The Curse [Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice Book 1]

by Maddie James

  "Not my baby. Get back and I'll get the cup. You can have it. I'll talk to Vicki, you can even have the farm."

  Rick laughed and let his hands slide down the sides of her breasts and clasped her waist, forcing her up closer. He leaned into her and whispered mockingly, his breath hot and foul against her mouth. “I'll have the chalice, my dear Claire. I'll have the child if I want, and the farm. And before I leave, I'll have you one more time."

  His hand moved down to her thigh. She kicked and pushed.

  Time to pull out her Ace in the hole. Now, Claire.

  She pulled Blackbeard's Chalice out of her pocket and shoved it toward him. “Here! Take it! Just leave us alone!"

  He paused. Looking at the thing that had cursed her and Jack's love. It glinted and sparked with the intermittent flashes of lightening. His hungry eyes took in precious artifact and he drooled at the sight of it again.

  He reached.

  She pushed.

  He grasped the edge of silver-plated cup.

  She tugged back.

  He cackled and his eyes shone yellow in the night and smoke curled around his head.

  "No!” She wanted it back. Couldn't let him have it.

  Do what you have to do, Claire.

  His hands curled around the slim column of her neck and bit into her flesh. “Let it go, pigeon. Or your baby won't soon have a mother."

  Need air. Can't breath. Dizzy.

  Lightening struck and thunder simultaneously boomed throughout the lighthouse. Behind Rick, she saw a flash of silver-gray slice through the night and immediately, his fingers released his hold on her and he crumbled to the ground.

  She gasped for air.

  "Are you all right?"

  Jeremiah. A mallet in his hands. Rick on the floor.

  He clasped her to him and she sobbed. “Thank you,” she said into his chest. “Is he dead?"

  "No. But I'll make sure he doesn't go anywhere for a few days. Go. You go now."

  She nodded.

  The deafening hum was already growing around them.

  "Take care of you,” she said. “And your family.” Taking a few backward steps, she threw him a kiss to say goodbye. “Tell Vicki I love her."

  Jeremiah slipped into the shadows.

  The pulse had started, low and steady, rotating inside the tall cylinder. Suddenly, a roar engulfed the quaking structure, a crimson pulsating beam lit up the night, and a thousand points of light swirled inside, bouncing off the spherical walls, blinding them. An explosion ripped through the core of the structure and bricks burst forth from over the stone, raining down around them.

  Claire sheltered Jackson from the lights and the sound and the flying bricks and mortar. She leaned into the lighthouse wall, ready to take her step onto the stone.

  Then in a halo of bright light, she saw him. Strong, handsome, healthy, his dark hair flowing in the night breeze wafting in from the gaping hole, a red haze filtering around him.

  Jack.

  Oh, God. It's been so long.

  He held out his hand and she stepped forward.

  Who are you?

  I am your lifeblood.

  Do you still love me?

  You're a part of me. I am a part of you.

  Who am I?

  Claire. You are my Claire.

  And you are my husband.

  My spirit mate.

  My life.

  With a flash of light, she sighed and grasped his hand, tears stinging her eyes. She held their son close to her breast and stepped on the stone, joined the man of her destiny. Ready to return to her home by the sea. With him. The silver-plated chalice made from Blackbeard's skull dangled from her fingertips.

  Outside, the storm silenced and the tide receded, midnight struck and the blue moon passed into a new month. As Jack and Claire stepped from the stone in the eighteenth century, the chalice slipped from her fingers and was swallowed in the dune, hidden along with the magic stone amid the shifting sands.

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  Epilogue

  The contraction encircled her pelvis, then settled deep in her back, just above her tailbone. Over and over again, it radiated around her spine until at last she thought she could bear no more.

  "Push, darlin'. He's almost here. Push him slowly.” Jack's voice soothed her aching body as she looked at him positioned on the bedstead between her legs. The pressure and urge to push came over her and it was as if her body took over. Leaning up on her elbows and thrusting her body forward as far as possible, she curled into a comma shape and pushed.

  She could feel his life leaving her, felt him slip from her body and into Jack's waiting hands. He was born.

  Her third son was born.

  Jack lifted the child for her to see, a smile of love and joy radiating over his face and echoing in his eyes. He looked to Claire, tears streaming down his face and handed her the child, the umbilical cord still joining them.

  "Here is your daughter, Mrs. Porter."

  Her eyes flashed to Jack's face. “My ... daughter?” She cradled the child to her breast and looked at her in astonishment.

  My daughter.

