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@@ -1559,7 +1559,7 @@ He shrugged. "Shame," said her father, "it'd help kill the worms in your hull."
 
 Anne and Jack and the crew spent two weeks on the beach. The crew helped her father frame out a new Delos. It still needed a mast, but they'd floated it and rowed it up the river. It was a slightly modified design her father believed would sail faster. Jack stood on shore watching Anne and her father trying to surf it in from its maiden voyage. "You know birdie, three years ago I started sailing in something not much bigger than that thing. I sailed into a Nassau two winters ago in a canoe. A canoe Birdie. It was a fine canoe. But look at that Birdie. He pointed down the beach at Revenge which was nearly upright, waiting for the tide to lift her enought to slide back out into deeper water, her hull sealed, her rigging the next thing to be worked on. 
 
-"That my girl, is a warship. I captured that vessel without firing a single shot. We simply rowed up. There was no wind that day, so we were rowing our canoe. We rowed up and they were so afraid of us they just gave up. I never thought I would see a day like this, when people like me, Anne, your father. When people like us would have our own ships." He took a large swig of rum from the small barrel in the sand.
+"That my girl, is a warship. I captured that vessel without firing a single shot. We simply paddled up. There was no wind that day, so we were padding our canoe. We rowed up and they were so afraid of us they just gave up. I never thought I would see a day like this, when people like me, Anne, your father. When people like us would have our own ships." He took a large swig of rum from the small barrel in the sand.
 
 "Sure, I dreamed of things like that, and maybe I even secretly thought maybe... maybe one day I'd have my own ship, nothing this big, but maybe one day the sea would grant me a ship, maybe I did think that was possible." He wiped his lips. "But good lord, look at that thing! It's a warship. People like us rule the sea right now. We have warships. This was not supposed to happen Bridie."
 
@@ -1760,13 +1760,62 @@ It was somber around the fire that night, Anne sat beside Jack, leaning into him
 
 "Not enough jack pine, too far north for them, there'd be no point to wintering there, we couldn't make tar. Same reason we sail right past Okracok"
 
+"You ever met that fellow, Dampier?"
 
+"The one's always writing? Once, yes, in London."
 
+"You don't sound impressed."
+
+Her father shrugged. "We had a pint in a tavern, I was headed out, he'd just come in."
+
+"I'd have thought you two'd have hit it off, scribblers the both of you," Ratham smiled. "And he's like you, not very interested in plunder, just wants to explore, sail off into the sunset. If he ever manages to command a ship, you'll never hear of him again."
+
+Her father snorted. "I don't think anyone is going to give Dampier a ship and I doubt he's got the resources to build one."
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure about that." Ratham said no more and the reflective silence once more fell over the small cluster around the fire.
+
+"Why'd you bring up Dampier?"
+
+"Hmm? Oh. I was thinking of a time he and I were crewed on a boat in Virginia. I helped him out with some troubles he was having."
+
+"That's mighty kind of you Jack," said Anne. 
+
+Jack shrugged. "His higher bred morals were unable to deal with the reality he found himself in so I helped him in exchange for some silver he'd taken on ship in the south seas. Other side of the isthmus."
+
+"He sailed round the horn?" Anne seemed surprised.
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that. He might have, but at least once he walked it. Over the Darien gap. The Kuna, that's the people that live down there, they hate the Spanish as much as anything so all you need to do is tell them you're headed to attack the Spanish and they'll up and join you, get you through the mountains, over the Pacific. That's the way he told it anyway." Jack paused and sat up to add another log the fire. A shower of sparks shot up in the dark. Lulu shivered.
