Adrift on St. John (21 page)

Vivian sighed and returned to her makeup kit.

“And here, my boat is making a pit stop at the ferry building,” he added, twisting his toy perpendicular to the side of the box.

Eyeliner in hand, Vivian grabbed hold of my head and tilted it toward the ceiling. “Look up,” she murmured, her concentration focused on my face.

Ham’s squeaky voice continued in the background. “And here, my boat is zooming around Caneel Bay…”

Vivian botched her first attempt with the liner. After blotting out the mark with a tissue, she pulled back from my face and picked up a sharpener from the counter. As she stuck the pencil’s pointed end into the device, Ham let out a squeal.

“And look, there on Turtle Point—it’s the Slave Princess!”

There was a sharp crack as the eyeliner stick broke off in Vivian’s hand.

24

The Amina Princess lay atop her mat on the dusty floor of the lean-to, her eyes tightly shut, her body curled into a ball, waiting for the rest of the meager settlement to retire for the evening. The sun had yet to fully set, but an air of exhaustion soon fell over the camp, and the area quickly grew silent and still.

The surrounding structures bore a closer resemblance to ruins than newly constructed buildings. The jungle’s voracious vegetation had consumed many of the stone walls, filling the roofless rooms with a dense layer of vines.

The Princess cracked open an eyelid and carefully examined the shed’s sleeping occupants. One of the humped forms sighed out a snore. From another came the involuntary grinding of teeth.

Summoning all her hunting skills of stealth, she rose from the mat and quietly crept outside, ready to begin her nightly explorations.

She allotted a few hours each evening for sleep, either immediately following sunset or just before daybreak. Despite the lack of rest, her strength and power continued to build. Any tiredness she experienced was overcome by
her growing sense of independence and her increasing curiosity for the island that had become her new home.

With every step that increased her distance from the decrepit lean-to, her spirits began to lift. During this limited time span, she owned herself, and a small ray of hope began to swell in her heart.

Each trip, she grew bolder and ventured farther afield. At this point, she had covered almost the entire north shore; its hidden trails and secluded coves were all mapped in her memory.

Sometime soon, she would leave the camp’s wretched confines and not come back, but she wasn’t yet prepared to make that permanent break.

As the Princess skipped along through the trees, her toes gripped the rough topography of the trail beneath her feet. The island was made up of a much younger soil than that of her homeland. This brash, gritty composite had not yet learned to obey the hand of man; it was filled with sharp-edged rocks that cut and slashed the unwary.

She had hated this dirt when she’d first arrived, violently lashing out at it in those early days as she worked her designated rows of the farmer’s plot. The dark volcanic loam had received every ancestral curse she could mutter.

But as the weeks passed, she had found herself gradually coming to admire its stubborn resistance, its formidable front against nature and man.

The island and its resilient earth would outlast the fledgling farmer and his domineering wife—so would she.

After a half hour’s brisk walk, the dirt gave way to sand, and the Princess reached the water’s edge. The top curve of the setting sun glowed through a growing bank of clouds while the ocean lapped at her feet, showering her legs with its gentle foaming spray. She set out along the beach, dancing in the day’s disappearing light.

Twenty yards from the shoreline, she spied the tiny ripple of a turtle’s bald head, splashing up for air before it sank back beneath the surface.

After a short invigorating swim, the Princess continued on, traveling west until she reached a narrow peninsula of rocky land that stretched out into the water to form the sweeping curve of an inlet cove. She happened upon a trail leading through the woods and instinctively began to follow it.

After leading her up over the slight roll of a hill, the trail opened out onto a clean, manicured lawn overlooking the peninsula’s pointed tip.

The Princess took in the view, slowly turning in place to assess her surroundings. To her right, the sun-bleached sand of the island’s north shore flickered in the sun’s diminishing rays. To her front, the peninsula’s top edge dropped off to an ocean channel that separated her island from its nearest cousins.

To her left, in the distance, she spied the low-lying buildings that made up the Caneel Bay resort, each pathway and entrance discretely lit by ground lamps.

A brown and white sign posted next to the clearing where she stood contained a simple label: TURTLE POINT.

The Princess spied a small herd of donkeys, grazing on the clearing’s grass. The group paused in its munching and looked up at her quizzically. A cuddly foal peeked tentatively out from behind its mother’s hindquarters. The largest member of the herd made a curious whinny and trotted toward her.

