Rugged Road

The morning sun had barely cleared the palmetto palms when the three children left the resort on rented bicycles. The adults had been occupied since breakfast, leaving Rudy, Marc, and Jane with hours to fill.

Marc suggested the beach. Rudy wanted the historical site. Jane simply picked up her bicycle and started riding toward the northern trail.

That settled it.

The coastal road narrowed beyond the last row of resort buildings, smooth pavement giving way to cracked asphalt. Marc stood on his pedals as his bicycle struggled through the rugged road.

“The historical site is somewhere ahead,” Rudy said. “According to the old charts, this was near the inlet referred to as Ensenada de la Cruz.”

Jane smiled faintly. She had said very little all morning, her attention dropping every few minutes toward the basket on her handlebars. Beneath a straw hat lay the Metal Mirror.

She had not told the boys what she had seen the previous night. Now the mirror felt heavier than it had yesterday, as though it knew where they were going.

The paved road ended abruptly. Marc squeezed his brakes.

“This is it.”

Ahead of them, the road dissolved into a rugged trail of white coral dust, exposed limestone, and tangled scrub. Beyond it, the land dropped toward a crescent bay. Two coral bluffs enclosed the water on either side, and the sea beyond them was a brilliant blue, darkening toward the center where the channel deepened.

Rudy dismounted and opened his guidebook, comparing the coastline with a reproduction of a 1719 chart.

“This is definitely the place.”

“How can you tell?”

“The shape of the bay. The reef here. The channel.” Rudy pointed toward the water. “The Spanish records placed Lynn Morgan’s last battle around this area.”

Jane walked to the edge of the ridge, her eyes on the water. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Marc asked, squinting against the glare. “It’s just the wind and a distant motorboat.”

Jane reached into her basket and pulled out the Metal Mirror. Morning sunlight struck its dull bronze surface and flashed across the limestone.

Jane angled the mirror toward the road. “Look at it.”

Rudy stepped closer. At first he saw exactly what he expected. Then the reflection shifted. The bicycles, the fence, and the white coral road vanished. In their place, the mirror showed a dense wall of mangrove trees, their roots twisted through black mud beneath a heavy canopy.

Rudy stared. He looked over his shoulder at the road, then back at the mirror. The mangroves remained.

He took off his glasses, wiped them clean, and put them back on. “That’s strange.”

“That’s what I saw last night,” Jane said.

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d believe me.”

“I don’t.”

Jane lowered the mirror. “Then look again.”

She angled the glass toward the sea. The motorboat crossing the distant water disappeared. In its place sailed a large two-masted schooner, its sails patched and weather-stained, its dark hull riding low in the water. A black flag snapped from the mainmast.

Rudy took the mirror from Jane. As the image sharpened, he spotted a pale emblem depicting a mermaid wielding a cutlass on the flag. “The Sultry Siren.”

Marc stepped closer. “You’re sure?”

“It’s Lynn Morgan’s ship,” Rudy whispered.

The three children stared into the glass. The schooner grew larger as the reflection changed.

The sea in the mirror was perfectly still, yet the vessel continued forward, heading straight toward them.

Marc stepped backward. “Put it down.”

Jane lowered the glass. Its surface rippled, sending a low vibration through the air. All three children felt their ears pop as the wind died. The hum of the motorboat vanished. The warm, humid air of the Bahamian morning vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, biting gust of wind that smelled powerfully of burning tallow, wet canvas, and ozone.

Marc looked back at the road. The pavement paled to grey, then vanished beneath a wave of coral dust. The fence thinned to a ghost before dissolving into the air entirely.

“What is happening?” Marc asked.

Rudy had no answer. Jane looked at the mirror, its surface now completely black.

Then something struck the water with a thunderous splash.

The children whirled around. A heavy wooden schooner had materialized in the bay, less than a hundred yards offshore. Its anchor plunged into the shallow water, sending up a wall of spray. The hull was dark with age and salt, crusted in barnacles. Heavy ropes hung from the rigging, and its sails were patched in varying shades of canvas.

“No,” Marc breathed.

“It’s real,” Rudy said.

Shouts rang out from the deck as sailors scrambled to lower longboats.

