Past Lives (The Past Lives Chronicles Book 1)

by Terry Cloutier

  Armed men immediately began pouring out of the hatch from below deck, shouting as they fired a withering barrage of pistol and musket shot at the surprised pirates. Malcolm saw Garret Gibbons spin around, his face gone as a ball tore into him. The bosun dropped, followed by the carpenter, Owen Roberts, and John Curtice, another of Blackbeard’s crew. Malcolm growled in fury, allowing Edward Thache to take control as the pirate drew two pistols from his bandoliers, firing one after the other into the throng of shouting men bearing down on him. The closest sailor screamed, his chest exploding blood as he fell writhing, with the second charge catching another man above the knee. The wounded sailor howled and fell as Thache threw the empty pistols aside and drew two more.

  Royal Navy sailors were swarming all over Blackbeard’s men, cutting them down savagely as Malcolm looked behind him just as a cannon suddenly boomed from the Adventure. He realized that the Ranger was back in the fray now, coming on in determination, with the small sloop’s surviving crew massed along the railing, preparing to board the pirate ship. Blackbeard’s remaining men were focused on repelling any boarding attempt, still unaware of the change in fortunes on the Jane. There would be no help coming from that direction.

  Something tore across Malcolm’s right forearm, returning his attention to the battle and he cursed as the pistol he held fell to the deck. He fired the one in his left hand at the attacking sailors while drawing his cutlass at the same time. A man came at him, screaming and swinging an axe that Malcolm easily dodged, cutting the back of the man’s leg as he swept past. Then Malcolm saw Robert Maynard heading toward him with a bloody cutlass held determinedly in his right hand. The pirate tore another pistol from his bandolier and fired at the Royal Navy officer, but missed, cursing as he threw the empty pistol into the face of a snarling sailor.

  That delay—as brief as it was—allowed Maynard to reach Malcolm, and the lieutenant thrust his blade at the big pirate, the point missing his belly and stabbing the cartridge belt on his hip instead, bending the blade. Malcolm slashed down, breaking the guard on the other man’s sword and bloodying his fingers, though not enough that the officer dropped his weapon. Maynard jumped back then and drew a pistol, leveling it and firing point-blank, catching the wounded pirate in the stomach. Malcolm cried out as searing pain tore at his insides, reeling against the railing as sailors assaulted him from all sides. A tall man with a thick beard slashed at him from his right, and Malcolm felt hot blood pumping from his neck before suddenly the pain came. He roared, drawing his last pistol and firing into the chest of the bearded man, even as he felt his limbs going numb.

  “For King and Country!” Robert Maynard cried in triumph.

  “For King and Country!” his men echoed as the Royal Navy sailors descended on Edward Thache, hacking and stabbing at him in a frenzy.

  Malcolm fell then, the rising and falling blades piercing his skin barely noticed as his eyes fixated on the boots of Blackbeard’s nemesis, Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Thache. “I truly am sorry.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CLAIRE: Williamsburg, Virginia—March 1719

  Claire sat on a roughly-hewn pine coffin, unable to stop crying as she was slowly drawn along Nicolson Street in an open wagon. A long line of similar wagons rolled forward ahead of her, each with a coffin in the back and a prisoner sitting on top as she was. The road the procession traveled would soon become known as Gallows Road—once the gruesome events of this day were over. Citizens of Williamsburg lined the street, many jeering and laughing at the remnants of Edward Thache’s crew as they rode to their deaths. The trial of Blackbeard’s pirates had begun on March 12th, with only two men—Israel Hands and Samuel Odell—being acquitted of crimes against King George. The rest, including Margaret, Nathanial, and Ben, were sentenced to hang for piracy, though Alexander Spotswood—the Governor of Virginia—did ask his council, “What can be done about the circumstances of these Negroes to exempt them from undergoing the same trial as the other pirates?”

  No answer was found that was satisfactory, and so the three were condemned to suffer the same fate as the others. Including the former slave Caesar, who was not believed when he claimed he’d been fighting against his will. Especially once it was learned that he’d attempted to blow up the Adventure once he realized that all was lost. Only the quick thinking of Nathanial and Ben had stopped him from doing that, though in the end, their actions had brought them little sympathy from the court.

