Prologue: A Distraction from Their Troubles
Until all vision had been obscured in the passing of a southerly tempest, Marshall Island was reckoned to lay some twenty miles East of Salem, Massachusetts. A wrath of nature had entangled many a ship's riggings and capsized others including the once distinguished Island Pride. Her wreckage was cast upon an unlikely breakwater of blackened rock to have her planks and masts tossed between swells and waves. Considered lost to the New England Pirate - a daring night of debauchery that thirty-first day of October, sixteen hundred ninety one - many considered auspicious her recent discovery. Such naive hope was diminished the morning following her relocation for this particular tempest blew that summer eve; the nineteenth day of July, sixteen hundred ninety two.
Of the ships that departed on the eve of the tempest, a lone rowboat was the single vessel to ever see land and whose markings were consistent with the Island Pride. An unfortunate man of questionable countenance was curled in its prow with a specter of death laboring upon his weak exhales, and he was tended by a hapless cabin boy. The boy's behavior was shrouded by opaque fright while his health was unnerving in its wholesome purity.
By the following day, that is the twentieth day of July, sixteen hundred ninety two, Jacob Marrow would spy and approach the boy because he wanted desperately to forget the visage of the women dangling by their necks from the sturdy branch on Gallows Hill. Both his wife Aubrey and he awoke to an amnesiac delirium and would make about their business in a futile attempt to ignore the most recent past. By mid-morning, they would realize that neither could push the thoughts from their minds, perhaps never again be able to discuss those events, and so would take a long walk through one of Putnams' gangly orchards. They would see a boy on the sandy shore, decipher his name and a sense of urgency from his broken English, and find a fascinating distraction from their own troubles.
To behold the events that end with a bedeviled man and a spiritually cleansed boy at a shore near Salem, and that begun nine months prior when the Island Pride fell prey to the New England Pirate, suggests that Marshall Island existed and was a location where fantastic events transpired. Upon hearing such descriptions, as Jacob and Aubrey Marrow would be witness, a high degree of suspicion and disbelief would certainly be expected. If any truth was to be found then how might such truth affect the course of history for a small city in the midst of correcting rampant and unscrupulous behavior? Were this truth remotely believable, and thus highlight the wrongs of the accusers instead of the accused, would not this information be extremely dangerous?
On the other hand, it would be a lot less dangerous simply to disavow the existence of the island. And that is an easy task when its existence already was in question.
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Part I: Descent of Man
July 20, 1692, Salem, MA
The storm had broken, and the leaky rowboat rocked on gentle swells beneath a predawn sky visible through scattered and fleeting clouds. Dimitri looked over the barely living body cowering in the prow and could see the sandy shore of the Massachusetts mainland. He crouched and untethered the oars from stowage. Though weak and feeble hours prior, he was surprised that his body felt invigorated and he now had the strength to lift one oar to the oarlock, and then the other. He gave little more than a cursory glance at the ailing passenger, gripped the oars firmly in his slight palms, and began to row.
Massachusetts Bay was peaceful with subtle swells, few ships and the telling signs of vessels thrashed by the recent tempest. A stiff morning breeze helped carry the boat towards shore, and gulls flying into the wind hovered motionless above before swooping down to inspect the boy and his passenger. Dimitri chased lingering gulls from the passenger but did not stop rowing for those that only passed by and pecked once or twice.
In truth, he had never felt so well in his life and for once enjoyed the chore of rowing on the open sea. His heart beat strongly and his lungs did not feel as though they would burst. He felt energized. As the boat traveled closer to the shore, he watched as Marshall Island dissipated into the fog. For a time it appeared to be no more than an uninviting rock, and then the island vanished. Passage from the island to the shore had given him time to contemplate the events that had transpired over the previous nine months.
Suffering and slavery were his life, and he recalled individual moments only as vacant holes in his thoughts where he had turned his mind away from the world. He could not imagine another defense a boy of ten years might muster. Then he was on the island, and his memory became clearer if for no other reason than a strange man kept the boy at his side, and the vile inhumanities of his owners were focused upon a strange young woman named Paris. For those nine months, she occupied his place in bearing their vicious wiles until Captain West shot her, minutes before succumbing to his own ills.