+
+Anyway, one thing that doesn't get to the South Seas much, apparently, at least as far as I can tell from the stories I've heard, is the British Navy. It's all Spanish out there and they're spread far too thin right now to be able to control it. I don't know if the place has Jack Pine, but I do know, if I were looking to avoid the British, that's where I'd head."
+
+Lulu glanced at her father, he was staring into the fire lost in thought. She wondered what the south seas were like. She'd heard stories, Kobayashi had sailed the far side of them from his home in Japan, down though endless chains of islands, all covered in coconuts and mangos and surrounded by treacherous coral reefs, to a town named Batavia, where he'd somehow met up with her father, though both were rather vague on the details. 
+
+"You want to sail Revenge around the south seas eh Jack? Her father smiled. "I'd go with you in Delos if you did. That'd be a fine adventure. Wouldn't miss it for the world."
+
+Ratham laughed. "No, I like my Nassau. I like my clothes and my wine and my food, my Spanish Galleons. I'm a simple man, tk, I don't want adventure, I want more rum"
+
+"They have Galleons in the south seas you know. The fleet comes from the Philippines."
+
+"Oh I know, but the south seas go on forever. Thousands of leagues of ocean. Why try to locate a fleet in the midst of all that water, when you can just wait for them to sail through the straights of Florida and attack them there?"
+
+"Where's your sense of adventure Jack?" Anne elbowed him and then sat up to take a swig of rum." I think it'd be swell fun to sail round all that way. Shame you can't get a ship over that gap your man talked about though."
+
+"The Darien Gap? A ship over the... Anne you're mad."
+
+She shrugged. Anne drank and wiped her lips. "Anyway, tk, you're not seriously going to run all the way to the south seas because some lord from London comes along claiming you're stealing his trees? That'd be mad." 
+
+Her father did not answer immediately. Lulu heard Jack mumble under his breath, "that's a bit harsh don't you think. Anne? The man has children after all."
+
+Her father sighed. "This island is a wonderful place to make camp for the winter, but there are dozen of places to do that within a day's sail of here, and thousands more another day's sail beyond that. You can call it running if you want to, but that's not how I see it." Her father propped himself up on one elbow. "My people come from the high country, we got there following the water, just looking for a place we could exist undisturbed. But he kept having to go higher. So some of us turned around and went the other way, followed the water take to it's source. If we leave here it will just be more following the water, flowing on. Water never stops Anne. That river over there," her father gestured toward the tk river, "would you say it's running away from something? Or is it running toward something? I say it's doing neither? Is it just doing the thing it was given to do, to journey through the world as best it can, follow it's course out into the sea, and keep going on wherever the currents take it. The lowlanders, they think the rivers stop at the shore. You and I know that's not true. That water never stops flowing, nothing on this earth ever stops moving. Why would I? It's unnatural to stay in one place too long. Besides," her father smiled a broad, bright smile of the sort Lulu rarely saw him smile, "where's the adventure in sitting around some island all day?"
+
+Anne nodded and pushed her large hat back a little, smiling. "Well, when you put it like that..." She raised her mug to him and then took a drink. 
+
+Lulu's father nodded at her. Her eyelids where heavy and she found herself having a harder time focusing, but she thought he might have winked.
 
