Poseidon's Daughter

by Diane A. S. Stuckart

  Frowning, he twirled that short end in one hand, studying it in the half-light of dusk. The remaining bit of line was not frayed, the way it would have been if age and exertion finally had combined to snap the line. Rather, it appeared to be a neat severing, as if someone—or something—had simply cut it in two.

  But, whether accidental or intentional—it did not concern him for the moment. What mattered was the fact that Halia must still be out on the water somewhere.

  The realization jerked him from his refuge of cool calculation and sent a surge of barely controlled panic through him. He snatched up his boots and, half-running, half-hopping, had tugged them back on by the time he reached the foot of the bluff. That low barrier, he scaled with a mountain goat's speed.

  In another minute, he had covered the short distance to the courtyard leading to the guest house. Not pausing to open its low wood gate, he instead caught the top edge and swung over it. Then, boots clattering across the uneven flagstone, he headed for the open French doors and made his way to the makeshift dining salon.

  The rest of the household—Wilkie, Lally, and the middle-aged Biminian husband and wife who served as the staff—were already seated at the table. Two additional place-settings that were his and Halia's remained untouched.

  As one, the foursome turned to stare as Malcolm burst through the doorway.

  “Halia...she's missing...got to send for Captain Rolle,” he gasped, and then paused and leaned against the doorjamb to get his frantic breathing back under control.

  Wilkie was the first to react to Malcolm's abbreviated account of matters, pausing in mid-bite to demand, “‘Ere, now, wot are ye sayin’?”

  Lally slowly rose from her place at the head of the table. The only sign of distress she gave was the slight widening of her dark eyes—that, and the way she unheedingly let conch stew drip from the wooden spoon she was holding.

  “She be gone?” the woman softly echoed. “You mean, her boat, it not be comin' back?”

  “That's the whole bloody problem!” Malcolm exclaimed in frustration. Bloody hell, why was it taking them so long to understand? “The boat did come back—but she wasn't with it.”

  Lally's spoon hit the table with a clatter, faintly echoing the scrape of wood against wood as Wilkie abruptly shoved back his chair from the table and stood.

  ”Ye mean, she fell overboard?” he exclaimed, his pockmarked face turning ashen.

  Malcolm helplessly shook his head.

  “I don't know what the hell happened,” he admitted, praying he did not sound quite as desperate as he suddenly felt. “All I can tell you is that she took the skiff out this afternoon, and while I was there waiting on the beach for her, the bloody boat came drifting back all on its own.”

  He ran a quick hand through his disheveled hair—his boater had fallen off during his frantic flight—and turned to the manservant.

  “Levar,” he hurriedly addressed the man, who had already set aside his plate and risen to await orders, “take Sadie and locate Captain Rolle—he should be at home with his family—and tell him what has happened. Tell him that we'll need his crew and his boat to search for Miss Davenport.”

  “We be gone now, Mr. Malcolm,” Levar swiftly agreed and started out the door at a trot. A murmured agreement rose from his wife, her dark face wearing a look of equal concern, as she promptly untied her apron and departed the room on his heels.

  Malcolm turned back to Lally and Wilkie. “We'll be needing supplies—blankets, lanterns, and the like.”

  The next half hour saw several minutes of frantic action as the three of them searched out the items in question. The remaining time was spent in impatient if unavoidable waiting, each caught in their own thoughts. It was fully dark, then, by the time they finally heard Rolle's heavy footfalls upon the veranda.

  “Tell me what be happenin’,” he demanded without preamble once he was inside.

  Malcolm related in a rush what little he knew, then swiftly went on, “Even if she fell overboard, or if the anchor line broke while she was making a dive, she might still be afloat. She's a strong swimmer, you know. She might even have found something to hang onto...a piece of driftwood, maybe. If your crew can be ready to sail—”

  “Me an’ my crew, we not be sailin' my boat nowhere...not tonight.”

  The blunt statement caught Malcolm off guard, and he searched the man's face to see if perhaps he were joking. Rolle's usually jovial features, however, were drawn into grim lines that forestalled any such misunderstanding.

