When she flees Barbados in the late 1780s, the last thing Molly Bishop expects is to begin life anew with a criminal — much less the infamous Captain Thomas Crowe. On the high seas, far from her old life and even farther from England and her Uncle Samuel’s farm, Molly learns more than just the way of outcasts. Captain Crowe keeps secrets — many secrets. His eyes are sometimes deep blue and sometimes yellow. Inhuman noises can be heard from his cabin on moonlit nights. Stranger still, Thomas possesses a ring crafted by Molly’s father — a man she thought to be long gone. Life on the fringes of civilization seems to offer something forbidden and exciting to Molly, and when Thomas’s secrets are revealed, she is immersed in a world of fantasy and myth more real and much larger than she could have imagined.
– Excerpt from Lore: A Pirate’s Charm –
STORM AND SEA DANCED A SLOW AND FOREBODING DANCE, WAVES AND clouds crashing inland with secret speed. Some of the more superstitious folk in Barbados that night would have said it was an ill Mama Dlo who was tossing Sea about, making her restless and wild. Some would say they heard Papa Bois blowing on his horn, but they could not say why. Was a man lurking about in the dark streets who had thoughts of killing? No, the folk would have said, but the circumstances and the sounds of the night were speaking to the island and whispering to those who know how to interpret the signs. Most people did not pay Molly Bishop any mind as she walked swiftly past their homes, brushed through their yards, slipped between the alleys and skirted past the scrubby shore trees. But Mama Dlo and Papa Bois had their eyes on Molly Bishop that night – at least, some folks would say.
Sea sighed and sent her cool breath inland, chilling the air, hushing the insects and forcing most of the locals indoors. In a small shack near the woods, a young woman was covering her fruits and cloth and moving them further inside the little house, where the rain would not touch them. No one had come to buy anything during the day, and it had been that way for a long time. Still, the young woman remained hopeful, thinking that soon people would forget about their fear and at least come and inspect her goods, purchase some of her sewing, maybe take a fruit or two. The people in the nearest port were afraid of her aging father – a man who did not speak to any one but the spirits, such as Mama Dlo and Papa Bois. People called him a crazy old wizard who made deals with the devil. The young woman knew it was not true; her father hadn’t spoke or gone outside in years, let alone conjure devils or raise his hand to do any more that try to call a dragonfly close so that it might land on his fingers.
