Virginia Chandler

The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming collection of short stories by Virginia Chandler titled Weather Witch: Tales from The Pearl Inn. This work is copyrighted and no one (except Virginia Chandler) has the right to copy or distribute without permission. Enjoy, if you will, and kindly respect the author’s rights.

The Black Spot

‘“But what is the black spot, captain?” I asked.

“That’s a summons, mate. I’ll tell you if they get that. But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I’ll share with you equals, upon my honour.”

From Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

            It was just past midnight on Block Island, early autumn, and the crescent moon was scarcely visible behind the wispy clouds. I had closed the inn for the night, prepared myself a hot cup of tea, and was about to retire when this poor fellow came softly knocking on the inn’s back door.

            He needed discretion, he told me. His ship was out at sea with his small crew; he had rowed himself ashore, alone. He was tall and muscular with skin as dark as ebony. His clothes were somewhat worn, but not ragged. He had leather boots and belt along with two pistols strapped to each hip. His accent was strongly Caribbean, but he spoke English fluently. Here was a man who had the aura of wealth and confidence, but the odor of fear…and something else…clung to him like rotten seaweed.

            He claimed to know my brother, the pirate Paulsgrave Williams, for it was on Paul’s advice that he had come here, seeking my aid.

            ]]]

“Let’s start with your name,” I coaxed the stranger, “Your real name. I cannot help you unless I know that much.”

I had led him into the common room and offered him a plate of hot food. He sat next to the fire and shivered slightly. He seemed very tired, but his eyes were wide and alert.

“Alright,” he said as he eagerly accepted the plate of food, “I was named Ayo at my birth, but since then, I have been called many names. Ayo, though, is my true name.”

            “Does Ayo have a meaning to your people? Your family?” I asked.

            “It does. It means ‘warrior’,” Ayo grinned.

“And why are you here, Ayo? Why did Paul think I could help you?”

“I am cursed,” Ayo’s voice broke with the words, “I am wrongly cursed, but still cursed.”

“Aye, I see,” I sighed, “Well, tell me all that you can. If I can help you, I certainly will.”

            Ayo sighed and closed his right hand, making a soft fist. His eyes were clear, but his breath trembled.

            “I took a great prize some years ago, down in the Straits of Florida. A prize so great, Marianne, that I could not remain anywhere in the Caribbean, or even on this side of the world. So, I took my small crew and we made our way to Madagascar, not unlike other buccaneers running from the gallows. We had heard of the island, ile aux Forbans, which is in the bay of Sainte Maria’s township, Ambodifotatra. It was a paradise for pirates, we had heard, and so that is where we went with our ship’s hold filled with Spanish gold and jewels.

            We found ile aux Forbans well to our liking: Women, rum, exotic foods, warm nights, and soft sand. What was not to love? I became friends with your brother, Paul and ‘The Buzzard’, Olivier Levasseur. Although, neither of them spent much time pirating. ile aux Forbans was a rather quiet place, for pirates anyway, and most came there for respite and for some, retirement. I think that was your brother’s plan.

            Not long after my arrival, I met a beautiful, dark-skinned women in ile aux Forbans. I was in a shithole tavern called The Scurvy Knave drinking rum and feeling like maybe I had finally found my true freedom. And then…

I sensed her approach before I saw her. She moved with a confidence and mystery that could, and did, silence a room full of drunken, wild pirates. Her approach felt…it felt like I was on the shore and a great current was pulling the water away from me, forming a dark, large wave.

            Our first night, and for many nights thereafter, I felt passion and exhilaration like I had never felt before. I cannot say that it was ‘love’, you know, it was outside of love and yet I felt it in my soul…do you understand?”

            I nodded, “I believe that I do, Ayo. What was her name?”

            “Ideah,” Ayo pronounced the word slowly and carefully, “The people of her tribe, though, called her ‘Queen Ideah’, and treated her with royal respect.”

            “Ah, a priestess of her people perhaps? Did she wear jewelry? Rings? Tattoos?” I asked, beginning to sense that Ideah might be more than just a tavern wench.

            “Aye, she wore a golden serpent bracelet on her right forearm, very thick and heavy, and she had a tattoo of a similar design encircling her left arm. She wore no rings that I recall, but she often wore a seashell necklace made from a slender golden chain.”

            “And this is the woman who cursed you?” I asked.

            “No, it was not her,” Ayo’s face fell with grief, “Ideah is dead.”

            “Oh dear,” I reached out and touched Ayo’s arm gently, “I am sorry to hear that.”

            Ayo’s voice dropped almost to a whisper as he continued.

