The conclusion to the short story I wrote as a made-to-order…

You can read part 1 here.

You can read part 2 here.

You can read part 3 here.

Over the next few days, Phoebe found herself telling the captain a little about her life. He sought her out when she was on deck, insisted on her and the older children taking their meal with him and his officers, invited her to walk with him in the evening.

At her request, he called her Mrs Morien, and assured her that her brother and sister would be waiting to welcome her home. Beneda—she called herself Benita now—was a widow with a child, “though not likely to remain single for long, Joseph says. A number of men have expressed an interest.”

Joseph was enjoying the life of a highly eligible bachelor too much to settle down, much to the despair of the local ladies and the exasperation of his sister.

To Phoebe, the stories seemed like the ones Mist’ Finn had told her long ago—she couldn’t comprehend the life her sister and brother led. Cautiously at first, and then greedily when he laughed and complied, she asked for more and more details, more and more tales about this strange new life that Captain Val was taking her to.

Venus and Jake were soon over their illness. Phoebe had little to do apart from keeping the younger three entertained and out from under the feet of the crew, helped by the two older children. The trip was a holiday such as they had never known. All but the youngest were used to working until they dropped. For an overseer, Paddy O’Keefe had been indulgent to the children of his reluctant mistress, even giving his daughter his name. But they had to work as hard as any of the others, and he would not have lifted a finger to save even his own get from the traders.

Not like Finn. Finn had taken a beating for her, and had then stolen her brother and sister away to save them when Ol’ Massa Blake had decided to sell them. Joe was the young master’s get, and Patsy and Baby were O’Keefe’s. Jake and his sister, dear lost Mina, were bred on her by another slave at Ol’ Massa Blake’s command. Quaco, or Jacob as the white owners called him, had been a kind and gentle man, and she’d been fond of him. But Finn was the one she dreamt of; the one she thought of when she woke in the night.

She hoped that Venus was Finn’s daughter, made in that one week they had before Chan found them together. She’d taken a beating for that, and so had Finn. But Chan couldn’t take the memories from her.

Finn, his head full of knights and chivalry, hadn’t wanted to bed her. But Chan had already announced his intention to have her when he got back from a trip to Charleston, and she wanted her first time to be with someone who would be kind. That’s what she’d told him; someone who would be kind. She didn’t tell him that she loved him. She knew better than that.

And he was kind, too, though the first time had been awkward and clumsy. Two virgins together, they had to work out how things fitted. She’d giggled, she remembered, and he laughed too, but the laughter froze on his face as he entered her and the discomfort he caused was nothing compared to the dawning wonder on his face.

She was thinking about Finn one evening about a week out into their journey, taking out her memories one by one to examine them and gloat over them and tuck them safely away again. The older children had wandered off to the kitchen where the cook always welcomed them, avowing his intention of fattening them up before the ship arrived in Halifax. The little children were settled in the cabin—the captain’s cabin, she realised now. Captain Val was sharing with the first mate, a man of colour he called Perry and treated as an equal and a friend.

She was thinking of Finn, not the captain: not of how he helped her up a ladder earlier in the day and his hand had lingered for a moment on her hip; not of the way his eyes followed her whenever she was on deck. If she was going to be honest with herself, she knew he watched her because her eyes sought his every time she came on deck. Why did the memories of Finn’s boyish face smiling at her turn unaccountably into Captain Val’s masked face, with the firm square angles of his cheek and chin and the amused quirk that seemed to always linger in one corner of his mouth?

The first mate’s roar startled her, and she whipped around, cringing and protecting her head with her arm. But his anger was for a sailor who had abandoned a rope without properly coiling it, and he passed Phoebe without a glance to explain to the sailor, in precise incisive terms, what could happen if the rope tangled when it was needed, and how long the sailor would spend mending sails in penance, so he would never forget again.

Phoebe, who had expected a careless blow if not an outright beating, felt something uncurl inside her, a soft tentative tendril of… what? Hope? Comfort? A sense of safety?

Too early for the last; the captain had warned her that American privateers or the American navy might stop the ship at any time until they made port in Canada. But here, yes, here on this ship she felt safe.

The sailor was making excuses and apologies as he recoiled the rope correctly.

“I was that tired, Mister Peregrine, and it were near the end of my deck time, and then Mickey saw fins off the bow and I went to see. I meant to come back, Mister Peregrine, honest. It won’t happen again, sir, that it won’t.”

