Her sudden presence in the small clearing hit him like a wall of cold water, waking him from a deep sleep.

Her hair was adorned with beads and feathers, as well as a few leaves and sticks borrowed from the surrounding jungle. She wore a red vest over a white shirt and tan linen pants. Her brown skin glistened with sweat, and her golden eyes shone with excitement. If he had not already suspected she was a pirate from her manner of dress, the curved blade at her hip, a sun carved into its ivory handle, would have confirmed it.

You see, Z was born just after what is often referred to as the “golden age” of piracy. The most sensational of pirates were swiftly becoming legend, and Zander was no stranger to tales of swashbucklers and marauders on the high seas. And though swashbuckling piracy was less common than it once was, there was still plenty of adventure to be had for those willing to look for it.

Today, it seemed, adventure found him.

For several moments they stood looking at each other, he and this strange pirate woman. Zander thought he felt a spark of recognition pass between them. Then the men chasing her broke through the tree line and mistook them for a pair. Before he knew it, his hand was in hers, and she was pulling him through the trees toward safety.

The next few minutes were, by far, the most exciting few minutes of his 26 years of life.

Trained in the family trade of leather tanning from a young age, the most daring risk Zander had ever taken was when he joined a ship leaving his home country of England to come to here, to this island, where he’d ended up living a life so similar to the one he left back home it made him miserable to even think about it. And even that wasn’t so much of a risk as it was an escape.

He’d seen his life looming before him, so eerily like the life of his father, and felt suffocated by it. He’d had no idea what awaited him in Barbados when he boarded that ship. In fact, he couldn’t have pointed to the island on a map if he was asked to. He was like a rabbit with a dog at its heels, his thoughts fixed on what lay behind him as that ship left shore, not on what lay ahead. So, when his feet touched the earth again, they hadn’t the notion to seek adventure. They sought a roof, space to work, and customers. It was the same life with a different view, albeit far from the stifling expectations of his family.

Of course, he’d dreamed of adventure. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d imagined himself as the main character in some grand tale of love and danger. The hero, the rescuer, the one who gets the girl. But those were just ideas. He’d never truly understood what such a life would feel like until a strange and beautiful pirate woman put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him goodbye.

Then she ran through the trees and left him behind.

He longed to go with her. He protested when she said she had to leave, which made him feel quite vulnerable, but it also got him a kiss. And for such a kiss as the one she gave him, he considered his pride an even exchange.

He thought of what she said just before she kissed him goodbye.

Unless you’re trying to run away—permanently—you aren’t coming with me.

“Well, what if I am trying to run away?” he said to himself now, though in his heart he knew he’d be running toward something for the first time in his life. “That’s sort of like an invitation, isn’t it?”

He continued to argue with himself even as he sauntered farther away from the beach. Surely, the notion of chasing down a pirate ship was ridiculous. But with every step he took away from the mysterious woman and her pirate ship, a sinking dread filled his body. With every footfall back toward his tiny house and its assortment of scraping and tanning tools, the vividness of the pirate woman’s golden eyes increased in his mind until he could barely see the dense foliage in front of him.

It didn’t take long until his body rebelled against his instincts, and a rush of vigor and determination he didn’t recognize as his own filled his chest as his soul let out a final, desperate cry:

STOP!

Zander turned and ran back toward the water, never slowing enough to let his anxious mind steer him away from his decision. He hit the water running, and once he was far enough out, he dove. He was a strong swimmer, so making it to the ship wasn’t what worried at his gut as he swam. It was whether the pirates currently onboard would let him live long enough to explain himself.

Halfway there, he heard a yell.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

He looked up momentarily to see his mystery woman leaning over the edge of the ship. The sight of her filled him with renewed energy. He paused only long enough to answer.

“I’m coming with you!” he tried to yell, but half his words were swallowed by the sea as he clumsily tread water. “I’m coming! Wait for me!”

He started to swim again, his arms beginning to tire. Mercifully, he came upon a life buoy—a bit of cork tied with rope—and was hauled the rest of the way.

When he finally pulled himself onto the deck of the ship, his breath came in short bursts. He took only a moment to compose himself before he looked up, his eyes locking with the woman he met on shore.

She was kneeling in front of him, a look of surprise and appreciation on her face. Her long, tight curls stuck to her damp shoulders, tendrils plastered above her wide brow like a coronet.

“You are crazy,” she said to him. But there was a smile in her voice that put him at ease.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He wasn’t.

“I tried to go home,” he continued. “But… I just had this awful feeling about walking away from you. Like I was walking toward nothing… and away from everything.”

The dimples on her cheeks deepened as her full lips turned up in a wide smile, and he relaxed further.

“You can call me Ace,” she said. You and I know her as A.

