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Miss Anne’s was a brothel positioned on the outskirts of Tortuga. The perfect location to stumble towards when drunkenly searching for one’s ship after a night of absolute chaos. Inside it’s humble walls lay a young woman with a golden halo of hair, fatigued by the weight of her life. This was not a true home, not for anyone. Yet it was a safe haven for those who lost themselves, no questions asked. She loathed the occupation, and further despised her disconnection from destiny, any true meaning on the earth for her to exist. Circe could only imagine what she might do if she left, and isn’t that how everyone’s story begins? She could ravage the seas, take revenge on the souls that have bitten chunks from hers. The man who stole her daughter’s light. Their meeting was brief, stinking of his rotten tongue and leathered skin, and resulted in a swelling of her stomach. Miss Anne argued with her for weeks, ‘you must not tell him’, she begged, ‘please Circe you don’t understand’. But she was determined, and by dawn she was beaten blue, blood pouring from between her thighs.
Perhaps if she left to live a peaceful life, start it all again with a handsome young man who could never understand how to encourage her bright spark. He would try to keep her spirit in a lantern, barely igniting her. But she had lived alone too long to shrink like an injured cat. This was a New Age after all, a world of pillaging and pride where any man could earn his worth, so couldn’t she?
The moon sinks, and with a heavy heart dawn sets in yet again. Finally released from the hypnosis of Mother Moon, Circe awakens to a fresh new world. Her body slumped, all she dreamt of was a permanent form of freedom. Customers told her hundreds of stories filled with pirates, sea creatures and magic. These men told her of many adventures awaiting in the farthest corners of the world, yet somehow she remained trapped on this island. That is until she found the kind man her father had trusted with his life.
He became infatuated with her. The ghost of his great captain brought to life before him. They had travelled together briefly when Circe was just a girl and would babble on with her tales of the sea. She must have hundreds now, each as magnificent and heartbreaking as the last. “Tell me
your
story, lass.” Yet her eyes seemed distant, lost to the world, “a story for another time, Jacob.”
The crew was wary of the woman. Rumours of her identity spread, and there was an air of acceptance when their Captain announced she was joining their next voyage. In only two days Circe would be released from Tortuga’s musty embrace. “Oh, dear, I will miss you.” Miss Anne was slowly filling a bath with warm water. “I always knew you would make it. You are so strong my darling.” Tears brimmed her eyes, and she could not turn to face the woman.
“You have been so kind to me, Annie, I cannot bear to let you go.” they had been together for years now, the only constant in each other’s life. “You are the most wonderful mother I could wish for, and I will not let you forget that.” Their embrace was soaked with tears, a mixture of longing and excitement swirling together.
“Never stop following your destiny, no matter how impossible it seems.” Memories of late-night conversations flooded Circe’s mind. How she had always longed for a real, tangible future. Always striving for some kind of higher purpose, and Anne had promised her the world. She undressed, stepping into the bath.
This ship was different from her father’s, darker mahogany. Leathered men marched the deck, gathering supplies and repairing the damaged hull. Jacob had been there when her father sank into the depths, too injured in battle to survive. “The man had honour, Circe. He told us to board the longboats, not to worry about him.” The memory weighed on him. “I tried to convince him, yet he seemed delirious from his injury. He spoke of finally being reunited… With the sea I assume.” The best way to describe the man was devoted, he stayed ashore to raise Circe as much as possible. However, voyages were inevitable if he wanted to give her the life she deserved. They had been well off, telling the town that he was a merchant. During his travels he paid their neighbours to care for her, a busy family of five. They couldn’t afford to care for her
“And what did you do after?” He had been apart of her father’s crew since he was a teenager, slowly working up the ranks until he became the first mate.
“It was hard without your father, Circe. None were as kind as he was to me.” He paused, “All I wanted was to make him proud, so I saved my treasure for many moons. This is my second ship, and I try to treat these men as family.” It was a humble request, but not always easy. “Some of them have tried to steal from me, but this is how pirates are. I’ve never known anything else.” Even as a child Circe knew he wasn’t suited to the life of a pirate. He was too gentle and the sea pushed him around far too easily. Somehow he had made it this far.
“You’re a good man.” She watched the waves crash against the shore, finally feeling at peace with the sea. Finally, she had a piece of her old life. All this time, Jacob had been making her father proud and finally she could as well.
_____________
Shadowing the glowing sun rained balls of charcoal, exploding in the dewy morning air. Children cried for their mothers’, and mothers’ cried to the Gods. This is how everyone knew Blackbeard – his name crashed around the earth like shells in the waves, always washing up somewhere exquisite. He could taunt the earth with a single breath. His men rolled from the ship faster than waves hit the shore, screaming blasphemy and raining terror. But still, the manhunt had only just begun.
