Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key Read online

  “Maybe it’ll miss us,” said John, at sunset, looking at the red sky in the west. Sejanus shrugged.

  They ate hastily of a kind of stew of salt beef and coconut water, and sat around the fire watching as night fell. All to the east and north there were flashes of lightning but an eerie lack of thunder. The wind dropped off suddenly. John, looking up at the black starless sky, felt he might as well have been in a room indoors.

  “I wish it would break,” said Mr. Tudeley, mopping his forehead. “The air’s stifling.”

  Mrs. Waverly, who had risen to open a coconut for herself (she being disinclined to drink rum like the others) cried out suddenly. “Oh, the sea!”

  The others jumped to their feet. Looking out over the palisadoes they could see the waves breaking in green fire. “Great God!” cried Mr. Tudeley.

  “That’s just, what d’you call it, that’s just a red tide,” said John. “Phosphorescence.”

  “What makes it?” demanded Sejanus. John shrugged.

  “Seen it in a ship’s wake plenty of times,” he said. “Maybe it’s something rotten in the water, same as tree stumps when they shine in the dark. Nothing to be scared of.”

  “Do you think it’s all the drowned men?” asked Mrs. Waverly in a shaky voice.

  “Suppose so,” said John.

  A flash of lightning came then, a flare of violet fire that ran across the sky. A long forked chain stabbed down into the sea; John could imagine the water boiling to steam where it struck, and cooked fish floating to the surface from five fathoms below.

  “Storm’s getting closer,” said Sejanus. “Maybe we’d best—”

  Another flash came, so close the branched lightning looked thick as a man’s arm, white-hot as the sun’s heart, with a shattering boom of thunder. John could have sworn he felt its heat scorching his face. For a second he was blind, but for the afterimage dancing in his eyes. His heart contracted with the fear that he had just seen something out at sea, briefly illuminated in the flash. Had there been masts and spars? Was some other luckless mariner out there in the night?

  “Did anyone see—” began Mrs. Waverly, before the next flash came. There was a noise like a bomb rolling across the floor of heaven and then it exploded, with a roar that knocked them down. John found himself groveling in the sand at the base of the palisadoes, feeling with his fingers to be certain his eyes hadn’t been burned out of his head.

  “Oh, no, no, no—” Mrs. Waverly moaned. John struggled to his feet, using his crutch, and she seized his arm. “Why would anyone go to sea—”

  There was a ship, black and gleaming with rain. He could see her clearly now. The green flame in the water swept her deck and ran from her every line and spar. Saint Elmo’s Fire, thought John, and tried to tell Mrs. Waverly that was all it was, but his words were lost in the next crash of thunder. Yet after all it wasn’t the ship glowing with phosphorescence that was the horror, it wasn’t that her sails were rags and still carried her before the wind with sickening speed; it was that she was being driven straight for the rock that had broken the Harmony’s back.

  John opened his mouth to shout, for all the good that would have done. But he made no sound; and neither did the ship, when she struck. He saw it all, he saw her strike and slew around just as the Harmony had done, he saw her heeling over, with her mainmast sprung and toppling from the impact. He fancied he saw the little black wet figures staggering about on her slanting deck, before the next terrible flash came and left him blinking at floating spots.

  There wasn’t a sound. Not even thunder. He rubbed his eyes and looked, and saw that the ship was gone. The sea beat to a glowing green mist on the rock, but there was nothing where the wreck had been a moment before.

  “Where’d she go?” he cried hoarsely. His voice sounded strange and muffled in his ears. He turned to stare at the others. Mr. Tudeley and Mrs. Waverly looked on, their faces set, drained of all color. Sejanus watched stonily, with inexplicable anger.

  John turned to stare at the rock again, its black spire lit by quick hectic flashes. He heard a ringing now, like a ship’s bell, tolling out through the storm. He heard voices wailing, praying, pleading in fear. And then the sound cut off, abruptly as though a door had closed to shut it out. At the same moment the ship appeared again.

