Timothy Ratdilf, please be mean to me 🥺

You rode alone all the way to the coast. The journey took nine days—perhaps ten—though by the third you could hardly recall leaving the swamp. At some point the mud beneath Puck’s hooves had become grass. Someone handed you a lump of salt pork. Voices murmured around a fire. The grass became sand.

Your traveling company received a genial welcome from the island’s residents. Figures emerged from thatched clay structures built upon the sand, some rushing forth, some hanging curiously back. The air swam with laughter. You blinked at the open expanse of sky, at the ocean glittering below. The sun was bright. The air was balmy. Your thighs were chapped. Each of these sensations passed your awareness as if beyond a screen, barely needling through. Someone helped you off of Puck.

You managed to mumble out your thanks, or you hoped you did, before collapsing upon a bench you were led to. After resting your face in your palms then rubbing the grit from your eyes, you looked around. Slaves, chimed some distant recognition in your head. All of these people must have escaped enslavement. Taken refuge here, built this town. Another thought drifted wretchedly through the distance.

Papa would have loved to see this place.

Your head dropped into your palms once more.

You should have helped unload the supplies, but you didn’t, and you should have helped prepare supper, but you didn’t do that either. The sun wheeled above you until dusk drew on and shadows surrounded the fire. One of them approached you.

“You really must eat.”

A bowl of cornmeal cakes pushed its way into your hands.

“Must I.”

“Yes,” Lottie said, closing your fingers around the bowl. “Just as I must, remember?”

“Rules for thee,” you grumbled in what was meant to be bitter humor, but only sounded bitter. By way of apology, you nibbled a cake. It was plain but hearty, and woke a rumble in your belly that had you swiftly biting off more.

“There she is,” said Lottie tenderly. When you looked up she was smiling, though it was a morose sight beneath the puffy red rims of her eyes.

You tried to return one of your own, but it faltered on your lips. Lottie sank down beside you, threading an arm with yours. Her head rested on your shoulder.

“What happens now?” she asked.

You shrugged your unladen shoulder, swallowing a mouthful.

“I don’t know.”

Lottie sighed, and her breath shook on the exhale.

“We… go on, I suppose,” she offered, sounding unconvinced. “That’s what my brother would have said, at least.”

You nodded. “Right into the ocean.”

Her shoulders jumped, jostling the bowl in your hands. Her free hand reached up to whack you gently on the forehead. Then you did smile, and took another bite.

“It’s not all hopeless,” she said after a quiet moment, her voice unsteady. “I must believe that.”

To that you had nothing to say. You chewed on cornmeal and watched the distant flames, letting them burnish your mind as smooth as brass. Until no thought or feeling could catch a foothold. One after another they slipped off. Cascaded somewhere dark and blissfully obscure. The bottom of the ocean, perhaps.

Beside you, Lottie’s shoulders shook. Her arm tightened within yours. With a wet sniffle, she turned to press her eyes into your collar.

“I miss him,” she choked. Then she sobbed. “I miss him desperately.”

Her tears soaked the fabric of your kerchief, and you drew a breath that almost felt relieving. This you did not mind. This you could manage. You set your bowl down beside you on the bench. Gently you unwound your arm from her grasp and wrapped her into an embrace. Lottie folded into you, and the dam of her grief broke against your chest. As she sobbed and convulsed, a memory tested the surface of your thoughts. A memory of Grace, some time long ago, just like this in your arms. Your gaze found the fire, your ears the murmur of the waves, your cheek the top of Lottie’s head. The memory slipped away into the dark.

The following day there was a wedding. A wagon arrived early in the morning, drawing your attention beyond the billowing linens you had busied yourself with hanging. From it leapt a bright-eyed girl, followed by her ailing father, and the girl rushed across the beach to embrace Gabriel Martin with a vigor that inspired a feeling not unlike a fishing spear through your gut. Afterward there was much commotion that you did not care to involve yourself with. You retreated to the sanctuary of a cookfire, making yourself useful to anyone who had a command to throw your way.

Many commands were thrown your way. By the time the sun crested the sky, all was in place. Ribbons hung from every canopy. The scents of spiced fish and rich soups and sweet, tangy nut rolls clung to the breeze. An aisle had been constructed, complete with pews and a quaint altar, and everyone in the village crowded around to see Gabriel Martin wed the bright-eyed girl. From your place in the back, you could just glimpse Lottie seated in the crowd, a small boy perched on her knee. She was smiling. They were all smiling. Your eyes slipped to the sea beyond, willing the waves to crash against your mind and wash it blank.

