Past Lives (The Past Lives Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry Cloutier

  “Good heavens!” Mary gasped as someone pounded heavily on the door. She set the stitching down and opened the door, crying out in fear as a crowd of men pushed their way bodily inside—men with muskets.

  “What is the meaning of this outrage?” Mary demanded as the men spread out in the kitchen, their muskets pointed toward the stairs.

  “Come here, child,” Claire whispered, pulling the frightened girl out of the way and hugging her to her chest as a tall man strode into the room.

  The man removed his hat, bowing deeply. “Good day, madam,” he said to Mary, ignoring Claire. “My name is Colonel Moore, and I have come seeking the whereabouts of your husband.” Moore was thin, with bright eyes and a pale face beneath his powdered wig. The men around him seemed nervous, glancing with dread toward the stairs as if expecting the devil himself to come charging down them. With what Margaret knew about Edward Thache, they weren’t that far wrong.

  “He’s not here,” Mary said, lifting her chin in defiance. “I don’t know who you are, sir, but your temerity will not go unpunished, I promise you that. My father is a rich and powerful man, and he is close friends with the governor. I assure you they will both be clamoring for your head once they learn of this outrage.”

  Moore chuckled. “On the contrary, madam,” he said. “I do believe the governor will have little to say about the issue once all is said and done.” Moore turned as a man entered the house. “Well?”

  “The Adventure is gone, Colonel. But word is there are as many as twenty of the crew still ashore, including Israel Hands.”

  “Ah,” Moore said, looking pleased. “Very well. Round the scoundrels up and we’ll see what can be done about them.” The man nodded and left as Moore gestured toward the stairs. “All right, lads, up you go.”

  “I told you already that my husband isn’t here,” Mary protested as the armed men began cautiously climbing the stairs.

  “Yes, you said that, madam,” Moore said with a half-smile. “But I’m nothing if not thorough, so begging your pardon, but I think I’ll just make certain of that fact.”

  Mary and Claire waited, helpless as the sounds of heavy boots sounded from above. Something landed with a loud bang against the boards over their heads moments later, and both women jumped.

  Mary was trembling in fear and anger as Claire stroked her hair. “There, there, child,” she said soothingly. “Everything is going to be just fine. You’ll see.” Mary’s mother had died when she was six, and Margaret had all but raised her on her own, as her father had little time or patience for pesky young girls.

  One of the things—among many—that had surprised Claire about living past lives was that the various emotions—love, hate, jealousy, anger, resentment, among others—that her hosts had felt before she arrived stayed with her, simmering in the background. It could be disconcerting sometimes, though Claire had learned to build a mental wall around those feelings over time, suppressing them for the most part. But Margaret’s love for Mary was almost overwhelming, and her need to comfort the young girl could not be denied. Claire saw no reason to try.

  “I don’t understand,” Mary sobbed softly into Margaret’s bosom. “First, Mister Thache starts acting so queerly, and now this. It’s too much to take.”

  Claire stiffened, pushing the girl back to stare down at her. “Acting queerly how, Miss Mary?”

  Mary sniffed, wiping at a tear. “Well, he jumped out of bed looking all confused. I thought perhaps that it was from the drink that he’d consumed, but it wasn’t that at all. It was almost as if he was suddenly a babe in the woods, not knowing where he was. He didn’t even know how to put on his clothing properly.” Mary produced a handkerchief and blew her nose. She looked up at the bigger woman. “As the Lord is my witness, Margaret, I swear he didn’t even know my name. He called me by some other name that I’d never even heard before.”

  “What name?” Claire asked softly.

  “Margaret, dear, you’re hurting me,” Mary protested.

  Claire realized in surprise that she was holding the girl by her upper arms, squeezing the delicate white skin there with her big hands. She loosened her grip. “What name, child? What name did your man call you?”

  “He called me, Claire,” Mary whispered, giving out a squawk of fright as the armed men came tramping back down the stairs.

  “Thache isn’t here, Colonel,” one of the men said.