  It wasn’t as though it had fallen over sideways, to be hidden by the rearing waves. It flickered into existence there, all outlined in green fire. There were figures crawling up from under hatches, green and glowing. One by one they slid down the deck into the water; and the first one pulled the second after it into the depths, and the second pulled the third, because they were chained together.

  “It’s a slave ship,” roared Sejanus. Another and another and another went into the furious sea, pulled out of sight by the weight of their chains. John found his face was wet with tears. There was no way to get out to them, no way to stop what was unfolding.

  “For the love of God!” screamed Mrs. Waverly. “Please—”

  And then they were gone. The wreck blinked out again, between one heartbeat and the next. Green spume floated in the air around the rock. Another flash of lightning revealed nothing there, but wind gusted up from the beach and brought the melancholy chanting of voices.

  John turned to Sejanus. “You seen it, didn’t you? You knew it was there!”

  Sejanus backed away, shaking his head. “It wasn’t real. There’s things in our skulls that get out, and make shadows to scare us. Old stories. Memories. But they aren’t real!”

  There was a high-pitched scream. Mr. Tudeley was staring and pointing far down the beach. They turned and saw the green figures making their way ashore, crawling from the glowing waves, rising awkwardly to their chained feet. They lurched and shuffled as they came. They were only black in the flashes of lightning. The thunder sounded like drums now, rolling steady.

  Mr. Tudeley turned and fled for the shelter, clutching at his hat; Mrs. Waverly was already gone. John grabbed Sejanus by the arm.

  “What do we do, damn you?”

  Sejanus shook his hand off. “Build up the fire!” he shouted. “Turn your back and stop believing in them. They got no power to harm us!”

  “If you say so,” said John. He turned and hurried to the fire, that had been fanned by the relentless wind so that it had eaten through all the fuel they’d piled on it and was now low and blue, crawling over the bed of coals. Mr. Tudeley was crouched under the tree behind it, gulping down rum like water. Mrs. Waverly had crawled into the shelter and sat there huddled up, her eyes tight shut.

  John threw down his crutch. He grabbed wood from their store and tossed it on, one log, another, two more, and sparks flew up against the black sky but no blaze caught. Craning his head back to follow the sparks’ flight, John saw the clouds churning above the island, like a maelstrom in the air. He looked down helplessly at the blue flames and the memory came unbidden from childhood:

  All Hallow’s Eve, and he’d sat with his brothers and sisters around the fire, pushing hazelnuts in amongst the coals and raking them out when they’d popped. His dad and the uncles had sat on benches, passing the jug of cider back and forth, and his mum and the aunts came in from taking the cakes out of the oven in the yard. They weren’t allowed to sing, lest the neighbors hear; but they’d made merry anyhow; and then his grandam had sat and told a fearful story, all about a girl going out to weep on her lover’s grave. They’d listened in silence. The fire had fallen low and blue, the warmth had gone out of the room as Grandam spoke. Then the wind had risen suddenly and the yard-door flown open with a bang. John had looked up and seen a man standing there, only for a moment. Aunt Ella had screamed and screamed, then, crying that it was her Charlie who’d been drowned at sea…

  But here and now the sand hissed, the palm fronds rattled like shot in the warm wind, and the crawling fire writhed among the coals, pink and blue and yellow, all colors from the salt in the driftwood. The palm trees all around bent and swayed like dancers. Sejanus was besi
de him, pitching more wood on the fire, but nothing could get it to blaze up. Smoke began to rise from its center, spiraling up to meet the whirling cloud above, a looming darkness even the flashes of lightning could not pierce. In desperation, John grabbed up his crutch and shoved it in amongst the coals.

  “How are we not supposed to be afeared of this, mate?” he shouted at Sejanus.

  “It’s just a storm!”

  “But I seen—”

  “Stop that!” Sejanus advanced on Mr. Tudeley, who was dipping and gulping from the rum barrel, dipping and gulping with his eyes closed. “You’ll kill your damn self!”

  He struck the coconut shell from Mr. Tudeley’s hands. It went flying into the fire, and Mr. Tudeley seemed like to fly in after it. But as he started up with his eyes open, the rum sent the fire roaring high at last, an explosion of heat and light.

  Mr. Tudeley staggered back. His hat blew off and landed in the fire.

