
Cecilia laughed. Both her mother and Father John Francis would have been horrified to observe her sitting so calmly beside a spectral ghost and laughing at his irreverent conversation. But the laughter lightened Cecilia’s heavy heart. “How do you pray then, Captain Pepin?” she asked.
Pepin shrugged. His cheerful demeanor seemed to dampen, and salt stung Cecilia’s eyes. “My mother raised me in the Catholic church, though she was not Catholic herself. She often went on about all of the ways she disagreed. C’est très déroutant. Confusing, yes? I left the church when my father . . . when I followed my father out to sea. I do not pray often now.”
“Your mother raised you Catholic but she was not Catholic herself?” Cecilia asked. “Why would she do that?”
Pepin shrugged. “I suppose she assumed that some religion was better than none at all. Especially when it came to me.” Glancing at Cecilia’s face, he laughed and added, “She was English. She ran away to France after becoming pregnant. It would not do to have her good and pious family discover that their youngest daughter conceived a child out of wedlock.”
“Oh!” Cecilia exclaimed, her face flushing at the turn of the conversation. She smiled slightly, trying to hide her unease. “I suppose our stories are similar then. My mother was born in the Spanish colonies to a rich family, but when she married a poor English sailor, they disowned her. Father moved her from Florida to St. George’s Parish and then he left. He never visited, though he knew of me, until I was nearly three years old.”
She attempted to laugh, as if the fact were amusing, but it wasn’t, so she hurried on. “Mother and I always attended service at the local Protestant church, but she clung to her Catholic upbringing. A few months ago she fell ill and . . . I wanted to write to my father as soon as she took to her bed, but how can one send messages to a man at sea?” Cecilia struggled to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but the shift in the shadows of Pepin’s face, indicating a raised eyebrow, informed her that she had failed. She shrugged and shifted her gaze back to the horizon. “He returned to Bermuda three months after the funeral. I asked him to take me away. He did. And now I find that it is hard to follow a righteous path alone.”
“And your father . . . he was taking you to London, yes?” Pepin asked. “Pardon my curiosity, but what precisely draws you to London? I personally find Paris much more inviting.”
“My father has a sister in London. I’m going to stay with her and her husband. They don’t approve of his privateering, so I’m sure I’ll like them.” She paused. “If I ever meet them, that is.”
“Ah, yes! The respectable sister. You mentioned her during our first conversation. And why would you not meet them?”
The captain seemed startled and sincerely worried. It was gratifying, Cecilia admitted, to feel that he might hold some concern for her. She sighed heavily, however, and shook her head. “Captain Pepin, you know as well as I that the Fee are liars. What if this mysterious cabin does nothing? Or if it does . . .”
Unable to finish, she began wiping her grit-covered hands on her skirts, attempting to clean them. “Will you take me to London?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. It was a simple question but terribly important! And Captain Pepin was such a selfish man . . . “If the curse is broken, will you escort me safely to my father’s sister?”
Pepin nodded his head in a slight bow. “Mais oui. It would be my honor, Mademoiselle.”
Cecilia felt her face grow warm at his sincerity, at the unaccustomed kindness in his voice, so strange coming from that featureless face. She glanced up at him but felt tears springing to her eyes, so she quickly looked down again. “Thank you.” She stopped trying to wipe her hands clean and let them come to rest in her lap. For a short time the two shared a companionable silence.
Pepin snorted suddenly. “Privateer. Si ridicule.”
Her eyes stung, not with tears but as though they burned with salt. Cecilia blinked back the pain until she could look quizzically at Pepin, surprised by his sudden shift in mood. “Better than being a pirate.”
Pepin chuckled darkly. “Oh, ma chère, surely you like pirates! Have we not been a most charming collection of hosts to you?”
Cecilia offered a weak smile, glancing up at the looming figures lining the wharf. They, seeing her look their way, shuffled and quivered, their black hearts trembling as though in a silent chorus of violence. “Charming,” she whispered, and closed her eyes quickly.
“Be that as it may,” Pepin continued, his voice snapping back to its usual drawl, “I am still curious. Why leave Bermuda at all? Surely you had friends.”
Cecilia was silent for several breaths. How should she explain it to him? Or, a better question, should she explain it to him? She decided she should, though she couldn’t think of a reason other than pure instinct. She would question her sanity later.
“No, I had no friends,” she said after a moment. She buried her toes in the sand. “Other than Father John Francis, of course. He was very kind. But everyone else in my village thought that I was odd at best. At worst, that I was a pirate’s illegitimate daughter. Needless to say, not many people sought out my company.”
“Why would they think you odd?”
Cecilia moved her feet, making mounds of sand rise and fall. She ducked her head, letting a few loose strands of hair hide her face. “Naturally, the children lacked their parents’ prejudice. Whenever I visited the main part of town with my mother, I would play with the children and invent stories for them. Stories of adventure and sea serpents and . . . mermaids.” She sighed. “The little boys and girls appreciated it. The parents did not.”
Pepin snorted. “Well, I think you are brilliant. And as I am the smartest person I have ever met, I
assure you that you may trust my opinion on the matter.”
Cecilia did not reply, but a slow smile spread across her face. She continued to push her feet through the sand, trying to focus on the grating feeling between her toes instead of the grateful feeling in her heart. Indeed, was it mere gratitude that she felt? For while she sat here in the captain’s strange but admittedly charismatic company, her heart knew a lightness she had not experienced since before her dear mother’s death. Could it possibly be that she’d found a . . . a friend in this vain, bizarre, spectral apparition of a man?
She opened her mouth to speak, but William’s panicked voice suddenly cut through the air:
“Captain! Captain, mutiny! Mutiny!”
Chapter 9
PEPIN LEAPED FROM the ground and ran toward the wharf. He could hear shouts and curses echoing off the boulders beyond the beach and the wharf. He swore to himself. Why did they have to mutiny now?
At the edge of the beach he took a deep breath and spun around. Cecilia, who had scrambled to her feet and hastened after him, cried out in surprise and skidded to a halt, nearly colliding with him. “You are probably going to want to stay here, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Mutinies are dull affairs, and it would be the height of rudeness for me to allow a lady to undergo such boredom.”
Cecilia stared up at him, momentarily confused. Then her jaw set, and he had to stop himself from grinning . . . not that she could see a grin on his featureless face. “You could be killed!” she protested. “Am I supposed to stand by and watch you be cut down by those monsters?”
“Mais non, you could see nothing from this vantage! You might hear it though.” Pepin allowed his grin, but then turned serious when her lips only pursed tighter, her knuckles whitening as she clenched her fingers around her quickly grabbed shoes. “Stay on the beach, Mademoiselle,” he said. “They can’t hurt you on the sand, and I can put an end to the boring opera that is a mutiny much faster without your being made a target, comprenez vous?”
Five Enchanted Roses: A Collection of Beauty and the Beast Stories Page 6