The Princess froze as the donkey drew close enough to touch. Her green eyes met his enormous brown ones. Slowly, she reached out her hand to pet the beast’s soft sniffing nose.

As she stepped tentatively around the donkey’s shoulder to stroke his mane, she noticed a far more human shadow standing on the well-groomed lawn, next to a white gazebo about twenty feet away.

Her breath caught in her chest, spooking the donkey. He jerked his head away from her hand and retreated to his herd. As the hard black hoofs thudded across the lawn, the Princess stood, transfixed, staring at the figure in the distance.

It was a man with skin as dark as the night sky. Strangely fashioned clothes draped over his body; heavy clunky shoes encased his feet. In his right hand, he wielded a long wooden spear whose end had been modified with a terrifying multipronged attachment. His face transmitted the same shock she felt coursing through her body.

For a long paralyzing moment, the Princess couldn’t move. She’d broken the cardinal rule; she’d been discovered off her designated plantation. What should she do?

Finally, her legs regained their motion. She turned and ran, top speed, all the way back to the planter’s crumbling encampment.

Heart pounding, she slipped into the lean-to, curled up on her dirty mat, and fitfully drifted off to sleep.

25

Once Vivian finished her beautifying efforts, I walked up to the resort’s reception area to wait for Hank Sheridan’s driver. A slight breeze filtered through the late afternoon sun as I took a seat on a bench by the truck-taxi stand. I had just smoothed out the wrinkles in my dress when a black town car pulled into the front drive.

Not a limousine, I noted, thinking of the vehicle spotted in Cruz Bay the previous week. Perhaps Sheridan was keeping that ride for his own personal use, I mused crassly.

A short Hispanic man dressed in a simple black suit and white cotton gloves leapt out the front of the car seconds after it came to a stop. The man’s dark hair had been slicked neatly back; every strand was combed perfectly into place.

He trotted briskly around to the rear passenger-side door and, with a polite bow, swung it open.

“Miss Hoffstra,” he said, with a white-gloved gesture.

“Where are we headed?” I asked, amused at his formality but nervous nonetheless about the final destination of this flamboyant ride.

“If you please, Miss Hoffstra,” he replied without answering my question.

I hesitated for a moment on the curb, considering.

I had no choice, I told myself. After four years of playing the part, I had to see this through to the end—or at least to the next act.

“Miss Hoffstra, it is,” I thought as I climbed into the sedan.

The door snapped neatly shut, trapping me inside, and I turned my head to glance up at the resort. The building’s facade was as quiet and relaxed as ever, but I could sense the sea of eyes watching my departure.

Returning to the front seat, the driver started the engine, and we sped off down the driveway.

A group of iguanas were spread across the wide grassy lawn near the turnout for the main road, enjoying the early evening shade that had begun to seep across the island.

As the car braked, waiting for traffic to clear, one particularly bright green lizard lifted his head and gave me a reassuring wink.

Fifteen minutes later, the town car entered the outskirts of Cruz Bay. From the backseat, I looked out the tinted windows that I knew had done more to announce my arrival than mask my identity.

A number of expats lounged around the Dumpster table outside the Crunchy Carrot. Richard the rooster perched on the table’s edge, near where César was stuffing down a fish sandwich. The Puerto Rican waved the last bite at the car, a jocular smirk on his face.

A couple hundred yards farther down the road, we turned the corner in front of the ferry building. The truck-taxi drivers gathered near the Freedom Memorial all turned to stare at the shiny black car, their faces stony, their postures stiff, straight, and unambiguously accusing.

Past the police station around the next bend, we came upon a bustling crowd of Thanksgiving-week tourists strolling along the sidewalk. They stopped and gawked in a starstruck manner, several pointing as if they thought
the island’s local country music celebrity might be hidden behind the car’s dark glass.

All the while, the driver peered blithely through the front windshield, seemingly oblivious to the attention we were drawing.

We crossed through to the opposite side of Cruz Bay, which had one more row of restaurants, but the car didn’t slow before entering the sweeping turn up the hill. I leaned tensely back in my seat as the driver steered us into the climbing curve. We weren’t stopping in town, at least that much was now certain.

The sedan continued on over the hill’s crest, passing the brown and white wooden sign that marked the entrance to the national park. Beyond this point, the road disappeared into jungle, descending into a leafy green tunnel that blocked most attempts of the fading light to breach it.