by 33 authors
Weighted down by her clothes and the iron shackle with its heavy chain, her ankle burned as she dragged herself through the cold ocean, reaching for anything she could hold onto in the surrounding wreckage. The two and a half months had taken their toll. In an atrophic state, her muscles were so weak that simply staying afloat proved exhausting. She hadn’t swam since she was a little girl, but the instinct to paddle was strong. Laura’s trembling fingers touched on a floating wooden plank and she raked it, heavy and waterlogged, with all her diminished might to her chest. She let out a raspy breath and choked until she could finally draw a clear breath of air. Clutching the board with weak arms she let the blessed, gentle waves guide her toward the shore. Behind her, the Mother’s Hope leaned in ruin, decimated against an outcropping of jagged rock. Its hull bore a horrific open gash. Laura neared the end of her journey too.
She shielded her eyes against the brilliant morning sun; the shore and her fate lay to the left, about fifteen yards away. Paddling until she was too fatigued to continue, Laura rested a cheek on the plank and let her legs droop. She repeated this process of swimming and resting, sometimes resting more than swimming.
Something vaguely familiar bobbed alongside her. Her mouth opened into a round and soundless, “O”. It was the Captain. The frightful shock forced her thin legs to kick away, dragging the heavy chain behind her. Only when she created enough distance from the log-like corpse of the Captain, did Laura rest again. She recalled the morning that he found her hiding at the docks from the King’s horse-mounted Examiners. They’d tracked her as persistently as wolves with the scent of blood in their snouts, for three long days. The Captain promised Laura safe voyage aboard his ship, the Mother’s Hope, which as providence would have it, was scheduled to leave that very afternoon over the Atlantic. When Laura saw the painted name on the side of the old galleon, her heart quickened. She knew this ship from her dreams and that it would lead her to her destiny: the warrior.
* * *
Laura finally clawed her way onto the beach as a man ran by, splashing her face with sandy water without care, to help another woman struggling ashore. In one arm the woman held a small bundle of soaked cloth, the other arm hung twisted and grotesquely bent. The confused woman stumbled, exhausted and weak. The man quickly wrapped his arm around her waist, assisting her. From the bundle of cloth a fragile wail emitted. Panic rose in Laura’s chest. This woman was carrying a newborn baby!
“Hey there!” Another man hollered. Blood and sand plastered the side of his broad scalp, but otherwise he moved without signs of further injury. “I know how to deal with the likes of you!” he growled. He wrenched Laura’s hands from the plank still clutched in her arms and then dragged her like a sack of grain to the nearest tree. She had no strength left and could do nothing to stop him. She winced as her weary arms were yanked behind her back and then she felt a searing tug as her wrists were bound.
Nightmares of sinking ships and tormenting captains filled her night until the warrior returned to her dreams. A stoic and savage man, he was a storm of masculinity that wanted to ravage her. She loved the sight of him, soaked the image of him deep into her memory. In her dreams Laura had a bird’s eye view. She would watch him run through a dense forest, his muscles flexing while he easily cut his way through thick brush. As he called her name, his velvet voice, underscored by an exotic intonation, caressed her skin. Laura always waited near the foot of a waterfall, naked and languid. Waiting was part of his seduction. And she welcomed it; uninhibited, she let his voice tease her with deep seductive tones that set her blood ablaze with need until he finally appeared and made love to her. In some of the dreams he handled her as gently as a queen, other times he ravaged her with feral lust. His smooth chest would heave with heavy breath, tempting Laura’s lips to taste. His shiny black hair would flow behind him as he stood staring with black wanting eyes, nearly as dark as the night. Her lover. Her destiny. How easily her pale limbs slid around his sinuous neck. How freely she abandoned herself to his hungry, possessive kisses. In this dream, however, a new vision came. As the warrior held her, Laura peered into the forest and witnessed dozens more native men, women and children looking at her almost reverently, as if to honor her. They raised long-handled spears decorated with strands of little white crown shells, chanting: Mother! Mother!
