Rebel Spy

New York Harbor

July 1780

I’d swum with deadly sharks and stolen from deadlier men. I’d survived hurricanes, war, and even love—but I didn’t know if I’d survive this.

I pulled myself off the floorboards, my legs shaking as I stood. The cabin spun around me. I drew a deep breath to steady myself, smelling pine tar and bilgewater, tensing as the door swung open.

Two redcoats hurried inside. One carried shears; the other, a length of rope. They were big men, filling the cabin with their bright regimentals and shocked stares. They obviously hadn’t expected to find a young lady in a torn silk gown, bleeding from a head wound.

We have orders to cut your hair, said the one with the rope. He cleared his throat and raised the rope higher. If you resist, I shall be forced to use this.

I swallowed thickly. I had an idea what this meant. I won’t resist. I stepped forward. Go ahead. Cut it.

The man with the shears hesitated, then gathered my hair in a clumsy swipe and sliced. My long locks came away in his hand. He blinked at them like he was confused, then tossed them down and carried on hastily, cutting so close at times he nicked my scalp and left my eyes watering.

As my dark curls tumbled to the floor, years of dance assemblies and fine dinners flashed before my eyes. I shut them and imagined I was feeling Mama’s gentle hands on me instead of this stranger’s. Mama, singing in Spanish as she teased out my tangles with the patience of an entire ocean.

What would she think of this? I’d promised her I’d find a safe, respectable life—and done the exact opposite.

Why? whispered the man with the rope. I opened my eyes. The candle on the floor guttered and popped, making his shadow writhe behind him. He licked his lips. "Why are you here? Are you—are you a spy?"

Shut up, Wilcox, said the other one. Then he glanced at me like he wanted to know, too.

Tell me where I’m being sent and I’ll answer. I already thought I knew, but I needed to be sure.

They shared a look.

Go on, Wilcox, said the one with the shears. Tell her.

"You tell her, Bradley."

Bradley lowered the shears and exhaled, his breath sour with the smell of tobacco. "There’s whispers amongst the men you’re going to the Jersey prison hulk."

My knees nearly crumpled beneath me. Prison. I’d guessed right. But even worse—the Jersey. Where men were sent to die. Where no women were sent at all. I’d be the first one. The only one.

Your turn, Bradley said, impatient for my answer.

No. I’m not a spy, I lied, though I could’ve told the truth. I’d been caught; the worst had already happened. But I didn’t owe these men anything. Certainly not what I valued most. This is all just a misunderstanding, I added, and in spite of everything, I felt a smile tug at my lips.

Bradley snorted.

Snip went the shears.

When he was done, I ran my hand over my scalp, learning a part of myself for the first time. I felt sharper. Honed. I could feel the air around me the same way I used to feel the ocean when I dove.

The marine with the rope—Wilcox—stepped outside and came back with a bundle of folded clothing.

You’re to change into these. He set the bundle on the berth, then turned away. Bradley went to stand beside him.

I stared at their backs for a moment, letting a wave of fear pass. Hands trembling, I unlaced my gown and petticoats and let them slip off. My stays laced in back, though.

I need help, I said.

I’ll go get—

No. I knew who they’d bring and I couldn’t bear to see him again. I went to Bradley, turning my back to him. Cut the laces.

Lord forgive me, he muttered. Then he sliced a path up my spine.

The pressure of the stays gave way and my lungs eased fully open. I stepped away and tossed them on the berth, then pulled my shift over my head. As it billowed to my feet, gooseflesh rippled over me and I had the strange realization this was my first time bare in the presence of a man. That it was two men and nothing at all how I’d hoped it would be.

I pulled on the shirt and trousers, the ozenbrig material rough as a cat’s tongue. Such a part of my past—and now my future. There were leather shoes as well, dirty and worn, but a decent fit.

I’m ready, I said. Another lie, but a strange calm had befallen me. I felt as quiet inside as winter. I was trapped—but freed from decisions. From calculations and lies. All I could do now was continue.

The men turned.

Bradley shook his head. There’s no being ready for where you’re going.

Miss… Wilcox’s brow pinched with distress. "Whatever you may have done to find yourself here, surely it can be undone?"

I thought of Townsend and the intelligence I’d given him. I hope not.

I’d given up everything for it.

I had given my very life.

