Sample Chapter of Sea Change - by Julie-Ann Rowell

The night of the visit that changed everything, Belle fidgeted by the shuttered hole that served as a window. She pressed an eye to the gap between wood and wall to see the heath, but outside was black silk punctured by white darts, the sleet eerily soundless. It was the last night of March, a month that had been all ice and hail.
Her brother, Luke, lazed on the earth floor near the hearth - their cooking pot hanging from its iron crane having been pushed back to let the flames rise. Mary Tavey, their mother, sat on a stool, darning a tear in Luke's coat with quick nervous movements. While they were busy, Belle was free to dream. Luke disapproved when her eyes glazed into middle distance and was always shouting at her for it, had once bloodied her nose for it. He hadn't always been so hardhearted, but now he frowned on everything she did.
It was impossible to dream tonight though, for her ear throbbed where Mistress Quinn had twisted it. She worked for the Parson's wife five days a week and now the hateful woman wanted Belle to live-in. She quickly curbed the thought. It was too awful, and worse, Luke had leapt with pleasure at this chance to be rid of his sister.
Belle's gaze drifted to Luke, his mouth slack in mid snore, she could never live with the Quinns. Never! If only there was a way out? Perhaps a journeyman would come looking for a wife? She would be tied, but away from here at least. It was most unlikely, visitors were scarce and anyway, Belle considered who would want a runt like her? She'd often wondered how it was that Luke grew so tall and wide while she stayed so small and angular.
A thundering at the door jolted Belle out of her reverie. Mary abandoned the coat. Luke snorted and made a half roll. The thunderous noise was repeated and Belle rushed to the door, but Mary started up, "Leave it, Belle!" She feared that at any moment the tenant farmer for whom Luke worked would turn them out for no reason other than sheer spite. People were like that.
Luke turned his head, "Oh see to it," he grunted.
Belle, inclined to obey her brother rather than her mother, slowly lifted the latch, easing the door open but an inch. The wind, as sharp as a cat's claw, forced its way through the crack, she shuddered but not because of the cold, a giant bearded man stood caked in white against the mesmerising sleet, a sacking bag over one shoulder.
"Where's Mary Tavey?" The giant demanded. He did not wait for an answer but pushed his way in with a blast of cold air, calling "Jip!" behind him. A small white creature shot past Belle's legs before she had a chance to close the door.
Mary?" The man asked in a voice of granite, taking in Mary Tavey's once pretty face, her faded bedgown, sack apron, lank hair escaping its untidy knot. "Yes, tis certainly you."
Mary blanched white, stood as if made of stone. Luke scrambled to his feet, hands curling into broad fists.
"Hold back son for you be about to strike a relative." The man spoke without even looking at his foe, meanwhile removing his felt hat. His long thin sorrel-coloured hair was scraped over the scalp and tied with cord. His beard was conversely much thicker - an ample bushy tangle that smothered the lower portion of his face.
"Hold, Luke." Mary held up her hand. Belle stared - her mother knew this stranger. "I did know your face, Josiah, I knew it at once." Mary's said nervously, "How d'you find us?"
"You're the only Tavey in Buckden."
The man stomped to the grate ripping off grey woollen mittens to expose huge clams of hands. He shook his head and shards of ice flew from him. The small dog had raced to the hearth, crouched burningly close to the flames, ears flicked back. Luke stood in front of the door arms folded now, his eyes fixed on this unfamiliar figure. "I know of no Josiah," he muttered, "where you from then?"
"Not much of a welcome from any of ya," Josiah growled, facing them, filling their cramped room.
"This man," their mother said, "is your Uncle, my mother's younger brother. Belle fetch your Uncle some ale."
"That's more like it!"
Josiah straddled Mary's stool, the seat vanishing beneath his bulk, while Belle went to fill a leather tankard, skirting her Uncle's dog whose pink eyes followed her. She handed Josiah the ale and he drank deeply, leaving foamy flecks on whiskers made ginger by the flickering rush light. He hardly seemed aware of Belle, but suddenly lifted his gaze to her.
"So this is what `er looks like grown." He ran his eyes that were like specks of blue glass from Belle's bare toes to her linen cap, "Not pretty," he concluded indifferently. Belle traced her cheek with fingertips trying to make sense of the disappointing outline.
"Any food in the `ouse?"
Mary stiffened. She went to the larder and took out a hunk of bread. "She has a name as well you know - Oriana."
Mary was the only one who used her daughter's middle name of Belle.
"Oriana," he repeated as if weighing the words. Belle liked the way he spoke it, and her wariness of him faded a little then. She squatted beside him, adjusting her wool skirt for comfort, but Jip made a soft warning growl deep in his throat. "Shut it," Josiah flicked a piece of floor dirt at the dog and it cowered, shivering in spite of the heat. He then helped himself to Luke's long-stemmed clay pipe that was propped against a gridiron, and produced tobacco wrapped in paper. He stuffed the pipe with the brown curls that were as fine as hair. He lifted a rush to the pipe, slid the stem into his mouth.
