Beyond Seven Sisters

  Beyond Seven Sisters

  Seven Sisters™ Series Book Seven

  M.L. Bullock

  Beyond Seven Sisters is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Monica L. Bullock

  Cover by Fantasy Book Design

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact support@lmbpn.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US Edition, October 2019

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-495-1

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-496-8

  Contents

  Wongel Poem

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Ghosts of Idlewood

  M.L. Bullock’s Author Notes

  Meet the Author

  Books By M.L. Bullock

  Beyond Seven Sisters Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Connie DeLoach

  Rebecca Bowers

  Micky Cocker

  Nicole Emens

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Misty Roa

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  Lynne Stiegler

  This book is dedicated to the most valiant of all Vikings, my brother Lance Matthew Patrick.

  Du kampade bra, bror.

  You fought well, brother.

  Wongel Poem

  I.

  Sometimes I stand

  And watch you Ayida

  My mind spins

  True your head is frizzy

  But the night seemingly

  Sleeps in your hair

  Ayida o!

  Sunlight frolics

  Over all the surfaces of the house

  The children eat hunger

  Till their stomachs are full

  A small bottle of night

  Spills on a sheet of life

  The moon becomes blotched

  How the darkness is thick, konpè!

  Ayida o!

  When will the day wane?

  Zombies struggle up

  Shooting stars fall

  Birds rise to sing

  At the wake in the house of Ayida

  Lightning flashes past

  Weapons are pulled to fire

  Ancestors rise to stand

  Chaos breaks out in the house of Ayida

  II.

  A shooting star falls

  Cuts my forehead

  Pakanpak!

  Thunder rumbles down

  In the middle of my breast

  A small fire burns to my searing heart

  You may cut me

  Slash me throw me

  You may burn me

  Make charcoal with me

  Birds won’t stop

  To nest in my roots

  Hope won’t cease

  To flower in my heart

  I am a poet

  My roots have no cell

  III.

  When a flower is cut at 10 o’clock

  At exactly 10 o’clock

  It dies of tetanus

  Nothing is made of it

  When a hibiscus is bled

  Its blood bathes its body

  A hummingbird calls out

  That’s nothing at all

  But when a royal poinciana

  Aches and tremors

  All the birds flee

  To exile they go to sing

  Overseas they go to wail

  Of the suffering that’s left behind

  The wind carries news

  News which spreads

  Buzzes in Ayida’s ear

  She does not hear anything

  IV.

  Every drop of night that drips

  Is a cup of dark coffee in our hearts

  In our eyes dew trickles

  Wipe off the layer of dust

  In bandannas before the dawn

  The hawk lunges on the day’s throat

  Pecks the sun in the grain of the eye

  Light stumbles thrice

  Before the great daylight dies

  All our cards of liberty have been cheated from us

  Our dreams fill up a small tin can

  Our silence breaks us

  Our patience scalds us

  But you, you watch the nor’easter wind

  Who’s measuring the length of your slip

  From the moutaintop

  Which puts the sea in your control

  Thunder cracks thrice in your palm

  When the wind casts her off

  Who will cut her calf?

  When the sea swings her dress

  Who will call her uncouth?

  When thunder beats the kalinda

  Who will rise to dance?

  By Emmanuel Ejen, 1968

  Chapter One

  Deidre Jardine

  I woke up drowning in a pool of murky green water. My lungs refused to take in air. My hands clawed at vines. No, not vines, but roots. Lilypad roots. Was I in a pond? The water moved above me, and I could have sworn I saw a dark face peering down at me. My fingertips and toes felt numb, and the stagnant water chilled me to the bone.

  Momma. Where are you, Momma?

  I quit struggling, even though my lungs burned and my eyes felt heavy.

  Carrie Jo? Is that you?

  Oh, her voice sounded young. She sounded just like she had when she was small. When she loved me and believed in me. When I hadn’t yet wounded her heart so terribly.

  Carrie Jo?

  A horrific scream shuddered through the water, and I began struggling again. I was sinking, and my daughter’s voice grew fainter and fainter.

  No! Let me go to her. Let me go!

  And then the dark face appeared again, and while I pondered who that could be, what this could mean, a hand reached down and took mine.

  I am going to die. I should let go. I shouldn’t fight this. I deserve to drown in these waters, in my sorrow.

