Ola had worn all her tinkling bells tonight, sang as loud as anyone, and when Jase Graham asked for storytellers she was first up. Dayna, who didn’t like being singled out, couldn’t help admiring the lady for being so bold.

“I’m Ola Mae Eggars, friends call me Ola, and I’m not from these parts but my Auntie was. It was Auntie who tole me all her duppy stories. In case you don’t know, a duppy is a spirit. Some duppies are ornery, some jus full of mischief.

“Auntie was a mango picker and seller. Anybody could do it, but those who got started early might earn a dollar or two at the market. Auntie had store-bought teeth that she never wore but kept in a handkerchief for when she might meet a prince or a king and would want to look her best. Talkin with no teeth made her words come out mushy, but mostly I could keep up.

“So this day, Auntie and her friend Karina set out while the moon and stars were still bright. Karina was younger and didn’t have a bad foot, so she gets way out ahead—not stoppin when Auntie called her to slow up—so she got to the mango grove first. It was on land belongin to a fellow that died some years back. Seein what she saw in the moonlight by those mango trees made Karina stop dead in her tracks.

“A man with skin so black it was like the shadows came carryin a battered old basket. Tall brown hat, brown clothes, as Karina stood watchin he bent down, picked up a mango, put it in his basket. Then this black man turned around three times like doin a little dance. Three mangoes, three dances, and while he was still spinnin, the man vanished.

“Auntie finally made it to where Karina was standin with her mouth open. Karina tole what she saw. ‘Mus be Duppy Brown,’ she said. ‘He owned this grove afore he died.’ But Auntie was havin none of that nonsense. ‘Next time, you tell that duppy to hold on till I catch up afore he goes dancin around.’

“Early next mornin at the market, Auntie settin up to sell her mangoes and cookies was still laughin about Karina’s nonsense. The sun was jus glimmerin awake when a black man in a tall hat and brown clothes picked up one of Aunties good ripe mangoes, put it in his basket then spun around three times and…”

Ola raised her hands above her head. Bells tinkling and glittering, she snapped her fingers. “By golly, he vanished!”

Dayna laughed, applauding along with the passengers and thinking the story was okay. Mostly she enjoyed Ola’s big grin as she told it. Storytelling was a part of sailing Dayna had never given much thought, but sailors were famous for trading yarns to pass the time on long voyages. It made her want to tell one next.

The problem was, she didn’t know any stories, or even any decent jokes fit to tell in mixed company. She did know one thing that might even cheer up Erin, who hadn’t smiled once since leaving Ayanna’s bedside. When a man stepped up and began a ghost story that sounded like becoming way creepier than Ola’s, Dayna quietly walked to where Cookie had sat down with his guitar.

“Do you remember this old song?” She sang a few lines from “Sisters,” which she and Erin had learned one year when their parents made them watch old movies during the holidays. Two female stars in White Christmas, wore matching sea-green dresses and plumed hats when they performed it. Mom had caught a bad case of the flu that year, so she and Erin decided to cheer her up. They didn’t have long dresses, but their mom had lots of silk scarves and beaded necklaces, which they scavenged for the performance. Mom and Dad enjoyed the song so much, they made their daughters sing it at family gatherings. Embarrassing, but people always laughed at the best line, “Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister… and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!”

Cookie didn’t know the song, but he had no problem picking up the chords as she sang a few lines. When the man telling the creepy story was finished, Dayna took Erin’s hand.

“You can either make a scene or sing with me,” she whispered, and pulled Erin away from the table.

*

The night had turned full dark, moon and stars hidden behind a bank of heavy cloud cover. The sea had settled to a dead calm.

Before going topside for a last stroll around the ship, I’d stopped at my cabin to don a particular type of rain gear. The slicker would be warm and rather bulky, but I had a good reason for wearing it. The Kevlar fabric was lauded as “bullet proof” and “stab resistant.”