“Do you know the Malagasy ritual of Turning of the Bones? No? I will tell you, then,  as it is both strange and beautiful, at least to me, and it is when Ideah was killed.

The natives of Madagascar are a proud people with many long held traditions. Honoring their ancestors is very close to their hearts.  The Turning of the Bones is when a family goes to their ancestors’ burial cave and tend to the bones of the dead. They wrap the bones in new shrouds, they sing to the bones, they dance with the bones…they listen to the bones. The ritual usually goes on for several days. The family will invite friends and other tribal members to join them.

After a few months of being together, Ideah asked me to join her in the Turning of the Bones for her ancestors, and I was excited to do so. Ideah’s ancestors’ cave was north of Ambodifotatra, about a day’s hike through dense jungle. There were probably thirty of us going to the ritual. There was singing and laughing as we made our way. There was no whisper, no hint, of the horror to come.

I did have the sense of being watched, though. When I said something to Ideah about it, she told me that it was the eyes of the ancestors upon us. But to me, it did not feel friendly. It felt like we were being hunted.

Once we arrived at the cave, the ritual began immediately. Fires were built and lit, food was prepared, and the fresh shrouds were laid out upon the rocks at the cave’s entrance. At sunset, the family members entered the cave. They brought flowers, food, and herbs as offerings for their dead. I could hear them singing, and I was surprised that these were not mournful songs of laments…they were songs of welcome and joy.  The family was coaxing the spirits to come outside. To dance. To celebrate.

When Ideah’s family emerged from the cave, they were carrying the shrouds that held the bones of their ancestors.  They laid the shrouds atop the new ones and then wrapped them again, very carefully and gently.  The shrouds were then blessed with perfumes and oils while the priestesses prayed.

And then the feasting began!  Three days and nights of food and drink that never ran dry. We danced and sang, we made love, we shouted at the stars…it was…bliss.”

Ayo became very quiet then. He looked away from me, and I could see a tear on his cheek. His breathing was shallow and shaky.

That was when I saw a shadow emerge from behind him. And then another. And another. I gasped when I realized that Ayo had a host of shadows around him.  How had I not seen them before?

“Ayo,” I said, “Please forgive me. I will be right back.”

I went upstairs to my room and retrieved a bag of herbs and my silver blade. Back in the common room, I lit more candles. I took some coals from the fire and placed them in a cast iron bowl. Atop the coals, I sprinkled herbs from the bag and then waved my blade over the smoke, whispering words of banishment as I did so.

“What are you doing?” Ayo asked, his eyes narrowing.

“You are not alone,” I replied, “Your curse seems to include the shadows of the dead following you. They are not welcome, though, in my presence, so they will have to leave.”

“You are banishing them? The curse will be gone?” Ayo was excited.

“No,” I said soberly, “I can banish them from my presence, but they will return when you leave. But now, tell me the rest of the tale. All is not lost, Ayo, I may be able to break your curse.”

The shadows retreated and then faded. No, I do not like the uninvited dead in my presence.  I whispered another forceful, “Be Gone!”, and then turned my attention back to my guest.

“On the third day,” Ayo continued, “I woke alone. Ideah was not beside me as she usually was. It was the day to return the bones to the cave, and so that was what we prepared to do. No one thought it terribly odd that Ideah was not at the sunrise meal, but as the morning went on and the shrouds were readied for their return, we began to wonder where she had gone.

We knew soon enough, and it was terrible. When her family took the ancestors’ bones back into the cave, they discovered a new burial shroud. But there was more than bones in this one. It was a body.  Cold and stiff with a shroud that was shamefully bloodied and torn. When the body was brought out of the cave and the shroud unwrapped, a wailing of grief filled the jungle. It was my Ideah, and the loudest wailing was coming from me.

Her throat had been cut. No, it was more than that. Her throat was torn. Like an animal had ripped her flesh with jagged teeth.

After the initial shock, anger and grief created a dangerous storm of suspicion. To the Malagasy, this was more than an outrage; more than a betrayal; this was sao, forbidden…an abomination that could only be answered with the death of the betrayer.  

The suspicion quickly fell upon me. I was the outsider, the pirate, the rough Caribbean man who surely did not understand their ways. I was bound and blindfolded and marched back to Ambodifotatra, where word spread of what had happened.

Your brother, Paul, and Levasseur, tried to intervene. They suggested an investigation and trial were surely necessary before anyone could be charged as guilty.  Ideah’s people would not hear a word of it.  Neither gold, nor jewels, nor any amount of reasoning could persuade them, and believe me, Marianne, I did try. So did your brother.

