Infinite Devotion (15 page)

When the cart is in, he pulls one apple out for each us and brings back another loaf of bread and butter for us and a bone for Bella.

“Thank you,” we say, and I spread the burlap around for us all to lie on.

The old man’s eyes soften. “It breaks my heart to see this. Saint Nicholas, please help them.”

He closes and locks the door.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

I’m back inside my house, and it’s unusually quiet in the purple dark right before dawn.

“Mama?” I cry out.

No answer, just a wind blowing the white muslin curtain slightly at the open window.

“Hector?” I whisper, not really wanting to hear him answer as I poke my head into the bedroom.

Empty.

There’s a strange roar outside the house, and an orange glow shines in around the window edges. I pull the curtain away from the window and jump back at the wall of flames beside the house. I turn and run out the front door, away from the fire, but I’m horrified to see the fire burning in every direction down each alley. No one can be seen. The fire keeps changing in my direction until I’m forced to the docks with the heat of the fire pushing after me. I step to the very edge of the landing just above the dark lapping water and face the fire. I have no choice. I turn and leap into the water and swear I see a flapping, giant ship right before I break through the surface.

A faraway voice says as I’m swimming back to air, “Fire or water‌—‌choose.”

We all wake up, and I tell them my dream as we wait for the old man to come and unlock us, but morning passes, and no one comes. Pepe tries to grab for an apple, and I slap his hand.

“I promised him we wouldn’t steal from him!”

“Where is he, then?” Pepe rubs his stinging hand.

I stare at the door. “Maybe he’s sick today. He never misses a day.”

“Maybe he’s a crazy man and likes locking children up in his shed until they die, and then he eats them,” Andres says, wide-eyed.

“That’s not true.”

“Well, I have to pee.” Pepe shifts his feet.

“Go in that corner, over there.”

We hear a carriage come up to the house, and an old woman calls, “Doctor, he’s not going to last long. I don’t even know why he called for you.”

Pepe turns to me. “You see, he’s dying, and we’re locked in this shed!”

“You don’t know he’s going to die. The doctor’s only arrived. Maybe he’ll get better, and he’ll come and get us. Someone’s going to remember the dog’s in here.”

“I’m not staying to find out.” Pepe starts kicking the wood slats.

“Don’t wreck his shed!” I yell.

“What about cutting a hole so we could pull ourselves out?” Andres offers.

I shake my head. “That would have to be a big hole, and then all the rats will come in.”

“Luis, we have to get out of here. If someone opens this and finds us, they’ll take us to St. Mary’s,” Pepe warns.

He’s right.

“All right, if we get out, I think the best way would be to kick out one or two slats so he can repair it easily if he gets better.”

“Okay on three! One, two, three!”

We all kick at different points on the wood slat, and it pulls out. One more kick and it flies down. We do it for one more slat, and we shimmy through. It’s late afternoon when we get out as the front door of his house opens; we all duck behind the shed.

I peek out when I see the doctor leave, and the old woman comes out and shouts, “Don’t bother sending the bill. I told you he was almost dead.”

I feel sad he’s gone. He had always been kind to me. I turn back to see Pepe with his arms full of apples.

“What?” He shrugs. “She’s a nasty old lady, right? She doesn’t deserve his apples.”

He’s right. Andres and I both fill our arms, and we run off as Bella chooses to follow us.

Chapter 4

“All of the carts at the market are starting to pack up for the day, so we’ll have to work fast,” Andres says.

“You and Pepe try to distract the baker so I can sneak up behind him and grab a loaf. Try to get him to turn around.”

Andres and Pepe nod, and I creep along the street behind the vendors as they walk right to him.

“Sir,” Andres starts, “I’m looking for St. Mary’s. My brother and I have nowhere to go.”

The baker glances up sympathetically to Andre’s very sincere face as Pepe looks awkward and nervous, and I realize I should have only sent Andres.

“Poor things.” He stands up and turns to point up the hill to St. Mary’s, giving him directions, and I dash for his cart.

I see out of the corner of my eye that Pepe is watching me, which makes the baker turn quickly. He lunges for me as I grab a large white loaf.

“Street wretch!” he fumes. “Dirty little thief!”

I run for my life as all of the vendors unite to impede my escape. I break through two women who try to keep me from entering the street and run out into the road right in front of a horse that rears at my interruption. I dart and jump over baskets and carts that lead into an alley to a quieter part of the docks. I didn’t even notice until after I’m breathing easier that Bella has been running with me the whole time. I realize too late that I should’ve told Andres and Pepe where we should meet and worry I wouldn’t find them for days now. The sun goes down as I eat my share of the loaf.

I hear a familiar voice. “Luis!” It is Andres.

I stand up and see two happy faces at my appearance.

Pepe starts laughing. “You should have seen how close you were to being caught!”

“Yeah, no thanks to you!”

Andres keeps back his laughter as he attempts to chide. “Yeah, Pepe’s so smooth, staring right at Luis as I was doing all the work!”

Pepe has to bend over, he’s laughing so hard. “I couldn’t help it, he just jumped out, and I watched him! How was I supposed to know I shouldn’t have watched him?”

“Next time it’s me and Andres.” I can’t keep from laughing with them.

Andres looks proud that he has been complimented. I give them their share, and they turn around to the harbor while eating.

