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@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ No good guys, no bad guys. her father helps both ratham and mcphail. Warns mcpha Birdie the artist, Lulu the what? What does Lulu do? We need to get deeper into the kids playing at some point. Maybe this chapter something about them making figures and playing. Or perhaps playing in the Arkhangelsk. Could I insert adventures of the Arkhangelsk as little mini stories within the story? Or should I do that with Papa's stories? I kind of like it as a tale within a tail. Maybe that's Lulu's talent, telling stories. Birdie pants pictures, Lulu tells stories, Henri has adventures or writes maybe? - +| Mary Harvey (or Harley), alias Mary Farlee | | 1725-1726 | | In 1725, Mary Harvey and her husband Thomas were transported to the Province of Carolina as felons. In 1726, Mary and three men were convicted of piracy. The men were hanged but Mary was released. Thomas, the leader of the pirates, was never caught. https://www.geni.com/projects/Pirates-in-Petticoats/389 # Overplot: @@ -983,7 +983,7 @@ Lulu sat down next to her sister. Henri slumped down into the sand and busied hi This time, after they all fell silent, Henri looked up from a drawing he had made. "You can call back an arrow you know. You just have to tie a string around it before you shoot it." -## Ann Fulford +## Chapter 7 Ann Fulford The kiln fires burned for nearly a full cycle of the moon. The children tended the fires, Tamba, Kobayashi, and Papa tended the tar. There was still time to play, time to fish, time to climb trees, wade through the marsh in search of bird eggs, and time to sit around the fire at night listening to stories. Birdie and Lulu fished the bank whenever they could. There was a barrel half full of dried fish carefully stowed in Delos' hold to trade when they went to Charlestown. @@ -1017,15 +1017,94 @@ She said something they couldn't here to the man, and a third man came up out of Birdie saw out of the corner of her eye that Tamba and her father were both staring now, open mouthed. "Not the first time she's done that," her father muttered. Then he seemed to gather his wits again and slid down the dune they were standing on to greet the stranger. +Three men lowered a boat and came ashore in the usual manner to join the woman who was talking now with her Father. Lulu and Birdie stood on top the dune, watching as her father and Tamba greeted the strangers. Birdie wasn't sure where Kobayashi was, but she suspected he was in a tree with a rifle somewhere. Her father might like to pretend he welcomed every ship, but he was careful too. He made sure someone had his back and he there's whenever a new ship showed it's face. It seemed to Birdie though that this was probably a waste of time. There was a woman on this boat. Birdie had only twice before encountered women on boats and both times they were passing as men. At least they seemed to be. Birdie knew at once but no one else seemed to, or they pretended not to, it was hard to know. + +This was the first time she'd seen a woman being a woman and being a sailor and she was pretty sure this woman was her hero. She watched in awe as she shook her father's hand like a man, smiled and laughed freely. She was Birdie realized with a rush, just like Lulu and herself. Only bigger. Older. Was it possible to remain as she was now as she grew older? She had never really considered this until now. She had never really seen herself in any adult, even those she looked up to like her father and Tamba and Kobayashi, not even in Aunt Māra. She loved them all, but she was not like them, this she knew deep down in some place that she had not thought up or created through her experience. Some place that was just there, had always been there and would always be there she assumed. She was not like them. She was like this woman. This smiling, laughing, singing, swearing, hatchet-packing, trouser-wearing woman. + +Lulu who stood silent beside seemed to feel the same way when she said suddenly, "Who is that woman?" + +"I don't know." Was all Birdie could say. + +"I want to know." + +"Me too," + +Come on, let's go down there." Lulu started down the dune toward the adults. Birdie hesitated for an instant and then bounded after her. + +They broke awkwardly into the semicircle of adults who were still laughing at some story. Her father glanced around and seeing Lulu and Birdie moved behind them and said, "these are my daughters, Lulu and Birdie." + +The men tipped their hats, one of them said, nice to meet you ladies, but neither Lulu or Birdie looked anywhere but at the face of the woman, who Birdie now saw was not only a woman sailor, but beautiful as well, with striking green eyes that seems to sparkle and glitter as the evening light bounced off the river beside them. + +"My goodness tk father's name, what beautiful children." She stepped forward with a kind pretend formality and offered her hand to Birdie. Birdie smiled shyly, but shook her hand. The woman did not return her shake, instead she gripped her hand firmly and turned her arm over gently back and forth. She murmured and nodded. "You're a sailor?" + +"Yes ma'am." + +"Oh, don't ma'am me my dear. My name is Sarah. Call me Sarah, please." + +"Okay Sarah." She released Birdie's hand and turned to Lulu to repeat the handshaking. After which she turned away and nodded to her father. "Where is there mother?" + +"She's