Page 82 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

He searched the sky for answers and found only Andrew’s spire standing watch like a sentinel over the town.

Inside, the church was cool and empty, and Bash chose a pew in the back corner where he could observe all who entered and escape quickly should the need arise.

Was this the same spire he’d seen from Gallows Point that day ten years ago, before Mad caught him and dragged him back to the ship to be whipped within an inch of his life? He liked to think so, anyway.

He might have broken free there and then had he not been distracted by the corpse of his old friend Calico Jack, hanging over the harbor in an iron gibbet while birds pecked out his eyes. Bash hadn’t been able to stomach the taste of sorghum ever since.

There had been a wild look in Mad’s eye that day. What had the old man been so afraid of? Did he imagine his lover to be some sort of witch, able to divine the location of his precious gold and share it with young Bash? Stuff and nonsense.

Mad was a paranoid son of a bitch, and though his intuition was often right, Bash’s mother wasn’t a witch.

So what had she been trying to tell him with her song?

After the flogging, Mad had visited Bash where he lay huddled in a heap, too broken to find solace in his hammock. Delirium had turned the visitations into grotesque nightmares, but Bash realized now they may have been real, as were the confusing questions the captain asked, repeatedly demanding Bash reveal the location of his lost bounty.

Could the directions have possibly been there, locked in Bash’s brain and inscribed in his mother’s locket all along?

Of course, Maggie had no intention of booking passage back to Scotland and leaving Bash to struggle on his own. He’d been fighting his own side with almost no one to help him since he was just a little boy being passed from home to home, and she would never let him fight alone again.

But he was stubborn. Being more than a little hard-headed herself, she knew he wouldn’t give in. He wanted to protect her, and she loved him for it. He believed he had to go on from here alone as he’d always done before, and she understood that, too. She just didn’t accept it.

Maggie reckoned, though, if she could just lie low near the harbor, she might be able to wait him out. She had every faith he’d find Mad’s old treasure. He would find it, and then he’d rush back for her, and she’d be ready. If he didn’t make it back today, well, she had a little bit of money, perhaps enough to rent a room for one night. And if he didn’t find it by the morning, then he couldn’t be too angry when she turned up to help him.

Everything in Kingston harbor was new and strange, and the people seemed to think the same of her, so clearly overdressed in her earasaid and skirts, with her usually pale skin now sun-browned from her journey.

Finally locating a reputable looking ale house, she slipped inside. It was mostly empty, so she took a seat in the corner, daring the few denizens to stare.

A cautious barmaid approached her. “Bread and butter?” the girl asked.

Maggie nodded eagerly, licking her parched lips and hearing Bash’s guttural, Drink, as though he were standing right beside her. “And tea, if you have it.”

“Three pence,” the girl replied, eyeing Maggie’s somewhat disheveled appearance with a skeptical air.

When she withdrew her purse to pay for the meal, inside she found Bash’s locket. Maggie gasped, but quickly handed over the coins, and once the girl left, she examined the necklace again, hoping he’d at least kept the pictures and the poem.

He hadn’t of course, and she couldn’t help stroking a finger down his likeness’s little cheek where a scar would one day speak the cruelty he’d endured. Panic swelled within her.

What if he couldn’t remember the words without seeing them? What if he couldn’t find the gold without the locket? What if he never had any intention of trying? She had to find him, to return the pendant, pictures and all.

She flipped them over once more.

The king once built a town so fair

If this was indeed Kingston, that was a good start at least.

Red hibiscus lined the square

Maggie didn’t know what a hibiscus was, but it was time she found out.

The moment her food arrived, she wrapped up the bread and shoved it in her pocket, regretfully leaving the piping hot tea untouched. Bash would be displeased with her, but she’d have to find him first.

Bash rolled his head against the church wall behind him. There was nothing here. He was no closer to figuring out the poem than he had been an hour ago. Why had he started with the church? Did any of it even mean anything?

The king once built a town so fair, obviously referred to Kingston. Red hibiscus lined the square. Bash and Maggie had come upon the town from the jungle outskirts instead of the port, but he seemed to recall massive hibiscus flowers around the harbor all those years before.

Dance a waltz, then dance again. Down the hill an empty lane.

Some sort of dance hall in the town center? Or directions from there? He should have asked Maggie to teach him how to waltz. She would look so lovely floating through the air in a flowing ball gown on someone else’s arm.