Peregrine? That was the name of one of the black knights in Finn’s Arthurian Tales—Sir Morien, Sir Peregrine. Others, too. What a fitting name for a man of colour.

She said that to the mate he passed on the way back to his watching post.

“Peregrine was the name of one of the knights from Africa in the stories of King Arthur.”

“Yes,” the mate replied, “that’s what Val said when he gave it me. He fair loves those stories, Mrs Morien.”

A polite nod was the only response she could manage. Her mind was racing. Val. Short for Percival? Percival was the perfect knight, the Parfait Knight of the tales, the role that Finn had sought with all the poetry in his soul.

As she crossed back to the rail, adding up all the little clues she’d noticed this past week without being aware of them, he came up from below and made a straight line for her.

“Good evening, Mrs Morien.” The slight husk in his voice had been turning her knees to water all week. Quickly, before her fears choked the words in her throat, she said, “Finn, when are you going to take off the mask?”

The captain went completely still. Then, slowly, he raised his hands to the back of his head, fumbled with the strings of the mask, and let it fall into one hand.

A man changes a great deal between 17 and 29. She knew him though. She should have known him a week ago, by his eyes alone. She clamped firmly down on the hurt that he’d felt the need to hide from her. He owed her nothing. She owed him everything. He had saved her brother and sister. He was in the process of saving her and her children. He clearly wanted not to acknowledge her, and he had every right.

“You do not need to wear the mask,” she told him. “I understand. I have no claim on you and I will not be a nuisance.” She made to pass him, but he put out a hand to stop her.

“No, Mrs Moriel… Phoebe. No, that isn’t it at all. I was… The Blakes have done so much wrong to you, to your family. You must hate us all, especially me. I don’t blame you. I left you in that place. I knew what Chan was like, and I walked away. I wore the mask to make you more comfortable. No. That isn’t true. I just didn’t want to see your eyes when you rejected me. You stay here. Enjoy the fine evening for a while longer. I’ll go.”

She was so stunned that he was halfway to the hatch before she found her voice. “I don’t hate you, Finn. I don’t blame you.”

“I blame myself.”

“For what? For trying to protect me and being half killed for it? For saving my brother and my sister no matter the risk to your own escape? For coming back for me?”

“I came before. The first time, I couldn’t get onto the plantation. They had men out with dogs. The second time, we sent you a message, and I waited on the beach, but you didn’t come.”

“I had the message.”

“You couldn’t get away, I imagine.”

Phoebe shook her head.  That was the week Mrs Blake had miscarried a child, and had, in her anger, had her husband’s mistress beaten so badly that Phoebe had lost the baby she was carrying. It was after that Phoebe had been sent to Quaco.

Finn—no, Val—Val saw the shadows in her eyes. “It is over now. You are a free woman and a wealthy one. You never again need to do what you do not wish.” He turned to lean on the rail, looking down at the water that folded back from the racing hull.

Phoebe leaned beside him, content to be silent.

After a while, Val spoke. “Phoebe, I know it’s too soon. I don’t want to press you. I won’t press you; you need time to get your family settled, to learn what it is to be free, and respected, and loved. I want to give you that time. But may I write to you? May I visit from time to time?”

Was he asking what she thought he was asking?

“Yes,” she answered briefly, and he turned to her with a smile that lit his whole face.

“I have never forgotten you, Phoebe.”

She smiled back, ready to tell him that she had never forgotten him, but Mr Perry called him to come and see something on the horizon, outlined by the setting sun, and he left her standing at the rail, watching the water.

Val was right. It was too soon. She needed to get to know her brother and sister again. She needed to get her children started in this life as free people.

But in her heart, the tendril of hope threw off a couple of leaves, and set down a strong root into her memories of the boy who had once been her champion.

Not quite the end, but as far as the short story takes us.

Here’s part 3 of my made-to-order story, Kidnapped to Freedom.

You can read part 1 here.

You can read part 2 here.

This was not how Val had imagined their reunion; him with a bucket under the chin of one of the children Phoebe had borne his brother, while she tended to another child who, by the look of him, had a different father. He shuddered to think what her life had been like.

If he’d stayed, could he have protected her? He had asked himself the question many times. At 17, he’d been half inclined to blame Phoebe for being selected by his brother. His jealousy had made it easier for him to agree to run with the others after Chan caught them together, and then taken Phoebe and refused to let her out of his sight.