  Nathanial rode his coffin ahead of Claire, and she stared at his emaciated back with deep sadness and despair. Claire had spent the last few months since Blackbeard’s death locked up in relative comfort—at least compared to the men—who had been thrown together in the town jail called The Public Gaol. The jail was small, intended to only house prisoners temporarily, and the conditions inside were beyond deplorable. With little food and rat, cockroach, and lice-infested straw to sleep on and barred windows open to the elements, many of the former pirates were almost too sick now to even stay upright on their coffins. Claire thought of Ben, who had died last month of something called gaol fever, which Claire suspected was actually typhus. Perhaps he’d been the lucky one, sparing him from the horror of this day.

  A shout sounded from ahead, heard clearly over the jeering, which then grew in volume as the procession came to a halt. The lead wagon continued on, heading toward a gallows that stood in the middle of the road made from two tall oak posts capped by an oak crossbeam. Men jumped on the wagon as it halted beneath the gallows, hauling the unfortunate prisoner to his feet on top of the coffin and slipping the noose over his head. The wagon was then unceremoniously drawn ahead, leaving the man hanging by the rope, his feet kicking and thrashing four feet above the ground.

  Claire closed her eyes as the cheering and hoots intensified from the onlookers. They were in a festive mood, as the day had been declared a holiday in Williamsburg so as many people as possible would have a chance to watch the executions.

  “Oh, Gerald,” Claire whispered, her body shaking with weariness and fear. “This is not what I imagined when we first talked of changing the past.” Claire could feel the anguish ripping at her insides from Margaret, and she felt shame wash over her, knowing that if not for her, the good woman whose body she’d taken over might have lived many more years. “Your blood is on my hands,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  The wagon suddenly lurched ahead, causing Claire to cry out in surprise. The first pirate had met his end, with the next in line rolling beneath the gallows. Claire shuddered, a part of her eager now to have it over and done with so that she could be with Gerald, though she was not relishing strangling at the end of a rope. Who in their right mind would? Claire’s one hope was that Margaret’s vast weight would be enough to snap her neck and end it quickly so that neither of them had to suffer. She was soon to be disappointed in that.

  An hour went by as the wagons slowly moved forward. Sometimes men died quickly, though more often than not, it took ten or more agonizing minutes before the body finally went still as the crowd looked on in ghoulish fascination. Finally, it was Nathanial’s turn, and Claire watched as the noose was draped around his thin neck. The slave never said a word, just stared down at his bare toes as though in a trance, not even making a sound when the wagon was driven off and the rope tightened cruelly around him. Claire sat on her coffin and waited, her tears all used up now as Nathanial twisted and turned in silence while the disappointed crowd watched. They preferred the prisoners who kicked and danced in desperation—Nathanial wasn’t any fun at all.

  “Margaret! Dear Margaret!”

  Claire looked around in a daze as she heard someone calling her host’s name, feeling love explode in her chest when she saw Mary Ormond standing close by in the crowd. The young girl’s eyes and cheeks were red from crying, and her father stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders protectively, his face set in firm disapproval.

  “I’m sorry, Margaret!”
Mary cried when she saw Claire’s eyes on her, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. “I did everything I could, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Please forgive me.”

  Claire smiled then, able to at least give Margaret this last moment before the end. “It’s all right, child,” she said, feeling a calmness coming over her. “It’s not your fault.”

  Claire’s wagon moved beneath the gallows, halting there as two men jumped up and lifted her to her feet. Neither man would look at her, though she noted they were surprisingly gentle as they held her. She felt the coarse hemp encircling her neck, and then the men jumped to the ground. Claire looked down at Mary, letting her see Margaret’s love. “Mister Thache asked me to tell you he will love you for all time, Miss Mary. Never doubt that. He was a good—”

  Claire’s voice was suddenly cut off, the support beneath her feet gone as she dropped with the rope biting savagely into her neck. She bounced several times, her legs kicking as she fought to breathe while the crowd roared in delight. No! she cried out in her mind. Not like this! Please! But there was no one to hear her pleas, nor would anyone have done anything to help if they had.

