Page 36 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

“Lewis was only home because my Ma was there. Once she was gone, and my grandparents not long after, there was no one left who wanted me. It stopped being home.”

It had broken Maggie’s heart to picture him as a child, unwanted and alone. “It’s kind of strange, when you think about it,” she mused. “Not enough people wanted you, and too many want me—potential husbands, I mean. And yet we’re sort of the same. All alone.”

“Will you marry again?” he had asked softly.

“My father wishes me to. He has another bridegroom all picked out and ready to stand up in a kirk.”

“What do you want?” Bash had asked, and Maggie inhaled sharply.

Had anyone ever asked her that before and really meant it?

“I just want to be someplace warm.”

Lorna had scoffed at that answer, but Bash nodded as if he understood everything the dream encompassed. Perhaps they were even more alike than she realized.

Without Maggie noticing a change day to day, they had finally reached someplace warm. The atmosphere felt different when she joined Bash on deck with a tankard of rum for each of them.

It was a little humid and sweaty, as though the very air was reflecting her mood and secret desires.

“Good—” Bash rumbled when she offered him the drink, but he cut himself off and accepted the mug, raising it in toast. “Good idea, Mags. Best way to start the day. Stick close, aye?” he added.

Did he feel the frenetic undercurrent in the air too?

“Has the wind changed?” she asked. “Do we still head towards Boston?”

“No. We’re right on course.” He squinted past her, his tongue poking out like a cat tasting the air.

The pink of his tongue made her wonder—did the tips of his ears burn the same color when he grew embarrassed like her brothers-in-law? And what would embarrass a man like Bash, used to living cheek by jowl with this bawdy lot?

She was still staring at his tongue when a shadow fell over them, and with it, a chill. Maggie glanced beyond his shoulder in time to see a magnificent black creature flopping back into the brine.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she exclaimed, running to the forecastle so she could peer over the side at the wide, diamond-shaped shadow floating in the water.

“Another whale?” Bash asked, joining her at the railing.

“I don’t think so. More like a… I don’t know, a giant oyster outside its shell, all floppy and wide? There it is!” She pointed at the dark shadow, nearly as broad as the very deck beneath their feet, floating like a shawl carelessly tossed overboard.

Bash frowned into the water, throwing an arm protectively in front of her to make her step back.

Flapping its fins like the wings of a seagull, the creature flew from the water once more in a perfect arc, this time exposing its white belly to the sun before diving back into the water and then coming back again for another go. Forward arc, backward flip, and then forward arc again, the creature leaped and dove with balletic precision, almost as though someone beneath the surface were tossing it to and fro.

“Did you see it, Nav?” the junior sailor, Langley, called, pounding up to them with a look of horror on his sunburned face. “It’s an ill omen, that,” he panted, stopping at the edge of the forecastle, hesitant to come any nearer. “Should we shoot it?”

“You’ve seen a devil ray before, surely,” Bash said, exuding a calm that belied the way he’d pushed Maggie away from the railing.

“Never one so monstrous big, have you?”

“Maybe not this big, Langley, but the sea is full of all sorts. Despite its name, it means no harm.”

The ray continued to dance alongside them, as though it were performing a sort of magic meant to mesmerize, and it was working. Maggie was certainly spellbound.

“Never saw one do that before, neither. Doesn’t have to mean evil to bring it,” Langley protested, then he lowered his voice to a fast whisper. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaming lion, seeking someone to devour.” He made the sign of the cross, and then for good measure crossed himself a second time.

“It’s neither roared nor prowled, and last I checked, rays don’t eat people. Man your post,” Bash chided, eyeing the creature warily.

“You never saw one that size before, you said. Fella that big would need more’n prawns to keep its strength up. Maybe it’ll open its gullet like a snake and swallow the whole brig in one giant gulp.”

Bash sighed and shook his head, while Maggie bounced on her toes and grabbed hold of her elbows to keep from clapping with delight, refusing to let Langley’s fear infect her.