Matthew Roving was having fun. For the first time in what felt like centuries, a huge smile split his face, and all he wanted to do was laugh and laugh.
So he laughed out loud, even though there was only a hovering seagull to hear him and disapprove with a squawk. After all, why not laugh? Is there anything finer, in all the world, than sailing alone in a small trim sloop, before a spanking fresh breeze, with your brown bare toes curled around the handle of the tiller, and you with absolutely nothing to do? Nothing except, maybe, control the lines to the jib with your right hand to catch a fresh puff of wind, while your left hand tosses Reese’s Pieces into the air for you to capture with your mouth as they fall. Not even caring when you miss, because there are lots more where they came from.
Why care about anything, when you are back in a world where a machine will always give you more Reese’s Pieces if you have three quarters, and a showerhead will give you hot water on demand, and a doctor will give your sister a shot of antibiotics and save her life, and nobody tries to feed you hard stale biscuits for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? This, Matthew Roving was thinking, is bliss. And to top it all off, here it was, the first day of sailing Lasers at sailing school and from the moment Matthew had set foot in the sweet little fiberglass skiff he could tell he was going to make this boat fly.
Abby was still recovering, so everybody had shuffled around like musical chairs, and in the end Matthew had to either sit on the dock or sail his Laser alone. Some didn’t want to go along with cutting him out of the race, you could see it in their downcast eyes. But they were afraid to partner with him and cross Nicky Blunt. Finally the instructor had offered to crew with him. It was a bit too late to be sincere, so Matthew said no. "Well, okay," the instructor said, obviously relieved. "Just don’t fall behind."
That was the last time any of them said anything to Matthew’s face. They were talking to his back now. First he’d spotted a little puff of wind on the left and used it to scoot free of the pack maneuvering behind the starting line. Then he had the upwind position, the weather gage John Paul Jones had called it when he had explained to Matthew how one ship got the advantage over another in a fight. "Once you’ve got it, never give it up!" he’d cried. And so instead of sailing off by himself, Matthew had placed his Laser inches away from Nicky Blunt’s and set a tight course for the starting line, not letting him wiggle loose, pinching him more and more until there was no way he could pass on the right side of the buoy. Forced with a choice of fouling Matthew and losing the race, hitting the buoy head-on, or turning a complete 360, Nicky did the correct thing. But he didn’t look happy.
Matthew finished so far ahead that he was done taking down his rig and had stowed everything away in the boathouse before the others pulled up to the dock.
Aaron Briggs came in second, tied up, and headed for Matthew. Aaron was the only black kid in sailing class, and he hung with the cool gang led by Nicky Blunt. But his father, like Matthew’s, was in the Navy—a submariner. Because of that, and because Matthew had run into Aaron on the decks of the Gaspee that wild night when the mob of fake Indians had burned the British revenue cutter, he’d hoped that they might become friends. So far nothing had come of it.
"So where’d you learn to sail Lasers?" asked Aaron.
"Oh, from John Paul Jones," Matthew replied, and got his reward when Aaron laughed.
"Jerk," said Nicky, bailing out his boat. He sluiced water over Matthew’s bare brown feet with a pail of sea water, and didn’t even pretend it was an accident.
Matthew laughed. "I bet Nicky doesn’t know who he is. What do you think, Aaron?"
Aaron nodded, almost imperceptibly, and gave Matthew a warning glance. Nicky was not the type to beat you up, but he could be merciless with his sarcasm, so that when he was done with you, you were bleeding quite publicly from a thousand small cuts.
Nicky hoisted his centerboard onto the dock. "Don’t know what? That they had Lasers back in the Revolution?" He grunted. "Rich fantasy life you have there, Midshipman Roving. Is that what you dream about in the tanning booth?"
"What tanning booth?" Matthew asked. Nicky pointed at his feet, darkened by hours of Caribbean sunshine. Then he grabbed Matthew’s shirt and yanked it up. Everyone on the dock stared at the mahogany-brown skin of his stomach and chest, before Matthew pulled away in a panic. He had no idea what to say, and was actually thinking of confessing to visiting a tanning booth, with who knows what kinds of repercussions, when Aaron interrupted. "You must have sailed one before," he insisted. Matthew shook his head: "Not in this life."
Walking home, Matthew felt a little giddy. He’d fairly whipped Nicky Blunt, and still Aaron had dared to be friendly in front of him. Looks like I’m starting a little revolution here, too, he thought.