  Margaret’s body hung for a very long time, twitching and turning as she slowly strangled to death, with the crowd watching in fascinated wonder. Finally, the sweet release of death came for Margaret, sending Claire’s consciousness into the timeline.

  Gerald, she thought with a mixture of sadness and joy. I’m coming, my love.

  Claire awoke to strange smells and pitch darkness, the air filling her lungs tasting dry and odd. Something tickled her nose and she sneezed, the sound high-pitched and strange. She blinked, trying to peer past the darkness and understand where she was, but there was nothing to see, not even the faintest light. She tried to move, but her body and arms felt rubbery and unresponsive, though she was able to kick her legs weakly against something furry pressed around her. She could hear crackling from what sounded like a fire and thought she detected the pleasant smell of wood smoke as well. She tried calling for help, but her words came out garbled and nonsensical. A woman’s voice sounded from somewhere close, then the murmur of many other voices—both male and female. Finally, a crack of light appeared above her and Claire stared up at the face of a pretty young woman looking back at her. The woman smiled, making shooshing sounds as she nuzzled her nose lovingly against Claire’s.

  “Oh my God!” Claire screamed, though her mouth formed no words. “I’m a baby! No! No!”

  The woman smiled again, talking in a low, soothing voice as her baby girl cried. She gently rocked the child back and forth in her arms, trying unsuccessfully to quiet her, until finally, a grim-faced man standing near a fire pit said something to her in a harsh tone. The woman sighed, pausing as she met the eyes of a handsome young man sitting along one wall before stepping outside of the crowded longhouse. She cradled the screeching child to her chest, protecting her from the harsh, wind-driven ice pellets as she headed for another, smaller hut nearby. Once inside, she sat down among a crowd of other women clutching babies, talking to the infant she held in a reassuring tone. But nothing she said or did could stem the cries coming from the child, so finally, she exposed a breast, grabbing hold with one hand as she squeezed and thrust her engorged nipple into the baby’s mouth. The infant screamed in rage, spitting the nipple out, but the woman just kept trying patiently until finally, with a sigh of relief, the baby latched on and began to suckle.

  “Drink up, my child,” the woman said in a soft voice. “You must gain your strength, for the decision is all but assured. Soon, we will leave this cold land and head south, where a glorious future awaits our people.”

  Claire just glared up at the woman as her new host nursed greedily at her mother’s nipple. It’s not fair, Claire thought furiously. It’s just not fair!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MALCOLM: Cimbrian Peninsula, Jutland, 120 BC

  Three weeks. That’s how long Malcolm had been in his current timeline already, with no sign of Claire to be found. He was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t here at all, thinking she might still be with Margaret in 1718. Malcolm had assumed that when Edward Thache died and he’d moved on, Claire would automatically follow him. At least, that was what Claire’s notes on the serum Imani and Jim had shown him had concluded. But what if that wasn’t true? What if her calculations had been wrong about that? What if the markers didn’t work the way that she thought, and movement was only possible once the host body died, regardless of the fate of the other? If Margaret lived for many more years, did that mean that’s how long it would take before Claire showed up in his current timeline?

  Malcolm wasn’t a physicist by any stretch of the imagination, but he understood—at least as much as any layman could—that time was relative. Einstein had proven that, though if Malcolm recalled correctly, he’d meant speed and gravity in regards to time and space, which did not seem to fit with what he and Claire were experiencing. Einstein had also described something called a time dilation—which he’d concluded was the difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers that are moving relative to each other. That seemed to fit a little better with his scenario, with both he and Claire taking on the roles of the observers. Malcolm doubted Einstein had envisioned past lives when he’d written his general theory of relativity, though. Did that theory even apply in this situation? Was this true time travel he was experiencing, or something else? And should it even matter if Claire lived another twenty or thirty years as a slave in the eighteenth century? If Einstein’s relative theory was correct, shouldn’t they have both arrived in this timeline at approximately the same moment regardless of when they left the previous one? Or was the time dilation a factor and, if so, by how much? A day? A week? A year?