“Ace,” he echoed, nodding. His eyes wandered behind her, where a group of pirates were gathering to see what was going on. The way they protectively surrounded her while still giving her a wide berth made him think she may be the captain of this ship.

The group was as mixed a group of people as he’d ever seen, aside from the fact that most of them were men. They were all different shapes and sizes—some skinny, some fat, some tall, and others short. Some had the same deep brown skin as Ace, while others had white skin like his own, lightly tanned from the sun. Still others had skin so dark it was nearly obsidian, or so pale it was a wonder how they spent any time in the sun. In his quick scan he noticed many weapons, many scars, and more than a few confused looks passed between the motley crew of pirates.

Two pirates—the ones he’d spotted rowing the yawl that carried Ace to the ship—stood closer to her than the rest of the crew.

One was tall and lean, his dark brown hair falling messily over his wide olive face, which was coated in stubble. His crooked smile was relaxed, but his hand stayed firmly gripped on the pistol at his side, his chestnut eyes narrowed at Zander. The other pirate was holding the first one’s other hand, their fingers loosely intertwined. They were shorter, about five feet tall, and had short blonde hair. Their blue eyes were framed by sharp, delicate features. They looked at him full on, the expression on their face one of concern.

His eyes fell back onto Ace, and he felt something deep inside him settle, like a puzzle piece locking into place.

“I’m with you,” he said. “Where are we going?”

Ace’s eyes sparkled with amusement and pleasure at his question.

“Everywhere.”

2

Zander took the thick piece of thread between his teeth and pulled, snapping it in two just above the new stitching. He ran his hands roughly over his work, ensuring the repair was sturdy enough to last. Satisfied, he removed the bench hook that served to stretch the sail’s canvas, allowing him to make an even stitch, then placed the long, curved sailmaker’s needle back in its leather pouch.

He pushed his hair, which had grown enough to consistently get in his way, out of his eyes and admired his progress. It was a vast improvement on the shoddy repair job previously in place, which was coming apart at the seams. It was one of many such repairs, the irregular stitches of each one stretching in such a way as to resemble gaping mouths.

When he’d found the tools for repairing the sails in the lower decks, Zander inquired as to their owner. He learned the previous sailmaker died almost a year prior, and the crew had yet to come across a recruit with the right skill set to replace him. None of them even seemed to know what a bench hook or a stitching palm was, and while canvas was not exactly his forte, Zander’s experience with textiles made him the closest thing to an expert they had.

In truth, the work was not so different from what he did back home. He’d never enjoyed tanning, only the end result of the work, and the pleasure of doing something well. Acting as the pirate crew’s resident sailmaker was similar in that regard. It was easier, in fact, and he was quite fond of the conspicuous lack of animal fat involved.

It had been two weeks since Zander abandoned his life as the village tanner and joined a crew of pirates. It was a busy two weeks, considering he had no prior knowledge of sailing, and he had no intention of being an idle stowaway aboard his new home.

Theo and Yarrow, the two pirates who’d stood just behind Ace as he flung his sopping wet body aboard their boat, helped him get settled in. Yarrow clucked over him with immediate concern, finding him dry clothes and blankets and ensuring his hammock in the crew’s quarters was not in a particularly drafty spot. Theo trailed after them as they did, never taking his eyes off Zander. It seemed to take him a few days to trust that Zander was not a lunatic, but after realizing he was just as surprised at his own behavior as everyone else was (jumping into the ocean and chasing pirate ships was not a regular activity of his), Theo warmed to him considerably. In fact, he found Zander to be rather funny in his bafflement.

After taking a day or two to adjust to his new surroundings and recover from his shock, Zander had resolved to make himself useful.

He’d first spent a day getting to know the vessel. Theo obliged him with a thorough tour, seeming to enjoy explaining the various parts and pieces to Zander, who asked many questions. He’d then spent several days in the galley with the cook, George, a fellow Englishman who walked on a wooden peg where one of his legs had been amputated. From him, Zander learned the careful art of stretching limited supplies into meals for the whole crew. He also helped him make room for a large barrel of oranges they’d picked up on a recent supply run.

“For the scurvy,” George had explained as he inspected the barrel of fruit Zander carried from the lower decks. “You leave these in the orlop too long, the crew will find their way into them and eat them before it’s time. Before you know it, everyone’s fingernails are falling off.” Then he threw his head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.

Zander then spent days learning the complexities of the ship’s rigging, which supported four sails on a single mast. What at first was a nonsensical maze of rope and canvas that made him sweat just looking at them soon revealed itself to be a simple fore-and-aft system. Despite figuratively, and sometimes literally, stepping on the toes of the other crew members, Zander enjoyed learning the nuances of sailing the small ship.