West End, Grand Bahama Island

August 1776

The last time I ever went wrecking was August of my fifteenth year. I was still just a wild girl then, living in West End, not a thought in my head about war yet, nor about spying. My mind was only on Mama.

She’d passed on to heaven only a week earlier, but in my imagination, she was still breathing. Still singing to herself as she stirred the pepper pot soup. Still telling me stories about her girlhood days in España as she worked a comb through my sea-brined hair.

When Sewel came to fetch me to go wrecking—Sewel was Mama’s husband, not my real papa—he found me in the garden pulling weeds and daydreaming of the great castle in Baiona that Mama used to run through barefoot when she was my age.

Francisca, he said, in the same gravelly voice he used with the goats and the swine.

I set my spade down and shaded my eyes as I looked up. With the afternoon sun over his shoulders, I couldn’t see his face—only that he was already swaying. Yes, sir?

"Storm’s coming in fast, and the currents is swirling round Valparaíso wreck." He said it Val-prizo. Not how Mama said it, the right way, like our Spanish forebears. Get your diving trousers on and don’t make me wait, else you’ll be swimming out there, understand?

Yes, sir.

He leaned over and spat tobacco so close to me I could almost taste it. Then he turned down the beach trail, grunting with every step he took on his foot with the missing toes.

I tugged my gardening apron off and hurried home, eagerness and dread tumbling in my stomach. I loved diving wrecks more than anything, but it meant spending time alone with Sewel.

Pushing through the door, I stopped to breathe in the last traces of Mama’s scent—a mix of sweet coconut and the sour sweat that had come when she’d taken to bed for good. My gaze went to the empty mattress, then to the dirty pots stacked by the basin and the sand dusting the planks beneath my feet. I’d always taken pride in this house. It was made of salvaged ship’s timbers, puzzled together with pine logs I’d helped cut down myself. At night, with whisper of the surf drifting in, it felt like living inside a great conch shell. But since losing Mama, nothing felt the same.

Kneeling before the trunk, I found the trousers and shirt I used for diving and changed into them, leaving my jumper and sweaty shift where they fell. Then I sprinted to the beach, my stride long and smooth without petticoats slowing me.

As I came through the trees, I saw thick clouds bunching on the horizon and whispered a quick prayer they’d stay there. In West End, two things that never stayed away long enough were hurricanes and hunger.

Sewel had already gotten the wherry past the breakers. Two other boats bobbed out there as well—our usual wrecking crew. Also every inhabitant on our island. Jonah Baines and his boys were pressed together in their little red skiff, three heads of equal height gleaming like polished copper. Moses Wiggins and his daughter Mercy floated closer to shore, Mercy waving when she saw me.

I smiled and waved back as I broke the first waves with my feet. Then I dove, and all I could hear was the ocean’s singing, the bubbles and waves as they rose up and blended with my breaths. With every kick and stroke I felt a little stronger. By the time I reached the wherry, I’d shed some of my sadness and felt halfway to being me again.

I grabbed the gunwale to pull myself in.

Sewel’s hand came down on my wrist. Molasses would’ve got here first, Francisca.

Yes, sir.

He didn’t let go. I knew better than to meet his bleary eyes, so I kicked in place and stared at the red feather on his new round-brim hat. The very day Mama went in the ground, Sewel had sailed for Nassau, returning only that morning. While I’d poured my tears into her pillow, he’d gone hat shopping.

At last he let me go. I climbed aboard and checked that my shirt covered me in the right places, though there wasn’t much to cover. Then I squeezed the water from my braids.

Sewel turned to speak to Mr. Baines, making his voice loud enough so Moses Wiggins could hear as well. Moses and Mercy were runaways and Sewel never spoke to them direct. Tide’s an iron hook today. Best we run past Memory Rock, then veer north.

With that, the men got to raising the sails and setting a course, except Moses, who had no sail and had to row his way out there.

Soon as we got underway, Sewel unstoppered a bottle of rum and leaned back, resting his arm on the tiller. I could see the silvery letter M branded on the brawn of his thumb. It was Mercy who told me what that letter stood for—manslayer—but I knew what it meant long before I learned the word for it.

I turned fore and trailed my fingers through the water. With the waves rippling and my dark braid hanging over my shoulder, I could almost imagine it was Mama’s face staring back at me instead of mine. Fathoms below, an angelfish spooked and disappeared into a bed of whip seaweed. Over on the Baines boat, the boys starting singing songs about Captain Teach and the good days of pirating gone by, when earning your daily bread was as easy as taking it from someone else, while Sewel and Mr. Baines called back and forth about the war with the rebellious American colonies.

