Living on Writer's Block

Her brow furrowed. Her brain was too fogged with weariness to think straight. “I-I’m sorry, what did it do today?”

“You must really be tired, Red. It kept you alive, didn’t it?”

She sighed and put a hand over her eyes, propping her elbow on the table beside her and leaning on it, still pressing the kerchief to her cheek. “Yes, I’m very tired, Captain; my brain’s not exactly at its keenest at the moment. Of course, yes, it did.”

He gave her a slight grin of sympathy. “Pierre asked me to call you, by the way. He has something to show you.”

“Really?” she asked, taking her head off her hand. She got up, and seeing that she was no longer bleeding again, she stuffed the cloth into her waistband. 

“He’s back here,” Samuel said, with a demonstrative jerk of his head. He shoved away from the wall and led the way toward the hold. Ramona followed curiously. As they reached the storeroom, he stepped aside to let her in; when he did, her eyes widened. 

The storeroom was filled from floor to ceiling with a great variety of things she could use for cooking and baking. Huge sacks and barrels of flour, sugar, rice, oats, and barley stood in a corner; opposite the pile were crates and sacks full of fruit — oranges, lemons, limes, apples, figs, and even bananas which hung from the ceiling in huge bunches. Other things hung from the ceiling, too; enormous slabs of salted and smoked meat, beef, steak, ribs, pork, ham, sausage, bacon; it was all there. And to the right of the door, she saw rows of dried herbs  hanging on the wall and spices in jars on shelves. Her hands went to her mouth in shock. 

“Oh, my — ” she turned to Pierre, where he stood in the center of the room watching her reaction with a gentle smile creasing his worn features. “You got all this, for me?”

He nodded. “I knew yeh needed it, lass. So when I saw it I got some of the lads to help, and we brought it all down fer yeh.” He turned to survey the mountains of supplies, nodding proudly. “I know yeh can do more than I can, lassie; so I thought, if yeh had more…” He turned back to her, smiling. 

She stepped forward and flung her arms around his neck. He smiled and returned the hug warmly. “Thank you, Pierre; you’re wonderful,” she whispered, her eyes slightly damp. She stepped back and brushed at them hurriedly. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said in a husky voice. 

He gave a low chuckle. “Just make good food, and tha’s thanks enough, lass.”

She smiled. 

Samuel stood against the wall behind her, arms crossed, a gentle smile on his face. His eyes were soft as he watched her extreme delight. “Aye, Red, the crew’s always looking forward to meals even more than before since you joined. Highlight of their day. And while they’re still tired, at this point a year ago they would have been dead-white and shambling around like ghouls. Thanks to you, they’re doing pretty well. We owe you a lot. Pierre was good with cooking, sure; but you add another dimension to it.”

She looked round at him. “I’m glad to help, Captain, in the best way I know how.” He nodded, then straightened up and left the room. Ramona looked back at Pierre. “Let me know if you have any new requests, Pierre; and tell the crew I said so, please.” Pierre grinned. 

“Anythin’ yeh make is a delight, lass,” he said. “Now if yeh’ll excuse me, I must be goin’.” He nodded, smiling happily, and then went around her and out the door. She stood a while longer, staring delightedly around her at the options she now had. But then the ship’s bell sounded and she realized it was time for dinner. She was shocked when she thought how long she must have slept. She had no time to plan something new so she grabbed what she needed and ran back to her domain, the kitchen, and set about preparing a good feast for the crew. 