Jane backed away. “We need to leave.”

They turned toward the road, but a dense mangrove forest now stretched across the ridge where the path had been.

“That’s impossible,” Marc said.

A harsh voice rose from the bay. “Spies on the headland!”

“Cut them off!” another shouted.

Four longboats slammed onto the beach. Men poured onto the shore wearing linen shirts, canvas trousers, and leather cross-belts slung with cutlasses and heavy iron pistols.

One of the men pointed toward the ridge. “Grab the children!”

They ran, but Marc was caught almost instantly. A broad-shouldered sailor tackled him from behind, driving him onto the limestone.

“Got one!”

“Get off me!” Marc kicked hard enough to send the man staggering, but another pirate seized his wrists.

Two more men scrambled over the ridge, flintlock pistols leveled at Rudy and Jane.

“Hold!” Rudy cried out, raising both hands into the air, his voice cracking with sheer terror. “Don’t shoot! We’re not spies! We’re…we’re tourists!”

Silence fell over the beach. The pirate stared at Rudy’s bright yellow synthetic shirt and running shoes. “What manner of clothing is that?”

“Modern clothing.”

The pirate blinked. “What?”

Rudy immediately regretted speaking.

Within minutes, the pirates bound the children’s wrists, hauled them down the slope, and shoved them into a wooden longboat.

Marc struggled against his ropes. “Let go!”

A pirate struck the oar beside his head. “Sit still, boy.”

They rowed toward the schooner. Up close, the ship smelled intensely of old salt, wet hemp, pitch, and stale rum.

Once hauled aboard, the children were surrounded by dozens of staring sailors. The crowd parted as a woman descended from the quarterdeck. She appeared to be about thirty years old, wearing a dark blue officer’s coat, a plain linen shirt, and leather boots. Her long brown hair was tied back, and a cutlass hung at her hip.

Around her neck, a violet pearl gleamed with a faint light of its own. She studied the children silently before calling out an order.

“Search them.”

A pirate stepped forward and flipped Jane’s canvas bag upside down over a deck hatch. The speculum mirror hit the oak planks with a loud clang.

The woman knelt immediately to pick it up. Her fingers traced the engraved letter on its reverse side.

“Where did you get this?” She looked up at Jane. “I lost a mirror identical to this three months past. Who sent you with it?”

“We bought it,” Jane stammered. “In an antique shop.”

“They’re touched in the head, Captain,” one pirate growled. “Or they’re French saboteurs sent from Tortuga in strange garb to mock us. They don’t even speak proper English.”

Rudy took a breath, finding his voice. “We aren’t spies. Captain Morgan, what is today’s date?”

“It is May thirteenth, seventeen-nineteen,” she replied.

Marc looked at Rudy in disbelief. “Did we travel to the past?”

“That’s impossible,” Rudy said.

The deck went dead silent. The sea breeze died completely.

Lynn stood up slowly, her hand resting on the pommel of her cutlass. “How do you know my name?”

“Because it’s in the history books!” Rudy shouted. “Your whole fleet disappears tomorrow! The Spanish surround you, and when dawn comes on May fifteenth, there is nothing left in the bay! You vanish from history!”

“Put them in the hold,” Lynn ordered softly.

She stared down at the mirror. For a fraction of a second, her reflection in the glass showed not a living woman, but a skeleton. Pale and shaken, she dropped the mirror onto the planks.

She slowly retrieved it, her fingers trembling as she turned the glass back toward her face. This time, her usual reflection returned.

Lynn stared at it for a long moment before extending the mirror back to Jane.

“Keep it.”

Jane blinked. “Why?”

“Because apparently it has chosen you.” Lynn turned to her crew. “Put them below.”

As they were dragged toward the companionway, Jane looked back over her shoulder. Lynn remained on deck, staring toward the northern horizon where a faint purple haze had begun to spread across the sky.

Rudy saw it too. He remembered a line from an old record describing the weather right before the fleet vanished: The sea became strangely calm.

Rudy stopped walking until the pirate behind him shoved his shoulder.

“Move.”

Rudy looked toward the horizon once more. The surface of the water had flattened to glass, and Lynn’s hand closed tightly around the violet pearl.