One of Martin’s men—the reverend from the fort prison—read out the ceremonial vows. The couple embraced. The throng descended into celebration, shouts and laughter and music ringing out across the breeze.

You ate, and drank, and smiled at those who sought your gaze. This was easy, you thought. Puppeteering yourself through this charade. Everything here was so new, so lovely and unfamiliar, that it was easy to leave your thoughts at the bottom of the ocean where they lay. Should one begin to surface, you needn't do more than bite into a leg of spiced crab, or ask to learn the rules of the game some children were playing with stones and shells in the sand.

Just after you were beaten in your third round, music struck up in earnest and the children all leapt to join the fray. With thirsts and appetites sated, bodies began to orbit each other in dance. Even the music was as strange as it was delightful. All jolting, energetic rhythms and frolicking melodies that brooked no stillness in its listeners. Your own foot found itself tapping the sand as you sat back and watched an elderly couple swing each other around, laughing and sweating and spinning as if the music siphoned the age from their very bones.

The setting sun cast the village in gold as evening encroached. In the light, a flash of copper hair caught your eye. Lottie was dancing with a young village girl, stiffly mimicking her movements to the girl’s utter delight. She grasped Lottie’s hands and guided her arms just so, then lifted one to spin beneath it. With an exaggerated flair, she bade Lottie perform a spin of her own, which sent her careening directly into the shape of Captain Pearce.

He grasped her shoulders, steadying her before placing a respectful distance between them again, though he was grinning madly and color rose in his cheeks. You could tell Lottie was stammering every manner of apology, and that Pearce was having none of it. He bent to whisper something to the young girl who bit her lip and beamed at Lottie before nodding and galloping away. Pearce straightened, bowed slightly, then offered his hand. Lottie took it with a curtsey. Pearce held her gaze and raised her knuckles to his lips, then stepped closer to take her waist. And for the first time in many long days, the smile that lit Lottie’s face was unmarred by pain.

They danced, barefoot in the sand, sweat-kissed with their top laces half undone. The sight might have bordered on indecent had the whole party not been in a similar state. It occurred to you that you were, in fact, the only one still bound in every layer of your skirts. Your kerchief still clinging to your shoulders despite the sweat building beneath. Suddenly sweltering, you staggered to your feet and away from the party, shoes catching awkwardly in the sand.

A breezy awning caught your eye, but as you drew nearer you realized it was already occupied. Colonel Martin sat beside a woman in only her underclothes. They spoke quietly for a few moments, and then he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to his. Your stomach twisted. You veered well away from the pair and toward the shore instead, clawing your kerchief loose.

Damned Martins. Damned party. Damned heat.

It felt as if autumn had forgotten this place. As if the world had left you entirely behind, as if everything were spinning on and on without you. As if… As if…

Hard, wet sand slammed your knees. The impact tore through you and caught on some intangibly raw edge that had you doubling over and gasping for breath, your palms slapping down into shallow waves. You groaned against the sensation—like a fissure opening within you. Like you were rending into two pieces, but one of them was already missing.

No. Not missing. It lay somewhere outside your body in a bed that was not yours, curled into the only embrace that had ever made you feel whole.

“No,” you heard yourself say out loud, and you cupped an incoming wave to splash it against your face.

But when the water met your cheeks you only saw a flash of clear blue eyes, a broad chest, the flex of a hand encased in leather.

You screeched into the wind, ripped your kerchief from your neck and pounded it into the shallows, hoping to split your knuckles. Anything to wrest yourself back from the brink of madness. You brought the soaked cloth up and wrung it against your chest, gulping air. As the water trickled beneath your bodice and heated to your skin you felt William’s touch, the ghosts of his fingertips making you shiver as they traced the shape of you. The setting sun warmed your back like the press of his body. The breeze became his breath against your ear.

“Leave me be,” you moaned into your fabric-wrapped fist, though your heart could not reach the words. You shuddered as a gust caressed the hairs at the nape of your neck.

Your eyes fell closed. Waves lapped your thighs, turned your skirts to lead. The memories dragged you under, down and down, until you could almost believe it had all been a bad dream. The execution. Your escape. The island. None of it was real. You would awake in the arms of the man you loved, and his lips would find your lips, and the sun would weave his hair with threads of gold, and nothing would hurt.

You opened your eyes to an expanse of ocean. Something hot carved a path down your cheek as water cooled to a chill upon your skin. The sky dimmed. The sun poured its gold into the waves.