Dimitri slowed his rowing as he struggled to remember the cause of Captain West's demise. It was on the tip of his tongue for it affected the passenger he now ferried to land. He thought it queer that he could not envision the answer. Nor did he feel compassion towards Paris, for whom he fostered great despair all the while she was thrashed and used. Dimitri could visualize the missing memory because he refused to remember so much before the island. To have a complete memory for the first time in his life with recent and interspersed breaks attracted further introspection. It was as though a penultimate truth about her death, Captain West's death, and the ill passenger were interconnected in such a way and under such circumstances that compassion and mercy became foreign thoughts in their consideration. With but ten tears of wisdom, he saw that truth only as the missing memory.
When the boat was within a hundred yards of the shore, Dimitri stopped rowing and reached for a leather parcel he had placed in the aft. He carefully unwrapped the skin, streaked with blackened mold from time and exposure, and took a hazel nut from the folds. It was the last nut of a small amount given to him prior to leaving the island. He turned it over in his fingers for now he could see its marvelous composure and form. When he noticed the passenger staring wide- and lusty-eyed at that one nut in his fingers, he quickly ate it and threw the fabric into the sea.
The last few strokes to the shore were the most difficult. Dimitri wanted to jump into the water and pull the boat over the remaining distance, but was unsure that his strength would prevail upon such weight. Instead he rowed the boat right up to the shore and then climbed over the side and into the surf. He wrapped his arms around a coil of rotten and frayed rope attached to the bow and struggled to pull the boat further onto shore. When he had availed himself to no end, he dropped the coil of rope onto the sand and returned to the boat.
The passenger appeared to be asleep, so he wasted no time in pulling a large leather satchel from the aft, pitched it to the ground, and drug it over the sand to a pile of drift wood dressed in rotten fish parts. He buried the satchel near the drift wood, took a long and careful look at where he was on the beach and where he had buried the satchel, and then hurriedly returned to the boat.
The sun was creeping over the horizon, and the passenger looked ashen even in the magnificent auburn glow. Weakness and ailment crippled his eyes into a forlorn gaze and certain death was remarked upon by his expression. His crusty eyes cracked open and he raised a gray and gamely hand to touch his parched lips with a crooked finger.
"Boy," came a rasped whisper from the passenger's decrepit mouth. "Water."
Immediate reaction rippled across Dimitri's chest and down his spine. He started to look for water but stopped himself and looked straight into the eyes of the passenger. He spit directly at the man's mouth.
The man's white and bloated tongue slithered across his flaked lips and licked the spittle from his finger and his mouth. "Please," he beseeched.
"Pray Death be thy mate, O'Reilly." Fresh hurt and anger boiled in Dimitri because, although he tried, he had not forgotten the harsh words, the hard strikes, and the buck- embraces. He felt raw heat smolder in his chest and took several steps back from the boat. O'Reilly was too weak to lash out at him, but Dimitri did not want to give him the opportunity.
"Pack mule," he stuttered and wheezed as he tried to speak harshly, "wretched beast of bidding. You are property, boy. Now fetch me water." O'Reilly made his demand in broken and weakly spoken words, in the only vicious tone he could muster.
Dimitri shook his head. "I bring you hither." He stamped his bare foot in the sand. He screamed at O'Reilly, "Now I find ears for your words." A hint of a smile crossed his lips, but he forced it away. "Then die, O'Reilly. Then be dead."
O'Reilly lay into the corner of the bow, turned towards Dimitri with one arm dangling over the side. His face contorted into a scowl. "And when I speak, consider what I may let slip of the treasure."
Dimitri's eyes widened but he said nothing.
O'Reilly coughed. Blood flecked his lips. "Fantastic wealth".
Dimitri thought of the buried satchel and wondered if O'Reilly had seen him. A memory then returned. Only hours ago, he had been colder and in a night that was blacker that he had ever known. Waves were crushing him against the shore and he had to fight the ocean because, for a time, it was his only refuge. Paris, speaking clearly for the first and only time directed him to the waves. Another voice from the pitch-black night had later instructed him with words to the effect of "Into the skiff, and take the passenger hither towards the light of the rising sun. Others must hear what he has to tell. They may try to help him, but when he speaks on the Fugue, as his telling will ultimately compel him, he will pass."