He stopped off to treat himself to a Ben & Jerry’s double cone, with sprinkles. But his high spirits soon melted, faster even than the ice cream cone once he realized his eyes had been bigger than his appetite. Feeling guilty, he threw it in a garbage can. All those Reese’s Pieces were to blame. Or maybe it was Nicky Blunt knowing who John Paul Jones was. For some reason, he wanted to keep the little captain his own secret.
Matthew’s mood got darker the closer he got to the Quaint Misbehaving Home for Wayward Salts. He dreaded the anxious, preoccupied presence of his Mom, and the gloomy, hovering, spying presence of Wydontia Gaway. Yet the real worry was what to do about Abby.
Matthew recalled the past week as he kicked along a cobblestoned alley. After finding Abby so close to death in the hold of the Falmouth packet, he’d had a desperate flash of intuition: along with the measles-infected blankets, a seaman’s chest had come aboard in Barbados. Even then there had been something funny, something familiar about that chest. Using the knife he always kept tucked in his waist, he’d hacked at the ropes securing it. Throwing open the lid he found, under layers of itchy wool clothes, a brace of flintlock pistols, two hairy coconuts and a large china platter, The Log. He’d opened the The Log to the first blank page and, grasping the limp body of Abby in his arms, stepped onto it and thus, he hoped, into the future, where she could see a doctor and be saved.
A strange falling sensation had come to an abrupt halt in the attic of the Quaint Misbehaving. Within minutes an ambulance had come to whisk his sister away to a hospital. After a night in intensive care with an oxygen tube down her throat, Abby had been released, pumped full of antibiotics, to rest at home.
Much to his mother’s surprise, Matthew had begged to be the one to take care of Abby. "Oh, I’m so glad to hear that!" she exclaimed. "The way you two fight all the time, I used to wonder if there was any affection at all between you." She reached out and crushed him to her. It was such a fierce embrace, and lasted so long, that Matthew grew uncomfortable. But he could sense that Mom needed it—that she’d been scared for Abby, but too brave to let on.
"Listen, Matthew," she said, her lips tickling the hair at the top of his head. "I’m glad you volunteered to watch her, because I need to go to Washington for a few days. The families of the. . ." Her voice faltered. ". . . of Daddy’s ship have been invited to a briefing on the situation. They say the Secretary of the Navy himself might be there. So I’ve got to go."
"Let me come with you!" He twisted his face up to look at her, but all he could see was the point of her chin and the tip of her nose. She was staring at the ceiling, tears running down her cheeks. "What about Abby?" she asked. "Missus Gaway has offered to watch her, but . . . ."
Matthew felt shock whiplash through his spine. "No," he said, quickly. "I’ll stay."
And it was a good thing he did: during the week that Abby passed indoors at the Quaint Misbehaving, one near-disaster followed another. She’d insisted that he call her Abigail, refused to eat Frosted Flakes or Cheerios, screamed when he put a pair of headphones over her ears so she could hear his Dave Matthews Band CD. After she’d recovered enough to get out of bed, she slipped downstairs into the kitchen one morning to make breakfast. Matthew found her on her knees, filling the oven with kindling and firewood borrowed from the living room’s hearth. "But I know how to make a fire!" she protested as he led her away.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the last time Abigail sneaked into the kitchen. This sudden docility piqued the interest of Wydontia Gaway, who had been critical of the modern Abby’s untraditional habits and bossy temperament. The landlady soon put Abigail to work, chopping and peeling quantities of potatoes and carrots, mixing up huge bowls of bread dough, and shucking bushels of clams for chowders. "Such a help to have around," rasped the tall, teetering-to-one-side old harridan, with a curious rictus smile on her lips. "Not like most girls today."
Yesterday, Abigail had announced that she felt cured. "I’d like to take a turn outdoors, Matty," she said. "Wilt thou join me?" When they had stepped out the front door, Matthew jumped to her left side to block her view of Wydontia Gaway’s motorbike, parked against the curb. Then he steered her around the corner. He had an idea of keeping her to the quaint, restored alleys of Newport, so that she wouldn’t be too surprised. So what should happen, naturally, but that they would come face-to-face with three pierced, shave-headed, tattooed, thrift-shop-dressed teenagers smoking cigarettes and rocking out to rap on their Walkmen.
Abigail looked them over carefully. "Matty?" she asked. "What tribe of Indian do you think those are?"
Matthew resisted the urge to laugh hysterically. "Goth, I think," he said. And on she walked. A pair of tourists in matching striped sailor shirts likewise rated no more than a comment: "There must be a French Indiaman anchored in the port; their uniforms look much finer, in truth, than the English."
