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Chapter 20~ Return to Cape Town
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My cheek was pressed against a hard, sticky surface. My body was twisted and sprawled on the floor and my heart was beating heavy in my chest. I opened my eyes as the fuzziness began to dissolve away. A rough hand was shaking my back and a faint voice was calling. I couldn’t be on the Quedagh Merchant. The earth was far too stable.
“Hey! Hey, lad, get up! Come on, up off the floor,” a man’s voice barked in my ear.
I clutched at the floor and found only my left arm remaining once again. I was in the pub. I had never left the pub. So, it was all a dream.
The man helped me up on my feet and brought me over to a seat at the bar.
“You must be blasted out of your damn mind, lad. Sit a minute. I’ll bring over some water.”
The man disappeared while I tried to rack my mind for some sort of explanation. I looked over at the two musicians who were beginning a new cheery tune. All those who had stared at me before had returned to their drinks.
“Here,” the man said, sliding a mug of water my way, “Drink this.”
I grunted shortly and took a quick sip of the bitter water. “Many thanks,” I said, eyes lowered.
“Aye, you sure you can get home alright?”
I shook my head. “Don’t have a home.”
“Oh.” The man returned behind the bar and I recognized him as the bartender. “That’s too bad, laddie.”
I shrugged it off and took another drink. I hadn’t ever been drunk enough to start seeing visions. In fact, I didn’t feel drunk at all.
“Uh, lad,” the bartender chirped. He pointed to my stump of a shoulder. “You’re, uh, bleeding there.”
I looked over at my shoulder and noticed a new red stain forming on my shirt.
“Got it.” I shoved aside the water, grabbed my half-finished pint of ale, and took a long chug.
The bartender watched me—watched my arm—and began filling another frothy pint for me. “Mind me asking how that happened? Quite a nasty look to it.”
I eyed the bartender suspiciously. He slid a new pint my way and I rested my arm on the bar edge.
“Cut off. By a pirate.”
“Like hell!” the amazed bartender effused. “Which one?”
“William Kidd.”
The man shook his head with an astonished air. “Oh, I’ve heard of him. The infamous Captain Kidd. What a devil. He’s been around these parts—or at least he used to.”
I raised my eyes suddenly, comprehendingly. “What?”
“You dumb, lad? I said Kidd has ventured this port before. I believe you might be more blasted than I thought. I ought to get you some more water.”
I grabbed his arm before he walked away and I bore my eyes into his own. “Tell me more.”
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Returning to the inn was nearly like breaking the sleep of the dead. Reyes was blacked out on a chair by the dying hearth, snoring lightly. Beside him was an empty flask he must’ve hidden well from Constantine. I padded across the main room and into the bedroom where Constantine slept soundly. The window was cracked open, letting the night air in and raising the hairs on my arms. Constantine always did enjoy the cool air. I watched her fair-skinned back rise and fall in a perfect rhythm. Her long hair had been released from its usual confines and spilled out behind her. The moonlight fell on her face. Every inch of her expression was so still and peaceful. Hard guilt found its way into my bones. Only an hour ago I’d been imagining a life without her. Without our experiences. Without our love. Without our child.
I pulled my shirt over my head and kicked off my boots. I slid into the cold bed next to her and laid a hand across her stomach.
It was almost too amazing to believe. There was a child growing in there—my child. But, what did I know about being a father when my father was gone too soon? What did Constantine see in me that I couldn’t see in myself?
I nuzzled my chin into her shoulder and sighed, drifting slowly off into a dreamless sleep. Could this be enough for us?
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We left the inn first thing that next morning, solely following the vague directions given to me by the pub’s bartender. It took quite a bit of convincing for Reyes to see beyond his own desires while Constantine barely believed me at all. Not a one of us knew what we were walking into or whether there would even be anything left. We had two pistols between the three of us and only a handful of bullets. Not enough to take down an entire army of Kidd’s men.
“There,” Constantine said, tying the end of my fresh bandage. Her fingers brushed my stump and shivered every time. I knew how hard it was for her to be reminded of that night on the Adventure Galley—the flames, the gunfire, the pools of my blood circling her feet. I had the nightmares too. Only in those, I wouldn’t wake up after.
I tried to clean it myself, dress myself, do everything myself no matter how difficult it became at times. But, whenever I turned around, she was there and ready with open hands. They trembled and it was slow for her to help, being overly careful at times. And if I winced, her face would tighten up as if it hurt her ten times more.
