Four years later…

I never forget things. Everyone I meet, everything important event that happens to me, every name I hear, I remember without fail. I can forgive in a heartbeat, but I can never forget. I can heal, over time, but I won't ever forget.

This was the way it was. For four long years, I remembered that fateful afternoon. At night, I would experience parts of it again, over and over, until I woke up with tears on my face. Thankfully, these nightmares lasted only so long. As said, I can heal.

The man who rescued me was Admiral Archibald Lewis, mid-sixties, and very kind. He didn't ask many questions of where I was from, just if I had a family alive, to which I answered no. And he took me under his wing, letting me live with his family for a small time.

It was a hard time, one that I vaguely remember, one that I subconsciously blocked from my memory. I remember being called odd, crazy, a lunatic by the locals, names I'm not sure where they found, seeing as I rarely went into town. Most of my time was spent trying to learn how to behave as a young women should in English society. I loathed it, yet followed it. No point in bringing attention to one's self.

A year was spent like this. I barely functioned at the beginning. As Mrs. Lewis noted, I was not living, simply being. The grief at losing friend and home had made my mind shut down emotionally. I didn't know how I was going to go on living. I was the living dead.

Then a light shot through the clouds of misery that hung around me. Admiral Lewis had found a job for me; governess to two children of a widow, a Mrs. Pecking. Her husband had died a short while ago, and she needed someone to watch the children, for she didn't care for them much.

The job proved to be my savior. As quickly as I had plummeted into despair, I came out happy and as carefree as I had always been. In the three years that I cared for the two little girls, Isabella and Arielle, I returned to my normal self, never forgetting Ella, but allowing myself to rise above the misery.

"Where are we going, Winnie?" asked Isabella for the hundredth time. She was the youngest of the two, only six, and had the attention span of a flea.

"Port Royal," I replied airily, looking out to sea, the sapphire sky shining down merrily as the Calico cut through the clear waters of the Caribbean. Mrs. Pecking had finally grown tired of her daughters, more interested in parties and fashion to care what happened to them. She was only ten years my senior, so I confronted her about it heatedly, saying that she needed to take better care of her children. In response, Widow Pecking had sent the two girls and I to go live with her niece in Port Royal, a Miss Elizabeth Swann. I was still annoyed by the action, though it had been two months already, yet at the same time satisfied. At least the children would not have to awake to a careless mother every morning, just to remember that she did not want them. Instead, I had become their mother. Isabella had only known me as her caretaker, and consequently, was not affected by leaving her mother. It was nothing more than an adventure to her. But poor Arielle knew how little her mother loved them, and knew that, by leaving, they would never see their mother again. She was twelve, old enough to understand.

I wasn't sure how I felt about leaving England. First of all, I had to be on a boat, I had to be confined. The first few days I had spent scared stiff in my room, shaking uncontrollably at the thought of being contained on a small ship for two months. Never before had something affected me like that, not even my fear for spiders. But I recovered in a few days, and was soon strolling around carelessly, laughing and talking with crew members and playing with the girls, though the unease still hung around me. But it was something I could deal and live with, a trait I had learned to use in the past four years.

"We will, in fact, be arriving there early morning tomorrow," added the Captain. He was a short man, only an inch taller than my five seven, though by their standards, I was unusually tall.

"That is good news indeed," I answered politely, cringing inside at my formality. I had changed much about my demeanor, including my speech. I was hiding behind the proper English lady mask again, and for the first time, realized that I truly hated it, and the past few years had been nothing more than a masquerade. The only people to see me for who I was were Arielle and Isabella.

"I suspected you would appreciate it." He then turned to give more orders to his crew.

I turned toward Isabella. "Are you excited to see your cousin?"

Isabella twisted a strand of hair in her hand. "I suppose. Does she have dolls for me to play with?"

"Probably."

Isabella smiled and spun around. "Then I think it will be an awesome time." I sighed, noting her use of 'awesome'. She had picked it up from me, no doubt, when the American slang was still strong in my speech. It would peek thru, along with my western accent, when I would talk for long periods of time, or get excited about something, or angry. Consequently, I rarely spoke in public, which followed with the standard set by society that women should not talk to much nor give their opinion unless asked. Another rule I hated, yet for necessity, followed.

"I sure hope so," I muttered under my breath.