dead." It was Birdie who said it. It just popped out of her mouth before she had formed the thought. + +Her father nodded once. There was an uncomfortable silence. + +"I am sorry." Ann wrung her hands and seemed temporarily at loss for words. + +"It was a long time ago now," her father said at last. + +Tamba, who had been starring at the sad little ship sitting on the sandbar, spoke up now. "We need to get your ship off that bar. I don't think the tide is going to do it, we'll need some long lines to pull her back when the ebb tide starts." He glanced inland. "Which should before the sun is behind those trees." + +The men climbed back in the boat to bring lines ashore to help pull the boat off the sandbar. Birdie and Lulu took Sarah to camp. There was an awkward silence when they arrived to find no one else there. Birdie had a assumed Aunt Māra would be starting dinner, but she was nowhere to be found. Birdie stirred the ashes of the fire and laid in some grass and twigs, building up the fire. She turned around to get larger pieces of wood and found Sarah behind her, a bundle of wood under her arm. Birdie smiled. "Thank you." + +Birdie took the wood and laid it carefully into the fire, making sure not to choke the flames. Sarah sat down on a log. "How long have you been here?" + +Birdie considered this for a moment. "Two moons I think." + +"Two moons?" Sarah chuckled. "I expect it's been longer than that if you're counting time in moons. Where did you grow up?" + +Birdie glanced at Lulu. Lulu shrugged. "Here. The sea. Summer camp." + +"Summer camp? Where's that?" + +Lulu and Birdie glanced at each other. "Up north." This was the answer her father always gave strangers. Birdie wasn't entirely sure why he didn't just say Block Island since that's where they had stayed the last two years, but he didn't, so she didn't. + +Sarah laughed again. "You two are suspicious of me aren't you? Well, I suppose you ought to be.But I promise, I am not your enemy." + +"No ma'am." Birdie looked down, ashamed at being called out for not trusting a stranger, but still not able to trust her. She busied herself with a kettle, boiling water to make a tea. + +"Do you want to know where I am from?" + +Birdie considered this, and realized that, although she was about to say yes because it was the polite thing to do, the truth was she did not care. She did not know where Tamba was from beyond the vague understanding that he came from tk Africa. Kobayashi came from Japan. Kadiatu's family was from tk Africa. She already knew Sarah probably came from Ireland since her voice reminded Birdie of Uncle Cole who was from Ireland. Beyond that it did not much matter out here. It mattered who you were, what you did every day that made up who you were, not who you used to be or where you came from. That was something the British cared so much about and the people Birdie knew made it a point not to care about at all. Her father made it a point to tell them they were Alban, that they were different in some regards, that they were to hold themselves to a higher standard, this Birdie understood very clearly, but it was not because of where they came from, they did not come from anywhere, they were just out here, they had alway been out here. + +Still, Birdie nodded. But she'd been slow on the draw and Sarah realized it and so she smiled and looked down and said nothing for a moment. When she looked up there was something different about her eyes, like she understood Birdie somehow. "You don't care at all do you?" + +Birdie liked her more instantly. She smiled. "If you want to tell me about where you came from I would love to hear about it." + +Sarah took off her hat and then her kerchief that held back her red-brown hair. She gathered up her hair and twisted it in her hands. "I'm from a couple islands up the way," was all she said. + +Where ar eyou going. + +"I want to get to New Providence Island. I want to join a crew." + +Lulu and Birdie glanced at each other. Several ship that had careened the previous year had called New Providence Island home. The men on those ships described it as a kind of chaoic paradise. Lulu and Birdie had found their stories hard to believe. Still, Bridie understood wanting to sail and the idea that Sarah really was a sailor made a kind of light buoyant feeling swelled in her and made her feel like she was larger and could do anything. + +"You know how to sail then? + +"I'm learning. I could be better, that's why I want to join a crew. If they'll have me." + +Birdie smiled, but said nothing. She knew many wouldn't. She'd never wanted to be part of a crew though. She'd always wanted a ship. Her own ship. But then she didn't need to learn how to sail. + +Lulu spoke up for the first time, "You certainly know how to make an entrance. You were just like the stories the pirates tell." +Sarah raised her eyebrows and glanced back and forth between the girls. "You hear a lot of pirate stories do you?" +Birdie shrugged. Lulu went on. "Half the ships that careen here are pirate. Or hope they will be." -### Campfire Talk +## Campfire Talk There was a day, just before the moon that would mark the equinox, when the heat broke. Everyone knew it would return again at least once more, but for a few short days, it was deliciously cool and the breeze came inland in the afternoons. The sago palm fronds clattered in the wind, a clicking ticking sound like the women's shoes on the plank sidewalks of Charlestown. |