Epilogue
Undisclosed Location
Anne inked her quill, hesitating for a moment before penning the name of the recipient:
Dear Captain Charles Johnson,
She paused again, staring out the window of the single, second-story room.
Merchants were closing for the day, their carts creaking down the road in the pinkening air.
High tide was rolling in, sunlight glinting off the murky glass.
The children would come home soon for dinner.
They’d set out with little fishing poles, vowing to bring home a catch.
Anne let out a rueful laugh. She’d better think up an alternative meal plan in time.
She’d brushed aside all her chores, the extra hours she should be putting in mending sails at the docks.
In an uncharacteristic move, she’d stolen back her afternoon.
She’d removed her boots and walked home barefoot, taking the long path along the grainy shore.
Once inside, she’d paced the bright room until at last she found herself here, seated at her small oak desk.
Anne’s attention flicked to her latest letter from Ellen. Another from Henry, who was eager to have them visit. Even Da had sobered up and now wrote the occasional letter.
Then her eyes landed on the leather volume: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. She’d saved for months to buy a copy of her own. To turn the page and see her name, and Mary’s, printed in bold.
Anne rubbed her temples. She owed everyone replies. And yet, it was Captain Charles Johnson who snagged her attention. She had his location now. It was a message she’d intended to write for seven years.
I hope this letter finds you in good health and in cheerful spirits. You are a difficult man to find. Forgive the lack of a return address—like you, I prefer my privacy. But if you are reading this, I’ll delight in knowing my letter has found its intended reader at last.
She opened the tome, combing through the most ridiculous quotes. She’d lost count of how many times she’d longed for Mary to be by her side, to have someone to mock it with.
How much she wished Mary were here for anything, for any reason.
I suppose congratulations are in order on your two volumes of A General History of the Pyrates.
I found your accounting of my and Mary’s “rambling lives” most curious.
I’m glad what we shared was “exceedingly diverting” to you and your readership.
Your embellishments (and, just between us, omissions) no doubt have been of service to your career.
The latest I’d heard, you have published countless copies and are entering another reprinting.
Is that so? My word, what will you do next, you clever devil?
I’ll spare you details of my current living situation, but suffice it to say that I am well settled with loved ones I adore.
They rein in my “hazardous” ways you are so fond of commenting upon.
I’ve made use of my odd assortment of skills—especially needlework.
Who knew! I suspect you would find my version of happiness quite uninspiring, tedious, and dull.
Not “extravagant” enough to entertain your salacious readers.
But I have my ways and secrets, and I’m still allowed some of those.
And now, the real reasons why I write.
Placing the quill down, Anne bit her lip.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What to call this strange fascination with voyaging through others’ lives?
The prickly nature of empathy, masquerading as a peculiar form of delight—sailing through someone else’s misfortunes while reclining comfortably beside the safety of one’s own hearth?
After some of my own investigations—trying to track you down to give you my thanks—I came to learn that there is no gentleman by the name of “Captain Charles Johnson” among the members of London society, no man in England by that name or description who has circumnavigated the globe by the age of twenty-seven, and no direct relationship of someone by your name connected with the former governor of Nassau.
(You did hear, of course, that your friend Governor Woodes Rogers was imprisoned for debt?
It seems he caused financial ruin during his term.
But he’s been acquitted and promoted—as all men of his power and rank are.) Your publisher will not let slip your true identity, a position I can understand given the wild success you’ve enjoyed.
She felt an itch to know, to unveil. To feel she was not alone in having a past. Even if it was not the one the world would ever know about. The real her, or the real Mary.
All the same, we spent so much time together in Spanish Town.
Delightful days, you are sure to remember.
I failed to ask you enough questions in return.
You profess to know much about me, and on some points, perhaps you do.
I know, at last, who I am—which is what I find to matter.
But still, I wonder what it is you hide.
And why? You’ve made a great effort to unearth and publish the truth about me. But who, dear Captain, are you?
Anne’s ears perked. The trill of children coming down the road. No. Not her own. She still had time. She scanned the words she had written.
She could end it there. Be rid of this burden.
But her hand moved again.
Now, the second reason for my writing.
What was her real purpose for writing? The reason she still thought of this man who did so little, yet so much?
I want to thank you for sending the letters I gave you seven years ago.
One met its mark, and that has made all the difference—to my life then, and now.
I quite like how your book phrased my disappearance: “But what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.” A fine, evocative ending.
Hardly a full or determined accounting, as you claimed in your premise, but one I appreciate—all my snide remarks aside (in case you have forgotten the wit of an old friend).
Thank you for that discretion and for honoring my final request of you. You’ve saved more lives than one.
A knot caught in her throat. A flash of the face she saw daily in her daughter’s smiling, mahogany eyes. Anne inhaled, then signed:
Your Humble and Disobedient Servant,
Anne