The Pirates of Fainting Goat Island Read online

  The Pirates

  of

  Fainting Goat Island

  An Enhancer Novel

  By

  Teresa McCullough

  Books by Teresa McCullough

  Enhancer books

  The Enhancer

  The First Enhancer

  Enhancers’ Campaign

  Science Fiction: Lost Past

  Urban Fantasy in the Duals’ universe

  Kidnapped by Fey (A short story)

  The Secret of Sanctua

  Cover by Summer Hanford

  Thanks to Michael Giorgio at Allwriters.org and to Summer Hanford

  Copyright 2013

  Books by Teresa McCullough writing as Renata McMann

  Journey Towards a Preordained Time

  Pride and Prejudice Variations

  By Renata McMann and Summer Hanford

  The Second Mrs. Darcy

  Georgiana's Folly

  Elizabeth's Plight

  The Scandalous Stepmother

  Poor Mr. Darcy

  A Death at Rosings

  Caroline and the Footman

  Mr. Collins’ Deception

  Mary Younge

  Lady Catherine Regrets

  The above four stories (and two additional stories) are collected in:

  Pride and Prejudice Villains Revisited – Redeemed – Reimagined A Collection of Six Short Stories

  Entanglements of Honor

  From Ashes to Heiresses

  The Fire at Netherfield Park

  Courting Elizabeth

  Epiphany with Tea

  Miss Bingley’s Christmas

  Her Final Wish

  Believing in Darcy

  Foiled Elopement

  The Widow Elizabeth

  The Forgiving Season

  Hypothetically Married

  The Long Road to Longbourn

  Pride and Prejudice Variations by Renata McMann

  Heiress to Longbourn

  Anne de Bough Manages

  Three Daughters Married

  The Inconsistency of Caroline Bingley

  Pemberley Weddings

  The above five stories are collected in:

  Pride and Prejudice Variations: A collection of Short Stories

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  EPILOGUE Seventeen years later

  CHAPTER 1

  I awoke to someone picking me up. I’d wrapped myself in my quilt as the best defense against the cold night, and I was picked up, quilt and all. I screamed, and he ignored me. I struggled, but imprisoned by the quilt, I couldn’t escape. Then I smelled smoke.

  He brought me outside, carrying me unnecessarily far from the Pelican Tavern, which was my home. “Put me down!” I screamed, but he paid no attention. He finally lowered me to the ground, and I struggled to free myself from the quilt.

  “I can’t let you go back, Heleen,” he said. His tone suggested he would enforce his words.

  “I won’t go back,” I promised. Not until I get help, I silently added. In my nightgown and bare feet, I ran for help, ignoring the bite of stray rocks that it was too dark to avoid in my rush.

  The man who rescued me didn’t follow. I hoped he was going back for my parents.

  “Roddy,” I screamed at my father’s friend and former first mate. “Fire! You have to stop it.”

  Roddy said, “What’cha doing, coming in here, girl? You joining me in bed?”

  “Fire!” I repeated.

  Suddenly serious, Roddy asked, “Where?”

  “The Pelican.”

  For an old man, he moved quickly. He slid his feet into slippers by his bed. He wore a nightshirt, but only stopped to throw on a cape. He wasted a second, taking in my bare feet and nightgown, but I couldn’t complain about his speed. I followed him to near the Pelican and watched as he brought water down on it. Rain magic, he called it, but he could focus it, so it was a torrent and he used it selectively. He concentrated on my parents’ bedroom, which was made of wood and badly burnt. Smoke was coming out of a hole in the roof, and the water poured through it. The wooden section was next to the main room of the brick tavern, which hadn’t yet caught.

  One of my neighbors climbed on the roof that wasn’t burnt and cut holes in it with a pick. Roddy poured the water he pulled out of the air through those holes. The sizzling stopped, and we went inside. Buckets of water were thrown on embers that escaped the torrent, but there was little need. I barely felt the heat from the remaining embers and the rubble on the floor as I rushed as fast as I could to my parent’s bedroom, where the fire started. They were both dead. They hadn’t even arisen from their bed.

  I could barely walk the next morning, when I awoke in a neighbor’s house. My feet were burnt from where I stepped on hot spots and were cut from running in the dark. The pain when I walked wasn’t enough for me to forget the pain of losing my parents. Instead, it was a constant reminder that I wasn’t fast enough to save them.

  My neighbors helped me salvage what could be salvaged. I couldn’t run the tavern by myself. I gave Roddy three barrels of ale for his efforts and sold what I could, but there was little spare money in the village, and not enough demand for the contents of the Pelican.

  I never gave any thought as to how much money my parents had, but when I counted their savings it was less than I expected. My father kept an account book, which I tried to understand. The amounts agreed with what he had, so it wasn’t a case of theft. His books were somewhat cryptic, with amounts going out to various people in Ship Town. Some of these were checked off and some weren’t. But the names checked off didn’t correspond to any repayment. His handwriting was so bad that I may have misunderstood it all, so I gave it up as a pointless exercise. If the checked off amounts weren’t repaid, the other amounts weren’t an asset I could draw on. I neither wanted nor expected to live off my inheritance. I suppose if it weren’t for Geltor, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

  Geltor somehow found out that there wasn’t much money and managed to arrange for me to overhear him say he had a lucky break. I had loved Geltor, and thought my love was returned. Geltor married a widow who owned a fishing boat only a month after I regretfully sent him on his way. I hadn’t let him see me cry over him, but my parents saw my tear-stained face often enough.