“Mind ye keep that pistol neat,” Stryker had said, the day he handed me a Flintlock small enough to put in my pocket. “Same as ye keep the ship, and it’ll save yer neck a time or two.”

I was nineteen, ten years a pirate and already proficient with blades, but that was my first firearm. At the time, I thought all hazards could be handled by two strong hands or sharp steel. Looking back, I wonder how I could’ve lived my first twenty-five years without knowing there were forces in this world that didn’t abide by natural laws.

Beneath the slicker, I strapped on the scabbard I’d worn during my pirate act on our first morning out. Tonight, instead of a sword, the scabbard held a specially designed electric cattle prod.

In the Caribbean, rain rarely came down hard enough and long enough for my old enemy to make an appearance, but those few occasions were often the reason my crew deserted me as soon as we returned to home port. My adversary was impervious to blades and bullets. Though they could briefly slow him down, he had the ability to rapidly self-heal. Our battles, until I developed my unique weapon, often lasted long past my point of exhaustion.

Though I may be immortal, I have no more stamina than any healthy male who keeps himself fit. But my opponent never tires. So while I dash about the deck dodging his sword, he laughs and keeps coming, like a cat playing with a mouse, until he wears me down or the rain stops. One great fortune of sailing the Caribbean is that heavy rains are usually short-lived.

Without death looming over me, one would think I shouldn’t be so squeamish. After all, an hour or so after I breathe my last breath, I pop up again as healthy as ever. That fact occurred to me quite early on, while I and the Sarah Jane were scouting out pirates for the governor of Louisiana, but trust me, dying is painful.

Although being stabbed through the heart is a rather quick way to go, a punctured lung can take a painfully long time to fill with enough blood to drown a person, and I once spent days bleeding out through the stomach. Too weak to locate a gun and do myself in proper, I had to suffer it out to the end, only to blink awake an hour or so later as if nothing had happened.

And while I cannot die, I can be grossly crippled. I cut off a toe once to test whether I might re-grow a severed appendage. I can’t.

In the old days, a pirate who lost a limb or an eye during battle was guaranteed an extra portion of the plunder, and the loss rarely kept a bloke from jumping into the next fray. I suppose that’s why fictional pirates often are shown with a peg leg, an eye patch or an arm that ends in a hook. They can cope, unless they lose the second limb or eye. Then they ask a friend to kindly shoot a bullet into their brain.

I’ve taken a bullet to the brain and survived it without losing a single memory. That leads me to worry that if my bloodthirsty enemy ever managed to take one of my limbs, he would gleefully take all four, turning me into a babbling doorstop.

Thus the Kevlar slicker. “Stab resistant” does not mean it can’t be cut, but it has made heavy-rain days less nerve-wracking over the past forty years or so since the fabric became available.

My stroll around the ship tonight ended on the upper deck. During light showers our open-air bar remains available to guests, but a rainstorm shuts it down, sending guests to do their drinking in the dining room. The watch lads were sent to dinner, and a fresh crew now handled the ship. With little wind to speak of, and the sails already set to make the most of it, there wasn’t much work for them. Over the weather, I could hear their light banter now and then. I caught the gist that our dinner entertainment tonight was keener than usual.

I also heard Graham ordering men to reduce the yards, following the working sail plan. My original assessment of the man’s skills and common sense were proving valid, meaning

I could count on him and the crew to handle the ship while I dealt with other hazards.

A calm, glassy sea always gives me a sense of foreboding, but on the upper deck I at least could expect to be alone should my rainy-day specter appear. While he prefers to aim his full malicious attention at me, any bloke coming to my defense is in mortal danger. And if I refuse to play the blackguard’s nasty game, he’ll lay into my crew.

Early on, I hit upon the remedy of simply remaining in my quarters during a heavy rain. It made perfect sense. After the rain stopped, I went out to find three good mates dead. A number of good men fell to my enemy’s thirsty sword during those years just after my curse and before I learned to meet Stryker on his terms, one-on-one, ordering everyone away from whichever part of the ship gave me the best advantage at that moment.