I stood from the bed and examined my wound and the fresh white bandage. She began slipping my shirt over my head, purposefully avoiding brushing the fabric against my stump. As I did my belt, she began knotting up the excess sleeve. Her knuckle knocked against a tender spot and I sucked in a sharp breath. Her hands retracted back like she’d touched poison. They shook and she tried hiding them away in her hair.
I looked at her. “Love, you don’t have to.”
“Have to what?” she said, ignoring my empathetic gaze and returning to knotting.
I wrapped a hand around hers and felt the trembling in her cold fingers. “You’re shakin’ like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She stopped and swallowed hard, not speaking.
I shook my head low. “I know this is hard for you. You don’t have to try to help.”
She looked up at me and grasped my hand back. “But, it isn’t. Hard for me. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. It’s not like anything happened to me.”
“Don’t say that.”
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“Maybe not. But, now you know.” I tightened my hand around hers and pressed it to my chest. “Now you know what it was like for me, comin’ back to you every night in that bloody room and havin’ to watch you suffer because of Tew. Some days, I didn’t know whether I’d come back to find you dead. I felt like someone was tearin’ me clean apart.”
Constantine pressed her face into my shoulder. “I don’t want to feel this way. But, I just…I can’t seem to let myself forget.”
I wrapped a hand around her head and pressed my lips into her hair. My eyes bore into the open air of our room, ready to burn a hole straight through the world. My stomach flamed in anger every time I thought about it. It was years ago. So long ago. But, the fear had never left me. Not for a minute.
“Doesn’t matter, love. You never will.”
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It rained the morning we left for Gretchen. I knew I should’ve taken that as a sign just like Reyes did. It had been over two weeks since the last rain and the earth opened up to it like a forlorn lover. The sky was white and grey all over, casting a long shadow over the town. The clouds sat low across the high mountaintops surrounding the small city, sinking lower and lower with the weight of the rain. I walked out of the inn with a heaviness on my shoulders. All I had from the bartender was a vague direction, nearly the same as Kidd’s. Behind the lion’s head…
I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out.
“Maybe ahh…una taberna we have not yet seen? Lion’s Head?” Reyes suggested, tucking himself underneath the canopy of a nearby market stand.
I shook my head, handing over a few coins to the merchant of the stand as he gave Reyes and Constantine a loaf of bread and a black leather flask of water. “No, I’ve swept every inch of this town. No place called Lion or Lion’s Head.”
“Maybe it isn’t a place,” Constantine began, breaking off a piece of the loaf for Reyes. He took it from her and silently nibbled at the crust. “Maybe it’s a ship. Any brigs in the docks called Lion’s Head?”
I shook my head again. “Kidd said specifically that the cabin was in Cape Town. Behind the lion’s head.”
“But, what does that mean?” she pressed.
I tightened my face. “I dunno!” I exclaimed too loudly.
Constantine and Reyes shrunk back for a moment.
I ran my hand over my face, feeling the frustration bubble under my skin. “I dunno,” I continued quieter this time. “I wish I had even a tiny idea of what it meant, but I bloody don’t. And for all we know, Gretchen could be dead by now.”
Constantine cautiously reached out a hand. “Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”
I tried to pull my scattered feelings together as Constantine stroked my head. Reyes stood alone in the rainy market square, gazing out across the mountaintops and the back of the city. I watched him for a moment and noticed his stare—his intense and engrossed stare.
“Reyes,” I called.
He turned and looked back at me, pointing to a small mountain peak separating the city.
“Una montaña!” he called back over the noise of the rain shower.
I came out from under the market stall and stood beside him in the rain. In the distance was a sharp, rocky mountain that had seemed to erupt from the earth. Though it was masked in the foggy cover of the rainclouds, the shape was distinguishable enough. The top had a strange shape that I couldn’t make out. In another moment, Constantine joined my side and peered out with a curious squint.
“I remember that mountain,” she said, shielding her head from the rain with an old jacket, “I remember it from the last time we came here.”
“It is strange. But, I do not know why…” Reyes said.
“That’s because it doesn’t look like a normal mountain. You see, it looks like…” Her sentence fell off and she stopped.
I looked at her and saw the same intense gaze that Reyes had moments before. Her blue eyes sparkled and glistened in the rain. Her eyebrows knit together and I searched her face for an answer. Suddenly, she dug deep into her pockets, fiercely pulling at cloth until she came back with a small figurine. She held it in her fingers lovingly. I quickly noticed it was the wooden lion figure I had carved for her while we were aboard The Amity. Many of the details had smoothed over after years of her touch. She ran a thumb over the face. I couldn’t believe she still kept it after all these years.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted as a sudden realization crossed her face. “Like a lion.”
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