The Bride of Blackbeard (14 page)

“No, I am not safe! I cannot rest any longer
‘til I see Katrina. I know she is in trouble. I have been fooling
myself. That girl was born for trouble.”

“All right, we will go to Beaufort on our
way to Nags Head if you like, but we cannot go anywhere now, it is
three in the morning and we can’t leave the boys.”

Wordlessly, she got up and padded through
the kitchen into the boys’ bedroom, where the gentle sound of
snoring filled the air. Will was getting too old for her to sleep
with, but she didn’t care. She
had
to feel they were safe in
order to sleep at all. Crawling into his bed, she held him tight,
as she’d done since his violent entrance to this world. Benjamin
would be ribbing him for days over her coming into their room, but
she didn’t give a whit.

~ * ~

“Megan, look at me, not outside!” Stanzy
turned the girl’s face with her hand, attempting to hold her
attention.

“Watch. M, O, T...” Stanzy’s fingers made
the letters as she spoke. “You do.”

The little girl sat stubbornly, arms folded
across her chest.

Megan signed, “Play.”

“No...no play, until we do five
letters.”

Megan responded by squeezing her eyes
tightly shut, shaking her head back and forth so rapidly Stanzy
felt dizzy.

Ropes were no longer required to restrain
Megan. She sat during her lessons of her own volition. She did,
however, rebel daily with the length of her lessons. The little
trickster was as obstinate as her teacher.

They had sat at odds, at times for two
hours, while Stanzy insisted Megan finish
two
letters.

Megan smiled at her for a moment, and then
pointed to her ears and put her hand over her mouth—the sign for
deaf and mute.

“Oh, no, you are
not
deaf, and hardly
mute as I endured your wailings when I first arrived at
StoneWater—you tricky little sprite. We have to finish Megan.
Please try.”

Megan finally placed her fingers into the
shape of an M, followed by the other two letters Stanzy had
requested.

Some days it seemed Megan had no control of
her own body, and though she might wish to comply with a task asked
of her, the girl simply couldn’t get her limbs to obey. This often
led to full-blown temper tantrums, at other times to crying jags.
Stanzy would hold her, and take Megan’s hands in her own to assist
the child in making her own body move.

Picking up a quill, she extended it out for
Megan to take from her outstretched hand. Her face screwed up in a
scrunch, her chest started heaving. Stanzy prepared for the howl.
Megan detested writing of any kind as well as drawing.

Constanza continued to offer the quill.
Finally, Megan reached out, grabbed it, snapping it in half, again
shaking her head wildly back and forth. Stanzy put her head on the
tiny table and rocked it back and forth in imitation of Megan.
Laughing out loud, Megan began to rock her head in time with
Stanzy’s.

Conceding defeat for the moment, Stanzy
grabbed the girl under her armpits, and swung her around in circles
in the center of the room. Megan squealed with delight. Stanzy had
discovered that if she gave Megan some physical movement prior to
trying a school task, her performance and attention increased
threefold.

“Now sit!”

The girl laughed and signed, “Eat.”

“No! Stop it! You are as bad as the
boys!”

She held up drawings Lucas and Ben had
sketched one evening for her to use while teaching Megan. Both boys
were beautiful artists, whereas Stanzy couldn’t even draw a circle
properly.

Holding up the picture, she said, “What is
it?”

Meg hid her face in her hands, one eye
peeking out between her fingers.

Stanzy waited quietly, refusing to move an
inch.

“Tree.”

“Yes! It is a tree!”

She held up another card.

“Dog.”

“Yea!” Stanzy said, smiling in approval.

Bess came into the room from the stairwell.
Megan shot up from the table, sprinted to the center and twirled in
circles around the room. Then she proceeded to run circles around
Bess.

“Bess!” Megan shouted.

“Ahh! You little—”

“Now, Bess,” said Stanzy. “You do not want
Meg to hear any words that you would not want her to repeat!”

~ * ~

“Don’t you think it odd, I am being summoned
for this birth?”