  “Ah,” Moore said with a nod. “Then he must have gotten away on his ship. Damn the luck. Now that pompous ass, Maynard will get to have a go at him.” He turned and bowed to Mary. “My business here is concluded, madam. Please excuse the intrusion.”

  The tall man spun on his heels, then strode quickly from the room with his men following.

  “Has your mind flown, Miss Margaret!” the man gasped, his thin frame shaking. His name was Nathanial, a slave from William Ormond’s plantation. A second man, called Ben, was with them as well, but he said nothing. “If they catch us—”

  “There’s no time to worry about that, Nathanial,” Claire hissed at him as the three hurried along the street of Bath Town. All she could think of was that she’d lost an entire day. It was now the 22nd of November, and she was certain that she was running out of time to save Gerald. Armed soldiers had spent the previous day rounding up Edward Thache’s mostly drunk crew from the Adventure. The town had been under guard the entire time, with no one allowed to leave their homes. Claire had been beside herself with worry, for there were rumors afloat that two Royal Navy ships—the Jane and the Ranger—were even now sailing for Ocracoke Island, where Edward Thache was believed to be camped.

  Claire was not a history buff by any stretch, having been more interested in the applied sciences than the workings of the past, but seeing the soldiers had jogged her memory enough to suspect that Edward Thache’s days were numbered. Claire was determined to find Gerald and maybe thwart whatever fate awaited his host, which might, in some way, change the future. It was a longshot, of course, but either way, Claire needed to talk to Gerald first, for he would know if it was worthwhile to bother trying to save Blackbeard or not.

  “They might have ships guarding the inlet, Miss Margaret,” Ben said, the first words from him. Ben was wiry and small, with short grey hair and a thick grey beard.

  “It’s a chance we have to take,” Claire grunted. The three reached the port, where at least two dozen small fishing boats lay tied to their berths, rocking on the tide. She could see a faint glow starting in the east as dawn approached. “Shit,” Claire muttered under her breath in dismay. A soldier stood on the wharf with his musket held at attention across his chest. “Wait here,” Claire said firmly to her companions. Both Nathanial and Ben gawked at her in fright, but neither man protested. Claire figured there was a fifty-fifty chance that they were going to run the moment her back was turned, so she pointed a thick finger at each man forcefully. “I mean it. Don’t you move from this spot, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Claire turned, praying the men would obey her. If they ran, then any chance of seeing Gerald in this lifetime would be gone.

  “You get back now, you hear me, girl?” the soldier said as Claire approached. “The port is closed off to folks right now.”

  “Yes, Master,” Claire said. “I understand. I truly do. But my mistress needs something aboard that boat over yonder.” Claire pointed vaguely toward one of the fishing craft as she casually glanced behind her, relieved to see that Ben and Nathanial had stayed, though they were clutching at each other like frightened chickens. “She sent me to fetch it right quick.”

  “And them?” the soldier asked suspiciously, gesturing to Ben and Nathanial.

  “Why, it’s a large chest, Master,” Claire said. “Too much for my old bones to handle. We won’t be but a moment. I swear to God we won’t.”

  “Who’s your Mistress, girl?” the soldier demanded.

  “Miss Mary Ormond, Master. I swear she’ll have me whupped if I come back without that chest.”
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  The soldier snickered. “What’s wrong with that?” he grunted. “You colored folk need a good beating once in a while. Keeps you in your place.”

  “Yes, Master,” Claire said as she lowered her eyes and stared at her shoes, afraid the man would see the disgust and anger on her face.

  “Go on then,” the soldier finally said. “But be quick about it.”

  “Thank you, Master,” Claire said in relief as she gestured to Ben and Nathanial.

  The two men ran to her, both taking a wide berth around the soldier, who glowered at them in contempt.

  Claire glanced at Ben. “Which one?” she whispered.

  The older man looked around, then pointed toward the northern end of the wharf. “That’s William Lilley’s boat over there. He’s laid up with the croup, and I know he won’t mind if we borrow it.”

  “Good enough,” Claire said.

