Pirate Souls

II - Chapter 13 - The beach

The torrential rain pummelled my body ruthlessly until the first light of day. And yet, I feel dry and empty. My tongue and throat are parched and grains of sand scrape against my skin. I ache all over!

I am alive.

Yesterday's tornado has moved on. A cloudless sky stretches along the horizon. If it were not for all the corpses of sailors washed up by the sea, it would be impossible to imagine that the elements had been unchained last night.

Is it a mirage? A cracked brown leather boot stands before my sore eyes reddened by the salt water. I have already seen this. Gwewa's face is just above mine.

Absurd. Not her. Again.

Her hands search my body, looking for a weapon. I try to make a move to defend myself, but she continues her inspection with no consideration whatever for my bruised and battered carcass. She squeezes my aching skin.

"Stop!" I plead, panting with pain.

The pressure increases. Her nails dig into my flesh. My ordeal seems to last an eternity.

At last, Gwewa releases her hold. It was not a splinter that had embedded itself in my shoulder, but the point of a pike. The former slave throws the piece of metal before my eyes which are bulging in pain.

"Not at all, little Irishman," she mocks as she kneels in front of me.

Florence was right. But it does not mean that I was wrong. Perhaps all women are witches. After all, my own mother had abandoned the Catholic faith and practised ancient pagan rituals unbeknownst to my father.

I have no idea of today's date. It must be October or November. It will soon be Samhain.

We celebrated it just the once. Brian was around two. I was six. I remember the smile that lit up my mother's face. Little Liadan who was only a few months old. We had left Cork to help one of my mother's cousins who worked the land. My father had stayed behind.

Yes, that was real happiness.

Green grass as far as the eye could see. Fresh air. The lakes. The fields. Hunger was never far away, but it was easier to bear. The work was exhausting. But it didn't stop us from revelling until late at night.

Other women came to our modest cottage that evening. It was the end of the summer and the beginning of winter. We bade a farewell to the sun's rays and welcomed the firelight. We celebrated the last harvest. I wondered at the tales and legends of my ancestors recounted by the fireside. My aunts had a gift for telling those magical stories. I would tremble with fear as I impatiently waited to hear what would happen next. The realm of darkness swept my mind and my soul up in a whirlwind. My spirits in a fog, I tried to put my finger on the secrets of those sealed worlds.

The next day, everything was different.

We would soon be returning to the town. To malice. To hostility. I have never been able to understand why we did not stay there. Why did my mother choose to go back to that brutal man, in that stinking town teeming with wretches? Why abandon nature in exchange for the stench of piss in the gutters?

My mother. I both love and hate her too.

All my life, she has made me pay the price of her weaknesses. Today, I am celebrating my own Samhain.

No harvest to reap. I lay down the burden I have been carrying and which is not mine. I open up to the realm of the dead.

I had completely forgotten those happy moments in my life. Did they really exist? Pain causes me to faint. For how long I do not know.