Lucian sat beside her, stoic and silent as
usual, but somehow his warmth always shone through the quiet. He
could convey more meaning in one silent look than many of the
charmers she’d met in her day, with all of their flowery sonnets
and lofty promises.

“Yes, but I am sure they are reputable if
Ian requests it.”

Acquaintances of Hopkins were set to deliver
their first child. Their regular surgeon was out of town, and he
requested Stanzy attend the birth. Despite the late hour, Constanza
offered her assistance. Lucian was now complaining about this
unnecessary detour on their journey to Nags Head, but she assured
him the birth would only detain them, at most, one day.

The wagon rumbled to a stop in front of the
designated address. Lucian turned to her. “If you do not mind, I
will wait for you here. Should you need anything, just send for me
and I will come in straightaway. I have only been witness to one
birth, and have to admit it is not an easy thing for me to
watch...”

“You know full well most gentlemen are not
welcome in the birthing room. Not even the husband! So I am proud
of you that you saw Benjamin’s birth.”

Lucian swallowed hard. “Yes, well, as I
said, I felt completely helpless. There is no worse situation for
me, where I must bear witness to an act of pain, and I am rendered
useless.”

~ * ~

The air was so still it felt thick.

It is so quiet. Too quiet.

Either the child or the mother has died. It
feels like a tomb.

A crooked man stepped into the vestibule.
His lips split into a toothless grin. Ominous looking in his
tattered shirt and filthy breeches, she debated calling for Lucian,
but quickly set the thought aside when a cry of obvious pain
sounded from the adjoining room.

“She is in here, Miss.”

Constanza nodded and followed the man into
the room. Almost spent, the woman winced in pain, despite being
unconscious. Splayed out on the bed, the woman's spread legs
revealed the gravity of the situation. The baby’s head, crowning
out the canal, threatened to suffocate the child, as the poor soul
was fully dilated. A black tuft of hair was visible.

“How long has she been like this?”

“I reckon about a quarter hour. About a day
in since her water broke.”

“Are you a...relative?” she stammered.

“Um...no. A
friend
of the
family.”

“Where is the father?”

“There is no father. This child is
illegitimate.”

“Illegitimate or no, she did not impregnate
herself! Where and whom is the father?”

“I would not be knowin’ that, mum. Perhaps
you can ask Delia...if she makes it that is.” Toothless grinned
maliciously.

She turned to call for Lucian when the woman
revived, eyes wide, screaming out in pain.

“Oh please, please, mum. Help me. Help me
save the baby, it will not come out!”

To her relief, the decrepit toothless wonder
clicked the door shut. Stanzy placed her hands on either side of
the infant’s head, and with each undulating contraction gently
inched the child along the birth canal. The woman’s pelvis was
inordinately small, and if she survived the birth of this child,
Stanzy would advise her against trying to have any more children.
She wasn’t anatomically built for bearing children.

The baby reluctantly slid into the world in
a rush of fluid and blood, drenching Stanzy’s dress and boots. The
infant lay still and quiet in her hands. Constanza turned him onto
his stomach and smacked him square between the shoulder blades.
Reaching inside his mouth, she swiped away the mucous. His tiny
frame sputtered and coughed, finally renting the air with a loud
wail.

She looked up to congratulate the mother,
but the poor wretch was unconscious once again. Constanza turned
the child over to examine him more fully, and what she saw made her
blood run cold. The child’s fingers, very long and pointed looked
eerily familiar. Its fingernails were longer than normal as well.
She shook the befuddlement away.

“It is a minor birth defect, nothing more,”
she said to what she thought was an empty room, “No worse than what
is on my own hand.”

“It is a changeling baby, I am sure of it,”
said the sans tooth harbinger. “We have been waiting for him to
arrive!”

“
Lucian
!”

~ * ~

As they continued on to Nags Head in
silence, Stanzy jumped when Lucian spoke loudly. “I am going to
murder Hopkins for putting you in that dangerous situation. There
is no way that woman was a business acquaintance of his. I am so
sorry I did not go in with you!”

“It is all right, Lucian. I am alive, the
baby is alive, and so is the mother. Although I am quite sure I do
not wish to exchange places with her. No father, a disfigured
child, and some sort of superstitious sailor as your
chambermaid.”