  The three headed toward the boat, with Claire constantly glancing over her shoulder at the soldier, who seemed to have forgotten about them as he paced along the wharf. Claire prayed things remained that way.

  “Here now,” Nathanial said, jumping into the boat and offering up his hands. “You be careful, Miss Margaret. Them boards is slippery. One misstep and you’ll be bathin’ with the fishes.”

  Claire allowed Ben and Nathanial to help her into the boat—which was perhaps sixteen feet long—her great bulk causing the small vessel to rock back and forth alarmingly. Finally, once she’d settled herself on a bench, Ben and Nathanial untied the moorings and carefully pushed them away from the wharf. Ben put his finger to his lips for silence, all of them crouching down below the gunwale as the boat slowly drifted away on the tide. Ten minutes later, Ben motioned for Nathanial to take up the oars, and together, the two men began quietly rowing them eastward.

  Claire watched the wharf with dread, her heart thudding in her chest, expecting to hear an outcry at any moment. But there was no sign of the soldier now in the growing light. Finally, she breathed a sigh of relief as Ben and Nathanial raised the small canvas sail and the wind took hold. They had made it, though there was still a risk that ships would be waiting at the mouth of the inlet. Claire knew if there were, then all three of them could expect a savage beating, maybe worse. Slaves had been hung for far less than what they were doing.

  Claire studied her companions, feeling a pang of guilt for having brought them into this. If anything happened to them, then it would be on her conscience—which was already filled to overflowing with regrets after the events on the Titanic. She settled herself on the bench, turning inward and letting the men handle the boat. Not that she could have done anything to help anyway. Margaret was not a young woman and she knew nothing about sailing. The only time she had been on a ship before now was the filth-covered slaver that had brought her to the New World—a journey referred to as the Middle Passage by her fellow slaves. Ben had been on that ship with her as well, and the horrors Margaret and he had suffered made Claire shudder, despairing for humanity. The only consolation was that she knew the world would not always treat people this way—though there was still a long way to go, even in the twenty-first century.

  “Miss Margaret,” Ben said, gesturing ahead. He was grinning, his few teeth looking odd in a mostly gum-filled mouth.

  Claire looked east, relieved to see that there were no sails in evidence. No one was waiting.

  “Thank the Lord!” Nathanial said. “I was sure we was gonna get caught.”

  “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Claire grunted. She paused as both men looked at her strangely, guessing the phrase hadn’t been used yet. “We’re not safe yet,” she clarified. “Once we find Master Thache and warn him of the danger he’s in, then we can relax.”

  “But what happens after that, Miss Margaret?” Ben asked from behind her as he manned the tiller. The older man shook his head. “I’m too old to go pirating.”

  “We’ll worry about that when we have to,” Claire said, fixing her gaze eastward, eager to get her first glimpse of Ocracoke Island where her beloved Gerald awaited her. She glanced behind her and smiled. “All we have to do is just get there. Everything else will fall into place after that.” Ben nodded to her, though she thought he didn’t look all that convinced. She turned around again, enjoying the crisp wind and morning sun on her face. “Gerald will know what to do,” she whispered to herself. “And I won’t be alone anymore.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  MALCOLM: Ocracoke Island

  “I must confess, dear Edward, that I had just a smashing time this past evening. Simply smashing, though I do wish something might be done about this infernal hammering in my head.”

  Malcolm chuckled. “I’m glad to hear you enjoyed yourself,” he said, glancing at the squat man with the bulging belly who stood next to him on the quarterdeck. The morning sun rose slowly behind them, lighting the dancing rushes along the shoreline with a golden glow where the Adventure lay at anchor in an inlet facing Pamlico Sound. “Though I did warn you about that hammer last night,” Malcolm added.

  The man’s name was Samuel Odell, a trader who had graciously helped to drag the Adventure off a shoal not that long ago. Thache had invited him to a party to show his appreciation, and Malcolm had had no choice but to go through with it, since the man had been waiting for them on his small sloop when they’d arrived at Ocracoke Island.