* * *
The babe’s persistent wails echoed across the beach, piercing Laura’s eardrums as men worked in the hot sun, gathering anything useful from the wreckage. Organized trips were made back and forth to the devastated galleon for anything salvageable. The little beach was abuzz with communal labor for hours while Laura remained hot and dehydrated against the small tree. Her head buzzed and her tongue felt dry and thick. It was too bright and too hot. The tree she was bound to did not offer anything in the way of shade and she dozed off intermittently in the blistering heat.
Night fell bringing a brisk wind and low, pregnant clouds over the encampment. Laura hadn’t heard the mother’s cries for some time, but the infant’s wails still rang strong. Her shoulders ached and her ankle burned as though it lay across a bed of live coals. Staring at the heavy night sky, she licked cracked lips with a raspy, swollen tongue and squeezed her eyes tight against the loud buzzing in her head. When the clouds finally broke, a sharp downpour stung her skin but she gratefully tilted her head back and drank. Nothing had ever tasted so wonderful. Gusts of wind blew in with the rain and together they crashed into the forest at her back. It wasn’t enough to mute the baby’s suffering cries. Laura’s breasts began to ache.
By morning, the clouds had already parted. As the golden rays of warm sunshine dawned over the flat eastern horizon, Laura’s eyelids finally slid shut. Her sleep was stolen, however by someone nudging the shackle around her ankle. Pain spiked up her thigh all the way to the pit of her stomach. She jolted awake, screeching at the inescapable pain. It was difficult to focus her vision through the agony. When the world cleared, she saw that the woman standing above her had taken a turn for the worst. How she had managed to walk across the beach, all the way from her tent to Laura’s tree, was nothing short of a miracle. Long, matted blonde hair framed a sallow face contorted in an expression of permanent pain. Her broken arm hung swollen and immobile. In the other arm, the good arm, the woman held her infant. Laura felt pity for them both.
“I can’t care for my child, but I know that you can.” She spoke with a dry, scratchy voice.
Three men stacking broken wooden planks noticed the woman speaking with the witch and cautiously approached. One of them inserted a protective arm around her waist when she teetered unsteadily.
“Please? Please!” She begged of Laura then let out a series of hard, phlegmy coughs that reminded them all of the Captain.
“Mary, he is sick.” The man holding her waist croaked in gentle sympathy. He started to turn her around, but the woman indicated towards the front of Laura’s dress and the man stalled. He looked spooked, but his voice was kind. “There must be another way.”
The woman looked at him, her eyes red and glassy with fever. “No, Brother. This has to be the way. She must because… I can’t.”
“But she’s a witch, Mary. She will curse the infant, and then what will I do? Who will be left when you are both …?” His voice trailed off.
“No, Henry, she is only a woman. But she is special.” Then, in a voice that sounded far away, perhaps because of the fever, she said, “She will have a hundred children at her feet that will drink from her breast.” The mother looked at her sleeping babe and then up at her brother. “A mother knows what is best for her son.” Mary teetered once again. “Henry, you must promise me, and The Almighty, in front of these men that you will continue to bring Ethan to her healing breast after I have gone. Swear it!”
Henry thought his sister was speaking nonsense due to her dire condition, and he argued. “Mary, you are ill and in need of rest. Please, let me help you back to your tent.”
“Promise me, Henry Wilder.” S
he coughed again, then spat as discreetly as she could manage. Mary Chilton was not long for this world.
After a very long, contemplative pause, Henry finally nodded consent with such a dark scowl toward Laura that she shrank back from it. “I promise, I will bring your son to this w…, woman so that she may provide nourishment for him.”
He signaled to a hairy, barrel-chested man standing at his left who bore a haunted look on his face. Stepping before Laura, the thick man abruptly lifted her to her feet with nervous hands and tore away the soaked bodice, exposing her heavy, luminous breasts. Then he quickly stepped back, as though she might burn him. Laura’s breasts gleamed in the bright morning sunshine. In unison, a round of sharp inhales sounded as thin streams of milk seeped from each hard, pink nipple.