They both gaze out on the water, and Andres says, “Whoa! What are all those ships doing here?”

The harbor’s full of hundreds of large ships of every size, all flying red-and-yellow and red-and-white flags. Andres and Pepe have their mouths agape and marvel at the ship’s majesty.

Andres asks, “Are those pirates?”

Pepe spurts out laughing at his comment.

I say, “My mother talked many times about this. King Philip had been planning his attack on England since Queen Elizabeth had her cousin Mary’s head cut off.”

Andre pulls up his lip. “Her cousin?”

“Yeah and now Philip’s sending his navy to teach her a lesson.”

“Wow!” Pepe exclaims. “Look at all their cannons!”

There must have been twenty-eight warships in the harbor, most with oars and cannons. We stare at the huge ships that are four times the size of the biggest merchant vessel we had seen in the harbor. There are many more ships, both heavy vessels and light sailing vessels, all too many to count.

“Why are they here?” Pepe asks.

“I think they’re gathering replacements and more volunteers before they leave for England.”

“Spain has the greatest navy in the world, and it’s all here gathered in our port!” Pepe’s eyes are sparkling as he studies each beautiful ship.

“Luis! I think this is your dream! Was it a ship like that?” Pepe points toward one of the largest vessels closest to shore.

“Yeah, it was just like that,” I say, thinking about it more.

“I think your dream was telling you to join the armada!” Pepe is excited by this.

“He also dreamed the city was on fire, but it’s not,” Andres says. “It was only the apples he ate before he went to bed.”

“Do you think they’d take me?” Pepe asks.

I snort and say, “How old are you?”

“Thirteen and a half.”

Andres and I break out in laughter.

“Well, I think they’d take me.” Pepe looks toward the ship, and he kicks a rock. He turns and marches off toward the docks defiantly now, to prove a point.

“Pepe! Come back!” Andres yells.

Andres and I get worried as he stealthily darts in and out behind the pillars lining the docks, so we follow him. A group of mariners are filling up an old rowboat with supplies. They have half the boat filled and go back into a storeroom as we see Pepe climb on and sink under the stores. I panic at the thought of not having him with me. I hear the voice again in my mind:
“Fire or water, choose.”

In a moment, I jump on too and find a space to sink into. I can hear Andres also climbing on, and even Bella jumps in and curls up under me. The men bring a few more things and throw them next to us, and I think how lucky it is they didn’t throw it on top of us. It’s a rocky trip over the harbor waves to the larger ship, and the men shout up for the men on the boat to pull them in. They crank the boat up into the air beside the ship, and the men start pulling off the stores.

My heart races as I try to think of a way to keep from being discovered, when Andres screams, “Get off me!”

“Oh, look at what we got here.”

I peek through to see Andres dangling upside down by his foot at the end of a giant man’s grasp.

“A little mangy sea beggar!” The man laughs.

Bella jumps out growling at the man, and he drops Andres on his head. He bounces up quickly. “Luis! He’s after Bella!”

I pull myself out to see the skinny-looking sailor swatting at Bella, while the other sailor leans back, enjoying the crazy scene.

I grab up Bella, who’s still barking in my arms, and see Pepe also surfaces in defense of Bella and Andres.

“We’re infested!” one of the sailors cracks.

“What we do with ’em?” says the skinny one with the cleft chin.

“Go ask the captain, Philippe,” says a tall, dark-haired man with indigo eyes. He’s dressed fancy in white jerkin over a loose linen shirt, and golden hose with a leather codpiece. He has a red velvet hat that matches his short velvet cape. He holds a silver jewel-adorned sword in his right hand, and I wonder if I’ve even seen a more handsome man.

We stand together with the sailors leering at us.

“If we get to keep ’em, the little one’s mine,” a filthy, rough sailor jeers as he points to Andres. Andres moves closer to me.

The sailors part as the captain walks through to see what’s causing the commotion. He’s large framed and younger than I expected. I hear his expensive, loud, leather-soled boots first as he slowly makes his way through the men. A blue velvet hat with a large, blue plume bobs high over the sailor’s heads. When he comes into the circle in front of us, he pauses a moment and stands looking at us. He wears a blue velvet cape over an ivory-and-gold doublet tied to puffy linen sleeves with large white ruffs that match the one around his neck, looking like it’s choking him.

“Alvaro, what is all this noise?”

The man with indigo eyes steps forward. “We have three puny stowaways and a dog.”

The captain stares at the partially unpacked rowboat. “They got on while you were watching the provisions closely like I asked?” he asks with one eye narrowed.

Alvaro, realizing what the captain has figured out, bows his head. “Sorry, Captain, it will never happen again.”

He steps up to us and looks us over with his small slate-blue eyes. “You want to join up with us to cripple England?”

Pepe steps forward and nods proudly as Andres and I stay still.

The sailors snicker.

The captain smirks. “So at least two of you have a brain.”

There is a roar of laughter at this as Pepe realizes the insult and his shoulders drop.

“Any of you ever sailed before?”

None of us say anything.

“Any of you fired a gun?”

Say nothing again.

“So you’re as qualified as most of the English navy!”

Again everyone laughs around us.

He turns and starts walking away.

Alvaro asks, “What will we do with them, Captain?”

“Hand the brainless one a mop to swab the poop deck and bring the dog and the other two to serve me in my quarters.”

Chapter 5