Wrecking was how we earned our daily bread. We helped ships that had run up on sandbars or reefs as they cruised through the Bahama Channel—sandbars and reefs we knew better than anyone. If the ship couldn’t be kedged back to deep water, we hauled away the cargo for a share. In rarer times, when the ship was a total loss and sank, we dove for its sunken spoils, sometimes uncovering them for years after the wreck itself.

I dove for sunken spoils. Sewel never did the diving because of his missing toes, he claimed, which made no sense to me. Fish swam, didn’t they?

Sewel had told me once how he’d lost them on a burning merchant ship when a fiery yard fell and smashed half his foot. He’d nearly been killed that day, he’d said, but God looked out for drunks, fools, and sailors. God must’ve loved Sewel fierce ’cause he was all three.

Like he was peering into my disloyal thoughts, Sewel stretched out his leg and ran his foot against my shin, the thick scars scratching me like bark.

I pulled away, my heart jumping in my chest.

Sewel shook his head at me. Then he tipped the bottle back and drank.

By the time we got to the Valparaíso, the empty bottle rattled round the bottom of the wherry and thunder rumbled in the distance. The tide was so high that only the tip of the old wreck’s mainmast stuck out, like a cross staked right in the sea.

Less go, Francisca, Sewel slurred. He tossed the anchor overboard and spat at the sea to bring us luck. We en’t got much time.

I checked the rope belting my trousers. The sea flashed like pewter, dull and dark. I always felt a little dizzy when I couldn’t see to the bottom, not knowing what awaited me down there.

Get diving. Sewel pulled off his hat and wiped his sweaty forehead. The rum had brought the blood into his eyes. And best not disappoint. I en’t got a drop of patience today, understand?

Anger rose inside me like smoke. Yes, sir.

Over on the Baines boat, Owen and Daniel Baines shoved each other and laughed as they dove in. Mercy and Moses were already in the water and their tiny boat ran up and down the swells empty. I sucked in a few breaths, readying my lungs, a feeling of strength and daring filling me.

Sewel, sir? I said, looking over my shoulder. I was just wonderin’…you gonna have any patience tomorrow? He lunged across the wherry to grab me, but I leapt into the air—and crashed into freedom.

Kicking hard, I swam to Mercy.

You ought not provoke him, Frannie, she said as I reached her. You can’t say things like that no more.

Mercy was thirteen—two years younger than me, but ten years smarter. I’d waited years for a friend in West End. When I’d finally gotten one, I’d gotten the best one.

I just did and here I am, still breathing. She didn’t laugh, so I said, He won’t remember. He finished a whole bottle of kill-devil on the way here.

What if he does remember? Our knees bumped as we treaded water. "You’re his daughter now, Frannie. His alone."

My throat cinched up like a belt. For weeks I’d been avoiding that very truth, hiding in my memories of Mama instead, but Mercy was right. Sewel loved to torment me, but when I’d lost my patience before, Mama had been there to stand between us. Without her, I had no idea how I’d survive. Don’t worry, Mercy. I en’t afraid of that birdbrain, I said, sinking my voice to a drawl, like Sewel’s.

Her eyes slid to him. Birds are smarter than that man. If he was a bird, he’d fly backward.

I grinned. Probably barking, too.

We clasped our hands together and drew three deep breaths. Then we let go and dove.

I kicked down, plunging fathom by fathom, the hush of the sea seeping into my mind and my muscles. By the time I touched the slippery wood ribs of the Valparaíso, the boats were just blurry shadows on the surface. With the pestering drag of the tide, I knew I wouldn’t have much time for searching, but there was no use moaning about it. I ran my hand along the hull, kicking to the seabed; then I rummaged through the sand for whatever felt solid, and pushed off.

I knew as I kicked up I had nothing good. Bits of coral and shells, only. Most of the Valparaíso’s treasures were long gone, but a big storm like this might uncover overlooked finds, like shoe buckles or spoons or even coins. Tesoros del tiempo, Mama had called them. Treasures brought by time.

Well? Sewel said as I broke the surface. He’d moved over to Mr. Baines’s boat, and they were sharing a fresh bottle.

Nothing, sir. I held up my empty hands to show him, then dove before he could holler at me.