  But the hand would not let me go.

  Ou pa pral mouri jodi a. Ou se mi famwe. Although my mind did not understand the language, I knew the meaning. How? I couldn’t say. You will not die today. You are my family.

  I woke with a scream. I wasn’t in a murky pond. There was no shadowy face speaking a foreign language in my ear. Carrie Jo wasn’t drowning either. I began to pray like I hadn’t done in a long time. Prayer came naturally to me. I’d been raised on prayer and fasting and singing and revivals. Despite all that, I’d been a huge disappointment to my elderly mother. She’d never said that to me, but I knew it was true. I knew it without a shadow of a doubt.

  I was the last of four sisters. All were better than me in her mind. Maggie married a preacher and went to Ireland to lead a church. She died there, but not before giving birth to four children. My sisters Amalie and Arista were twins, and they both also married early and had lots of children. They were so much older than me. I hadn’t been a planned pregnancy, although my parents would never admit to such a thing. They were older by the time I came along. It was like they’d given up hope of redeeming their last child, and they weren’t the kind of people who shared their heart with their last and most tiring child. But Mother did once let it slip, “You come from a long line of dream-walkers.” However, that wasn’t a good thing. Not according to her.

  Oh, and all us Murphy girls needed to be redeemed. Amalie once mentioned that Murphy girls were magical, but she got a spanking for that. We didn’t believe in magic in our house. Not at all.

  It didn’t matter that I dreamed about the past and sometimes the future. It didn’t matter that Maggie could hear animals talk, in her head anyway, or that Amalie could make the room lighter. Arista never shared much about her “magic,” but surely she had the same gifts we all did.

  Even Mother had special abilities, but she would never admit it. Too late, Mother. I saw it. I was there that day. I saw the stick fly across the room.

  But forget about the past, Deidre. It’s Carrie Jo you should be thinking about. She’s in trouble. All this time and you haven’t dreamed. She’s in trouble.

  Not for the first time this week, my thoughts went to my only daughter. What was so wrong in her life that I would see her in my dreams?

  I slid the sweaty sheets back and went to the bathroom to wipe off the sweat. I flicked on the light and frowned at my reflection, gripping the p
orcelain sink when the dark face loomed behind me. All shadow—a man, or a teenager. A male, definitely. I whirled, but there was no one there.

  Just your dream, Deidre. Your dream lingered a little, that’s all. Just a lingering.

  “Go away,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. Get out!” I closed my eyes and counted to ten, hoping whoever or whatever had haunted me tonight would not reappear.

  He didn’t, and I reached for the glass with shaking hands. Just a sip of water. I drank a full glass before returning it to the sink.

  No getting around it, girl. You’ve got to go to Mobile. You have to face the past and make it right. It’s the only way you can help her. You’ve already abandoned one child. Do you really want to abandon her, too?

  I didn’t bother arguing with my inner voice. It was always right. Well, nearly always. I probably should have relied on it the day I met Jude Jardine. I can’t even stand to think of that first moment, or what horrible sins he had committed. But it had been too late. It had already been too late for us because I knew what he’d done. I left the bathroom light on and went back to bed. Why was this happening? Oh, yeah, I knew why. I picked up the folded newspaper beside my bed and tapped the small lamplight on.

  My beautiful daughter was married and happy. I rubbed her face with my fingers. Oh, my girl. I can’t believe how lovely you looked on your wedding day. Carrie Jo Stuart; that would take some getting used to. She was all Jardine—I could see it in her face. Her father had been a handsome man. She had his eyes, I think.

  No, I shouldn’t go. She doesn’t need me interrupting things. Her life was great, and she didn’t need me to come stir up the past. Carrie Jo deserved her clean break. She had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want to have me around. Not that I blamed her.

  Ou se mi famwe.

  I folded the paper and returned it to my nightstand. It had been cowardly to just send a letter. Very cowardly, but that was how I operated these days. With cowardice. Sending an apology wasn’t enough. There was more going on here than a mere apology could cure. My daughter needed me.

  I had no idea who this shadow was that I was seeing. No idea at all, but I suddenly wasn’t afraid to confront it. This needed to happen. For me, for Carrie Jo. We needed this.

  I had to go to Mobile. The letter might beat me there, but I was going, and there was no changing my mind. Once I made it up, the die was cast.