So I was condemned. I was taken into the jungle, stripped naked, and bound atop a massive, flat stone that was well stained with the blood of others who had been found guilty of sao. A priestess took a black blade from her belt and laid the tip into the flames of a fire they had built. When it was glowing hot, she took my right hand and within the tender flesh of my palm, she pressed the hot blade.

I screamed, of course, even though I was trying to be brave. I was still grieving for Ideah, and the shock of being accused of her murder and then being sentenced to death…after finding paradise…well I was empty, Marianne. My soul felt completely empty.  While I was not ready to die, I felt an incredible sense of anticipation. At that moment, I just wanted it to be done.   

What happened next was a blur, but later I was told that Paul and Levasseur had gathered a small group of pirates who interrupted my execution and rescued me. All I remember is lots of shouting and cursing, the firing of flintlocks, and someone grabbing me and dragging me through the jungle. I was taken to my ship where my crew were waiting, ready to sail. Paul and Levasseur knew that they, too, would have to abandon our pirate paradise. The Malagasy do not forgive sao, and now Paul, Levasseur, and their men were also marked as betrayers. We all had to go; there was no other way.

Paul, though, after seeing the mark upon my hand, told me to seek you out, Marianne. He said that the curse, the Black Spot, was placed upon me falsely. The curse could probably be broken, he said, but he knew of only one person who could do it. And that is you. So, I laid a course to come to Block Island, and here I am.”

]]]

            “A Black Spot, eh? Let me see,” I said.

            Ayo seemed to shrink as I said the words. His shoulders fell as he placed his head into his rough, calloused hands.

            “You are my last…no, my only hope,” He said in a whisper. “I have wealth in plenty to pay you.”

            “I will gladly take your coin and jewels,” I studied his troubled and scarred face as I spoke, “but, the Black Spot is a powerful root. I am surprised that a Malagasy priestess would use it. It’s origins are in the Caribbean, not Africa.”

            He drew in a deep breath that was almost a moan, “It is, I know, but I tell you, it was placed upon me in error. I did not kill Ideah. This curse belongs to someone else.”

            “Sloppy and ugly magic, if you speak true,” I clucked my tongue. “Let me see your hand.”

            He hesitated only a moment. He then held out his right hand, palm up, for me to examine. The ash skin was dark and leathery, calloused with years of living on the sea, but there in the center of his right hand was indeed a darker area. It looked like a burn, puffy and blistered, and he shrank his hand back when I tried to touch it.

            “It is painful?” I asked.

            “Yes.”

            “That is odd,” I murmured, “I have not heard of a Black Spot that was painful. Hmm…”

            Perhaps the curse was tainted.

            “Well, Ayo, I think I can remove this curse, but you are going to have to trust me like you have probably never trusted another human being. I am going to ask you do something that will be the most terrifying thing you have, or likely ever will, do. You will not want to do it. You will want to run away and never see me again. But, it is the only way that I know,” I pronounced soberly.

            “It cannot be worse than having the dead follow me everywhere I go. Torturing me with their whispers of hate, whether I am sleeping or waking. I cannot live like this, Marianne, please help me,” Ayo replied.

            “So be it,” I said, “I am going to draw you a bath so you can wash off the sea and then we can begin. There is enough time that, I think, we can do this tonight. Do you have anything that belonged to Ideah?”

            “I do,” Ayo reached under his tunic and revealed a slender, golden chain that had seashells woven into it.  

            “Leave that on,” I said, “while you bathe, but everything else must come off. When you are clean, come out here to me and I will have the rest prepared for you.”

]]]

            When Ayo returned to the common room, I had him stand before the fireplace where I had a prepared two bowls of herbs: One for cleansing his spirit and the other for spiritual protection.

            He had a cloth wrapped around his waist, but I motioned for him to remove it.

            “Every part of you must be cleansed and protected,” I told him, “unless you want some parts to not be…protected.”

            Ayo looked surprised, a little embarrassed, but then he nodded sheepishly. He loosened the cloth and let it fall to the floor. I then took the bowl of cleansing herbs and began to wash him while singing a song of purity. He was a beautiful man, scarred like most who have lived their life at sea, but he was strong and proud. If any man could shrug off a curse, it would be a man like Ayo. And lucky for him, he had a weather witch to help him do it.

            After he was cleansed, I took the bowl of protection herbs and washed him again. With my silver blade, I drew sigils for protection in the air around him. Finally, I anointed his brow with the Oil of Neptune.

            “Well, Ayo, I think you are ready,” I stepped back and looked at him. “Are you ready?”

            “I trust you, Marianne, I am ready,” he said.

Weather Witch: Tales from The Pearl Inn will be released May 15th, coinciding with the Under the Black Flag event in Charleston, SC at the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon on E. Bay St.

Kindle Pre-Orders are available now!