  There was an impact like thunder, but without sound. The wind stopped utterly.

  Mr. Tudeley was jolted forward, as though someone had struck him across the shoulders. He regained his balance and lifted his head, slowly. Before this hour his eyes had been a rather watery blue: the eyes that regarded Sejanus now were black, rimmed in red.

  “Bandele,” he said, in a voice not his own.

  Sejanus drew himself up, scowling. “No Bandele here,” he said. “Bandele was a little shirttail slave boy. He watched his daddy shake that old rattle and offer up half his victuals, and pray till his throat cracked—all to an old piece of wood daubed up with paint. Old wood never answered him, never helped him, never did a damned thing but sit there!

  “And I’m Sejanus Walker, for better or worse. I was born a slave, but I walked out of my master’s house on my own. You never helped me and you never helped my daddy. Chah! I’m not obliged to you for shite, whatever you are, and I don’t need you now!”

  What had been Mr. Tudeley chuckled, a dry chuckle like a mild old man.

  “Don’t you vent your temper on me, son,” it said. “I’m just the gatekeeper. You want a shouting match? There’s some here will be pleased to take you on.”

  The red color in the eyes intensified, until they became balls of blood. The features writhed, the teeth drew back from the lips in wrath. The voice, when it came, boomed out a resonant bass.

  “You ungrateful little cockroach! You think it’s easy, fool, finding a way to make that passage across the ocean? You think it’s easy, coming to a land where there’s already spirits, and they aren’t willing to make room? You think we weren’t weak as blocks of old wood, when we got across at last, with all the children scattered and frightened and forgetting us?

  “Damn you! Haven’t we walked beside you day and night, and come between you and harm a dozen times? Ha! You don’t need us, Bandele? So you say! But they do!”

  The figure thrust out a pointing finger. John turned his head to see what it pointed at, and promptly wished he hadn’t; for the black wet dead stood in their ranks beyond the palisadoes, looking on melancholy. Some were naked and chained. Some were clothed in rags. Some were decently clad in shirts and trousers or gowns but just as dead, with grave-mould in their hair. One and all they held their arms out, in pitiful longing.

  Sejanus glanced over his shoulder at them and froze. He couldn’t look away. John must, though, and so he saw the figure dip up rum in its two hands and mouth it, and spray it out across the fire. Flame shot out and reflected in the eyes of the dead. They looked hopeful, reaching for the warmth; but it faded and was gone.

  The figure sagged, twisted, seemed in pain. It spat out the rum, pursing its lips in distaste, wiping its mouth. It opened eyes white-pale as the moon and spoke in a woman’s voice, infinitely reproachful.

  “Oh, Bandele, how could you be so cruel? Look at them! Lost in a stranger’s country. No rites said over them, no one to look after their souls. They’re hungry. They’re cold. They’re lost. Some drowned in the wrecks, some were beaten to death, some were worked to death. Who’s going to help these dead children, lost on this shore? Who’s going to pull them up out of the water and set them free?”

  Sejanus found his voice. “What do they want with me?” he said, very quiet.

  The figure stood taller, worked its shoulders easily, spoke in the voice of a serene and magisterial male. “You know. You know in your bones. Your daddy was a weak man, but his blood was strong. Your mama was an ugly woman, but her blood was lovely. They came of mighty lines and you are their child, born here. Your power is here in this new place. You were marked for us from the moment you touched this earth.”

  “But I don’t believe,” said Sejanus hopelessly.

  The figure grinned. “Oh, child, you know. You don’t have to believe. You don’t have to give us maize or peas or liquor. You don’t even have to love us. But you will help those poor souls rest because you know you must.”

  “But how? How am I to help them?” shouted Sejanus.

  The figure shrank, bent, and once again Mr. Tudeley could almost be discerned. The little chuckle came again, scornful. “Oh, now he wants our advice. Mr. Sejanus Walker, the high-and-mighty atheist. Serve you right if we closed our mouths again and let you figure it all out for yourself. You’re a smart child; you could do it. But maybe we’ll help, a little. You’ll have to wait and see…”

  Abruptly the presence, or presences, were gone. Mr. Tudeley dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and lay motionless beside the fire. The silence broke; once again they heard the surf pounding on the beach, the distant rumble of thunder as the storm moved away to the north. A wind rustled the palm leaves and swept the smoke of the fire up in gusts, to the clearing sky where a few stars shone out.