… .. . .. …

It was later than she would have wished when she finally stumbled into her quarters that night. She kicked off her worn old boots and climbed into the hammock and laid down facing the wall, utterly exhausted. She’d made dinner for the crew, then joined them in the old storeroom she’d fashioned into a sort of dining room to eat, and that had been a long affair because they were so high-spirited after the day’s raid. Sea-shanties and ballads rang through the ship for hours, and she was caught up in the moment, until the ship bell’s ring told her that it was nearly morning. She hurriedly returned to her kitchen and cleaned up the mess she’d made in her hurry to complete dinner, and then went to bed, sighing wearily in relief. As she swung in her hammock, listening to the creaking of the ship around her, she considered the strange feeling of home she’d had as she returned to the ship earlier that day. Samuel’s kerchief still hung, somewhat forgotten and crusted brown with blood, from her skirt. Something stirred inside her, and she felt strangely warm knowing that here, for the first time, she realized she had a home. Her eyelids fell slowly, and her consciousness went dark.

“Ah, there you are,” purred a rich voice in the dark. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back to my realm.” Ramona looked around in confusion. 

“What on earth…?” she said through a black fog. 

“Why, it’s quite simple, really,” said the voice. A light flared to her left and she turned to see a woman, tall and slender, with deadly-pale skin and perfectly black hair. She wore a long, sleeveless black gown, and a black cloak lined with blood-colored satin that fell around her ankles in rich folds. The eye that Ramona could see was wreathed in heavy, dark makeup, and her lips were blood red. One side of her body was in shadow as she lounged on a throne, high above Ramona on a sort of dais. “When you killed me the first time, you sent me merely to haunt your dreams; but when you defeated me again last night, darling Bloodhawk, you sent me to rule in this realm. It is your dreams, Ramona, which I can now control; I shall never give you another night’s peace. Not after this,” she said and leaned forward suddenly, bringing her face into the light. The side that had been in shadow was a horrible, red, scarred and melted mess around a dead eye. Her bare shoulder showed that the burns continued down her body. 

Ramona stumbled back in terror. “No! I killed you!” She was shaking violently. “You can’t be here now, you — you can’t,” she choked. She fell to her knees, one hand flat on the ground before her, the other a fist pressed against her forehead.  

“Well, dear, that’s just it; I am. And now you can’t ever escape me.”  The terrifying, beautiful, young Matron leaned back slightly, her eyes resting idly on her black-gloved, ruby-encrusted hand. “Pity, really, for you that you had to dream my defeat. If I’d simply vanished slowly from your dreams, I’d have been gone forever. But, Ramona dear, there’s a strange magic in killing a witch. It simply removes her from one kingdom to another. I may not have power over the world,” she said, turning burning red eyes on her, “but now I have total control of all your dreams.”  She smiled, showing pointed teeth. “If I wanted to, I could kill that pirate friend of yours — is his name Samuel? — in every dream you ever have, and make you watch as I did it over and over and over again. Or,” she went on, more softly and alluringly, “I could show you your future, here, now; I could even show you what you need to do to alter your future to whatever you want it to be.”

Ramona looked up slowly. “Why would I ever want that?”

The witch smiled, one eyebrow rising fractionally. She tilted her chin up a little, studying Ramona like a vulture examines the animal it is waiting on to die.”Oh I don’t know, dear. It doesn’t matter to me. But I’d require a small fee, you understand; only a very small one.”

Ramona’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What kind of fee?”

“I want the ability to take control of your body whenever I feel like it,” the witch said, smiling cruelly. Her tongue slid out of her mouth and traced her lips hungrily. “I would so love to have a young, beautiful body again.” 

Ramona’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t make deals with witches,” she said harshly.

The witch turned back to studying her rings with a shrug, sinking back into shadow, hiding the mangled, burnt body in black fog. “Did I not mention that I can also control how long you sleep?”  Ramona’s eyes widened in faint alarm, sinking to a deathly pale grey. “I can see that you sleep forever. Or, you can never sleep again, depending on how I want to torture you.” Her red eye slid to meet Ramona’s, a cruel smile playing across her mouth. “ Exhaustion is such a fascinating way to die,” she murmured lovingly.  Ramona shot upright with a cry, gasping, pale and sweating. She flailed out of the hammock and put her back to a wall and slid to the floor, sobbing and trembling. What… just happened, she thought. It was just a dream, right? Just another bad dream… but then, why do I feel like it’s true?