  Malcolm sighed in exasperation. He’d always hated not understanding something, and this entire past lives thing was beyond anything a rational mind could properly comprehend. He doubted even Albert Einstein would have been able to wrap his great brain around it. Malcolm finally gave up trying to figure things out. Instead, he looked around the crowded longhouse where he sat along one wall, feeling the warmth of the fire nearby on his skin. The building was one of many situated inside the Borremose fortress—home to the King of the Cimbri tribes, Boiorix. The thatch and mud longhouse was overflowing with people, for a great decision was to be made that night about the tribe’s future. All the leaders and important men had made the trek to Borremose, each bringing their families and warriors with them, swelling the fortress's interior to overflowing, with more living in tents outside the palisade walls. Even the leaders of the Ambrones tribe and the Cimbri’s sometimes-rival, the Teutones, were here, led by their belligerent king, Teutobod.

  After the death of Blackbeard, Malcolm had found himself in the body of a young Cimbri warrior named Artturi, guessing the year to be roughly 120 BC—judging by the events taking place. Goats, chickens, and a single skinny pig that had so far escaped slaughter rambled around the crowd looking for food, though no one paid them much attention. The noise was deafening as men and women argued back and forth until finally, Catavignus—one of the Cimbri chiefs—stood, shouting for silence so that he might speak.

  The chieftain was tall, almost six feet, with long brown hair and a thick mustache that drooped down either side of his mouth past his chin. Most of the Cimbri men wore their facial hair that way. “What you propose is madness, Boiorix,” he said to a man sitting quietly listening near the fire. “This is our home. It was home to my father, and his before him, and his before that. We cannot leave. This land was given to us by Thor, and we must not anger him with this talk of ingratitude. We are his chosen people, and this land you wish to leave was given to us by him to protect and nourish. We cannot do that if we go.”

  Many heads were nodding at Catavignus’ words, Malcolm saw, but just as many shouted in disagreement as renewed arguments broke out among the people. One of the great mysteries that had baffled historians in Malcolm’s time was whet
her the Cimbri had been Celts or Germans, with valid arguments presented for both. Malcolm had always leaned towards them being Germanic, but he now understood both sides had been right. The Cimbri were in fact a hybrid of the two peoples, with the ruling classes dominated by Celts and the main body of the tribes being Germanic. There were three Celtic sub-kings below Boiorix—Lugius, Claodicus, and Caesorix—with various tribal chiefs below them like Catavignus, being Germans.

  Finally, Boiorix raised his arms for silence as his arm rings glinted in the firelight. “You speak of the great god, Thor,” the king said. His voice was deep and calm, his eyes cast in shadows beyond the fire. “None here respect and revere him more than I, yet was it not Thor who sent the waters of the great sea to overwhelm us?” Boiorix stood then, his squat frame wide and muscular as he waved a hand to the ceiling. “Did Thor look down upon us with favor and send the tides our way to reward us, or was it a message that we must go?” The king paused as men and women shouted encouragement or disagreement. “If not a message to leave these lands, then tell me this, Catavignus,” Boiorix went on once things had settled down. “Did Thor bring blight upon us these many years because we are his chosen people, or because he knows we are stubborn and need to be pushed?” Boiorix looked around, shaking his head as silence filled the longhouse at that concept. “I think we have angered Thor in some manner. You need only look to the seas and the droughts to see the signs of his displeasure. Think what will happen if we stay against his will. What will be the next calamity to fall upon us then?”

  “You speak of things we cannot control, great king,” Catavignus grunted, looking angry now.

  “Do I?” Boiorix said. He swept his arm around him. “Look upon our people with open eyes, Catavignus. Look at what we have become. We are shriveled and weak from eating reed grass and beechnut gruel just to stay alive. The winters are harsh and getting worse, and the summer growing seasons are becoming shorter and more unpredictable. Every year there are more mouths to feed with less and less food to put in them.”