 
 ## Sails
 
-Lulu woke from a dream where she was gliding over the water, slow and smooth like a pelican, alone, her wing tips skimming the waves and watching the schools the fish dart from her shadow. And then she was in her usual body, lying on on a calico quilt on the sand, the sun already steaming the air around her, like a hidden kettle just coming to boil. She sat up and stretched and shook Birdie, who swatted at her. 
+Lulu woke from a dream where she was gliding over the water, slow and smooth like a pelican, alone, her wing tips skimming the waves and watching the schools the fish dart from her shadow. And then she was in her usual body, lying on a calico quilt on the sand. She sat up and stretched and shook Birdie, who swatted at her. 
 
 "Come on, Birdie, lets play what we were playing last night."
 
@@ -1776,8 +1825,145 @@ Birdie sat up groggy, rubbing her eyes gently as they had all learned to do in a
 
 "Oh right," Birdie turned away and scanned the sand. Birdie had a habit of flinging her dolls away from her just before she fell asleep. She was not a doll cuddler like Lulu. 
 
-It was Lulu who saw the doll and scrambled out of bed to grab it for her sister. She looked up from the doll 
+It was Lulu who saw the doll and scrambled out of bed to grab it for her sister. She looked up from the doll and saw a ship, not a ship far out at sea, but a ship at anchor, with a long boat rowing ashore. It was full of men in red coats.
+
+She lowered herself slowly down, not wanting to be spotted. She scuttled over to Birdie. "There's a ship anchored out by the bar. There's a boat rowing in full of soldiers."
+
+"What?" Birdie snapped awake. They gathered up their quilts and dolls and ran for camp. Their father was up, drinking some of the coffee Captain Jack had given him. Or maybe it was Anne. Lulu wasn't sure. She wanted to scream, but she did not. She forced herself to speaking clearly and slowly. There's a ship. Soldiers are rowing in. She watched her father's face. It flickered for just an instance, but otherwise he looked at her as if she had just told him about a shell she found on the beach. He took a sip of coffee. He swallowed.
+
+"Lu, get Henri and go with Kobayashi and Tambo. Ready Delos to sail. Birdie, I want you to stay with me."
+
+Lulu balked. She did not want her sister to stay. She started to protest. She glanced at Birdie and could tell she did not want to stay either. "Papa why? I want Birdie to come with us."
+
+"Lulu," he hissed, "Do as I say, and go."
+
+She ducked into the tent, Tambo and Kobayashi had a of sail cloth bag of their guns and swords already between then each was gather shot and powder. Lulu picked up the coppers and the iron skillet her father loved. Henri helped with a bag of shot. The four of them headed down the trail to the marsh, Lulu tried to think where the tide was. She thought about the boat coming in, she tried to see it in her memory, where was the surf line, she thought it was high, that would mean there would be enough water to easily float Delos, but it also meant it would be harder to 
+
+---
+
+"Do you know why I kept you behind?" Her father sat still drinking coffee, but she saw him glance frequently at the dunes behind her. 
+
+Birdie shook her head. She felt like she was going to explode. She understood what Anne had said once about battle. *Fear is different than being scared. Fear is feeling like you want to jump out of your skin and leave your body hehind*.
+
+Her father smiled. "I don't know what this man McPhail is like, but it's been my experience that most men are less likely to murder a man in front of his own children."
+
+Birdie felt herself floating up out of her body at these words. Her father was going to be murdered. He had gambled his life and her on a silly idea he formed somewhere along the way and she was about to pay for it by watching him die. 
+
+A shadow drifted down the dune, extending past her. It had a stick poking out the side of it. She knew there was a man behind her with a sword. Or a gun, she could not tell as the shadow was mangled in a clump of grass growing next to her, but either way, this was it. Her head felt heavy, her mouth went dry and she thought she was going to fall over. She forced herself to blink, to steady herself. *The way to master fear,* Anne had said, *is not to ignore it, it's to feel it, to acknowledge it, and then chose to focus on something else instead, focus on what you know you need to do at that moment, focus on something you have trained to do. Like fighting back.*
+
+Birdie slid her hand to her waist and gripped the handle of her knife. Things were happening slowly. Her father was talking she realized, but she had not heard what he said. He took another sip of coffee, set down his cup and stood with his hands raised in the air. "I am unarmed," he said. Slowly turning a circle so whomever was standing on the dune behind Birdie could see. I am not she thought. Was that part of her father's plan? Suddenly she felt foot steps trudging down the sand behind her, black boots passed her by, another pair stopped behind her. "Get up young lady" a voice commanded.
+
+She stood and looked behind her for the first time. The sun was low on the horizon, golden rays bouncing off the reflective calm of the morning sea. She could not see faces for the glare, but there were soldiers all around them. They wore white wigs, one of them had on a the three pointed hats her father was always making fun of. They all carried guns, many of them wore swords as well. They wore heavy red wool coats. Birdie knew this was what English soldiers wore, she heard her father and Tambo and Kobayashi talk about redcoats before, but she'd never really understood what that meant until she saw them. They were made of wool and looked heavy, heavier than any clothing Birdie could ever remember wearing. For some reason she fixated on this detail. It was not part of her training, it was not fighting back, but somehow it made her come back around to herself. She stopped floating a few inches above her self. She settled back into her body and mind. They were ill dressed. They had made a mistake of clothing. What other mistakes might they make? There was hope here. Nothing was over yet. No one was dead.
