Free The Ship of Lost Souls 1 by Rachelle Delaney

couldn’t for the life of her remember. In fact, he seemed to want to distance her from her past and from the land they lived in, insisting that Mary replace the island maps Scarlet liked to study with a big book on Old World geography. By the time Scarlet was ten, she knew far more about places halfway around the world than she did about her own home.
    Always eager to please the admiral, Scary Mary made it her mission to bring out the Old World in Scarlet. She curled her straight black hair and pinched her cheeks till they turned rosy. But the curls never stayed; Mary only succeeded in scalding Scarlet’s scalp with the hot curlers. And Scarlet’s cheeks stubbornly refused to stay pink, no matter how hard Mary tweaked them with her twisted fingers.
    Scarlet stretched and yawned in her hammock as sleep began to creep up on her from wherever it hid by day. But she fought it off, suddenly feeling a need to relive her story—or as much of it as she could remember.
    John McCray would visit her in Jamestown now and then, but he never stayed long. For five years Scarlet spent her time trying to ignore Mary’s mutterings while plotting her own escape. She’d steal a rowboat and row until her arms fell off. She’d bribe some port merchant to kidnap her and desert her on the nearest beach, where she’d live off guava fruit and plump red ants. Or she’d stow away on a pirate ship, then persuade the dirty buccaneers to let her stay on board. That last one sounded the most appealing.
    Then, when Scarlet was nearly eleven, her father appeared one day at the boarding house. She’d barely recognized him. His entire posture was rigid—even his face looked tight, as if he were trying to hold something back. He sat down, then stood, sat again, and then told her that he was sending her to live with his family in the Old World.
    Scarlet’s mouth fell open. This was not one of her escape plans. As much as she longed to ditch Scary Mary and dirty Jamestown, the thought of leaving the islands made her insides lurch. She couldn’t! But could she tell him that?
    Her father didn’t give her a chance. “Your ship will sail a week from today,” he said, then he stood and left, just like that. It was the last time she saw him.
    Scarlet didn’t notice Scary Mary’s presence in the room until after Admiral McCray had left. The old woman regarded her thoughtfully and scratched her papery scalp.
    â€œSo Scarlet McCray shall sail away,” she said. “It’s for the best, you know. Well, not for me, because with you goes my livelihood. But it’s just what you need. To forget.”
    Later that day, Scarlet marched down to the docks, unsure exactly what she was looking for, but certain she needed to get out of Jamestown immediately to avoid this ship bound for the Old World. She sat down on the edge of a dock and swung her legs over the water. She wished she could swim or at least drift effortlessly like the flotsam that bobbed near her feet. An ara circled low overhead, unmistakable in its flame-red feather cloak, and perched on the post of a nearby pier. Scarlet watched it, heartened by the sight of one of the rare birds. It cocked its head and stared straight at her, unblinking, until Scarlet could practically hear it say, “Well? What are you waiting for?”
    The notion made her grin in spite of herself. “You’d better be off, too,” she told the bird. “If you haven’t noticed, there’re a few hundred men around here who’d like to pluck you clean.”
    A cry brought her attention back to earth. She scanned the port until she saw him: a boy with a dusty face and ripped trousers. He looked like any other cabin boy, except that he was upside down, being held by his ankles and shaken by a King’s Man who looked like he wrestled whales in his spare time.
    â€œI don’t . . . know what . . .