Miss Anne woke at once, rushing for Circe’s quarters. “Girl, you must flee. Run for the south of the island and find refuge.” She was frantic, gripping her lovely face with comforting hands. The touch of a mother’s love to one’s very soul, where you feel both at absolute peace, and pure dread seeps within the softness of your very core. Tears spilled, “Calm yourself, sunshine. We will see each other again.”
They stormed each home in the village of Tortuga, ransacking far more goods than they needed. Captain Edward Teach had followed the song across the seas. The whispers of a small golden pendant crying out to its own blood, the yearning to be whole.
“A brothel, aye?” Blackbeard’s gaze settles on Miss Anne’s store, scrutinizing the plump, wrinkled woman through a cracked window. Her mouth quivers, and she stands tall. There is power in her connections here, energy the Captain feels vibrating through the room. “I’m looking for a whore, to settle me ship and me crew.”
He chuckled as he shouldered by the woman, in search of the proof he so desperately needed. The necklace hummed gently, causing him to stop in an entryway. As he raised the necklace it gained a steady pulse, humming to the peeling dark wood planks sealing the building. Anne looked with him, visualising the floors of Circe’s bedroom. She had been horrified, embracing the woman while whispering love and thanks. Beyond the safety of her home, she found dark alleys twisted with the panic of pirates preparing for battle, the atmosphere is occasionally broken with distant cries and flashes of fiery explosions. The chaos of the ransacking crew was growing closer, but she felt as if she was running with all the muscles in her body. Feet pounded the earth with a painstaking effort, until the glow of a Full Moon parted between clouds, illuminating across the waves of the Southern Bay.
Out in the water, a small boat was anchored about 20 metres from shore. Shoes still furiously slapping the sand, she ran into the water and dove beneath the waves. The warmth of silky Summer water wrapped around her limbs, flowing through both mind and body. An awakening, of hope for adventure and experience she could find out in this big beautiful world. Rising from the waves, she climbed up on the deck of a small sailboat. A pile of hay lay towards the front, and a paddle laid on the floor. She feels the world has grown humble, offering her such a novelty
due
to some drunken fools. Maybe it was more probable than pure luck. She plummets the paddle into the waves, following the rising moon deeper into the vast horizon.
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She woke from her light slumber with the rise of the sun, dehydrated, lying in the sun knowing there was nothing to eat was weighing on her deeply. The open seas surrounded her, caging her in with the billowing winds and hounding tides. It felt as if both an eternity and no time at all had passed, wrapped in this bubble of solitude. These are the times she wants to battle with herself, reaching deep inside and pulling at the root of herself, as if she is the worst enemy she will ever face. Eat yourself raw from the inside. There was no benefit to these cycles she went through as if they were only a habit. In all this time to herself after one of her biggest life events, she had felt no joy or contentment within herself. This motivation to be alive and experience the whole wide world, all stemmed from a single body and mind that was being tortured from the inside. What can you say or do to forgive one’s self of all these mistakes? The spark of life humans are given to set this world alight as if the sun lives inside of us.
Now was a time for survival and recovery. Something only she could support herself through, a culmination of her life’s energy. She travelled the seas aimlessly not knowing what she was searching for, yet every day she sat scanning the horizon for
anything. Freedom had come at a price, one of hunger and desperation. There were fish below, smaller fish she was able to swim down and catch while tied by a rope to the mast. The raw flesh seemed to sit in her mouth, unable to wash away. She knew the risk, but the affliction of starvation had finally lifted from her stomach. The sickness came fast, and she replaced days of paddling with hours of her head bent down towards the warm water gulping for air. “Putrid,” her cracked lips and dry throat grinding the words out. Nausea spun in her head, hardly from the sickness anymore but the repulsive taste of her mouth. Three days had passed, and she had heard enough tales of sailors dying after only this. The sickness had drained her of any energy left, and she had wretched nothing for far too long. She retired to the hay pile, covering herself from the sun as best as she could with the straws of her bed.
The full moon rose slowly behind clouds of mist, shining bright and slowly dimming intermittently. Black sails were chasing her up in the big bright sky, the ship breaking through the waves with the ease of an ancient sea creature. Word had travelled fast, a fleet of gossip heading from shore to shore from sailor’s mouth, boastings of men surviving a passing with the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Jack could never pass up something like this. To risk his notoriety, Black Beard had surely found some treasure worth fighting for. And Jack would be damned if he didn’t create some form of petty rivalry with a man that powerful. “Jack!” Mr Gibbs yelled out, “Man overboard!” Circe’s boat rocked with the tides, floating not too far from the Pearl. Still, she hardly stirred, woozy and far too drained for consciousness.