The more Val mixed with the free men of colour in the Maritime States, the more he realised how arrogant and stupid he had been. And after he’d rescued Perry from some privateers and heard of Perry’s anguish at some of the things his sister had been through, he’d felt even worse. He and Perry made a raid on the Georgia plantation that held Perry’s sister and won her free, and Val had been planning to do the same for Phoebe ever since.

Phoebe had never encouraged Chan. And he’d known that then.

Reassured that seasickness was natural, and the children weren’t dying, Phoebe was saying something: apologising for her children being sick, promising to clean up after them, trying to take the jug so she could tend to both children at once. Did she think he would beat her because the ship’s lurching disturbed their stomachs? Yes, in her experience, that was probably normal behaviour for a white man.

“No need to apologise, ma’am,” he said, as gently as he could. “It takes most people a while to catch their sea legs. Some experienced sailors are sick for the first days of every trip.”

Jenkins brought more water, and more buckets. “They’ll be better on deck, cap’n,” he suggested. “I could set a hammock for ‘em, out o’ the way, like?”

Val had hoped to keep Phoebe from the crew’s sight. She was lovely, and they were men. But, he reminded himself, they were men he trusted, for the most part.

“See it done, Jenkins. Ma’am, once the children are settled, you and I need to have a talk.”

The oldest boy, the smaller girl, and the baby joined them for breakfast, while Jenkins sat with the middle boy and the older girl. Both the afflicted looked better for being out in the fresh air, though it was too early to challenge their stomachs with food.

Phoebe looked uncertainly at the table.

“Serve the children,” Val suggested, then you and I will serve ourselves. Shall we try them on porridge? It is a bit like grits, but made from oats.”

The children found porridge very much to their liking, the oldest boy, who Phoebe called Joe, feeding the baby, and the littlest girl feeding herself.

Val filled a plate for Phoebe, who looked surprised when he gave it to her.

“Where I come from, gentlemen serve ladies,” he told her.

“I ain’t… I’m not a lady. I’m just a seamstress. A slave and a seamstress.”

“Not a slave now. Not anymore,” Val said. “And not just a seamstress either. You are the older sister of Joseph and Benita Copeland, proprietors of one of the finest hotels in St John’s, Toronto, a free woman, and a lady of considerable wealth in your own right, Miss Blake.”

Phoebe shook her head, a sharp negation. “Not ‘Blake’.” She clapped her hand over her mouth as if to catch the words, then dropped it again, and straightened her back. “You say I am free, and wealthy. Then I will not bear that man’s name. Let his widow keep it.”

Val was admiring her clear diction—she had always had a facility with languages and could speak English as good as his, but he was fascinated by how quickly she dropped the slave patois. It took a few moments for him to process what she’d actually said. “Widow? Chauncey Blake is dead?”

“Yes. You knew him?”

She was quick. Now Val should tell her who he was. But the same impulse that led him to retain the mask ruled him still. “I did,” he said, “to my sorrow.”

Had their father not intervened, Chan would probably have killed Val twelve years ago. 24 years to 17 is not a fair match. Val’s last memory of his brother was of his face twisted in anger and hatred as he struggled against the restraining arms of the overseers to come back and beat Val some more.

There had been no word of Chan’s death from Val’s friends in Charleston. Mind you, since they found themselves on opposite sides in this war, the correspondence had been sporadic, at best. “When did he die?”

“Three weeks ago. He was thrown by his horse, and broke his neck.”

“There’ll not be many who will grieve, I imagine,” Val said. “His wife; his father. Maybe some of his friends.”

“Miz Blake, she be happy to be a widow, I think, except Ol’ Massa Blake lived just a week longer than his son, so she loses everything but her widow’s portion. She’s mad enough to spit. She’ll be still madder when she finds us gone. She thought to get a good price for us from the traders.”

It was a lot to take in. His brother dead. His father dead. His sister-in-law disinherited, and planning to sell Phoebe—and who else?

“Who inherits?” Val asked. Chan and Nettie had no children, he knew, but his father had a low opinion of most of the Blake cousins.

“Phineas Blake,” Phoebe said. “Mist’ Chan’s younger brother. He’s been gone a long time, but Ol’ Massa Blake, he never changed his will.”

Concluded in Part 4

Here’s part 2 of my made-to-order story, Kidnapped to Freedom.

You can read part 1 here.