  Something moved, black against the stars. Something was fluttering down out of the night, turning over and over as it fell. It dropped at Sejanus’s feet. Both he and John stared at it.

  It was a man’s hat, in the most elegant cut of the latest fashion, all black watered silk. It had a black rooster’s tail for a cockade, held on with a silver pin in the shape of a cross. Sejanus bent and picked it up, cautiously. He began to swear, in a despairing kind of way.

  John looked over at the palisadoes and saw the dead were gone. He looked back and met Sejanus’s gaze.

  “Now, I’ll tell you where this came from,” said Sejanus, turning the hat in his hands. “This was some Frenchman’s, or Spanish lord’s hat. That hurricane must have swept it off his head, from some ship out at sea. It just blew around in the upper air until it came down here. That’s all.”

  “Right,” said John. “You going to put it on?”

  Sejanus looked at the hat with profound dislike. “No reason not to. It’s just a hat. Stylish hat, too. Doesn’t mean anything if I try it on.”

  He set it on his head. It fit; it even suited him. It made him look rakish and wise.

  “Mr. James,” said a calm voice near the ground. John nearly jumped out of his skin, and looked down to see Mrs. Waverly staring up at him from underneath the shelter. Her eyes were wide and terrified, for all the control she had over her tone. “I believe I should like it if you would be so kind as to sleep with me tonight.”

  So John lay down and slept with her, and that was all he did. He couldn’t have got his prick up that night even if she’d been the queen of Sheba.

  SIXTEEN:

  A Surprise

  MRS. WAVERLY WAS A little cold to him next morning. John would have thought she’d have made some comment about the ghosts and spirits that had come calling, but no indeed; only the fact that John hadn’t been up for a jolly tumble seemed to weigh with her, this morning.

  Mr. Tudeley also had no memory of the night past, it seemed. He lay like one dead by the fire until just after sunrise, when he scrambled up on his hands and knees and puked into the coals. The resultant blast of flame therefrom singed off his eyebrows. Afterward he sat in the shade and complained peevishly about the damned poor quality of the rum.
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  Nor did Sejanus seem to have any desire to mention his unwanted guests. He wore his new hat, however, when they walked back down from the camp to work on the pinnace.

  John crawled into Mrs. Waverly’s little boudoir of canvas that night, by way of apology, but she minced no words in explaining to him that she hadn’t offered a standing invitation to her person by any means.

  * * *

  The pinnace took shape quickly. If it wasn’t the most elegant craft ever built it was at least seaworthy, as they found when they floated the hull after it had been well tarred with some of the Dutchman’s stores. They put in thwarts and stepped a little mast, made from one of the Harmony’s spars, and rigged a jib sail. All that remained was to finish a bit of a half-deck at the stern, where cargo might be stored or Mrs. Waverly might retire in privacy.

  In regard to which, the lady seemed to have thought better of her adamantine chastity somewhat, at least as far as what hands and lips might do; for she lured John away two nights running for a stroll along the beach at sunset. There she eloquently persuaded him of her lasting devotion and fond hope that he’d squire her around the Continent, after they should claim the four thousand pounds. So pleasantly she backed her words with deeds that John barely noticed the dead men the last tide had brought up to festoon the sand, though they were getting pretty disgraceful now.

  * * *

  “These are the last I could shake free,” said Mr. Tudeley, struggling over the sand with a netful of coconuts. “Really, need we bring any more?”

  “You’ll want ’em if we get becalmed on our way,” said John. “I make it two weeks to Leauchaud. Six coconuts per person per day, that’s three hundred thirty-six coconuts.”

  “There’ll be no room for us in the damned thing, then!”

  “Ah.” John laid a finger beside his nose. “We load ’em in the boat and tow it after us, see? Which will be handy to have anyhow in case the pinnace sinks.”