“No.” She looked at the young man who was holding a red place on his right arm. “I think I have hurt him.” She turned away in shame, appealed to Doro. “He helped me. I would not have hurt him, but … some spirit possessed me.”
“Shall I apologize for you?” Doro seemed amused.
“Yes.” She went over to Isaac, said his name softly, touched the injured arm. Not for the first time, she wished she could mute the pain of others as easily as she could mute her own. She heard Doro speak for her, saw the anger leave the young man’s face. He smiled at her, showing bad teeth, but good humor. Apparently he forgave her.
“He says you are as strong as a man,” Doro told her.
She smiled. “I can be as strong as many men, but he need not know that.”
“He can know,” Doro said. “He has strengths of his own. He is my son.”
“Your …”
“The son of an American body.” Doro smiled as though he had made a joke. “A mixed body, white and black and Indian. Indians are a brown people.”
“But he is white.”
“His mother was white. German and yellow-haired. He is more her son than mine?in appearance, at least.”
Anyanwu shook her head, looked longingly at the distant coast.
“There is nothing for you to fear,” Doro said softly. “You are not alone. Your children’s children are here. I am here.”
“How can you know what I feel?”
“I would have to be blind not to know, not to see.”
“But …”
“Do you think you are the first woman I have taken from her people? I have been watching you since we left your village, knowing that this time would come for you. Our kind have a special need to be with either our kinsmen or others who are like us.”
“You are not like me!”
He said nothing. He had answered this once, she remembered. Apparently, he did not intend to answer it again.
She looked at him?at the tall young body, well made and handsome. “Will I see, someday, what you are like when you are not hiding in another man’s skin?”
For an instant, it seemed that a leopard looked at her through his eyes. A thing looked at her, and that thing feral and cold?a spirit thing that spoke softly.
“Pray to your gods that you never do, Anyanwu. Let me be a man. Be content with me as a man.” He put his hand out to touch her and it amazed her that she did not flinch away, that she trembled, but stood where she was.
He drew her to him and to her surprise, she found comfort in his arms. The longing for home, for her people, which had threatened to possess her again receded?as though Doro, whatever he was, was enough.
When Doro had sent Anyanwu to look after her grandson, he turned to find his own son watching her go?watching the sway of her hips. “I just told her how easy she was to read,” Doro said.
The boy glanced downward, knowing what was coming.
“You’re fairly easy to read yourself,” Doro continued.
“I can’t help it,” Isaac muttered. “You ought to put more clothes on her.”
“I will, eventually. For now, just restrain yourself. She’s one of the few people aboard who could probably kill you?just as you’re one of the few who could kill her. And I’d rather not lose either of you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt her. I like her.”
“Obviously.”
“I mean …”
“I know, I know. She seems to like you too.”
The boy hesitated, stared out at the blue water for a moment, then faced Doro almost defiantly. “Do you mean to keep her for yourself?”
Doro smiled inwardly. “For a while,” he said. This was a favorite son, a rare, rare young one whose talent and temperament had matured exactly as Doro had intended. Doro had controlled the breeding of Isaac’s ancestors for millennia, occasionally producing near successes that could be used in breeding, and dangerous, destructive failures that had to be destroyed. Then, finally, true success. Isaac. A healthy, sane son no more rebellious than was wise for a son of Doro, but powerful enough to propel a ship safely through a hurricane.
Isaac stared off in the direction Anyanwu had gone. He shook his head slowly.
“I can’t imagine how your ability and hers would combine,” Doro said, watching him.
Isaac swung around in sudden hope.
“It seems to me the small, complex things she does within her body would require some of the same ability you use to move large objects outside your body.”
Isaac frowned. “How can she tell what she’s doing down inside herself?”