"I come a long way," he said, moving the stem from one corner of his mouth to the other, "took over a day's travel from Plymouth." He closed his left eye at Belle; she noticed a gouge between his eye and shaggy eyebrow as if someone had tried to chisel a hole.
"Why have you come?"
"Business up this way, in a manner of speakin'."
"Well, you can stay one night and one night only," Mary warned, a mysterious rage in her voice.
"What were you doin' in Plymouth? I was born there." Belle cut in, afraid of this change in her mother who was usually so mild.
"Ha. I know you were born in Plymouth. There's always a story within a story like a ship in a bottle." He thrust himself forward. "I'm a killer of rats." The word 'rats' came at Belle like the hiss of a cornered snake and her face filled with acrid pipe smoke. "I've bin experimentin' with poisons, keeps `em in `ere." He slapped the sacking bag deposited at his feet. It made her flinch but he just laughed.
"We kill our own in these parts." Luke slid to the floor, his buckled shoes pushed out in front. Uncle Josiah's expression darkened as if a shadow passed across the sun, but when he turned back to Belle his lips were drawn into a smile revealing stumps for teeth.
"A man who can get rid of rat vermin proper will be worth his salt in time. Foul unearthly things they are, can gnaw a corpse to the bone in a blink!"
"Josiah!" Mary glared. It did not bother Belle though; she knew how much of a scourge rats were and had often been forced to go hunting for them with Luke and his mates.
"All I am sayin' is," Uncle Josiah continued, "knowin' about poisons is a useful talent."
"I know nothin' of it, poison I mean," Belle said.
"Of course you know nothin' of it!" Mary thrust bread into Uncle Josiah's open hand, then attended to the fire, the light softening her skin. Belle glimpsed for a moment how pretty her ma must have once been. She was a ghost of herself now. It was shocking to Belle to think that she might end up the same, from lack of fortune, or lack of love...
"Oriana craves knowledge, dangerous that, especially in a female," Luke said. Female sounded cat-like the way he pronounced it.
"Belle likes learnin'," Mary agreed, straightening up. "She can read and write `er name, the parson's wife taught `er. She's quick." There was pride in Mary's voice, but this cleverness was trouble for Belle, such skills were unheard of in one such as she, a poor village girl, and the Buckden children constantly taunted her. Luke would watch sullenly as they ran his sister ragged, throwing clods of earth at her back just because she liked walking alone reciting her lessons out loud. There was gossip that she performed the Black Arts, a dangerous rumour for witch burnings still happened.
"Women don't need learnin'," Luke retorted, "but the Quinns is good to `elp `er, she should be grateful."
Belle grimaced; she was bone-weary of Luke pointing out how generous were the childless Quinns. It was true that the Mistress gave her cast-off clothes, taught scripture, the merits of virtue and how to speak well, but burns from fire tongs were not worth 'a bit of learnin'.
"They wants to adopt her," said Luke.
"Worth considerin'," Uncle Josiah mused.
"It's been considered, and the offer's accepted."
Belle wanted to cry; they were talking about her as if she wasn't there. If only she had a father, surely he wouldn't let this happen, but he had died away from home with nothing to show for his life when she was barely three, and now she was fourteen.
"That seems settled then, but what about you, Luke?"
"I get by on the farm."
Uncle Josiah's mouth twisted in an ugly way, "Get by?"
"Tis enough."
"I want to learn about poisons," Belle said quickly, she was acutely aware of when a row was brewing.
"I have a mind to tell `er."
"No." Mary intervened, but Uncle Josiah carefully put down the pipe and from inside his sack revealed plants with long purple-spotted stems and a flounce of white flowers at the end. One stem, partially crushed, had a fetid smell as if it was rotten. It was innocent looking though, like cow parsley.
"This be hemlock, kills all like of beast, `cept goats."
Next he extracted a leather pouch. Belle nosed inside to find a handful of cherry-size shiny black berries.
"Dwale, or Belladonna."
Belle was hushed by the idea of a poison containing her name.
"Kills dogs, cats, and men. Fruits and seeds with power," he spoke in a harsh whisper, "power to change a person's fate. A fidget of a girl like you can possess that power, but what am I saying, you're just a lamb, eh? What would you know of life?"
More than you think, Belle thought stubbornly.
"And this," Uncle Josiah produced a small round tin. "This is me secret combination, soon to be tested for the first time." He prised the lid free and Belle sniffed a pungent earth smell from a brown-green mixture. "I'm goin' to try `em with this an' apple -they're partial to a bit of fruit. They're clever though, knows what to eat and what not to eat, most combinations fail, but the man that finds the right one'll make his fortune!"