  I saw symptoms of his pettiness even when I loved him but ignored them. Afterward, I tried to tell myself I was lucky not to marry him, but my heart still ached for him. But my parents’ deaths made my thoughts of Geltor fleeting, for once.

  Beaden, the part-time priest and full-time fisherman, insisted I stay with a neighbor, saying he didn’t want me to be alone in the Pelican. After the funeral I went back to the tavern and just sat on a bench no one wanted, looking at the remains. The tears stopped earlier, and I kept wondering how my parents could be so careless to start a fire and not notice it. In spite of running the tavern, they were moderate drinkers, so I didn’t believe it was drunkenness. Roddy came and sat on the other end, and for a long time, he said nothing. Finally, I decided to acknowledge his presence. I thanked him again for his efforts.

  “It was nothing, girl. I was just sorry I couldn’t the Captain and hi
s lady.” He looked melancholy, and I wasn’t surprised at this. Roddy always referred to my father as the Captain. They both left the sea to settle in this village with the ambitious-sounding name of Ship Town. My father brought his pregnant wife here and opened the Pelican, not wanting an absentee marriage. Roddy crewed on one of the fishing boats and did occasional odd jobs. He married a local woman, who died after a few years of marriage.

  Roddy used his rain magic to water the fields that were south of Ship Town. With all the water in the harbor, there was surprisingly little rain, but he made it possible for there to be thriving farms, which grew crops requiring a lot of water. Once the town built ships, but an earthquake rerouted the Sweetwater, the stream that ran the sawmill. My father led a project to dig a new channel that would bring the stream back. After several years of sporadic effort, the first boards were cut just a week ago.

  I found Roddy’s presence comforting, but the mild comfort he brought wasn’t enough. The tears briefly stopped, but the ache of grief was still there. We continued in silence, but four people came to the tavern, two men and two women. I recognized them as having visited the tavern and eaten dinner the evening of the fire. They were staying on a ship in the harbor, which was unloading grain and loading lumber and firewood. Rumor had it that they were giving us a good price on the grain, and the town was happy to have them.

  Both men were in their thirties, but that was the only part of a description that they had in common. One man was huge, both tall and broad, with red hair and a darker red beard. He looked at me with friendly blue eyes and gave me a winning smile. But somehow, the other man caught my eye. He was handsome, tall and muscular, with dark hair and a lean, deeply tan face. He had a kind of presence that my father had, the presence of a man who is confident and in charge. His shirt had tasteful embroidery of ocean-themed pictures on the yoke. Deep brown eyes looked into mine, appraisingly. “I’m Merko. This is Amapola, Lina, and Kalten,” he said, pointing to the two women and the man.

  “I’m Heleen.” When I heard his voice, I realized he was the man who rescued me.

  “I understand you have no place to go,” he said.

  That wasn’t true. My neighbors were generous but had little to be generous with. I could live in the undamaged portion of the tavern, but I couldn’t run it by myself. I could earn my keep with enhancing, which was the magic I inherited from my mother, but the thought of staying in Ship Town with the daily reminders of my parents didn’t appeal to me. I also wanted to get away from Geltor, who caused me so much pain.

  Another problem was that I wasn’t quite accepted as a native. I was born in Ship Town, but my parents came from elsewhere. Although I knew the midwife who delivered me, I was still a little bit of an outsider, because my parents were outsiders.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” I said. Why couldn’t he have gone to my parents’ room first and awakened them?

  “You are quite welcome. I saw the fire and remembered the pretty girl who served me dinner earlier. I couldn’t help but rescue her.” He smiled as he complimented me. I glanced over at the two women to see how they took his words. Neither was bothered by it. The older woman, Lina, had grey hair and an ugly, weathered face. I judged her to be in her forties. The younger woman, Amapola, was beautiful and was probably younger than my twenty-one years. She couldn’t find my mild blonde prettiness a threat to her dark alluring beauty. The lack of a reaction to Merko’s statement made me realize there were no couples here. Two men and two women, not two couples. Lina was too old for either of them. When they walked in, Amapola walked with Merko, but she didn’t seem to be with him.

  “Thank you.” I didn’t give the practiced smile I gave when I responded to the compliments of rare strangers in the tavern. I was no longer on duty and didn’t feel like pleasing anyone.

  “I understand you are an enhancer,” he said. “It happens we could use one.”

  “Yes, I am. What do you know about enhancers and how can you use one?” I asked. Enhancing was a versatile magic with many uses.

  “Quite a bit,” he said. “I knew one quite well. We could use an enhancer where I live. Fainting Goat Island. There are almost no trees and an enhancer could help us save our wood for building. An enhancer can heat a big building with a little fire.”

