Page 83 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son

He banged his head against the wall. Had he come this far to be stymied by social graces?

Sing the words, Basti, his mother used to say. She drilled him on it over and over. He’d thought it was a game, but she’d given him everything he needed, as they danced around the beach singing.

They danced, with him on her feet as she glided.

Bash closed his eyes, and he could see her feet beneath his babyish ones as she moved: right foot back, left foot to the left, right foot to the left, left foot forward, right foot to the right, left foot to the right.

His eyes snapped open. Right, left, left. Left, right, right. He slipped out a door towards the harbor and the town square.

When Bash reached the square, the church bells began to ring, and a heaviness settled on him like the bells were heralding Maggie’s ship’s departure.

He shook himself back to the moment.

Dance a waltz. Right, left, left.

He turned right down the first road off the square, then left at the first corner, which took him down a long and winding hill.

Andrew’s spire calls out to thee. Hear the bells but do not see.

He’d misremembered the line, supposing it was about the ocean. Pausing to look back, he could still make out the spire above the trees.

At the bottom of the hill, he turned left once more, then another left, and then right, and right again. The bells still rang, but from this vantage point he could no longer see that towering spire.

The town square was easy enough to locate, and once there, Maggie stood gawping at a massive red flower, its petals spread as wide as a dinner plate, its color more vibrant than an ocean sunset. There were dozens of them planted all around the square, and she was losing precious time, staring transfixed at the flowers, these hibiscus, and their ghostly, scentless beauty.

“Ya lost?” a voice at her elbow asked, and Maggie whirled around to find a young man with dark brown skin and luminous eyes staring curiously at her.

She shook her head quickly. Thirsty? Yes. Frightened? A bit. But she wasn’t lost. She had a feeling she was right where she needed to be.

When the boy shrugged and wandered away, Maggie drew back into nearby shrubbery and shadows, and opened the locket once more.

Dance a waltz, then dance again

Down the hill, an empty lane

What on earth could it mean? How was this any kind of map? Unless Amoy meant for her son to follow the steps of a dance… where each turn about the floor indicated a turn down another lane or byway? Mercy, the poet was clever. Maggie was starting to understand where Bash got his sharp mind for languages and mathematics from.

If her hunch was correct, that meant the first turn off the square was to the right. She turned and her gaze was drawn to a figure with warm, golden-brown skin, disappearing around the corner. Throttling her impulse to run after him, she kept low and out of sight as she followed. He needed to do this on his own.

Before Bash lay a lane of tidy houses. The path was lined with fragrant trees.

Mahogany, cedar in a row. Coconut palm and pimento.

Gardens were dotted with coconut palms to be sure, but none held pimento trees.

He heaved a sigh, and perhaps it was wishful thinking, but he could almost taste the spicy fragrance of pimento on the breeze, growing stronger as he continued down the lane.

And then he saw it. In front of a dilapidated house where the roof had recently caved in, there stood a pimento tree, its scraggly branches raised like wide, open arms, its ripe, purplish berries hanging in clumps just begging to be picked and dried. Tears sprang to his eyes, as though with recognition. Was this old place where his mother had lived with his auntie and fallen in love with working the soil to make things grow? What had become of that wise woman who warned her little sister about Cornelius MacLeod all those years ago?

Bury not my body there, in earth too rich and scented air. Dogwood blossoms, moonlight glow, fondest dreams of sweet mango.

Slowly Bash circled the house. White dogwoods bloomed at the corner. What a difference it must have been for his mother compared to the windswept Isle of Lewis.

He’d enjoyed a happy boyhood there, but he could see why she spent so many hours attempting to transform her little patch of earth into a paradise like this one. She was a marvel in the garden, and there was something familiar about this place, like the imprint of her soul upon the soil.

In the back corner of the property, where the garden grew feral trying to catch up with the surrounding bush, he spied a mango tree.

He should have brought a shovel, but he hadn’t planned on treasure hunting when he whisked Maggie off the ship. He had only his hands. And so, under the shade of the mango tree, he clawed away the damp, rich soil, shifting it easily until his blackened nails scraped against the wood of an old chest.