The Blackened Soul by Candace Osmond

Author:Candace Osmond [Osmond, Candace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781988159539
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Iworked idly to prepare supper, my mind far off in a distant place. A place where Henry and I existed together. As I washed and scrubbed the thick white roots I gathered, I dreamed of being in his arms again. His sweet, tortured face softening at the sight of me. Warm pink lips under the blonde scruff of his jagged jawline. Black eyes staring lovingly into mine. Every fiber of my being ached to be with him and it was all I could to hold back the rush of emotion that tried to force tears.

“Would you like me to do that?” Pleeman spoke as he suddenly appeared by my side. “Or do you intend to rub them down to nothing?”

Snapping out of my daydream, I turned to the old man and smiled. “Sorry, I was just…”

“Thinking about being anywhere but here?” His old, wrinkled hands took the roots from mine. “I’ll finish cleaning these. You get started on the rest.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him.

“Yes, of course! I’m eager to watch and learn. Be nice to cook something other than plain, ol’ fried fish.”

I grabbed a sack of open flour from the floor and lifted it to the worn wooden tabletop. I was surprised by what they had; flour, sugar, and even a small collection of vegetables. They were half rotten, but I managed to dig out a few I could use. The old chef had told me earlier that they got their supplies from shipwrecks and things that washed ashore. “Pleeman, how do you not know how to make anything?”

He laughed. A strained old man’s chuckle. “I wasn’t always a cook. I was once a mere deckhand. Many years ago.”

“So, how did you become the cook, then?”

He brought the washed ingredients over to the table top I worked at. His aging eyes peered up at me. “One must do whatever it takes to survive on a ship such as this one.”

It was my turn to laugh then. “I once did the exact same thing. I was taken prisoner aboard a ship. The cook turned out to be a murderer out for the captain’s blood, so I took the opportunity to gain their trust with my skills.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Pleeman, what possessed you to become part of a pirate crew at your age?”

“Oh, Dearie, I wasn’t this old when I first washed ashore,” he told me.

My eyes bulged. “Wait, you mean–”

“Oh, yes. I do not belong to The Black Soul,” he affirmed. “I was a young man, first time at sea. I’d swindled my way onto the crew of a new ship. A merchant vessel sailing for the South. We hit a storm. The ship was destroyed, and we washed up on the beach here. But I was the only one alive. That’s when Benjamin found me.”

My heart pulsed hard against the inside of my chest. He aged. Even though he became part of the curse, he wasn’t bound by the way time stood still for the original crew.

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