  That was only a small part of what enhancing could do, but it was a very valuable part in a cold climate. An enhancer could take heat from the fire and put it in water or rocks or even the ground below a building. What he wanted would be easy but valuable work. “How far away is Fainting Goat Island?” I asked.

  “Two or three weeks by sea, if the winds are fair.”

  He wanted me to move weeks away? My parents both talked of the many places they visited. My mother was a widow when she met my father, and she wanted to see the world. Both of them told me stories of their travels. I longed to expand my horizons but had few choices. On this isolated coast, with inhospitable mountains, only a few ships came to trade and the only things Ship Town had to offer were wood and fish. Going to an island weeks away was probably extreme, but what other way could I leave?

  Merko appeared to be a trader. I knew I could use my enhancing to make his ship go faster and that skill would get me off the island. I would show him how I did it when we left, and he would want me on all his voyages. I realized that I decided then and there that I would ask questions, but probably go.

  Although Roddy asked me if I were sure I wanted to leave, no one tried to stop me when I announced my decision. Oddly, this hurt me. Beaden told me that it might be for the best. Not only were my parents dead, I felt my hometown was eager to get rid of me. I lost my parents and felt abandoned by almost everyone.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Fainting Goat Island is a big rock sticking out of the ocean,” Amapola told me as I was packing. She was wearing a beautiful green dress with embroidery at the neck, but she didn’t need it to look gorgeous. I wondered if the same hand that embroidered her dress did Merko’s shirt. “Actually, it’s two islands, Fainting Goat Island and Goat Island. Goat Island is small and mountainous with only a few people on it. Fainting Goat Island is kind of a plateau sticking out of the ocean. There’s a stairway carved into the rock near the harbor, but it takes a long time to walk up it.” She looked at the box I was packing and asked, “Are you taking all that stuff? I bet Merko makes you carry it up the stairs.”

  “He told me there was plenty of room on the Bat Bell.” The ship’s name struck me as odd, but many ship names had private meanings that only the owners knew.

  “There is.”

  “Well, it’s not going to do me any good here,” I said as I packed the big pot my mother used to make stew for the tavern. I wrapped the pottery bowls in blankets and put them in the box.

  The three of us women were to share a cabin. I realized that wasn’t just for space, since there was space on board, but it eased my mind about my safety. I already said my farewells, so I boarded.

  Two sailors carried my boxes into the cargo hold and I carried my personal luggage into my cabin. After putting my last items in the drawers under my bed, I went to see Merko. “Do you want me to enhance the motion of the ship?” I asked.

  “Can you?”

  “Of course. It’s a big ship and I can’t do a great deal, but I can give it a bit more speed. I can even slightly change direction.”

  “Hmm. I didn’t know that. The other enhancers I’ve known didn’t do any of that. They just did fire.”

  “Well, fire is the easiest, but my mother trained me. She was trained by priestesses in Pactyl who believed enhancers should learn how to do all sorts of things.”

  The sails were up, and the ship moved with the tide and wind. I sped things up, but it was exhausting work. My mother made certain I practiced enhancing daily, but this was more than I was used to, because the ship was heavier than the fishing boats I usually enhanced. Merko told me when to help the movement of the ship and when to make it move a little bit to port or starboard. He
also gave orders to his crew, and the Bat Bell moved smoothly out into the ocean.

  I took a brief break and ate a quick meal, but a sailor came down and told me Merko wanted me after I’d barely finished eating. A quiet, dark-haired man named Jerot replaced Merko on the bridge in the evening, and I stumbled back to the cabin to sleep. For the next few days, I spent my time on the bridge and in my cabin. It suited me, because I was too tired to dwell on my parents’ deaths, and I slept well.

  Merko finally told me to rest the fourth day. The wind was strong and in the right direction and I wasn’t needed. I went down to a common room that was used for the crew to eat or just gather when they weren’t busy. Four men were playing dice and the coins on the table indicated money was changing hands. The sums were large enough, I knew I wouldn’t be joining them. The galley was just off the room and Lina was chopping something.

  “Do you need any help?” I asked her.

  “No.” Her brevity wasn’t a surprise, since she rarely said anything to me. Amapola came to the cabin after I fell asleep and left before I arose, eliminating any conversation with her since we came aboard.

  “I can enhance the heat to cook the meal with less fuel,” I said.

  Lina never turned my way, but said, “I know what enhancing can do, and I don’t want it.” Her tone did not invite further inquiry.

  I turned to leave, and a tall man entered the room. It was Roddy. “Fancy meeting you here, girl,” he said.

  “Roddy! What are you doing here?”

  “Going to Fainting Goat Island. I bought passage there and back with the kegs of ale. Except I just gave them the ale, not the kegs, and had to follow them to get my kegs back.”

  “But why didn’t you stay in Ship Town? It’s your home.” I was baffled that he came. He seemed settled and as accepted as any stranger could be in that community. Although his marriage brought no children, he was on good terms with his deceased wife’s relatives.