  “Not sail?” Malcolm choked out in disbelief. “Bloody hell, man, she's out there somewhere waiting for us to find her. Who gives a damn if it's Sunday.”

  “You not be understandin' me, my friend. We can't be sailin' dat harbor, at all, not in the dark. It be hard enough in the day, wit’ the reef bein' so shallow. But at night...”

  He trailed off, and Malcolm's disbelief fast turned to outrage. He'd never counted Rolle a coward or a quitter, but maybe he had been wrong. Fixing the captain with a look of chill disdain, he replied, “Then I'll bloody well go myself.”

  Though how in the hell he would actually manage that feat, he did not care to mull over...not just yet. If he had to, he'd pound on every door in Alice Town until he found a man with a boat willing, for the right sum, to risk the night. And if he couldn't find a boat and crew, then he'd locate a dinghy and paddle out there himself.

  But one thing, he did know—he damn sure wasn't going to sit by and do nothing until dawn.

  Even as Malcolm swung about to leave, Rolle put a beefy hand of restraint on his arm.

  “You be waitin', my impatient friend. All I be sayin' is dat we not be takin' my boat out. I did not be saying dat we not be lookin' for her. All we be needin' is an anchor, an’ we can be takin' the skiff.”

  ” ‘Ere, now,” Wilkie interjected in a hopeful tone. “There's a shed out beside the 'ouse. Maybe there's something inside wot we could use.”

  “Check it, then,” Malcolm clipped out. Once Wilkie had hurried off in search of his makeshift anchor, he turned back to Rolle.

  “Thank you,” he simply said.

  He dared not say more, lest he break down and fling his arms about the man in gratitude. The captain merely nodded in return, lamplight glinting off the gold loop in his ear.

  “Don't you be worryin' none,” he replied, folding his immense arms across his chest and looking more the pirate captain than ever. “If anyone can be findin' her, it be you an me.”

  Almost two hours later, however, Malcolm had begun to wonder at the captain's optimism.

  Once again, they had furled the sail and dropped anchor—Wilkie's foray into the outbuilding having met with success—to call Halia's name and scan the waves for any sign of her.

  Oversized lanterns lashed fore and aft spread a yellow glow that was their only source of light, for clouds had wrapped the moon and stars in a blanket of pitch. As for the inky waters, tonight they were choppier than Malcolm could ever recall seeing them. Still, sound seemed to carry farther than usual across the water in such darkness, so that he felt certain that they would hear any cry for help.

  Twice, now, they had spotted a dark shape atop the water resembling a body. Both times, however, the shadowy figure had proved to be a drifting clump of seaweed. By now, Malcolm's nerves had been stretched almost to the breaking point as fear and frustration battled it out within him.

  Damn the chit! It was her fault he had missed his dinner to spend the night out here on the darkened sea. If she'd only kept to the rules—or at least, asked him to come along with her—this never would have happened.

  So what the bloody hell worries you the most, his inner voice demanded, the fact she cheated... or the fact that she might be dead?

  The question sent a chill through him. Yet, though his mind conceded the possibility, his heart refused to accept it. Halia could not be lost to him forever...not now, not before they had settled matters between them. The fact that his feelings for her might
be nothing more than the result of Lally's conjuring—and, thus, quite as fraudulent their Atlantis search—no longer mattered.

  He loved her...and he bloody well was going to find her and tell her so!

  By his estimate, they had covered the entire Atlantis site, moving in regular, ever-shrinking circles. Every muscle of Malcolm's body ached with the effort of looking and listening. Now, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and slumped back against the bow, dragging his gaze back to meet Rolle's. Conversation between them since they'd shoved off had been sparse, each man caught up in the urgency of their search.

  But it had reached a point where Malcolm needed to know something of the man's thoughts...most specifically, did he hold out any hope of Halia's still being alive. Rolle knew the winds, the shoreline, the tides. Surely with his lifetime of experience in these islands, he must have some theory as to what could have happened.

  “Do you think we'll find her?” he bluntly asked, the question echoing against the gentle lapping of waves against the boat.