A few more searches turned up a rusted hammer, a few nails. Everything slick with the grit and spit of the sea. Nothing worth an egg.

I moved on and began to search the ship itself, swimming through its hatches and twisting through the hold as I peered into silty crates and reached inside murky hogsheads. Soon my mind opened and spun into daydreams, turning the nail that grabbed at my shirttails into a cutpurse, the eel peering from inside a barrel into a demon. Every inch of this ship had told me a story at one time or another, from the ballast bricks, which had surely once made castles, to the rope tied to the prow, which drifted like a string in search of its missing kite.

Mama used to say that some daydreamers built castles in the sky, but I built my castillos en el mar. I knew of no better place to open my mind than fathoms below.

After an hour or so, Mercy and I met behind her papa’s boat. My eyes burned from the salt and my legs and arms felt heavy as bricks.

I found plenty of sand. I waited for her to say she’d found plenty of salt water. Mercy and I never found nothing.

We have to get out, Frannie. Look.

I blinked my pickled eyes and followed her gaze to the black clouds. You think it’s a hurricane?

"Not the storm. Look." She pointed just beyond the Valparaíso, where the sea’s surface rippled.

My breath caught as a great fin sliced up.

Shark. Biggest one I’d ever seen. Long as the wherry and near as wide.

We’d swum near sharks plenty of times, but never one this excited, pushing so high at times I could see its gills.

Mercy, come on, Moses said, reaching down to help her into the boat.

I didn’t waste a second; I swam for the wherry, fear turning me into an arrow. In seconds, I reached it and heaved myself aboard, landing with a thud.

Sewel snored away like a beast, his big body slumped into the curve of the wherry’s stern. Trembling with tiredness and fear, I hauled up the anchor and set it inside the well. The shark still circled nearby, and every rumble of thunder shook the air in my lungs. I grabbed the lines to raise the sail, more than ready to get home.

Did I say it was time to leave?

My every muscle tensed. I let go of the line and turned. No, sir.

Sewel pulled out of his slump. Sit.

I found myself sinking onto the thwart and grabbing the wood beneath me to keep steady.

He picked his hat up from the well where it’d fallen, and took his time brushing the water and sand away before setting it back on his head. It’s past time we discuss how things are gonna be now, with your mama gone. He rubbed his chin and stared at me, heedless of the lightning bolts slicing across sky. You are an oddity, Francisca, he said. "An aberration. You have no fortune, nor any beauty. You have no gentleness in your heart, nor a wisp of feminine softness. What you do have is a terrible temper and an odious lack of refinement. Added to the disgrace of having a fallen woman for a mother, you got no chance of ever luring an upright man to take you for a wife. So I have decided that I will save you. I will make the sacrifice, in your mama’s memory, and take you as mine. En’t nothing wrong with it, as we en’t blood, and I’m nearer in age to you than I was to her, so… He lifted his shoulders. En’t nothing wrong nor unnatural with it."

A warm sickness pushed into my throat and I felt myself falling back. Plunging into a cloud of silence. There was no logic, no sense to his words, but I’d expected this. I’d seen this coming. For months, since Mama had taken to bed, I’d seen hints in his eyes and how they followed me. I’d felt it in his hands, which had found me at any excuse. I’d been dreading this—but I still felt shock. I still couldn’t understand it.

Well? En’t you got nothing to say?

Yes, sir. I do, I heard myself answer. I will never be your wife, Sewel. Never.

Hmm. He nodded slowly. Then his gaze slid over to the shark and the air rushed out of my lungs.

Sewel reached into the bait box for his jackknife. He opened it and looked real slowly at one side of the blade, then turned to the other, pondering that one, the branded M shining on his thumb all the while. You’re going back in, Frannie—that en’t the question, he said, his voice sweeter sounding than I’d ever heard it. You brang it upon yourself with your defiance. The only question is whether you want to be bleedin’ when you do or not.

I was praying for God’s protection as I lowered myself into the water, inch by terrible inch. And crying, too, though crying only ever turned him wickeder. But I hadn’t a prayer of holding back my tears.

It took all my strength to let go of the wherry. Every bit of bravery I had. With the clouds reflecting on the sea, I couldn’t see the shark till it broke the surface. Here. There. Close—then much too close.

Well, Frannie? Sewel leaned over the rail, staring down at me with his rum-bleary eyes. You gonna learn to govern your tongue?

Y-y-yes, sir, I stammered as I kicked furiously.