+
+---
+
+McPhail hadn't even come ashore with the landing party. Captain tk, the man whose shadow had first come sliding downt he dune behind her, had to send for McPhail. When he arrived he seemed, not particularly interested in either her or her father. No one bothered to chain them, no one said they were under arrest. No one did anything, though Birdie could feel, she knew, that they could not leave. 
+
+She spent most of the day trying to figure out what Lulu and the rest of her family were doing. She knew Delos was not in the marsh because the soldiers had gone down to the marsh to look around and come back and reported that there was nothing there. And yet it wasn't hard to tell that clearly it was not just her father and Aunt Māra, whom the soldier rounded up from the other end of the island, and her living here. The three of them sat around the cold ashes of the fire, her father and Aunt Māra sometimes whispering back and forth. Their voices were too low for Birdie to hear, but she could tell that her Aunt was mad at her father about something. Possibly about everything. 
+
+For once birdie was half glad that tksamuel was not here to see them. She felt helpless. She did not like this feeling. She didn't not want to admit she was helpless so she plotted ways she could escape. *focus on something you have trained to do*. Birdie wished she had trained to do something. They didn't drill much when they were on shore. She knew everything to do on the ship, that would have been like breathing. They'd never had been caught in the first places, but even if they had, no one would take their ship, she felt quite sure of that.
+
+But on land they never bothered. They had two rendevous points, depending on which way trouble came from. She assumed Delos and crew were at the river point, tied up in the clearing her father had made, up a channel in the cypress swamp. Not a perfect place to hide because there was no way to come bursting out of it, but a place very few people would ever think to look for a boat. It was a good place to lay low and wait for darkness. It was nearly a new moon, Delos would have a good dark night in which to come out of hiding and slip out into the ocean. Perhaps find Revenge, bring help of some kind. 
+
+"Get up," said a soldier. Birdie did not look up at him, instead she studied his boots, trying to memorize them. I will know you by your boots. "Captain McPhail wants to see you." The soldier kick at her feet, startling her. 
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Her?"
+
+"All of you."
+
+Her father stood up. "I will go, leave her out of this." 
+
+"All of you." He said, this time in a much more sinister voice that Birdie did not like. 
+
+She followed her father and aunt through the dunes and down the beach where McPhail, Birdie assumed it was McPhail, sat at small table reading through some papers. "Ah, the legendary captain tk."
+
+Birdie glanced at her father. Legendary? how did anyone from England ever know who they were?
+
+"I did not know we had met" said her father.
+
+"We have not. I am James McPhail," Captain Mcphail extend his hand and her father shook it. "And you are on my island."
+
+"Your island?"
+
+McPhail smiled. It was not an unpleasant smile. In fact Birdie did not thing McPhail was a particularly unpleasant person. But that made her nervous because her father always said it was the nice snakes you had to watch out for. The coiled snake hissing and ready to strike is easy to dodge, the one that gets you is the one you never say coming. Did she see McPhail coming? Did she need to? She could not decide.
+
+"Yes, this piece of paper makes this land my island. If you look here," McPhail held out the parchment to her father, "that is the king's signature."
+
+Her father never even glanced at it. "I am not English, so whether that is your king's signature or not," he smiled in nearly exactly the way McPhail had, slightly unpleasantly, but with that unplesantness under a thin veneer of pleasantry, "I could not say, but either way. I was not your island until you arrived and took it."
+
+"McPhail glanced around, out at the ship anchored offshore. "Well, as long as you recognize that it is mine now we're making progress. But I had rather hoped you were a reasonable man."
+
+Her father said nothing.
+
+"Because this island was mine the moment the king put ink to parchment, which was two years ago. Which makes you... that makes you a criminal Mr tk. You have stolen my trees, poached them like a common poacher. No different than the poachers taking my game in England. Do you know what happens to them?"
+
+"I expect you feed them to the dogs."
+
+McPhail smiled again, this time genuinely, his whole face lit up, "why yes, that's exactly what I do."
+
+For the first time McPhail glanced over at Birdie. She had drawn herself up to aunt's side as her father and McPhail talked, putting her left arm and hip into Aunt Māra's dress so that she could reach down and keep her hand on her knife. "this must be your wife and daughter."
+
+Birdie said nothing. Her father nodded.
+
+"Well I rather hate to do this in front of your family, I had really hoped perhaps we could work something out, but I can tell that that will not be possible. Which means I have no choice but to arrested you. 
+
+Birdie's heart leaped into her throat. Her father just shrugged. "Do what you need to."
+
+"Where will I find the rest of your, em, crew? entourage?"
+
+"You won't."
+
+McPhail scowled. "You do think you're very clever don't you? I don't think your crew are likely to get far with my warship sitting here do you?"
+
+"Is that yours? A minute ago it was your majesty's."
+
+This time McPhail smiled cruelly. "Do you see a king anywhere around us?"
+
+"No I don't"
+
+"Well that's because I am his majesty's emmessary. He did not deem it necessary to come all this way on this piddly little errand, he entrusted me to do it for him."
+
+"Did he? Well, let me ask you something Mr McPhail, do you see a king around here?"
+
+"McPhail frowned. "I think we already established that. Have you been drinking?