  Tomorrow I would do it. I’d turn in my notice, pack my stuff, and head west. It was a shame I didn’t have that many loose ends to tie up. No one to say goodbye to except Mrs. Miller, who came to the Food Lion Grocery Store every day of the week. Wouldn’t Carrie Jo be shocked to know that I was alive?

  I laid back down without turning off the light. I didn’t have bad dreams when I left the light on. I didn’t understand it, but it was true. Maggie had shown me that when I was small.

  Eventually, my eyes felt heavy, and I found sleep coming for me. Its arrival always came with anxiety, but I was ready for it. This time I was ready for it. The dreams wouldn’t drown me since I expected them. When I expected them, I was okay.

  It was time to dream again.

  Chapter Two

  Muncie, 1850

  My stomach rumbled noisily as we rowed away from the ship. There were only three souls in our rickety wooden boat, and each of us was so thin that we resembled skeletons more than living people. But at least we were off the Starfinder. I had thought we would die on that ship, despite its magical name. It had been an escape from sure death in Mobile, but it had also been a prison. Our joy had been short-lived, to say the least. Calpurnia and I had enjoyed a few days of peace before the turmoil began.

  First the sickness, then the deaths, and then the uprising of the crew. I could only believe that Fortune had smiled on us, and I put my hope in that belief. We were not home free yet.

  Home.

  I was coming home. Even if I only made it to the beach, I would at least have made it back to Haiti. That in itself was a miracle. Yes, it was true. As soon as my feet hit that sand, no one could call me a slave again. No one. I would be Haitian again, and Haitians were free. My great-grandfather, with whom I shared a name, had led our people to freedom, but my own uncle had stolen it from me.

  Two more boats glided toward land, one on either side of us. Our small vessel sailed smoothly over the water as if the gentle waves were made of glass, but the seas were not kind to the other two boats. They sloshed up and down in rough waves, the men cursing as they struggled to catch up with us.

  Why such hatred? Would I be hated forever?

  I could not help but wonder if someone, one of my dead ancestors, perhaps, was at work here. Maybe even one of Calpurnia’s family. Her mother had certainly loved her. She could be the one guiding us, helping the two of us escape the murderous band of sailors. I tried not to look too long at any of their faces. It had been by the slimmest chance that we’d gotten into a boat first, because I am certain they would have left us behind, probably bleeding or shot full of holes. There was no mercy left on the Starfinder. I had witnessed desperate men doing desperate things before, but these men…they were soulless. I would never forget the sound of that child hitting the water.

  Ah, do not think about her now, Janjak. You have to save your friend. You have to make it to Haiti.

  When things went bad, the starving and superstitious men of the Starfinder had found a convenient scapegoat in Calpurnia. Their hate was unexplainable, and in my experience, such hate could never be reasoned with. According to the sailors, she was to blame for all their woes. And naturally, it wasn’t merely that she was a woman. There were several of those aboard the Starfinder, although it was not a passenger ship, per se. It was because of me.

  They hated her because she loved me, and they did not care what the truth might be. That Calpurnia loved me as a friend only, nothing more. They did not know what hell we had already endured. She’d been ostracized for her familiarity with me, even though our friendship was entirely innocent.

  And also, she had refused to take up with any of the crew. She was not like some of the others. Calpurnia Cottonwood had come into her own, so to speak. Captain David Garrett was to blame for that. I had never liked that man. He smiled too much. He had too many teeth. David Garrett had broken my friend’s heart, probably forever.

  But there were other reasons they singled us out. We had survived where many had not. The vicious sickness that had claimed the rest of the passengers and some of the crew struck the Starfinder about a week after departure. Then the captain declared the water contaminated, and the weevil-infested food stores had not promoted the comfort and well-being of the crew and passengers.

  All of these evil turns of events landed at her feet—no, make that, at our feet. We came close to death on more than one occasion during the second and third weeks of the journey.

  All I wanted to do now was get Calpurnia to shore. I had no idea what I would do after that. I could not lead these men directly to Carrefour, my home. We were landing in Port Au Prince, and our only hope, in my mind, was to quickly get lost in the crowded marketplace and run for the dense jungle at the edge of the port city. We would follow the curve of the bay to Carrefour. That was where I would find my people—the Junie people of Haiti.