First Leftenant Aniyah Smith
6:45 PM November 10
She ran toward the abandoned street-end at Ocean Avenue and First. The parking lot was empty, and the boardwalk booths were boarded up for the impending winter. An ominous haze surrounded scattered clouds with dark gray and black. The winds made a telling rattle as thirteen-year-old Aniyah Smith made her way through the narrow service alley between Sun-Kissed Glass and Shell and Napoli’s pizza.
This was her favorite place, her escape in times of trouble and sorrow, but today, faced with hurricane east winds, she sensed an intruder.
“You’re an ugly witch,” she said.
Aniyah emerged from the alley onto the boards. “You’re ugly and haunted by a spirit of loneliness.”
She winced in pain when the chill bit through her coat, wool Boston Bruins wool hat, and mittens to match. She descended the fading gray planks, twisting left then right, spilling onto the beach.
It wasn’t often that November gales came so early. It did not deter Aniyah, though they expected it to arrive by nine o’clock.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “But I don’t care. I need to be near the sea.”
Aniyah was an awkward girl but had sprung overnight into womanhood. She had not cut her straight auburn hair in two years. Nor had she washed in as many weeks. Her shirts could not keep up with her budding body, forcing her to wear sweatshirts daily.
She shivered as she faced down another gust, but not just from the dropping temperatures or the easterly winds.
Aniyah had beaten her again. Bruises from the fists and belt of a manic, heroin and man-addicted mother flared from the slightest touch.
“All’s I did was drop a pot,” she wept. “I just wanted some Ramen Noodles.”
She thought back twenty minutes earlier to the saucepan hitting the ground. Her mother, Delilah, half-naked on the couch, pushed a man-friend from beside her and attacked. It was a familiar beating lasting eleven seconds. The young girl endured screaming, flying fists, and kicks to her back and ribs.
In the present, Aniyah threw her hands toward the sky and screamed.
“I’m sick of being beat,” she said. “You’re not as strong as you used to be, and I’m not scared of you. That’s why I run away.”
She felt the wooden boards beneath her black and white Vans sneakers and smiled.
It’s almost story time, she thought as she leaned back to slow her descent to the beach. Then, stopping on the last wooden board, she watched it fade into the marram and bending dune grass. She saw a tiny path between two rows of chest-high cattails.
She curled her fists into circles, and with a deep breath, Aniyah put one against her eye, and the other stretched as if seeing through a looking glass.
“Mister Barrie, we shall beat to quarters,” she said. “To the log, engaged enemy Ship o’ the Line at eight bells.” She escaped into a different world when her black and white vans hit the sand.
His Majesty King George the Third’s Frigate, Pomone.
Ten November 1809
Somewhere S. of Sardinia, Mediterranean Sea
38 guns
198 souls
In the present, she found her spot on the shoreline, sitting close enough to feel the ocean’s spray. Aniyah tucked her knees under and fell into her imagination.
“Report if you please, Mister Barrie,” she said into the wind. She was First Leftenant Aniyah Smith, and this was her first fantastical story, ‘the sands of a Midshipman.’
“Come up on the wind. Sharpshooters to the topsail, and get me alongside pistol shot.” She saw herself rush toward the larboard side quarterdeck division batteries. “Mister Barrie, make ready on the up row.”
The heavy seas refused her the weather gauge, though she found favor when the wind pushed against her. The guns cleared the driving waves, showing the enemy’s hull. She threw her hand in the air.
“Fire!”
In her imagination, they broadsided, with significant effect, the much larger French Ship o’ the Line.
She was back in reality after another gale brought pain. Staring at the breaking waves, she cleared her throat.
“One day,” she said. Aniyah winced and spoke to the magnificence of the Atlantic. “One day, I’m going to sing songs about you. I’m going to write poems about your beauty and your strength.”
Another easterly wind pushed her long uncut hair against her milky cheek and nose. She fought to keep her eyes clear, her face stung by the sand.
“I hate you!”
Aniyah gnashed her teeth and shouted at the east wind.
“I know who you are,” she said. “The old fisherman used to call you the November Witch. They feared you, but I don’t.”
Aniyah lept to her feet, leaned, and took a broken shell from the icy sand. She hurled it at the incoming blackness overtaking the sky. The wind caught it and spit it back at her.
A gale from the November Witch kicked up the sand and hit her again. Losing her balance and breath, Aniyah gave up. She tried tying her hair with a soft pink scrunchie but failed. So frustrated with the wind and her hair sticking to her mouth, she grabbed both sides of her wool hat and sharply pulled it over her ears to her eyebrows.
“You’re as vicious as my mother,” she said. The rolling tears touched her cheeks, prompting a quick backhand removal. “How can you be so mean?”
She sat, desperate to command her beloved, Pomone, but another gust took the hat from her head and shredded her scrunchie. She cursed the November Witch.
“You’re so beautiful, but you’re just cruel. You’re unforgiving and just—plain—shitty, mean.”
A chilling breath answered as her flesh pimpled.
Then, she felt a sudden and violent pain. It befell her back and neck, ripping through her coat and scarf.
An intrusion. A foreign object splintered Aniyah’s cervical spine.
Her ears mourned the sound of breaking bone and tearing flesh.
Her breaths were sharp and fading.
Terrified of the mysterious pain and its cause, she retreated to the deck of the HMS Pomone.
“Damage report, if you please, Mister Barrie.”
Aniyah’s mouth was dry, and she felt a surge of panic, wondering if her fantasy world had come to life.
“We’ve lost the rudder, young one.” It was a man’s voice, soft and calm, but she didn’t believe it.
“You chill my spine, sir.”
Aniyah wanted to cry but lost her voice and all sensation throughout her limbs.
“We’re derelict, Captain. All’s lost.”
That’s when she knew. This wasn’t a dream at all.
She would never have imagined herself a captain. It was too grand a title, and she hadn’t served in His Majesty’s Fleet long enough to deserve such an honor.
No! I am Leftenant Smith, aboard His Majesty’s Ship, Pomone.
“Let us abandon ship together, young one.”
She heard his words, the broken accent, German, Russian, maybe? Her first thought was of a mother’s man-friend sent to relieve an unwanted burden. But when she saw his face, she saw evil.
You’re not a man-friend. You’re too neat and clean and smell of a pleasant aftershave. You’re not an assassin. No, you’re the Kraken.
Her body seized until she lost all sensations. Aniyah didn’t feel the wailing gale, bitter cold, or sand. She couldn’t smell his pleasant aftershave or hear his voice.
The man stood over her with a black steel blade and a quizzical stare. He studied her, his head moving from left to right.
“Such an odd place and such an odd girl, but never you mind. You won’t feel any of this.”
Her breath waned, and she wanted to choke, but her body wasn’t working.
Her thoughts flashed, her mind raced, and she wanted to go home, but not to her abusive spike and man-addicted mother. She wanted to be with Midshipman Barrie, fighting beside him somewhere south of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea.
You will not be the last thing I see, she thought, her mind taking control. My shipmates await me, and I spend my last moments on the splintered deck of the HMS Pomone.
The smell of the salt air, spent gunpowder, and the Ship’s fires filled her nostrils. She felt the tears against her temples and ears as she looked at her favorite midshipman.
“But, no, Mister Barrie,” she said. “I am mortally wounded.”
On the ravaged quarterdeck, amidst hellfire, steel, and shot, Leftenant Aniyah Smith faded.
“Mister Barrie, I am to pass. To you, sir, go the guns.”