The men reacted to her with unease, she appeared to be fading away already, tanned face gaunt with skin dry and peeling. Anamaria demanded the men carefully lay her in the Captain’s quarters, where she took to fussing over her immediately, spooning water between her lips, and placing the cool wet fabric on her forehead. The girl was in a terrible state, and she hated to imagine how much she must have suffered. Gibbs was the only member of the Motley crew who dared to enter, asking if they needed anything. Soon enough the chef had prepared a hot meal, and Gibbs returned with hot water for bathing. “I know you must be exhausted, but you must wake now.” Anamaria stroked her cheek, she was stuck imagining one of her sisters being stranded out at sea like this woman.Her eyes fluttered slightly, consciousness slowly returning, “It aches, please.” She reached for the hand now combing her hair, craving the comfort of human touch. “You will survive this. What is your name, girl?” there was a tenderness in Ana’s eyes she had hardly shown in a long time.
“I am Circe.” Her voice flowed over vowels graciously as if she spoke English as a second language. The first sips of water had revived her, and she greedily reached for the bucket to gulp as much as she could.
“My name is Anamaria.” she had a kind face that showed Circe a very strange fondness in her deep brown eyes. “Here, you should eat Circe, you must be starved.” The bowl of fish and potatoes was still warm, something she delighted in feeling against her skin once more. “There is a hot bath being prepared for you.” She hummed appreciatively around her mouthful. “Would you be able to tell me how you ended up in the middle of the sea?” Ana chuckled, “After you’ve finished, of course.” Her stomach ached horribly, and the energy slowly seeping back to her was hardly enough.
Circe knows she is far too weak, lying limp on the bed while being spoon-fed. “If this ship had not arrived, would I have died?” The air in the room is filled with static and Anamaria stands up slowly, looking around the room for an escape. She begins to pour the bathwater. “Ya-right, that was pure luck… How warm do you like your water?” Circle prickles, these past few days had been terrifying for her. There was far too much to think over before she could move on, yet why had this woman reacted so strangely to her questions? Curse pirates …
“Quite warm please.” She thought of how luscious it would feel to scrub this dirt and scouring the flaking skin from her body. “Do you know where we are?”
Anamaria walks towards her, offering an arm to aid her to the wooden barrel bathtub. “We sailed from The Atlantic Seas.” She helps her stand up with her wobbling legs, surely too weak to walk the small distance alone.
Just one more day and they would have found her lifeless aboard the sailboat. “Oh.” The sound puffs out of her mouth.
She tests the water with her hand. “Boiling seawater, my sister taught me that.” Circe slowly removes her dirty linen garment from herself, before climbing inside and releasing a deep sigh. Anamaria hands her a piece of woollen cloth. “Use this to scrub your self. Would you like if I left?”
She is almost fully submerged in the barrel and it feels wonderfully soothing on her crisp, dry skin. “Could you stay?” She sits upon a stool across the quarters, and Circe begins scrubbing away all the grime and pain. “I sailed from Tortuga. The bay was under attack, I’m sure the crew stormed my home.”
Anamaria understood that terrifying rush of your own home being raided. “Thus you set out to sail across the seven seas. There are many islands West of Tortuga.” The air felt tense, Circe was trying to catch up to her rushed breath. “So I think we’re yet to make an astronomer of you yet.” The light jest broke through to her slightly, and she finally took a deep inhale.She felt grateful, oh so grateful to be here right now. “Thank you.” As she spoke the weight in the pit of her stomach lifted ever so slightly. Lathering the soap in her hands, she began to massage it into her long shining hair. “You have provided me with a truly gracious welcome back into society. Well, uh, just seeing another human.” She laughs to herself a little, feeling grateful and delusional. Lifting her body carefully, she leaves the makeshift bath and towels herself off. Anamaria has laid out mismatched linen trousers, a blouse, and leather boots. Even in her weakened state, she feels empowered and free as she dresses in these garments. There are no rules to bind her and no men to rule over her.“I see something familiar in you Circe, there are fierceness and virtue in you.” They smile shyly at each other for a moment. “I think we could be mates, what say you?” The smile on Circe’s face grows so big that giggles begin to bubble out of her mouth.
“The last few days have been terrifying and oh so lonely. Thank you for your kind spirit.” Anamaria comes to help her back to the Captain’s bed, and she curls up beneath the cotton bed sheet. “I feel as if I could sleep another month.” This is punctuated by a ferocious yawn.Anamaria draws the curtains around the thick poles of the bed frame canopy. “You will need plenty of rest, and don’t worry! I will wake you for supper.” She stands at the last opening in the curtain. “I hope you can rest peacefully, if you need me come find me.” Circe nods diligently, and the curtain canopy is sealed off. Sleep washes over her easily. The dream unfolds so vividly before her, standing at the sea in torrential rain with lightning cracking across the sky. “It has been a gesture of good faith by the Goddess of the sea.” There is no one there with her but a woman’s voice booms from the sky, as rough and grating as the lightning cracks. The sea beats hard against the shore, 10-metre waves rising and crashing. There is deep pain and anguish trapped deep in her soul and it wants to explode from her bones if only to escape.