Free Ill Wind and Dead Reckoning: Caribbean Pirate Adventure (Valkyrie) by Karen Perkins

me.
    ‘Soon,’ she said. She looked up at me with a smile, ‘I quite like this, the work can wait just a little while.’
    I laughed and kicked water at her. She squealed and ran back to dry sand. I followed and sat next to her, laughing.
    ‘Mama! Mama!’
    Startled, I looked round at the voice and saw a small boy scrambling down the cliff path. I squinted and realized I’d seen him before, at the sugar mill.
    ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘My son,’ Klara replied, without looking at me. She got up and went to meet the boy.
    He was small, maybe four or five years old, and was much lighter skinned than Klara – not much darker than myself now that I’d spent a month or so in the Caribbean sun.
    They spoke for a while, then the boy ran off, looking round at me before he started to climb.
    Klara re-joined me on the sand. ‘He and Wilbert were worried, they couldn’t find me at the house.’
    ‘Wilbert?’ I asked.
    ‘He’s one of the field slaves – he was there at the wedding celebration.’
    I remembered the dozen or so men dressed in the same livery Hans and Hendrik usually wore, and carrying trays of drinks and food.
    ‘I didn’t know you had a son,’ I said, shocked at how little I knew about this woman who was my main companion. ‘What’s his name?’
    She glanced at me, then looked back out to sea. ‘Jan.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ She had spoken quietly and I thought I’d misheard.
    She looked me in the eye. ‘Jan,’ she repeated, louder this time.
    I stared at her, the implication of the name hitting me. I felt sick. ‘Jan,’ I repeated. ‘Oh, Klara.’ The revulsion I’d felt at first was swept aside by pity.
    Klara looked out to sea again. ‘You know I was given to Mijnheer Erik for his sixteenth birthday – put into a pretty dress with a ribbon tied in my hair.’ She snorted with something like laughter. ‘My mama was so proud that I’d be working in the big house, and when I didn’t come home at night, she thought I had a nice room of my own. She wouldn’t listen to anyone who told her different.’
    ‘Not even when you told her?’
    ‘I couldn’t tell her what was happening, what Mijnheer Erik wanted from me every night. Her heart was already weak, all I could do for her was give her the fantasy.’
    ‘But, but, you said you were twelve?’
    She nodded. ‘It didn’t matter to Mijnheer Erik – I was just a slave girl to do with as he wished – my age didn’t matter.’
    ‘And you had a son.’
    ‘Yes, I had a son – I didn’t know about the tea then. Mijnheer Erik left me alone when my belly started to grow – and his father ignored me. In fact, I think he was pleased – they would have a free slave!’
    I turned away, unable to look at the expression on her face. ‘But why did you call him Jan? You were forced! Surely calling him Jan celebrated his father?’
    She laughed; a desperate sound with no humour in it. ‘I was young. I thought by calling him Jan they would recognize him as blood – show him favour, maybe even free him.’
    ‘They didn’t,’ I guessed.
    She made the laughing noise again. ‘No, they didn’t. They put him to work as soon as he turned four. He’s been weeding and picking up sugarcane after the harvest for two years already. Wilbert does his best to keep an eye on him, but he comes home covered in injuries.
    I thought back to the boy I’d seen. I could hardly believe he was six years old – he certainly didn’t look strong enough to do a day’s work.
    ‘He’s stronger than he looks,’ Klara said. ‘He needs to be.’
    I looked at her in sympathy.
    ‘Mijnheer Jan hates him; hates that I named him for him. If it weren’t for Mijnheer Erik, I’m sure he’d have killed us both a long time ago.’
    ‘What? Why?’
    ‘If you name someone for a Dutchman, you give the child a piece of their soul.’
    ‘What?’ I didn’t understand.
    ‘Mijnheer Jan believes that by naming my son Jan, I have stolen part of his soul and given it to the