"You poisonin' round `ere then?" Luke interrupted.
"Aye, but I'll be back to Plymouth soon, there's plenty rats and mice to be slaughtered at a port or on a ship.
Josiah's mood lightened, he lidded the tin and stretched his arms up with a groan, then shoved the leather pouch and tin back inside the bag. "Fetch me more ale, Mary." She begrudgingly took the tankard from him.
"Have you been on the oceans then?" Belle asked, to her they were a mystery she longed to solve.
"Of course I've been on `em! I didn't always ply me trade as a rat-killer. I worked on a merchant ship once, a fine vessel it were, built in Plymouth."
"Where d'you go?"
"Places you can't imagine, girl, the West Indian islands for one," he spread his hands.
Mary flinched at his words. "We don't want to hear about them."
"Too close for comfort eh, Mary? You could tell `er yourself? Tell your child what your fancy man!"
"Enough Josiah!" She put a fist to her lips.
"Calm yourself," Uncle Josiah drawled, "I'm only goin' to tell `er about the oceans. Anyway, as I was about to say, girl, they be wider than you can look and wild like a person wronged."
His eyes shone. Belle moved in closer.
"Water changes colour from one day to the next. I've seen schools of fish shrink and grow as shadows do. Tis a sight indeed." He tapped out and re-filled his pipe. "You hear such tales, sirens that lure men to watery graves, creatures that overturn ships twice their size!"
"She's not interested," Mary insisted.
"Tis all nonsense," Luke agreed, moving into the half-circle of firelight. His grim face as fixed as a church gargoyle.
"You know nothin' boy. You know nothin' of the West Indian islands with fruits the shapes of stars, milk from shells that fall from trees, fish the thickness of a man's waist."
"I want to see these things!" Belle declared, forgetting Mistress Quinn's instruction that she should strive to be quiet, modest and obedient at all times.
Uncle Josiah laughed; it sounded as if he was fighting for air. Luke watched his Uncle and then he laughed too, but there was venom in it.
"Stirs the blood, eh, Oriana?"
"No, does not!" Mary cried out.
"Tis a life for men anyways," Luke said.
"That much at least you know. The triangular trade be a tough one." Uncle Josiah nodded at Luke, but Luke leapt up.
"I don't know you or what you be doin' `ere, but I be man of this `ouse."
Uncle Josiah did not stir. "Sit down," he said, coldly. Luke was breathing hard.
"Son?" Mary touched his arm, but he thrust her back so that she almost fell
"I take orders from no one, leastwise a stranger."
"We be related Luke, you can be sure of it."
"Well, how comes I never `eard of `im?"
"That's Mary's fault."
Luke calmed a fraction, and slowly sat again, crossing his legs at the ankles. Uncle Josiah hogged the fire, his silhouette on the opposite wall, a hobgoblin shape.
"Time to sleep now, Belle," Mary said.
Belle did not want to sleep, she wanted to hear more about the sea, but Luke snapped at her. "Get a move on, the drover's comin' tomorrow." The next day being Sunday, she usually helped Luke in the walled-off rectangles that had once been open moor. She scrambled to her feet, seething inwardly at her brother, putting hands to the ladder that led to the upper room.
Uncle Josiah's eyes lazily traced her shape. "We always likes to imagine a better fate, Oriana," he called out, "but you'd best stay with what you know."
But what she knew wasn't enough
Once Belle had undressed to her shift and wool stockings she dived onto her straw mattress and pulled her blanket up to her chin, fingers twitching around her bruised earlobe. Upstairs was cavern-cold and the wind scoured the turf roof seeking chinks to penetrate. Belle cheered herself up by imagining the ocean. The only waters she knew were the river and a favourite place the millpond, as round and flat as a coin. She had learned to swim there, and loved to dive into its cold depths, breaking the stillness of its dark plain, down where there were only veins of light. She pictured the oceans by adding millpond to millpond, but still was unable to frame that wide, restless, unconquerable place.
She must have drifted off for she awoke with a shock to raised voices. A tempest raged below. Uncle Josiah's rich tone boomed over Luke's, with the trill of her mother's interlaced. There was the noise of a crock smashed, a voice pleading then a door banged. Luke shouted and her mother cried out - the short uncomprehending cry in response to a punch. Belle's body automatically braced as if receiving the impact itself. Then came muffled weeping: ma's weeping. It was not the first time Luke had struck her, although it was usually Belle for whom he reserved his worst violence - especially if he thought Mary had been fawning over her in preference to him. Finally, quiet seeped through like water, but by now Belle's heart was a hammer blow, surely she would be next for a battering? But it sounded as though Luke and Uncle Josiah had gone. Belle turned onto her side, feeling her heart find a calmer beat, and gradually sleep had its way.

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