+
+"Do you see an army around here?"
+
+Birdie noticed McPhail almost imperceptibly flinch, "I do Mr tk. I see an infantry company that's about to take you to charlestown to be tried for trespass on the kings land."
+
+Her father ignored the last statement, but he glanced around looking at the soldiers. "I see an infantry company of 14 men, and one warship of 32 guns. And if I were you McPhail." Her father paused and stared directly into McPhail's eyes. "If I were you that would make me very nervous."
+
+Her father turned and began to walk back toward camp. Birdie glanced breifly at McPhail whose mouth was gaping open and shut like a fish out of water, and then she darted off after her father, her aunt running right behind her. They caught up and the three of them walked together through the dunes.
+
+"Birdie stays with me. Māra, the boat will try to get out tonight, I want you on it."
+
+"The soldiers will have us in irons after that performance."
+
+Her father smiled. "Me probably, not you. His ego won't let him chain women in front of the crew. He's the sort of man who will only do awful things when he thinks no one is looking."
+
+"You have much more confidence in your ability to read people than I do."
+
+Her father said nothing. They heard McPhail yell something. Birdie started to turn, but her father caught her arm. "forward Birdie, no looking back. You don't react, the minute you react they're in charge. Always keep them reacting to you. Even when it seems crazy." He smiled at her. The three of them stopped in the shelter of the dunes, out of sight of both the beach and the soldiers back in camp. "It's okay Birdie. We're going to be fine. You and I are going to Charlestown. Most likely by wagon. We may be separated, but don't worry, don't react. Trust that I will come get you. No matter what happens, I will come for you."
+
+Birdie said nothing. there was a hard lump in her throat and she felt scared. Not fear, not the electric aliveness of fear, but scared. She nodded because she did not trust herself to speak without crying. She heard the clinking of metal, the sound of soldiers running.
+
+"They're going to chain me up Birdie. Remember. Everything is going to be okay. You have to believe that."
+
+A soldier crested the hill point a rifle at them. Her father raised his hands over his head and stepped away from Māra and Birdie. "Easy soldier, it's me you want, don't point that at them."
+
+The soldier said nothing, but he swung the rifle clear of Birdie and Māra while keeping it trained on her father. Two more soldiers came over the dunes. One of them carried irons. They placed the manacles around her father's wrists. They turned him around and pushed him forward, toward the camp. Birdie and Māra followed and the soldier with the gun brought up the rear.
+
+---
+
+The sound of iron clanging woke Birdie. Every time her father rolled over, the chains on his wrists clanged together with a terrible clanging sound. She stretched her back and reached her arm out for Māra and felt nothing. Her heart started, but she was careful not to react. She continued her stretch and rolled over again. How had aunt Māra slipped out so quietly. Birdie tried to imagine her sliding out the back of the hut. Her father had made a trapdoor in the the wall that allowed anyone sleeping against the way to slip out very quietly. He and Tambo had taken turns practicing slipping out of it queitly, but so far as Birdie knew, Aunt Māra had never practiced. Apparently she did not need to Birdie thought. From there one rolled a short distance in sand and there was a small shrub you could use for cover while you stood up and stealed yourself. Then it was just a matter of slipping quietly down the path and out of camp. Once Aunt Māra, or any of the rest of them, were in the woods the soldiers didn't stand a chance. This was what her father had always told them anyway. Get the the woods and move quietly. Most people cannot move as queitly as we can and so we can avoid them.
+
+Birdie wasn't sure what their plan was, she had not paid much attention to the half whispers and nudnges that her Aunt and her father shared the afternoon after they put him in irons. She had been too struck by the fact that her Aunt seemed once more her Aunt. She was not a wandering ghost pacing the island. She did not seem numb and unable to see you, she looked at you again and while Birdie was still afraid, this was one good thing she had found in an afternoon she had spent mainly trying to thing of good things she could think of, because every time she looked over and saw the iron manacles on her father's arms she had trouble thinking of good things. The whole world seemed wrong. her sister and brother and the rest of her family were hiding somewhere in a swamp, trapped up the river by a 32 gun British warship and her father was in chains and he had warned her that they would be separated and none of this made Birdie feel anything but bad and scared and afraid and she wished she had a mother to hug her and tell her everything was going to be alright even if it wasn't.
+
+Even now somewhere out in that blackness her people were trying to slip out of that river mouth, past the warship and off to find help. At least she hoped that was the plan. All she'd really heard was what McPhail had said, that the ship would likely make a run for it tonight and to have to watch doubled. But Birdie knew that the mouth of the river to the south of edisto was not the only way out of the marsh. So long as the ship could get downstream to the marsh undetected she could turn south, ride the high tide through the marsh to the south and come out much farther south, well out of cannon range. They would still see her though, there were no black sails on Delos, but her father had always said she was the fastest ship on the sea, so, as long as they could make it to the see, Birdie was confident they would get away. 
 
+Aunt Māra getting away was the beginning of that plan and that had worked. So far so good. Birdie rolled over toward the wall of grass siding. She wished she could slip out the hidden door and disappear. But she could not leave her father.