Standing in the shadows now, with my back to the leeward rail and a 180-degree view, I wasn’t likely to be taken unaware by the nasty piece of work. All I could do was wait, scan the darkness and will us to our destination.

Roatan Honduras held some of my fondest memories. Also some of the most horrific. In the seventeenth century, while I was still a lad, the island served as the second most popular port for pirates to kick back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. The pirate community, as a rule, boasted a loosely held camaraderie, but the democratic share-and-share-alike law that governed each ship did not stretch to include others. Thus it was not unusual for a tasty prize vessel, coveted by more than one captain, to become the bone that all pirate dogs fought over.

Word went around that two Spanish ships in the Antilles were bearing gold. Captain Stryker, a greedy glint dancing in his black eyes, set sail immediately, and we overtook one of the ships even as another pirate vessel overtook the other. Stryker had a merry time, as usual, cutting down every Spaniard aboard to claim his gold. When he opened the hold, however, it held nothing of real value—all the gold was on the sister ship.

He stomped around the Sarah Jane, enraged. Before arriving at Roatan, he called the crew together and swore all hands to secrecy about the empty hold they had seized. Then all except a skeleton watch went ashore. I knew to make myself scarce at such times, so I stole among them unnoticed. Through an open window, I watched Stryker swagger into the tavern where the pirate captain of the more fortunate vessel was known to spend most of his booty.

“Drinks all round!” Stryker called to the bar wench. Then to the crowd, “Celebrate with me this rare night of good fortune for all!”

A shout of approval went up.

“All,” Stryker amended, “except the gutted Spaniards who went down with their ships!” His coarse laughter started a roar of merry utterances.

While Stryker and a few of our men drank toast after toast with the more fortunate captain and crew, the remainder of our hands placed firewood around the tavern. I knew what was coming.

A warning, I should shout a warning.

And I’d be gutted like the Spaniards. Pirate law allowed, “He that shall desert in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning.” To warn the captain’s enemies was the same as deserting, and I’d never known Stryker to choose the lesser punishment. So I stood helplessly staring.

At Stryker’s signal, his men overtook the opposing crew at knife point.

“Quite a bounty you lot divvied today, eh, lads? I’ll be takin it now, so empty yer pockets, if ye please.”

After gathering the plunder, Stryker and his men left the tavern, nailing door and windows shut on the way out. The firewood was already aflame. While the building burned with everyone inside, Stryker’s men seized the other pirate ship and sailed away with the prize he considered rightfully his. Too cowardly to do otherwise, I sailed along with them.

That night on Roatan was not the first or last time I witnessed the captain’s vengeance. I harbored no doubt that, had I intervened, Stryker would have fed me alive to a pool of moray eels for the pleasure of watching me die in agony.

The wind had freshened now, as I stood woolgathering. I watched a few whitecaps crest at about three feet. The first mate passed by, seeing to the ship, but didn’t notice me. After thirty-some decades, the Sarah Jane and I know each other well, and upon hearing his footsteps I had migrated to her darkest nook, further obscured by a curtain of thick rain coming in at a steeper angle since the wind picked up.

Through the watery veil, a shadow drew my attention. I stiffened and, beneath the slicker, gripped the rubber-coated handle of the electric prod.

An instant later, I realized the shadow was only moon and clouds playing tricks.

The sound of rain hitting the sea and deck filled my ears. How long I’d been standing, scarcely moving a muscle, escaped me, but I wished the bloody storm would blow on past, so

I could get some rest tonight for the meeting with Shaman Shawnte tomorrow.

Voices drifted up from the main deck as passengers left the dining room bidding one another goodnight before dashing through the rain for their quarters. Some time later, the dining room lights went out. The absence of their reflection on the water left the night darker than before. Only the few mates on watch duty would be about.

Later still, I glimpsed what I’d been expecting.

Join me here next week for another chapter of Paradise Cursed, or BUY THE BOOK now, because you’ll want to read what happens next.

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