“She came out to help me that night, Jack. Do you know what she said?”
“What did she say?”
“That she found a dagger down below. She was going to try and kill anyone who laid a hand on me. After all, we were the only two females aboard. We had to look out for each other. If I went, she would gladly follow me into death.”
I let my head sink onto the balcony railing. Jack’s hand found the back of my neck and began to rub. I didn’t stop him. I could stop nothing. The memories had stirred from their watery grave and demanded acknowledgement—no matter the hurt.
•
A hazy red sky stretched out before me as I stood at the railing of The Black Otter.
“Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.” Jack’s voice purred into my hair. “Why isn’t the most beautiful woman to have ever sailed the sea still resting in her chambers?”
“It’s hard to sleep without you next to me, Jacky.” I closed my eyes and leaned into him. “Tell me, where does that verse come from? About the sky, I mean?”
Jack’s arms circled about my waist. “Every seamen knows that. It means storms are more likely when the sky’s lit red at sunrise. The opposite is true at night, when it means fair weather for nighttime sailing.”
“Yes, I figured that much.” I opened my eyes and scanned the world that was still so new to me. The world that had become my home. “What I meant was, where did it originate?”
Jack and I swayed together. “I figure the Bible. In the book of Matthew. Verse 16: 2-3. Where it all began.”
I turned to look at Jack. This man amazed me more and more as days went by. “I have a confession. I never figured you to be a man of the Word. But when you swore the crew in on the Bible yesterday—”
Jack smiled down at me. “He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering.”
My mouth fell opened and my eyes widened. I closed it as Jack continued. “Our Lord and Savior said this. One of the many reasons I believe He had salt in his blood. Like me.”
He brushed my forehead with a kiss. I shivered. “Come to think of it, I believe Mr. Shakespeare mentioned it, too. In Venus and Adonis.”
Jack’s fingers twirled in my hair. “Is that so?”
I nodded. “Like a red morn that ever yet betokened, wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field. Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds, gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.” I smiled at him. “I assume the meaning is the same?”
All the play was gone from Jack’s face. “Recites Shakespeare from memory. My, my Red. I certainly do have a gem in you.” He traced my cheek with his finger as light as though he were using a feather. “Pray tell, continue. I could listen to you all the day long.”
Before I could call the next verse to mind, a black mass appeared on the horizon. “Jack! Another ship!”
“Aye, it is. But fear not. We know this ship. And they are friend, not foe.” He gestured toward the mysterious ship. “Look at the flag, my dear, and you’ll see that this ship is The Molly Maiden.”
As we drew closer, I squinted into the sunrise. A heavy-bodied bare-breasted outline of a woman in white against a black background flittered proudly on the sewn material. I looked sideways at Jack. “The Molly Maiden?”
“Yes, she is harmless.” Jack nodded.
I eyed the ship as it drew nearer. My stomach flipped as an odd emotion I couldn’t place settled there. I licked my lips, which had gone dry. “You mentioned before, about your parents—”
I let my words trail off into the early morning fog.
Jack unfurled his fingers from my hair and stepped beside me at the railing. He propped one booted foot onto the lowest rail and gazed out to sea. “As you already know, my father was a pirate. The world knew him as the infamous Vladimir Nemirovsky.”
Jack glanced at me. I shrugged and offered an infinitesimal shake of my head. “I’ve never heard of your father, Jack.”
Jack nodded. “He was known among all those who called Mother Russian home. He led rebellions against the Russia’s Tsars.”
“I see.”
Jack drew in a deep breath, but kept his gaze fixed on the sea. “I’ve never spoken of this. Forgive me if my words are choppy.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I whispered. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Jack glanced at me again. His eyes shimmered with years of unrealized emotion. “It is so easy to love you, Red.” He sniffled and cleared his throat. “My father was a pirate, like myself. His wanderings brought him to England, where he bought my mother’s affections. And stole her heart. At least, that’s the story she told me when I was old enough to ask.”
“Your mother took care of you on her own then?”
“That she did, in her seaside whorehouse with the help of her fellow ladies-of-the-evening, as long as she was able.”
I wonder if I ever passed his mother’s whorehouse while running about for my own mother—or Sully?
Jack knitted his fingers together over the railing. “The coughing started when I was a young lad. She made sure I stayed in my little room in her closet, far away from her, around that time, lest I come down with the coughing, too.”
It seemed Jack was treading on thin ice as he spoke of his mother with careful, deliberate words. I was equally careful not to speak, lest my words be the ones that made the ice break.
“The ladies kept me fed and clothed as her coughing got worse, then turned bloody. I learned early on to pick the pockets of the men who bought my mother while they slept.”
“Wouldn’t that have been dangerous, had you been caught?” The boards of The Black Otter creaked as the several waves crashed against the side without warning. Salty spray wet my lips.
“Yes. Deadly dangerous.” Jack offered me a small smile. “It only took my being caught once to learn that.”
“What happened?” My voice was a barely a whisper. I immediately regretted asking, for now I would have to hear the answer.