  She had given him two sons before. She had given up on a daughter. Jack had teasingly convinced her that all she could produce were male children. She had tried to tell him that it was his fault if they were male or female, but he would hear none of it.

  And now, as the last pain coursed through her body, completing the birth process, the lifeline between her and her daughter stopped pulsating, ready to sever the physical tie forever. And Claire wasn't sure she was ready to do that.

  But Jack took the child from her, cut the cord, lovingly cleaned her and swaddled her in the new soft downy quilt Claire had made for her. Then he again placed their daughter next to her breast, leaning down to give his wife a lingering kiss on the lips.

  After, Claire slept. The newborn child lay snuggled into her side. Jack tended to their two sons, Jackson and Jeremiah, keeping them out of their mother's hair for a few hours.

  When she woke, late into the night, she sat up and looked to her sons sleeping in the trundle bed beside her. Jack sat at the table across the cabin, an oil lamp flickering over a sheet of paper in front of him.

  "What are you doing?” she softly inquired of him.

  He looked up and smiled, the rich darkness of his eyes glinting back at her, the thick silkiness of his hair falling over one shoulder. She recalled how he'd looked seven years earlier when they'd crossed into her century. He was a man out of time there. Here, he was definitely in his element. And she was in hers. It was as if she'd finally come home after a lifetime of yearning. She counted her blessings daily.

  "This cabin is too small, Claire. I'm going to build a new one. My sons and my daughter deserve that.” His grinned broadened. “My wife deserves that."

  She smiled. “Are you disappointed that she is a girl?"

  Jack's eyes grew solemn. He rose and walked to her, placed one knee on the trundle bed near his sleeping sons and leaned close.

  "I have everything I ever wanted,” he whispered. “You, our sons, and now I have another you. A little Claire with snapping green eyes and golden hair. Another angel. I couldn't want for more.” He smiled at her then gently kissed her lips.

  When he drew back, she gazed into his eyes and cupped his face with the palm of her right hand. “Jack,” she questioned as her gaze drifted across the room. “Would you bring the Bible to me?"

  He understood.

  Crossing the room, he picked up the family Bible from its place of reverence on a high shelf. Picking up a quill pen, he returned and gave both to her.

  Solemnly, she opened the book and turned to the center. Below the names of their two sons, Jackson Miller Porter II and Jeremiah Edward Porter, she inscribed the name of her daughter: Amabel Victoria Porter. Amabel, Latin for the most lovable one, and keeping with tradition. Victoria, of course, for Vicki, and as is appropriate, breaking with tradition.

  She fel
t a sigh of relief escape her as she filled in the last space. A long ago memory came back to her and she knew this was her last child.

  Then as the ink dried, her gaze lifted to the joining of her name and Jack's immediately above her children's and she read, as she had done a hundred times before, the inscription there: Hannah Claire Winslow, betrothed to Jackson Miller Porter, 15 June, 1719.

  For Eternity.

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  Days later, Jack Porter lay in his bed, his arms around his wife, his newborn daughter tucked into her cradle near the fire, his sons still sleeping soundly in the trundle beside them, and knew that he was the most fortunate man, in this century or any other.

  Every now and then he thought about how he and Claire would recount the tale of their marriage to the children, and how he would recite the Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice to them on chilly winter's nights.

  And every now and then he would wake, just to look at the sleeping angel beside him, and reach over to fold her into his arms and steal a sweet goodnight kiss.

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  ... until the night weaves its spell once again.

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  From the Author

  As an avid traveler within the United States, I've found no place I like to return to more than the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The love of the area and its history has drawn me into several fantasies of my own making and the series The Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice is no exception. I've borrowed heavily from Outer Banks and pirate folklore for the foundation of my stories, but the legend and the curse are from my own imagination.

  I've also taken liberties with the setting itself. Ocracoke Island does possess a lighthouse and it lives very close to Silver Lake Harbor in the village of Ocracoke. For my story, I wanted Claire to be secluded, away from a town and people, so I invented the small patch of private beach land north of Ocracoke Village, where an older and non-functioning lighthouse and light keeper's home exist. That area is a figment of my imagination and should you look for it, of course, it's not there! In fact, there is not much of anything on that area of the island.

  If you have never visited this thin ribbon of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, I would urge you to do so and experience the magic for yourself. THE CURSE is my second book set on these islands and I look forward to many more. Look for THE CULT and THE QUEST, the second and third books in The Legend of Blackbeard's Chalice series in the near future. These books move the story of Blackbeard's Chalice into the present day and the future as Claire and Jack's children, Jackson, Jeremiah, and Victoria, continue the adventure.

  Maddie James

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