To Turn and Ed, Part Three

"Hey pal. Feelin' better?"

Edd leaned against the front door still looking paler than usual. "I am, but Mother says our tutoring session is cancelled."

"Must be nice she's got all this time off."

"Too nice, perhaps. I think I prefer sticky notes to someone barging in my room."

"No privacy, eh?"

"None."

Edd's mother called his name in the background. He answered her with an obedient, "Yes Mother."

"I need to go, Eddy. Enjoy your afternoon."

"I will," he grinned. 'Pirates of Tortuga Bay' beckoned at the back of his mind.

Edd stuck his head back out the door. "Oh, and Eddy?"

"Huh?"

"What did you do to my room?"

Eddy rolled his eyes. "NOTHING, Double-D."

"Eddy!"

_

A part of Eddy ached slightly at the prospect of not scamming. He'd gone without trying to grift any money for over a day. It seemed wrong, but leaving the story alone felt worse. He couldn't go an hour without seeing what else Edd wrote.

Captain Edwin cast a sidelong glance at Mr. Steel while the slave demonstrated his skills with the sextant. It didn't take much imagining to know Meeda was on both their minds.

The boy stopped his calculations and gave his answer to Edwin. "A properly trained Cabin Boy," he said eventually. "He's worth keeping, Mr. Steel."

The Quartermaster grinned in agreement.

"What are you called, Boy?"

The slave thought for a moment. All his life he'd only been referred to as boy, urchin, dodger, bastard or thief. He honestly had no idea what his proper name was. He shrugged and looked at the captain blankly.

"How did you come aboard that ship?"

"I was arrested, Sir. For stealing. The captain took me as a servant."

"And never named you?"

"He wrote my name as C-S, Sir."

Edwin chuckled. "That's a punishment. Not a name."

The boy looked down, embarrassed.

"On my ship, the men have names. Since you know nothing better; your name is Marek Finch. What say you?"

"I-I'm delighted, Sir!"

"Marek Finch it is, then. Prep my cabin Mr. Finch. We repose shortly."

Marek saluted Captain Edwin the way his previous master had trained him. Edwin took it with a laugh. "You're saluting a pirate, Finch! We don't serve Her Majesty!"

"Aye, Sir."

Edwin and the Quartermaster continued in quiet conference as Marek quickly prepared the Captain's bed and nightclothes. He floated gleefully in his tasks. He had a name, a sense of freedom and a Captain he looked forward to serving. He was so pleased, he found the pain from his neck wound easy to ignore.

It wasn't as easy the next morning. The wound swelled so much that Marek nearly suffocated from Meeda's bandage. Foul smelling pus oozed through the cloth. It burned and itched and hurt even more when Edwin used his dirk to cut the binding from his throat.

Edwin looked at the wound with a mix of foreboding and remorse. Men died when their wounds looked that way. Marek wasn't well. He led the flushed and feverish boy to his bed and sought rum and water to cool him. Despite his and the cook's best efforts, Marek continued to get worse. Edwin made sure no one entered or left his cabin without an oath of confidence. No one was to speak of Marek's illness. The only possible lift to Edwin's spirit beckoned from the back of his mind. The Tortuga Belle was close to Barbados and a witch freed by his father. Mr. Steel was dispatched in the dead of night to find her.

A fitful night gave weigh to a sultry morning and some clamoring around a round dark-skinned woman wearing a yellow dress with many beads and shells. She hobbled on a carved ebony cane and peg leg. Her other foot was bare. She carried a satchel and bucket while Mr. Steel carried another bag. Her former slave name was Isobel, but anyone desiring her services called her Iyella and did so with respect.

"Hand of Fortuna," Captain Edwin bowed as she entered his cabin.

"It's not you?" Iyella's eyes widened in surprise. "Mr. Steel's price was so much I thought you caught the yellow devil."

"No, Mum." Edwin directed her attention to Marek's weakened pale body. "I hoped you could do something."

"Aye…" Iyella hobbled toward the bed. Marek lay unconscious under her gaze. Traces of rot and pus stained his wound and the air around it smelled foul. His chest heaved with effort to breathe.

The witch placed a gourd under his neck. She checked humors in other parts of his body before turning to Edwin. "Boil a kettle with rags. Bring me rum, old bread and barley."

"Yes, Mum."

Iyela uttered a chant under her breath as she opened her bags. She crushed herbs and garlic with a mortar and pestle and laid out ceremonial items. When the kettle and rum came, she extracted rags and used them to cleanse the wound. The rum was an antiseptic.

Her chants continued for over an hour after Edwin and the Quartermaster were asked to leave. When her work was done, Iyella brought them back in and showed Edwin how to maintain the spell. The wound had to be cleaned and packed with fresh poultices every day until it healed. She blessed a charm and hung it around the Captain's neck. "To keep the spirits near," she said.

Three events happened over three days. When Edwin changed the poultice the next morning, the wound was filled with writhing maggots. He shrank from the sight nauseated, but followed Iyella's advice and cleaned and covered the wound with a fresh poultice. The next morning, the bandage contained gorged leeches. The morning after that, two ripe lychee fruit tumbled onto the pillow. Marek's wound looked pink, healthy and ready to heal.

Marek didn't let on, but he felt especially nourished from Edwin's nursing. The Captain didn't pawn him on other crew. He laid him in his own bed. He bathed the wound and cared for him when others would've written him off. Waking at night fed Marek's will to live. He knew no greater comfort than feeling Edwin asleep at his side.

Eddy blinked. His stomach distracted him from the story. He hadn't eaten anything since lunch and it was already almost bedtime. He looked back at the pages in front of him. "This isn't really about pirates, is it?"

_

End of Part Three.