Chapter 4: Buried Pasts

"You can't bury her here," Widgit was telling them.

"Why not?" Asked Roberto.

"You don't understand, you don't belong here. Not in this time, not in this place."

"Well, we are here, whether we belong or not," noted Rusty.

"We can't just crate her body around all over the place. Won't it decompose?" asked Oliver. He had taken up a position between Roberto and Rusty.

"You don't belong here!" Widgit insisted, again.

Luis, who had been eavesdropping from the next room, decided it was time to enter this conversation. Coming through the door with a glass of port in one hand and the bottle in the other, he asked: "What year is this, anyway?"

Roberto looked surprised. That was the one question he hadn't considered.

"1825," said Widgit. Everyone went silent for a moment, stunned.

"No. No way. We couldn't have been stuck out there for over a hundred years. That's impossible!" Roberto exclaimed.

"Maybe we weren't," reasoned Rusty. "Just because over a century has passed here, doesn't mean over a century passed there. It's possible that time moved much more slowly inside the bubble than outside of it. One of our days could have been the equivalent of one of their years."

"Wouldn't we have noticed?" asked Roberto.

"You are like babies in a cradle," Widgit retorted. "What does a baby know of days, or months, or years?"

"So, even if we went home, back to Spain, there'd be no home to go back to, right?" asked Luis, trying to fathom what had happened.

"Gather the crews. We need a meeting," Roberto instructed. "We have to decide what to do."

Luis agreed and took Rusty and Oliver with him to gather everyone together. And when they were assembled, Roberto took Ursula aside first and explained what was happening. Shocked, she agreed to his plan.

"There's no way we can go back," she said to the crowd, after Roberto told them what had happened. "Everyone we knew is dead. The world we lived in is gone. If we tell people who we are, they'll either laugh at us or lock us up."

Ricardo's curse rang in her ears: 'You will be lost at sea! You will be in hell for a hundred years! You will never see your home or loved ones, again!'

"Agreed," said Roberto. He turned to the others. "From this day forward, we do not exist. The crews of La Beltranista and the Orb Nymph died at sea. From now on, we are new people."

"Then who are we?" asked Emerald.

"From what we can tell, we are on an island in the Bahamas. So, I guess we could say we are of this place," said Ursula. "This (she swept her arm across the room, encompassing the compound and the island) is our home, our place of origin. We shall give it a name. We shall say we were born here."

"What shall we call this place?" asked Oliver.

"What would you name it?" Roberto asked.

"Crow Island," said the boy, smiling at Rusty, as if sharing a secret joke.

'From the Chronicles of the Orb Nymph, by Mistress LaFitz':

The suggestion was approved by all, and the mariners surrendered their past as pirates, soldiers and sailors, and became the citizens of Crow Island, a mystical place in the great ocean, a place filled with wonders and magic.

Many decided to stay in that place and make a home, taking over the estate of the witch queen. Rosetta and Mac were among those who stayed behind, becoming the official leaders of the new island nation. Others decided to move on, and with the resources at hand and maps collected by the queen, they were eventually able to build a new schooner and set sail for a new place, called the Gulf of Mexico.

The project was nearly a year in the making, and during that time relationships were cemented. Stone learned to live with a split personality, and the group adapted to speaking to Stone one minute and Rosalita the next. In either case, Luis never left her side.

Emerald set her eyes on Roberto, and the two seemed a good match, but Jannie ran a successful interference for sometime. Baby Smile actually turned three, and they held a birthday party for her. Eva, the nanny, who also had designs on Roberto, waited patiently to make her move. But when it came time for the group to set sail, Roberto ordered Eva and Baby Smile to stay, much to their dismay, saying he would come back for them once he found a place where they could all be safe.

Rosetta and Mac were in a world of their own, and Josefina continued her pursuit of Rusty, only to find Oliver always underfoot or in the way. Dotti stopped trying to kill Sean, and everyone found someone they liked, whether from the original crew of La Beltranista or from the handsome and strong islanders.

In the meantime, the group set about creating a history for themselves, with names and backgrounds, parents and siblings, education and interests. Anything they didn't know about in the new world, they would chalk up to being raised and educated on an isolated estate on the island. Widgit had an extensive library, and they were able to learn much from it.

Widgit had also made it clear that having Rosalita's body around didn't necessarily mean having her "body" around. The essence of that body was enough to keep the spirit tied to earth, Widgit said. And so, owing to the heat and other deleterious effects of the climate, Rosalita's body was cremated and the ashes kept in a turquoise encrusted, gold lined urn. Rosalita objected strenuously to the cremation, but at least she liked the urn. The urn was then entrusted to the new entity, Rosalita Stone, who always kept it with her.

And so it came about that on the 16th of May, in the year of Our Lord 1826, a small vessel carrying a handful of the new residents of Crow Island set sail for America and an unpredictable future. The cruise was uneventful in itself, but once in America, a new dispute arose, one that would shatter the lives of the voyagers forever -- a battle of wills and powers between the witch queen Widgit and the psychic Emerald. Little did the mariners know that their lives, their futures and their fortunes were in the hands of these two feuding powers.

Leaving Crow Island...