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Chapter 22~ Gretchen Hemingway
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I only stared, mouth open and lips slightly parted. This was a vision—some sort of sick vision of the fate of my elder sister. It was like a nightmare that I couldn’t wake from or merely didn’t know how to. I wanted to reach out to her, hold her hand, and watch her transform back into the young yet mature girl I had once known her as. But once the smell of grime and piss hit me, I knew it was real. I lowered my weapon to my side. “Gretchen?” A little more than a whisper.
She finally looked me in the eyes briefly. Only a glance. But then, her gaze settled. She didn’t seem to recognize me at first. Like perhaps I was some hallucination or doppelgänger of a friend she used to know. But the longer she stared, the clearer it became and the more her face fell. She wrinkled her brows and tried to speak.
“Ed-Edmund?” Then, without another breath, her bulging eyes titled back into her head and she tipped backward, crashing onto the floor. Behind me, Constantine gasped and rushed to Gretchen’s side. She called over Reyes who helped lift my frail sister and carry her to the bed. Constantine grabbed a nearby pitcher of water and dabbed cold rainwater across Gretchen’s pale forehead. I returned to her side and knelt beside the bed and beside my sister. My sister...
A few minutes later, Gretchen began to come back to consciousness with panting breaths and hyperactive blinks. I checked her pulse, frail but steady, and held her small hand in mine as she woke. A great feeling of relief, fear, and anger had mixed in my blood and filled my entire body. “Gretchen...” I whimpered, feeling the tears combat their way to the surface.
She grasped my hand tightly and looked at me all over as if I was a ghost. “Edmund, how are you here? How did you find me?”
We started off slowly, telling her only what she needed to know. There was no point in overwhelming the poor girl. She took it all in like a baby being lectured to by a parent, wide eyes and an open mouth. I could only hope some of what I said stuck with her. When I had finished, I told her of the false letter Kidd had written on her behalf. Gretchen explained how Kidd had brought her to Cape Town under good intentions initially, giving her a place to settle and rest. But when Gretchen felt the need to roam once more, Kidd sent men to keep her contained there and beat her whenever she fought back. She explained how they engaged in a romantic relationship years after meeting, how he used her for her virtue and her body then discarded her to the island when the sea felt much more appealing.
“Why didn’t you escape?” Constantine asked.
“I tried,” Gretchen defended. “But the truth is I had nowhere to go. At least here, I’d be clothed and fed. Out there, I had nothing. I didn’t even know Edmund was still alive.” She looked at me dolefully. “I heard about our parents’ death a few years after it happened. I swore to myself I would track down the man who killed them to the ends of the earth.”
I shook my head. “There’s no use. He’s already dead. Constantine killed him years ago.”
“Constantine?” Gretchen said, a confused expression on her face.
I gestured to her with kind eyes. She looked back at me and smiled. “Constantine is my...my wife.”
She gazed back at me, deep passion behind her blue eyes that communicated so well in our little language. I took in her beauty, her tender heart. There was no else. There would never be anyone else.
The days after we found Gretchen were spent in hiding and perhaps was not the best change of scenery for her. But we knew when her captors realized her disappearance, they’d hunt all over Cape Town for her. We kept her safely hidden at an inn on the very edge of town, and I kept watch most days. Every moment with her felt like a new beginning. She told me how she longed for adventure in her dull life and that that was the reason she had to escape England.
“I had to leave, Edmund,” she said, “Or else I knew I would die in some strange man’s house without a friend or family member to speak of.”
“Well, you almost did.”
We nursed her back to health slowly, getting food and water into her system. Constantine did a lot of the work keeping her occupied while I took to treating her infections and wounds. But after a few weeks, we found that things had settled back to what they had once been. Either Kidd’s men must’ve gotten tired of searching or they realized their loyalty to him was now futile.
The days grew longer as summer made its fiery presence known to every townsfolk in Cape Town. We stayed at the inn, and I went to taking up odd jobs around the town to whoever would accept a one-armed man. Reyes joined me oftentimes when Constantine wasn’t trying to teach him to read. I began to let myself enjoy the solid ground and the stability of real honest work. And for a moment, things almost seemed to go back to the way they used to be—before William Kidd and before the mutiny. Before I ever left.
