A Pirate in Time (Completed)

28

If you've ever taken a foreign language class, then you are familiar with that feeling you get when someone starts speaking to you in a language you don't know. Your brain starts to shut down and you have to slap yourself on the forehead before you can remember how to tell them you don't speak their language. That's exactly how I felt when I was transferred into a Spanish class halfway through my Sophomore year of high school, and that is exactly how I felt now as native islanders babbled and grinned all around me. Somehow, I knew that "No habla Español" wouldn't get me very far with these people.

One of them was repeating something to me, using elaborate hand gestures and slow reiterations in an attempt to get me to understand. It didn't work of course. Gibberish was still gibberish even if it was spoken slowly.

I watched the man for a while, trying to make sense of his body language, but even that didn't make much sense to me.

I looked around warily, taking in my surroundings. We weren't anywhere near the beach, that was evident by the dark, overgrown soil and the many clusters of trees in the area. That meant they had probably carried me to the center of the island, which, as we had heard last night, was where they had made their little village.

Wait. Where was Jay?

I looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of that tricorne hat or blood stained shirt, but the only things I could see were little mud huts and clusters of the natives everywhere. Maybe they didn't know he was on the island. Maybe they had grabbed me and left before he came back from his search for fresh water.

I suddenly felt very thirsty. When was the last time I had eaten or drank anything? Before the mutiny, at least. It had been days, and I was still somehow functioning.

I stood shakily to my feet, at which the noise of the babbling natives escalated dramatically. I was surrounded almost immediately and found myself being pulled towards one of the larger huts. Someone pushed me inside, and once my eyes adjusted, I saw an elderly man sitting on what probably was meant to be a chair.

There was another man there too, dressed in sailors clothes and bound to a pole. He was obviously not a member of this tribe and the fact that he was even still alive gave me hope that these were not cannibals.

The people who came in with me spoke to the older man while the dark skinned sailor and I stared at each other. After a few moments of nonsensical babbling, the elderly man turned to the bound sailor and said something, pointing and gesturing to me.

"Español?" he asked hopefully.

"Um. No mucho." I told him honestly, my terrible pronunciations immediately hinting at my uncertainty with the language. I'd only taken Spanish for a year, just enough to count for a foreign language credit at my school. By no means did that make me fluent enough to carry on a conversation.

"English then?"

I let out a sigh of relief, knowing we'd be able to communicate. I nodded, "Yes. I speak English."

"Good," he breathed, "I am Ikem. I will be translator."

His sentences were choppy, which meant English probably wasn't his first language. As long as he could form sentences, I wasn't complaining.

"Elizabeth," I told him. I nodded my head to the natives, "You can understand them?"

He shrugged, "Language is close to first. Mother spoke similar."

I nodded. He must've grown up near here if his mother spoke a similar language to these people. I wondered how he ended up here, but that was a question for later.

"What do they want with me?" I asked him.

He took a moment to process my words before turning to the elderly man and speaking in a very slow, strained version of their babbling. The man spoke back, slowly for Ikem so he could understand. As he told Ikem the answer to my question, he looked at me and grinned, moving his hands to enunciate his words.

Ikem cleared his throat once the man finished, "They see you from water. Woman of the Sea. They make you part of tribe."

"They're making me part of their tribe?" I asked myself more than Ikem. "Woman of the Sea? What is that?"

They see you from water. Woman of the Sea.

They saw us when we found the beach. They must've seen my tail. Woman of the Sea. Mermaid.

"They worship Woman of the Sea," Ikem said.

They worship mermaids. They worship me. Surely that meant they would get me something to eat, "Can they get me food and water?"

Ikem spoke to the man who promptly sent off a few of the others in the tent. After that, Ikem turned back to me.

"Alone or others?"

"I came with one other. We have no ship."

"I can get ship, if you get me free."

"Where are you going to get a ship?" I asked curiously, hope in my voice.

"Drop off Ikem to go to port. Not welcome there. Pick up in three days. Back to sea."

"There's a ship coming to pick you up in three days?" I clarified.

Ikem nodded.

I nodded as well, already forming a plan in my mind. We had three days to find Jay and escape these people based on the chance that there would in fact be a ship waiting for us just off shore.

If Ikem's shipmates decided to leave him here, then we were screwed.