“What did he call the child?”

Constanza sighed.
How am I going to be
able to forget what I have seen if Lucian insists on discussing it
with me?

“A changeling.”

“What exactly is a changeling?”

She sighed again, reached into her mind and
heard the fairies scratching at the door, anxious to tell their
tales. “Changelings are known throughout Ireland as the children of
fairies. They are usually abhorrent to look at, and as fairies are
typically beautiful, legend says they steal human children and put
their changeling babies in their stead.”

Lucian looked at her intently, and his
expression reminded her of Ben, staring animatedly during one of
her lessons. She smiled into his rapt face.

“What?” he said perplexed.

“Nothing.” She continued with her
explanation of changelings. “After a few weeks, the babies’ spines
become hunched and they grow long, taloned fingers covered with
hair and a full set of sharp pointy teeth. They usually do not live
very long, only three or four years. Oh, yes—and they cry most of
the day and night.”

“Hmm...does not sound very pleasant.” He
didn’t ask any further questions.

Propped against Lucian’s shoulder, Stanzy
felt sleep coming to claim her again. Eerie flute and fife music
played in her head as she dreamt of every child she’d ever
delivered with a birth defect.

The wagon hit a stone on the path, startling
Constanza awake from her deep sleep. She was disoriented for a
minute, until she felt Lucian’s thigh under her head. Her soul
swelled with unaccustomed feelings...comfort and relief. They were
going to spend a week at Nags Head to celebrate their union with
his Great Aunt Rose. All Lucian had told her about his aunt was
that she was in sixty or so years out.

They’d also decided to wait until their trip
home to visit Katrina in Bath. Perhaps she would want to return to
StoneWater with them.

She could have lain in the back of the
wagon, but she felt an indescribable urge to stay at his side. It
was embarrassing to admit, as she’d always secretly laughed at
women who were so taken with their husbands. Describing her
previous views of love as cynical would be an understatement.

Closing her eyes again, she relished the
feeling of security; knowing tomorrow it all could disappear. Take
each good day for what it is.

Soon the wagon stopped. “Wake up, we are
here.”

A simple, but tasteful cottage sat near the
surf line. Staring out onto the waves licking the beach, her breath
caught in her chest.

She turned and caught Lucian eyeing her,
then he looked back out to sea. “She can be beautiful, or she can
be cruel as anything, like most women I know.”

“I hope present company is excluded,” Stanzy
said, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow.

Entering the kitchen of the cottage, a woman
peered into a pot boiling on the stove. She turned to smile widely,
and Stanzy thought she looked amazingly young for her age. Her
graceful movements showed no sign of rheumatism or rigidity. Long,
white hair streamed down her back past her shoulder blades, and she
possessed the remnants of once great beauty.

“Aunt Rose!” Lucian bellowed, striding over
and lifting the tiny woman off the ground in an embrace.

“Oh, my boy, it has been too long since you
were here to visit your wizened old aunt!”

“Constanza, I would like you to meet my
favorite aunt, Rose. Aunt Rose, this is my lovely wife,
Constanza.”

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Stanzy took the woman’s hand. “I have heard so much about you.”

“So you are the one who has captured my
boy’s heart so completely?”

Lucian turned puce, the color his skin
reserved for his most mortifying moments.

“He is like no other,” was all Stanzy could
say.

Later, as they walked down the stretch of
beach holding hands, Lucian described the tides and the birds, and
told her stories of the sea. Suddenly he dropped her hand and
bolted down the beach toward something bobbing in the shallow surf.
As he darted into the waves, he reminded her of a schoolboy who had
been released to play in the water. He reached the object, picked
it up in his hands and turned it over and over.

“Lucian, what are you doing?” she said
breathlessly, running to see what had captured his attention so
fully.

“Sorry. I thought it might be a piece of
Ambergris.”

“A what?”

“It is from the internal organs of Sperm
whales. It has the finest oil, and is very dear. Perfume
manufacturers will pay hugely for it! But it is not...”