Just as Matthew was relaxing, though, a 30-year-old woman with long flowing blonde hair, dressed only in a halter top and a very short skirt, zipped past them on a shiny steel Razor scooter. Abigail’s fingernails dug into Matthew’s arm. "Did you see that?" she gasped.
Matthew cleared his throat: "See what?"
Abigail gestured wildly at the glittering creature flying away, by now far down the alley. "Matty, I’m scared! Take me home!" She buried her face in his shoulder. "I saw a witch, Matty. I swear it. . . she was riding a silver broomstick . . . ."
No question about it, Abigail had to go back to the 18th century before Mom got home. Letting himself quietly into the Quaint Misbehaving, Matthew slipped upstairs, checked to see that Abigail was knitting in the bedroom—knitting!—and ran up to the attic to fetch The Log. He returned to see Abigail’s back as she descended to the drawing room. "Abby!" he whispered.
"Ye’ve got a visitor," rasped a voice in his ear. He jumped back. Wydontia Gaway stood in the doorway of their bedroom. There was nothing to do but head downstairs, stuffing The Log under his shirt.
Standing on the threadbare carpet, pretending to admire a dark oil painting of a full-rigged frigate running before a storm, was Nicky Blunt. "Well, hello there!" he said, with a big fake smile. "I came to see if you’re feeling better."
Abigail curtsied. "You’re too kind, Lord Blunt." Nicky shot a glance at Matthew, who rolled his eyes. "Prithee, do sit thee down, sir."
In the cramped drawing room there ensued a strange tete-a-tete. Abigail behaved like a modest Colonial maid, much to the fascination of Nicky and Wydontia Gaway, who watched and listened to everything she said with alarming intensity. All Matthew could do was head off embarrassing turns of conversation, and make the occasional twirled-finger-at-the-temples sign. Disaster lurked behind every question posed by Nicky, who seemed especially interested to know what kind of sailing they’d done back home.
"A barkentine? What’s that?" he asked after one of Abigail’s remarks. Matthew couldn’t stand it any longer: "Sure, we saw one up at the Mystic Seaport, right, Abigail?"
Wydontia Gaway turned to her with deliberation. "My dear, won’t you make a pot of tea for us." Seeing Nicky’s puzzled expression, Matthew jumped right in: "Yeah, Nicky, we’re big tea-drinkers in this house."
Abigail shot up in her chair and blushed bright red. "Oh, but I can’t! I won’t!" She turned to Nicky. "Surely you know it’s not tea we’re drinking in these Colonies, Lord Blunt. As for you, Matty"—she glared at him, no longer the docile lass, but the proud daughter of Captain Rance Roving, the best smuggler in Narragansett Bay. "The very idea, after what the lobsterbacks have done to us! The massacre at Boston—the way they’ve lived in our homes and eaten our food and treated us like servants. You, Matty, of all persons ought to know happened after, after, after"—she sputtered for a second—"after what was done to the Gaspee. You know there’s a price on the head of any whose name can be connected to burning the ship. Yes, that’ll get some fine Royalist 500 pounds, and a sure trial for you back in England with a rope for a necktie as certain as sunrise. And you wanting a cup of tea!"
During the silence that followed, Matthew realized two things: one, that Wydontia Gaway had set this question as a trap, and two, he had to get Abigail out right now. Rising and pulling her up by the arm, he gave Nicky and the landlady a stern and disapproving look. "She’s getting worn out, which the doctor warned against," he said.
Wydontia Gaway smiled slyly. "How odd that the cup that refreshes also seems to refresh this young one’s curiously ancient memories."
Matthew, busy steering Abigail up the stairs, couldn’t stand letting the old bat have the last word. He tossed a final quip over his shoulder: "That’s what you get for watching too much of the History Channel!"
The moment they were in the bedroom, he yanked up his shirt and flung The Log open on the bedspread. Holding fast to an angry Abigail with one hand, he leafed through The Log’s stiff pages with the other, frantically looking for the date in 1773. He could hear footsteps on the stairs. "Close your eyes!" he barked. Abigail flinched, but did as she was told.
Barbados, St. Vincent, Cape Hatteras—there it was! He pressed the pages flat on the bed. As he did, the doorknob rattled, and the door began to open. Sweeping Abigail up in his arms, he gave a little jump backwards onto the bed.
Blazing tropical sunlight dazzled. Hot wooden floorboards radiated underfoot. Matthew blinked at the several silhouetted shapes, waiting for his eyes to adjust so he could recognize who they were. But there was no mistaking the sharp voice of John Paul Jones.
"Ah, there you are, Mr. Roving. Nice of you to make an appearance. And timely, too. It seems the men here have decided that your dear sister is a witch."