Val waited in the shadow of the trees. It must be at least 30 minutes past moon rise. She wasn’t coming. Again. Five years ago, he had waited the whole night, and come back again the next. This time, if he couldn’t carry Phoebe off tonight, he’d have to give up. It had taken him all his powers of persuasion to convince his crew to make one try. They weren’t privateers. The letters of marque that let them take an American ship while the United States and England were at war wouldn’t cover a land raid on a plantation. If she didn’t come, the men wouldn’t agree to a second attempt.

There! Someone was coming. He straightened in anticipation. Yes, it was her—12 years older and a mature women rather than the girl he remember, but even in the moonlight he couldn’t mistake her.

She wasn’t alone. He couldn’t take a herd of children with him! What was she thinking?

He stepped out from the sheltering trees. The mask would hide his face, and his voice had never been the same since Chan tried to strangle him the last time he saw Phoebe close enough to talk to.

“Are you Phoebe?” He was 12 years older too, and a man changed more from 17 to 29 than a woman did, but he couldn’t risk being seen and recognised by anyone on the plantation.

She nodded. He noted that she gathered the children protectively behind her, but the older boy, his face grimly intent, evaded the sweep of her arm and stepped in front. Brave little bantam rooster.

“I was commissioned to take one woman to her brother in Canada, not a parcel of brats,” he said.

“Can’t leave without ma babies, Sir.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but determined.

Her children? All of them? His brother’s children, then, possibly. He surveyed them quickly. Yes the little bantam had the Blake look, and the girl rocking the baby could be a darker version of the childhood portrait of his mother that hung in the parlour.

The men wouldn’t like it, but he was taking them all and be damned.

He met the eyes of each in turn as he said, “You must be quiet. Not a sound. Do everything I say, and I will take you to your uncle in Canada.”

“Perry, give the signal.” He gave the command over his shoulder, not waiting to see if it was obeyed. Perry could be trusted to carry out the raid with maximum noise and minimum damage. He didn’t want anyone actually killed, but he did hope that many slaves would take the chance to escape in the confusion, masking the disappearance of one maid and her children.

He led the way down to the creek, where Jimson stood ready to row them back out to the coast and the waiting ship.

Phoebe startled awake at the knock on the door. Three of the children still slept on the bed in the small but luxurious room. No. It was what Mist’ Finn called a cabin. Venus and Jake were awake, but unmoving in the tangle of little bodies, watching her with anxious eyes. She smiled to reassure them and wished she had someone to reassure her.

Another knock.

When she opened, the little man who had shown them to this cabin nodded at her. “The cap’n wants to see ye, ma’am.”

He’d called her ‘ma’am’ last night, too. Unaccountably, being addressed so courteously made her even more nervous, as if an overseer hid just out of sight waiting to punish her for aping a lady.

“Do I come with you?” she asked.

“He’ll come to ye, Ma’am. In a few minutes, like. To have breakfast with ye and the nippers. He thought ye might want to have a wash first.” The man handed her the jug he was holding, filled with steaming hot water, and crossed the cabin to put the towels off his arm onto the back of a chair.

He turned in time to save the jug as the ship lurched and she lost her balance.

“Ye’ll get yer sea legs soon, ma’am,” he said, not unkindly, and put the jug into a hole that was obviously made for it, next to a basin in a hole of its own.

She had the children and herself washed and tidied before another knock heralded the man from last night. He was still masked, his eyes glittering at her, and his chin and mouth showing, but the rest of his face covered in black cloth.

The little man scurried in behind him, carrying a laden tray that smelled of bacon and fresh-baked bread.

Venus, who had already been looking a little ill, gave a piteous moan. Before Phoebe could react, the masked man, moving with blinding speed, had grabbed the jug that had held their wash water and placed it under Venus’ chin. He was just in time, and Jake was the next to say, “Phoebe, I don’t feel too good.”

Phoebe hurried to feel his forehead. What could be wrong with them? They were never sick!

Some of her fear must have conveyed itself to the masked man, because he said, calmly, “Seasickness, Miss Blake. They will recover once they are used to the motion of the boat.

“Jenkins, remove the bacon, will you? Miss Blake and I will have breakfast in the wardroom with whichever of the children is well enough to join us.”

He was holding the jug with one hand, and calmly supporting the vomiting girl with the other. “Oh, and Jenkins, bring some buckets, please? I rather think this young lady may have imitators.”

You can read part 3 here.