The Fugue. Dimitri thought that must be what is wrong with O'Reilly, and what happened to the others. He knew O'Reilly must say something about the treasure for that was his story. But then wasn't his story also the only reason he still lived? Dimitri was only sure that he didn't want to spend any more time alone with O'Reilly.
"I go find your ears," he said.
O'Reilly tried to laugh but was only able to make a sputtering sound. "You would leave me like this?"
Dimitri shrugged and started walking up the beach. He could hear O'Reilly complain and curse at him, but his weak voice didn't carry far and soon it was drowned out by the gently rolling waves. The beach was shallow, rising into a grassy berm fewer than a hundred paces from the water. At the top of the incline, Dimitri could see the port of Salem Towne to the south. To the north was a gentrified forest thick with oak and cedar, and to the east the forest was tamed into orchards and crops. He wasn't sure whether to walk towards the heavily populated area, or towards the orchards, so he started walking eastward, angling himself between the town and orchards.
"Boy!" When he had reached the top of the berm, he had not seen anyone else, so was startled to hear any words. "I say, Boy!"
A man and woman, hands together, approached him and he thought that he must have confused them with the trees. He stood unsure of whether he was to approach them, or wait for their arrival.
"Boy," the man called again, though his voice was clipped and the word fell silent, just shy of being complete. The couple walked towards him, speaking in a hushed tone.
"I reckon he isn't some indentured boy, do you suppose Aubrey?" The man asked the woman. "You don't suppose he is a slave child?"
"Ask him," she said curtly. Both had an unkempt and tragic countenance.
"I say, boy," the man asked and then extended his hand, a gesture of welcome. "Jacob Marrow," he spoke in an overly masculine tone and gestured to the woman. "My wife, Aubrey."
"Name is Dimitri." He pointed to himself.
"Dameeshee?" Aubrey smiled, but only slightly.
"Dimitri," he said again.
"Ah, I think the boy is trying to say Damiter." Jacob smiled at his own intellectual prowess. "I say, you're a sight Damiter." He looked over the boy, nodding his head.
"Jacob," Aubrey nudged her husband. "Leave the slave boy alone."
Dimitri waved his hand towards the Ocean and spoke with a more earnest tone. "Pray follow me. Help."
Jacob stepped to the top of the berm and looked onto the beach. From his vantage, he observed the skiff listing in the surf and a man lain within. "I say, is that man injured?"
Dimitri nodded, and Jacob and Aubrey walked down the berm and briskly crossed the beach towards the boat. The boat rocked in the light waves with O'Reilly sprawled across the bow.
"Thank you, Lord," O'Reilly wheezed when he saw the approaching couple, though he didn't think to include Dimitri in his momentary lapse into piety.
"Are you unwell, sir?" Jacob asked as he approached, though came to an abrupt stop when he could see O'Reilly more clearly. He held back his wife, who signed the cross and said, "Heavens, he's got the plague."
"Fugue," Dimitri said abruptly and approached the boat. He prodded O'Reilly with several sharp stabs of the finger as though the man were a tamed beast. "He not hurt you."
The Marrows were understandably skeptical, though Jacob became more accepting as he looked between Dimitri and O'Reilly. "I reckon the boy seems quite healthy. But, the gentleman's manner seems familiar." He exchanged a glance with his wife, but they were not ready to bring voice to the familiarity of O'Reilly's condition.
"Boy," O'Reilly gasped and tried to grab Dimitri's arm. When that failed, he pointed to indicate himself and managed to speak his own name. "O'Reilly. My name is O'Reilly. The boy," he pointed at Dimitri, "the boy Dimitri is my servant. Property."
Dimitri turned to the Marrows to protest, but Jacob smiled and clapped his hands together, then turned to Aubrey. "The boy's name is Dimitri." Then, to O'Reilly. "Sir, we best help you back to our home and pray you might recover from this unfortunate ailment of yours."
"Fugue," Dimitri muttered, but didn't belabor the distinction as he didn't know what, exactly, that distinction was. He felt as though his new-found strength had been momentarily knocked from his body, and wondered what was to become of him.
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