Chapter 35 Ripples in Time #2
Around four-hundred to be exact. Desi shook her head, her thoughts spinning with impossibilities.
Ethan was Caleb’s descendant! That’s why he vanished when she’d made up her mind not to return to the past. If she never went back and things stayed the same, Caleb would die and never have children.
Did Ethan’s presence mean that Caleb would survive? That she could return to him?
“You okay?” Ethan studied her.
“Better than ever.”
Ethan tapped her nose, then turned back to the helm, wind tugging at his sun-bleached hair.
Camila spat lightly into the mask and rinsed it, while Daria stood barefoot on the deck, hands on her hips, smiling through the sunlight.
And Desi remembered the dream she’d had aboard the Sentinel. This moment. This exact scene. The same light, the same people, similar words.
What did it mean?
She thought to ask the sea, but she no longer prayed to waves or whispers. Now she knew the voice of the One who ruled them all. This is what You want, isn’t it? she asked silently. The warmth blooming in her chest was answer enough.
With steady hands, Desi slipped into her gear—BCD, tanks, straps, regulator. Camila passed her the mask and fins.
“Have a good dive, amiga. See you soon.”
Desi managed a nod, then turned to her sister. “You know I love you, right?”
“Always.” Daria’s gaze shone with a peace unearthly in its calm. “Go with God, dear sister. All will be well.”
Desi kissed her cheek, then seated herself on the edge. Taking one last look at the three dearest souls on Earth, she whispered a prayer, and fell backward into the sea.
The sea was deceptively calm as Desi slipped beneath its glassy surface. Sunlight split the turquoise water into silvery threads. Her heart thumped hard against her wetsuit as she swam deeper, bubbles spiraling past her face.
At fifty feet, she switched on her dive light. The murk gave way to shadowed forms—the sharp line of a hull in the silt, the shadows where masts once stood. The Sentinel.
It had to be.
But something was wrong. Three gaping mast holes yawned from the silt, not two. She swam lower, the truth unfurling before her as she went. Her pulse raced. This was no brig.
It was far too large. The outline of the wreck sprawled across the sea floor like a sleeping leviathan.
She drew closer, sweeping her light across the vast wreckage.
Flashes of iron gleamed and she closed in, batting away silt from atop a cannon.
More than one. At least twenty, maybe more as her light jumped from one to another down the line.
The Sentinel had only twelve guns.
Heart thundering, she finned around the remains, peering into cracks, wiping sand from pieces of iron and rot. Something caught her eye, something flashed in her light, and she dug in the spot, finally pulling out a plaque. She rubbed it with her thumb, then focused her light on the details.
Twin lions flanking a shield beneath a crowned knight’s helmet.
Montverre’s coat of arms.
A shiver coursed through her despite the warm tropical water.
Not Caleb’s ship.
Not the Sentinel.
Her mind reeled. If Montverre’s frigate lay here, then history had shifted. Time had rewritten itself.
The Ring’s warmth pulsed through her suit pocket as if it breathed. As if it listened. But without the Sentinel, would it even work? If she tried to cross time again, where would she emerge? And when?
Both elation and sorrow battled within her. Caleb had survived! But maybe he was lost to her forever.
No. She couldn’t accept that. She would try, whatever the cost.
Drawing the narrow bottle from her pocket, she popped the cork. The sea rushed in; the Ring flared with inner light.
Father… please be with me. Protect me. Help me find him.
She tipped the bottle. The Ring slid free, tumbling into her waiting palm.
It pulsed once—alive.
Then everything went white.
?
A mighty roar quaked sea and sky, trembling the deck beneath Caleb’s boots. Pocketing the Ring, he spun toward the sound. Smoke curled upward from the crippled frigate off his starboard quarter.
“All hands down!” Alden’s voice thundered.
But Caleb didn’t dive. He stared straight at the incoming shot, daring it to strike him—to shatter his heart and end the torment within.
He deserved it. He’d been distracted by Desi, so undone by her disappearance that he’d failed to notice Montverre’s wounded ship limping within range, her guns ready.
The next blast hit true. The Sentinel shuddered from truck to keelson. Dashing to the rail, Caleb leaned over the side. Spikes of shattered timber floated in the churn while a gaping wound smoked just beneath his cabin windows. Right where the tiller was housed.
He spun toward the helm. “Report!”
“Shot took her abaft the tiller, Captain!” Alden called from below. “She’s steering sluggish!”
Snapping his gaze to starboard, the wounded frigate drifted further away, no longer a threat as her crew struggled with broken yards and fallen sail.
But to larboard, the other frigate bore down—sleek, vengeful, and full-sail fast. Too distant yet for a shot, but closing.
If the Sentinel’s tiller couldn’t be repaired, they would be as helpless as driftwood. Easy prey for the marquis.
“Alden, fetch a capstan bar. Get below and lash the tiller fast! And sound the bilge. Get that hole plugged!”
“Aye, Captain.” Alden seized a handful of men and leapt down the hatch.
“Shorty, test the helm.”
The helmsman strained against the whipstaff. His face darkened. “She’s tuggin’, Cap’n. Sluggish, but answerin’.”
“Keep her as steady as you can.”
Caleb’s eyes flicked to larboard again. The frigate loomed larger with every heartbeat.
Logic told him to run, to make all sail and flee before the marquis’s wrath.