  “Ah, if only I had listened to you, my friend,” Odell said, his face white and drawn as he peered over the gunwale into the water. A group of wigeons paddled past the ship, many of them tipping down into the water to feed on aquatic plants beneath the surface. The early morning air was filled with the sounds of all manner of waterfowl, from geese, seagulls, and pelicans, to ducks like the feeding wigeons and their larger cousins the pintails, along with flocks of noisy canvasbacks and teal.

  Odell was clearly still feeling his drink, and Malcolm felt a certain amount of sympathy for him, as his own head was pounding just as much as the trader’s. Malcolm had promised himself not to drink too much the night before, but the rum had gone down well and he’d found as time went by that he was having a wonderful time, swapping lies with the other rogues around him as though he were one of them. He’d even forgotten at times that he was Malcolm Foster, a former history professor and author from Texas, falling easily into the persona of Blackbeard—which now, in the light of day, troubled him somewhat. Who knew beneath his civilized exterior that he’d had the makings of a cut-throat pirate all along?

  Malcolm chuckled softly at the idea. He had forgotten how good it felt to be healthy and alive and had let his guard down, but was now regretting his exuberance of the night before, as he knew he only had a few hours left before the end. Malcolm hadn’t wanted to go out of this timeline with a hangover, but what was done was done, and worrying about it would do no good now.

  A pair of sails had been sighted the night before, coming from the west along the channel—just as Malcolm had been expecting. The ships weren’t running any colors, and Malcolm had made light of it to the others, stating that the pirates had little to fear from the unknown ships as they weighed anchor for the night—though he knew well from history that the opposite of that was true. Several of his crewmen, including his bosun, Garret Gibbons, had wondered initially if they were Royal Navy. But the idea was quickly discounted, as everyone knew frigates were too heavy for the passage around the island that was choked with shoals and shifting sandbars. The consensus was that the ships were Carolina traders, reaffirmed when it was seen as they drew closer that they were sloops that bore no guns, which meant that they were little threat to the Adventure’s eight deck guns and the smaller bow chaser mounted in the forecastle.

  Odell hawked and spat into the water, chuckling as the gob splattered across the back and lowered head of one of the ducks. “This blasted Jack Sparrow you were going on about last night,” Odell said, lifting his hat to adjust his wig. “Who the devil is the man, anyway?”

  Malcolm chuckled. He had hoped one
of his crew, or perhaps Odell or one of his men, was actually Claire, so he had hit upon the idea of asking each of them individually if they knew Captain Jack Sparrow. Malcolm had thought it quite clever in his inebriated haze, but it was only much later, once every man had stated that they had never heard of Sparrow and he’d sobered somewhat, that he realized Claire might not be a movie buff. He had no way of knowing for certain, but if she wasn’t, then she had probably never seen Pirates of the Caribbean, leaving him back where he had started.

  Malcolm had decided that morning when he awoke that Claire wasn’t with him on the Adventure, movie or not, believing instead that she was still back in Bath Town somewhere. Which, in some ways, suited him just fine. He needed more time to decide how to tell her properly about Gerald and hoped he would get a better opportunity to do that in his next past life with her. That next life might not be as historically significant as this one, he reasoned, which might also give him more leeway in what he could say and do.

  “Sail ho!” a voice suddenly shouted from above.

  Both Odell and Malcolm looked up, peering at the figure perched along the top of the mainmast. It was Caesar, and he was pointing toward the dormant sloops.

  “What’s that fool going on about?” Thache’s quartermaster, William Howard, asked with a snort. “We know the blasted buggers are there.”

  Malcolm shrugged and withdrew his brass looking glass, focusing on the anchored sloops lying directly off their bow almost a league away. Mist rose lazily around their hulls, and he could see activity on the decks of both ships now, but nothing alarming. Malcolm knew it was still too early for them to make their move on the pirates. He glanced back up, frowning as Caesar continued to point energetically.

  “I think that man of yours is still three sheets to the wind,” Odell muttered. He turned to peer back over the water, then stiffened and squinted. “Here now, Captain, let me have a gander with that glass if I may,” he said, holding out his hand.