  Rolle's dark face had taken on a mystical glow beneath the flickering lamplight, so that he appeared to Malcolm like some pirate-god presiding over his watery kingdom. He did not speak for some moments. Then, just as Malcolm feared he would keep his thoughts to himself, he shrugged.

  “Me, I can't be tellin' you dat, not unless we be knowin' what happened to her. I be thinkin' dat, if she be fallin' from the boat, there be three things dat can be happenin' to her. Maybe she already be swimmin' back to shore, or maybe another boat, it be rescuin' her.”

  “Or maybe she drowned,” Malcolm harshly finished the list. “But that doesn't explain how the boat broke free. Only a knife could cut the line that neatly. Maybe someone only wanted us to think she's dead.”

  A scenario flashed through his mind of some band of island cutthroats seeing her out there alone and seizing her for their brutal pleasures.

  ”—maybe a shark,” he heard Rolle say.

  That last word abruptly jerked him from thoughts of imaginary brigands. Bloody hell, how could he have forgotten the ominous creature he'd seen swimming in the harbor the day of their arrival? A fish that bloody big could have attacked her and severed the line in a single bite.

  But even as another picture flashed through his mind— this one of Halia's slim form being mangled in the jaws of swimming death—he realized Rolle was still speaking.

  ”—don't be thinkin' dat's what happened. A shark, it mostly be feedin' at night, an’ in the shallows. Besides, no one here be gettin' killed by a shark for years, now,” he finished with a shrug.

  If that last was meant as assurance, Malcolm was not comforted. Still, which was the more frightening thought, that she'd been savaged by a killer fish or been abducted?

  He gave his head a sharp shake to clear it. This sort of wild speculation was doing no one—least of all Halia—any good.

  “So what do you suggest we do, Captain?”

  “I be thinkin' dat we should be headin' back to shore. If she be here to find, we already be findin' her. An’ maybe someone else already be bringin' her home. An’ if not, then we be doin' better to search again in the daylight.”

  It made sense, Malcolm conceded. If she were out there, they would have found her by now...or else, she surely would have spotted their lanterns or heard their shouts and called out to them. And with luck, maybe she was already back at the guest house.

  Still, it was with guilty reluctance that he bowed to the other man's judgment and gave his nod of agreement. A minute later, Rolle had pulled up the anchor and raised the sail once more. Breeze caught canvas with more than usual vigor, so Malcolm recalled the captain's prediction of a storm moving in.

  Shivering slightly now against the wind and spray, he kept his hopeful gaze on the water's surface as they started back to shore. By the time they reached the beach, he had quite convinced himself that Halia had already been rescued and would be awaiting their return. The first thing he would do when he saw her, he vowed, would be to roundly chastise her for the mental anguish she'd put him through.

  And then, he would drag her off to his bedchamber and make love to her until they both were sated.

  He reached the top of the bluff to see light blazing from every window in the guest house. A renewed surge of hope lent him speed as he covered that distance for the second time that night and made his way through the courtyard. He reached the French doors and flung himself through them into the main hallway, all but colliding with Wilkie.

  “Where is she?” he breathlessly demanded as he clutched his friend's arms, reading a look of relief in the older man's pockmarked face.

  That expression abruptly faded, however, as Wilkie freed himself from Malcolm's grip and shook his head.

  ” ‘Ere, now, wot do ye mean? The way ye was runnin', I thought ye'd found ‘er.”

  “Then no one brought her back?”

  The realization knifed through him with an almost physical pain, so that he almost missed the other man's questioning, “Will ye be goin' back out to look for 'er?”

  “Not until morning,” was Malcolm's bleak reply. “We covered every bloody inch of water between here and the site, but there was no sign of her. We were hoping maybe someone else had found her.”

  He broke off with a muttered curse. Damn it all, they should have stayed out longer. Now, he had the whole of the night stretching before him to worry and wonder... and all the while, maybe Halia was still waiting for him to find her.

  By then, Rolle had made his own way back to the guest house. Malcolm only half-listened as the man recounted for Wilkie what they'd done. Instead, his attention was drawn to the clusters of lit candles—some graceful tapers, others mere stubs—that sat in every window. The faint aroma of beeswax combined with another, sweeter smell that curled about the room.