And?

And I’m sorry for back-talking you!

Lying’s a terrible sin. An abomination unto the Lord.

But I en’t lying! The water shimmered near me. Any moment, teeth would slice into my legs. I’m sorry!

"You are lying. Sewel’s eyes narrowed. But I am feeling generously today. You are forgiven. He reached down to help me aboard. See, Francisca? Things can be good between us."

A few days later, we sailed to the Tumbado wreck, once again hoping good fortune would find us. Two hours into diving, the only thing that had found me was disappointment.

I rubbed my stinging eyes and sucked on the cut on my thumb that I’d gotten from a broken piece of pottery—the only thing I’d uncovered. The afternoon had brought thunderheads rolling in. Sunlight sliced through them in long beams that roamed over the sea.

Dedos de dios, Mama had called them. God’s fingers.

Sewel and Mr. Baines had tied their boats together and were carrying on about a battle in South Carolina colony in which we’d lost to the despicable, cowardly, treasonous rebels. God help us. I knew I shouldn’t risk angering Sewel—I’d begun to think he’d forgotten our conversation, to hope it’d just been the rum talking—but he looked occupied for now, and I saw a chance I couldn’t pass up.

I drew a breath and swam for deeper water. Though Sewel had taught me to dive, I always felt it was these clear waters that guided me. Sometimes I heard whispers when I swam, telling me what to do. Voices of the Lucayos who’d lived on Grand Bahama long before we did. They’d been able to dive for a whole hour on a single breath, according to Mercy. We hadn’t managed that yet.

With the seabed dropping beneath me, I shored up my lungs once more. Then I swam down, down, down, plunging one fathom at a time, till suddenly, I felt the sea gently wrap round me and there was no rising anymore, no sinking. Just floating, there in the belly of the ocean.

I’d reached it—the seventh fathom. My dreaming depth.

The whole world far away, I stretched out my arms and set my imagination loose.

Sometimes it wandered to Mama’s stories and I daydreamed of the castle in Baiona, or of the time she’d seen a tiger in a street market in Cádiz. But today, I went into my own imaginings.

I saw myself as I was—small and square as a boy. Big wide eyes and an impudent nose, as Sewel called it. My dark hair tied back, but still falling in my face. But instead of my diving garments, I wore a fine blue coat with a ruffled white neck stock and sleeves dripping with lace. I stood at the bow of a grand ship, a spyglass tucked under my arm, as I guided it over every inch of the globe’s waters.

For as long as I could hold my breath, I went on adventures and I felt free.

The clouds opened as I swam back to Mercy. In a matter of moments, the swells rose to six feet and the sea sizzled with a furious rain.

We met behind her papa’s boat, where we listened to Sewel and Mr. Baines shouting at each other. Instead of heading for shelter as we ought to have been, they were arguing over whose bright idea it had been to come out this far, exposing us to such foul weather.

Sewel’s never had a bright idea in all his life, I said.

"He’s never even had a dull idea. Mercy wiped the rain from her eyes. Our knees bumped underwater, talking to each other as we did. Shame he en’t more like my papa."

I’d had the same thought a dozen times myself. In the boat above us, Moses was busy stashing conches in a crate. As we dove for hidden treasures, he dove for dinner, which struck me as wiser. The real shame is he en’t more like yesterday, I said.

Mercy wrinkled her nose. How’s that?

I grinned. Gone forever. Never to be seen again.

Mercy laughed, showing all her pretty teeth. Her papa looked down from the boat with a scolding glance that seemed rather mild to me, but Moses never did look mean. He had a face like he was always about to tell you a sad story, even when he smiled.

C’mon, Mercy. ’Fore the storm trap us out here. He helped her aboard. Then he rowed for West End, his strokes steady as wings in spite of the choppiness of the sea.

Fran! Sewel shouted, spotting me in the water. Get over here!

I swam over and hoisted myself into the wherry, huddling my shivering body into the curve of the bow.

Sewel shook his head, disappointed at my lack of sturdiness. Wiggins find anything?

No, sir.

He was diving the wreck and didn’t find a thing?

Yes, sir.

Useless. He cast a hateful glance at the retreating boat; then he reefed the sail and weighed anchor, sure and swift, like seafaring was a dance he knew all the steps to.

He was made for the sea, Sewel was. Everything I learned about sailing and wrecking, he’d taught me. For that, I had to be