The injured woman trembled at the sight. Laura knew exactly what she was thinking. That another woman who hadn't ever given birth could provide such a miraculous fountain and be her child’s savior. Though Laura saw a glint of jealousy in the woman’s eyes for this, there was also a small, unmistakable sliver of relief.
“Ethan must not suffer as his father and I have in this world. No matter what, Brother. A child must never suffer.” And then with childlike wonderment she said, “Perhaps we could all be saved, like the savages. I wonder. Would it damn us? What do you think, Brother?”
Before he could respond, Mary closed her eyes, taking a moment for prayer. Then, perhaps after coming up with no firm answer, she knelt into the sand with her brother’s help, and lifted the baby’s mouth to Laura’s waiting, dripping nipple. He instinctively rooted around with little grunting sounds then greedily latched on. The frail infant swallowed life into his tiny empty belly. On his face, Laura recognized the signs of consumption, but she wasn’t worried.
More men trickled toward the small group surrounding the witch to investigate. Disconcerting as it was to see a witch’s large, milk producing breasts, the men still thought the infant doomed. Ethan filled himself until his belly could take no more. When her son began to doze Mary pulled him possessively to her chest. The sound of a tiny burp brought tears to Laura's eyes as they walked away, leaving her still tied to the tree.
* * *
Henry lost track of the days after his sister passed and had developed a bothersome, burning hollowness behind his eyes. He thought that his lungs would soon gain the ability to belch fire. Any sort of labor set his lungs aflame, triggering extensive coughing fits. He’d just recovered from one such episode after having hefted the laundry barrel back to his work space. When he checked his forehead, Henry bit back a curse. A fever.
The infant had woken to Henry’s coughing fit and the only way to quiet the pesky thing was to take it to the witch. He continued to bring the child for nourishment, as promised, but it galled him to do so because he privately noticed that the baby was steadily getting better! Consumption worked quickly with the young and elderly, but the baby resisted getting worse. If his suspicions were correct, there may be hope for him too. Henry didn’t mention this to the other men. Fear made pious men react hastily. The red-haired demon in the faded gray dress, with her large pale breasts and constantly exposed rosebud nipples, confused him. He knew that he needed her; how exactly Henry hadn’t quite decided.
Robust cries pierced his eardrums. “Alright! Enough squalling, you desperate thing.” Henry flung the rag back into the wash barrel. “I’ll take you to fill your belly before you sour mine.” Henry noted that the child’s eyes showed no signs of redness. Jealousy burned in his lungs.
* * *
Laura heard Ethan cry and woke, feeling strangely refreshed. The usual sandy grit that scratched her eyes and throat wasn’t there. The tight knots that always made her wince and sometimes shed a few tears, were instead loose; even her ankle felt–Laura sucked in a lungful of air. The shackle was gone! The wide cylindrical bruises and cuts appeared to be healing. Had someone felt pity on her in the night and removed the shackle while she slept? Perhaps her time sitting under the hot sun affected her wits more than she realized. She then noticed there were other changes about her person. Her skin didn’t feel tight with sunburn. Shadow-leaves danced over her skin in the cool sea breeze. Laura looked up. Why am I not squinting from the glare of the morning sun? Has the tree sprouted more leaves from its meager boughs?
A flitter of panic made her heart beat a little faster. She feared that her constant exposure might be inducing delirium, which could cause the men holding her captive to act in a way that would most certainly not be in her favor. Fortunately, the men were consumed with work in the tasks of survival. It felt like the only things that stood out clearly were the dreams. They were changing now though. She dreamt of being at the waterfall as usual, but the past few nights, they concentrated more on the man and the wondrous ways in which he doted on her. She dreamt of him washing her entire body, every inch of her skin. Laura blushed. I wanted him to. She dreamed of him feeding her fresh roasted nuts and sweet plump berries. Laura recalled his gentle caresses, his fingers running through her hair and later his soft, tender kisses.