But the thought soured in his gut. He’d never run from a fight.
Not with God as his ally. Yet both his thoughts and his resolve turned muddy and murky within him.
She was gone, most likely forever. The pain scrambled his wits and his will.
“Liam!” he ordered. “Lay aloft and loose all sails!”
The bosun bellowed a string of commands. Blocks squealed, canvas cracked. Then boom!
A warning shot churned the sea, yards from their beam.
Keg glared up. “We’s done for, Cap’n! With no steerin’, they’ll pound us straight t’ the depths!”
The wind shifted. The men in the tops struggled to readjust canvas, but the sails flapped like torn ghosts, devoid of spirit.
A rare numbness gobbled up Caleb’s mind. He had no idea what to do, what command to issue next. How to avoid the bloodshed and loss that rushed down upon them. The world dimmed, his thoughts collapsing into a hollow void.
“Captain!” Alden’s voice echoed through the fog. Then his face appeared, sweat streaking his brow. “The men are tending the damage. Are you all right?”
Caleb blinked, drawing a ragged breath. The roar of the sea faded, the ship’s motion stilled—as though time itself paused.
In the eerie silence, only his heartbeat drummed. Th…ump, Th…ump, Th…ump.
He turned toward the spot where Desi had vanished.
She was there! No longer in his sister’s pale-blue gown but clad again in that black skin of hers, luminous against the smoke.
Sound returned. The ship pitched. The crew shouted. Caleb rubbed his eyes. She smiled.
Rourke burst up from below, grinning through soot. “Tiller were splintered, Cap’n, but we’ve lashed a capstan bar across it. She’ll hold awhile. Plugged the hole, too, an’ we’re pumpin’ like mad.”
“He’s right, Cap’n!” Shorty cried. “She’s answerin’ now!”
Caleb looked again at Desi, heading his way. His heart leapt as she stepped beside him.
“Why do I always return in the middle of a battle?” she teased, a flicker of humor behind her eyes.
Alden tipped his head. “Welcome back, Miss Starr. Again.”
Caleb took her hand. Warm. Real. Life flooded him—strength, resolve, purpose.
“Belay that last order, Liam!” he shouted, renewed fire in his voice. “Mr. Keg, bring up two tar buckets, the metal ones. Fill them with pitch and set them alight!”
Keg blinked. “Sir?”
“Do it! Let Montverre think we’re burning.”
Alden’s grin spread wide. “Brilliant, Captain.”
Caleb met Desi’s gaze—so much unsaid between them—but duty claimed him. She seemed to understand and, with a slight nod, slipped below.
Moments later, oily smoke billowed upward, dark and thick, shrouding the quarterdeck.
“Shorty!” Caleb called. “Steer her wild, lad. Make her yaw like a drunk in a gale!”
“Aye, Cap’n!”
“Liam, loose the foretops’l! Let it seem we’re fleeing for our lives!”
Men scrambled aloft. The sails thrashed, the wind teasing them into chaos. Perfect. Let Montverre think Providence mocked them.
“Hold fire,” Caleb warned. “Not a spark till I give the word. Load the larboard battery, grape and bar-chain both!”
The Sentinel drifted erratically, a wounded beast feigning weakness. Caleb watched the French frigate alter course, hunger in her approach.
“Load the guns with bar-chain! Run ’em out but keep the touch-holes covered!”
Alden shielded his eyes against the smoke. “He’s taking the bait!”
“She’s closing fast!” Liam cried. “Two hundred yards—one-fifty—one hundred!”
“He wants the Ring,” Caleb muttered. “He’ll not risk sinking us.” Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted, “Silence the guns! Wait for my mark!”
The frigate loomed, gunports open like black maws. The wind shifted, a divine whisper. “Helm hard to starboard!” he roared. “Raise the mains’l! Catch the wind!”
The Sentinel answered, timbers groaning as she swung broadside. Sunlight pierced the haze, glinting along her bronze muzzles.
“Run out the guns! Fire as ye bear!”
A roar like Judgment Day split the air. The deck quaked beneath him as flame and thunder erupted. Grapeshot and chain screamed through the gap, shredding rigging, snapping masts, and rending sailcloth to ribbons.
“Reload!” Caleb bellowed. “Again, lads! Give the devil his due!”
The enemy’s return fire faltered, then ceased. Through the drifting smoke, Caleb spied Montverre’s colors sagging, his frigate listing hard to leeward.
Cheers exploded across the deck. Caleb raised his glass. “You’ll not have the Ring this day, marquis,” he bellowed.
Flames climbed the enemy’s rigging, licking canvas until the whole ship was a pyre. Frenzied men dipped buckets into the sea and hurled water onto the flame, but the fire devoured her whole.
An hour later, the Sentinel’s crew had pulled a dozen half-drowned Frenchmen from the sea. The wounded went to Brandt; the rest to the hold. Montverre was not among them.
Desi—now dressed once more in a gown—appeared on deck as the last burning mast sank beneath the waves with a hiss that echoed like a sigh from hell.
She came to his side, eyes reflecting both grief and hope. “Is he finally dead?”
Caleb nodded. “Unless he’s part fish.”
He wanted to ask why she had returned so soon and whether she meant to stay, but duty called. He still had damage to survey, orders to issue, and a crew to steady.
Lifting her hand, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, thoughts and heart spinning with but one desire, that she’d stay with him forever.