But somewhere deep inside of me, past Constantine and past everything we had gone through, I felt a hollowness. Like a promise I had made that I was unable to keep. I didn’t want to scrape for us to survive. Every day that passed, a child grew stronger and stronger inside of Constantine. I would find her some nights alone by the fireplace, touching her stomach and smiling. And in a strange way, I was puzzled. I had always known Constantine to be a black stallion who longed for a life of adventure and passion. And maybe she was still that wild force but I had never imagined a life of docility for her. It almost seemed laughable to think the same girl who had run from dirty pirates and shot Thomas Tew was now to raise a child—our child. But as the weeks passed and her pregnancy progressed, Constantine spoke more and more of her own mother and the stories of her relationship with Indian pirate Captain Gazsi Maut, her scandalous pregnancy, and her shaming of English society. Constantine spoke of her mother with such fire and adoration as if her mother was an angel sent from above. A terrifying whirlwind of an angel. After all, Constantine was the same terrifying whirlwind. That was when I came to realize that Constantine would never be a complacent and shy housewife. That was never who she was. She would be unconventional, inspirational, and an absolute force to be reckoned with. She would be loving and kind as she’d always been. And she would reach for greater heights, now with another helping hand. She would be just like her mother.
Dusk had just fallen across the mountainous city. A white mist hovered atop the Lion’s Head mountain. The stars were just beginning to take over the night. The purple and yellow clouds in the sky calmed me as I returned from the docks, an old bag strung over my shoulder. I climbed the hill up to the inn just like every other day. Behind me, I’d left behind much of the city. I walked the dirt path up to the well-worn wooden porch. I half-expected Constantine to be upstairs strapping Reyes to a chair and forcing him to read a nursery rhyme. Ever since we settled in Cape Town, she had made an effort to teach Reyes to read.
“He’s bright," she said, refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. “I won’t let his talent go unrealized.”
I knew Reyes hated it. He said he couldn’t do it and that there was no point in learning such a useless skill. Being mothered by Constantine suffocated and comforted him at the same time in a strange way. Perhaps Constantine was wrong about him. Or perhaps Reyes was just wrong about himself. Ever since then, a few nights out of the week, Constantine would sit him down by the window of our room where the sunlight hit best and work through old children’s books or passages from the Old Testament with him. Today, however, must’ve been different.
Constantine stood on the side of the porch, gazing out across the town towards the grand mountains in the distance. The wind danced through her raven curls, still as chaotic as ever, and kissed her skin pink. For a second, she closed her eyes, and I watched. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs to the brim with the thick hot air of the coast. And suddenly, I knew something had to be wrong. I walked up the steps of the porch and laid my sack down by the door. Constantine heard the sound and turned, a smile on her face.
“So...” she began playfully, “what was it like?”
I walked over and wrapped my arm around her waist, letting the wind ruffle through my bronzy hair and breathing in her sweet lavender scent. “Good day. Not a single pirate.”
She smiled and giggled as I pressed the side of my face to hers. She held my arm around her waist, and we swayed to the rhythm of the breeze. “Must’ve been quite a boring day then.”
I untangled my arm from around her and pulled her in close to me, drawing her face in for a kiss. Her soft lips always held me on edge yet grounded me in a peculiar way. The way her fingers crawled up my hand and knitted in between my fingers made me shiver. And somehow, she always tasted as pure and salty as the sea and always left me thirsty for more. She broke the kiss gently and looked into my eyes. She was calm, tranquil even, but something wasn’t right.
“Edmund, I have a gift for you.”
I chuckled. “My birthday isn’t for a few months, you know.”
“No,” she said, more seriously. “Not that.” She reached into the pocket of her dress and retrieved a small brassy compass with a broken face—Pa’s compass. She twisted the backing and retrieved the two gold coins I once tried to give her before the mutiny. She held my hand and pressed the coins into it. But I didn’t understand.
“What is this, love?” I asked.
I saw her face. Small tears welled up on the edges of her eyes but she still smiled. “A gift. A chance to do something right.”
I shook my head. “I don’t—”
“You gave me these coins once when you thought I had no way out. This was everything you had to offer, Edmund. You’ve put me above yourself countless times. You’ve shown me how much you love me time and time again. And all I’ve wanted was a chance to show you the same. Luckily, I’ve never had a use for these...until now.”
I looked at her blankly and she folded my fingers over the coins in my palm.
“I want you to go back to England, Edmund. Find a physician to teach you medicine and teach you well. Learn everything you can and become amazing at it like I know you will. Do what your father always wanted, what you’ve always wanted.”
I began shaking my head and pushing her hands away. But, she forced her grip and bore her gaze into me. Were these coins to be a curse between us?
“This isn’t an argument, Edmund.”
“You cannot be serious. You’re with child.”
“And I’ll still be when you return. I’ll have a child here. Your child. And when you return, I want them to know how devoted and ambitious their father is. Ever since you treated me in the bottom of that pirate ship and told me of your dream, I have wanted this for you more than air itself. I know you say you’re happy here, but I know you better. I know you want this, Edmund. So please...let me give this to you.”
I let her hand rest atop mine and closed my eyes, feeling her warmth. She kissed my cheek, lingering for just a second longer than normal, and brushed a lock of my hair back.
“You’re going to do such great things.”
And I did.
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