The sound of a ragged, wet cough made Laura’s eyes pop open and her smile quickly faded. Henry tromped across the beach, the tips of his bare feet shoveling sand ahead of each tired step. Laura didn’t like the way he looked at her as he approached.
* * *
Henry stood, utterly shocked. Who removed the shackle? Washed her? Brushed and braided her hair? Chills pricked his skin. The witch was beautiful. If it was her own witchcraft, surely she would have simply freed herself instead. No, this had to be the work of a seduced man. Anger boiled in Henry’s belly. Witches possessed as many tricks as they did magic, some of which tended toward a lascivious nature. His lungs tickled and itched. He tried to calm his breathing. No matter, he thought. A plan lay just out of reach, still unformed. It tugged at the back of his mind. Better to not say anything to the others. Why, Henry couldn’t say exactly, just that he knew it best to keep these thoughts to himself. Before another coughing fit overtook him, Henry shoved a hand into the disintegrating front pocket of his pants and withdrew a small, uncooked, gutted fish wrapped in a broad leaf. He begrudgingly tossed it on the sand, next to the witch.
Reflexively, Laura’s mouth watered at the sight of food but she didn’t experience the expected gnawing sensations of hunger. This was the first time anyone had brought her a scrap to eat, she realized. How could it be that she wasn’t sick from starvation or dehydration?
Henry wasn’t gentle when he untied her wrists.
“Eat! And then go make your waste alone this time!”
“Thank you.” Her voice was raspy from nonuse.
“I will continue to do as my sister asked of me, but make no mistake; as long as the child lives, then so will you. He is the only reason I feed you.”
Henry knelt before her in a rush, his sickly blue eyes bore into hers. “But if I see that your devil’s blood is afflicting him in any ill way, I will save him from your evil and deal with you afterwards.”
Laura quailed under Henry’s threatening words. She forced herself to eat the fish until there was nothing left but the head, fins, and bones. Then she stood on weak legs and headed behind the shrubs.
Never had she felt the devil inside her. In fact, Laura felt the exact opposite. Memories raced through her mind as she squatted behind a bush, of the orphanage and the first baby. Poverty and plague sent many children to the orphanage, but the first infant put in Laura’s care had a broken back. It was by natural design that she put the babe to her strangely producing breasts and soon understood what her body could do. It was when the infants that were left in her care weren’t dying as expected, that suspicions grew. Laura had been forced to run away.
She survived by living on scraps of food and meager lodgings, if any. At every turn of the month, her dreams became vibrant and telling. Her breasts would ache and another frightening witch trial seemed to be held. When the dreams came, Laura knew deep in her bones that she was meant for something
else, maybe something great. She followed her dreams like messages written in the sand and chased the clues that led her to this beach. Laura felt closer to her destiny than ever before. During the broiling heat of day or icy cold of night, she couldn’t discern if she was daydreaming or asleep, but the warrior always returned, gently telling her to hold on and be strong.
* * *
An enthusiastic energy filled the cool dawn air as men prepared. A barrel washed ashore in the night, containing long-handled billhooks. That along with the sudden appearance of small animal tracks littering their beach that morning had the men heartily slapping one another on the back, making friendly wagers as to who would make the first kill.
An ingenious plan suddenly occurred to Henry as he hung laundry. He excitedly selected a long piece of cloth from a freshly washed pile and all but ran to Laura. The cough caught up to him with a vengeance, but once recovered he tied two corners of the cloth, fashioning a makeshift sash over Laura’s shoulder. Then he shoved the baby inside. Henry, suddenly liberated, was pleased with his creativity and smiled broadly when the hungry babe immediately began to suckle with such convenience. Henry turned on his heel, kicking up sand in a hasty departure and headed toward hunting party.
Laura looked down at Ethan. Her body had made him better. A mother knows what’s best. Laura sent a prayer to Mary, Ethan’s first mother and promised to care for him as her own. An argument erupted within the hunting party. Laura’s stomach knotted. She leaned down, as close as she could get to Ethan’s cheek, smelled his skin and whispered, “I will protect you, little one. You are mine now.”