  He shot a questioning look at Wilkie, who glanced from him to Rolle and then shrugged. “It be 'er—Lally—wot done it. 'Tis some sort o' voodoo, I'm thinkin'.”

  Bloody wonderful, was Malcolm's first thought. The way things were going, she'd probably set the house on fire before the night was through. Rolle, he noted, was shaking his head and frowning.

  “Here in Bimini, we not be holdin' wit’ such things,” was his disapproving comment. “We all be good Christians, prayin' to Jesus for help, not the spirits.”

  “I'll have a word with her.”

  Leaving Wilkie and Rolle behind, he started up the stairs. The door to the small bedchamber that was Lally's stood ajar. The scent of burning incense and herbs that emanated from it was almost overpowering.

  Lally stood in the room's center, surrounded by a small circle of lit candles. Her back was to him, and her usual neat bundle of tiny braids had been freed to twist Medusa-like over her shoulders. She had exchanged her flamboyant garb for some white, loose-fitting wrapper that looked rather like a monk's robe. Its trailing hem floated dangerously close to the burning tapers.

  “Are you searching for answers from the great beyond,” he coolly addressed her, eyeing that potential disaster with more than a little wariness, “or are you seeing how close you can come to turning yourself into a human torch?”

  “Ignorant Englishman,” she responded, not bothering to look his way. “I be tryin' to learn from the spirits what be happenin' to Halia.”

  “Indeed.”

  With that wry observation, he took a few steps closer. Now, he could see the makeshift altar she had set up along one wall. Still more candles sputtered upon it, while a shallow sort of metal basin served as a centerpiece. In the center of that bowl, she had placed the now-familiar photograph of Halia and her father.

  “So, what do they say?”

  Knowing as he did the woman's dislike for him, he still was shocked at the barely veiled venom that spilled from her lips as she replied, “It's not what they be sayin' dat you need to be knowin'. I be tellin' her dat you be nothin' but trouble, but she not be listenin'. If she be dead, then it be your fault.”

&nb
sp; “My fault?” he choked out. “What in the bloody hell is that supposed to mean? This whole expedition was her idea, so if you think you can blame me—”

  He broke off abruptly as Lally finally deigned to look his way. Her dark eyes were narrowed to obsidian slits, but he sensed the pain beneath her anger, recalling him to the fact that Lally had been a part of Halia's family for years. If he was distraught over her disappearance, then what must Lally be feeling?

  “All right,” he conceded, tempering his anger with an unfamiliar emotion that he supposed must be compassion. “Talk to your spirits, then...just try not to burn the bloody house down around us in the process. The rest of us will be heading out again on Captain Rolle's boat to search at first light. So be sure to let me know before then if your spirits say anything that might be of help.”

  He had turned to leave, when Lally's voice stopped him. “Wait, Englishman. They did be tellin' me somet'ing.”

  He glanced back over his shoulder at her, suppressing a superstitious chill at the picture she presented—white robe against dark skin, surrounded by a plethora of lit candles that easily betokened either Christian or pagan worship. The line she walked lay somewhere between evil and benevolence, he was certain. Still, her next words gave him his first bit of comfort this night.

  “The spirits, they be sayin' she still be alive...but dat you'd better be findin' her fast.”

  ~ Chapter 18 ~

  Piracy, it seemed, was a profitable occupation even in these modern times.

  Such was Halia's first thought as the door to the captain of the Golden Wolf’s private cabin locked behind her. From the curtained berth in the corner to the neat roll top desk, every inch of the quarters was teak, trimmed out in gleaming brass. The accouterments were as richly apportioned.

  Along one wall ran a broad shelf filled with leather-bound volumes, their spines stamped in gold. A second shelf held crystal decanters and matching glassware, each item set into its own snug recess to withstand the ship's rolling. Along a narrow side table were assembled the tools of the seafaring trade—sextant, compass, and a handful of other instruments whose purpose she could not guess—all appearing to be of the finest craftsmanship.