Cinnamon and Gunpowder (49 page)

BOOK: Cinnamon and Gunpowder

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But that is all so very distant now. I may wonder sometimes, while watching the sunset, whose blood has stained the skies, but except for the ever-soaring price of tea, life here is little affected by those dramas.

This near the sea, one cannot escape the sailors’ tales: lies about giant squid and mermaids with their strangling locks. Once in a while I hear them talking about Mabbot, saying she is still out there, with a demon in her pocket and her red hair aflame. Some say she captains a phantom vessel that travels ten feet above the water, a vapor ship that cannonballs cannot touch. Many say they have personally seen her leading a pirate armada and that the sea is whipped into a bloody froth by her merciless assault against all that is “proper.” I know it isn’t true. At night, though, when my leg aches and my room becomes chilly, only dreams of Mabbot’s sly grin can keep me warm, and I cannot help but consider the quiet, calloused whaler who seemed to truly know her. Not a braggart, he told his story to Joshua and me late one night after everyone else had retired. Mabbot rescued him, he said, not three months before he came to our tavern. His vessel had run aground and capsized and a red-haired woman risked her own sleek schooner to come alongside and throw lines to his crew. At the bow, he said, was a withered old man staring at the waves.

Who does it hurt if, sometimes, I let myself believe it?

I gave Leighton a service upon a green hill under some oaks, burying him barrel and all. I paid one hundred mourners to attend and fed them all rabbit pie. I worried much over the epitaph and finally decided upon something simple, lest his body be disturbed by those who bear grudges against his family. The headstone reads, simply,
BELOVED OF HANNAH
. It may seem a humble elegy, but I would be honored, when the time comes, to have the same written upon my own stone.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the following for their generous help with the book:

Melissa Michaud, Tonya Hersch, Anna Mantzaris, Sarah Steinberg, David Goldstone, Stephen Canright, Ben Steinberg, Julie’s Tea Garden, Iva Ikeda, Ella Mae Lentz, Jenny Cantrell, Nova Brown.

Special thanks to my tireless champion, Laurie Fox, and to the wonder-worker Courtney Hodell, who edits like books still matter.

ALSO BY ELI BROWN

The Great Days

A Note About the Author

Eli Brown lives on an experimental urban farm in Alameda, California. His first novel,
The Great Days
, won the Fabri Literary Prize.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

First edition, 2013

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Eli, 1975–

Cinnamon and gunpowder / Eli Brown. — 1st ed.

p. cm.