Wailers: Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies, #3

By Chris Seabranch

This is the third book in the Chronicles of the Twenty-One Butterflies series. Read 'Butterfly Islands' and 'Maelstrom' first.

A large army of wailers is suddenly gathering on Butterfly Islands and the Twenty-One Butterflies have to flee for their lives. However, not all of them escape and the female pirates need to risk their own lives to save not only their friends, but the entire Gallows Sound too. At the same time, a young man returns from the dead, but he has brought something with him back. Something dark, not seen in hundreds of years, returns to Gallows Sound.

Buckeye is rising within the ranks of the Twenty-One Butterflies and her relationship to her friends Dawn and Blake becomes more intimate. She fears that by choosing to be with one of them, she pushes the other away. Time, however, is not on the young pirate's side and in the most intimate moment, all hell breaks loose and she and the other Butterflies suddenly finds themselves at the mercy of the Five Sisters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Seabranch
• Release date: May 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533772718

Book preview

Chapter I

JoJo stomped the ground in anger.

'I will not marry him, mom. No way!' she shouted and crossed her arms in front of her chest in defiance.

JoJo and her mother had discussed the subject of marriage before. JoJo was nineteen years old, and according to the elders in the tribe, she was long overdue to be married. It was not as if her mother had not tried to find her a husband. Caballa had searched for one for a long time and finally, after many disappointing years, she had found a woman willing to wed one of her sons to her daughter. It was not one from their own tribe, though, but a boy from the Ouofa-tribe in the northern end of the Hrafsa Valley.

'At some point, you have to marry someone, JoJo. You are too old not to have a husband. All the other girls your age have husbands and most of them are expecting child number two already. Don't you want to have babies too?' JoJo's mother reasoned.

'Mom, he is only twelve years old. He will not give me any babies for a very long time. Besides, I don't even know if I want to have babies.'

The last part of JoJo's answer was a knife to her mother's heart and she knew it. Her mother only had one child to carry on the family name and that was JoJo. If she did not have any children, the Aruto family would disappear. JoJo was, nevertheless, in doubt whether family life was something for her at all. She looked at her mother's tired body. The black breasts sagged, the skin was loose and wrinkled, and her short, curly hair, which had once been black and shiny, was gray and lifeless. The girls at JoJo's age, who had given birth to children already, showed similar signs of getting older. A baby or two took its toll on the body. It took its toll on the mind too. The other young girls seemed constrained in their lives. They had settled into a rhythm of cooking for their husbands, cleaning their huts, and getting water from the well. All the adventures from a few years before were only distant memories now. Marriage did that to you. It took the adventure out of the young girls and turned them into domestic wives with daily chores that consumed their days. But that was not the only reason why JoJo did not want to marry the boy. He was too young for her, she thought. She could not even remember his name. It was Afu-something. How was she ever going to make babies with him?

'Do you have any idea of how difficult it is for me to find someone who will let their son marry you? And expensive? I had to promise Afutaluto's mother twenty sheep, five cows, and one horse for her to let her son marry you. If you decline this offer, you will never marry.'

JoJo knew her mother was trying to threaten her into agreeing. She was right though. No one wanted to let their sons marry her. She was zaha, - half black and half white - and as such, she was an unwanted outcast. Four of the six tribes in the Hrafsa Valley killed children like her because they thought the zahas were bad omens or even bewitched. Only two tribes let them live, her own and the Ouofa-tribe, and it was extremely rare for a zaha to have the possibility of marrying. Only because her mother offered a very large dowry did someone find any interest in JoJo at all. It also helped that JoJo looked very healthy for a zaha. She was tall with big breasts and full hips. She looked like she could carry many children for her future husband. And her chocolate-colored skin was fortunately not as light as it could have been. But JoJo still did not want to marry the boy. If she ever married, it would be for love or at least the possibility of finding it after the wedding. She knew she could never love a boy seven years younger than her. Not in that way. 

'Fine! Then I will never marry. Keep your sheep and cows. I will not marry him. I'd rather live alone for the rest of my life,' she told her mother.

JoJo had lived with only her mother her whole life and she knew no other way. Her father was a white geographer with whom her mother had had a brief love affair. It was only a few passionate meetings between the two of them while he mapped out the Hrafsa Valley. After that, he disappeared and never came back. Nine months after he went away, JoJo was born.

'You don't wish that for yourself. Do you?' JoJo's mother asked. 'Look at me. I don't have a husband. Is that what you want for yourself? Coming home to an empty hut every day. Not having anyone around to talk to. Anyone to share your food with.'

'You have me,' JoJo snapped at her.

'That is not the same, JoJo,' Caballa dismissed her daughter, irritated. 'If it wasn't for you...'

She stopped in the middle of the sentence, realizing that she had gone too far.

'If it wasn’t for me you would have lived a better life? Is that what you wanted to say? I know, mother, but it is not my fault that your life turned out the way it did. I didn't ask to be born a zaha. That was your choice, not mine. My marriage is my choice, however, and I choose not to marry that boy,' JoJo yelled and pulled the curtain in front of the doorway to their hut aside and ran out. As she disappeared into the savanna, she could hear her mother shouting after her, shouting that she was sorry for what she had said. 

JoJo was agitated. She hated these discussions with her mother. They always ended up with them yelling at each other.

'Twelve years old. No way! What is she thinking? So what if I'm a zaha. None of the other girls can do what I can,' she mumbled angrily as she strode through the savanna's tall grasses. The sun was high on the blue sky and the temperature had already passed one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit. JoJo's steps whirled up red dust from the ground.

About half a mile from the village stood a large umbrella thorn tree. The name of the tree was quite appropriate since it had the shape of an umbrella and gave shade to the animals grazing below the canopy. The umbrella thorn was JoJo's tree. She had built a place for herself high in the branches where her stuff was out of the giraffes' reach. Her place was only a small platform from intertwined branches, but it had a spectacular view of the entire Hrafsa Valley. If JoJo stood on the platform, she could see the other five tribal villages dotted along the valley to the north. The thatched huts lay scattered within fences to keep out lions and hyenas. On both sides of the valley, tall mountains rose as impenetrable walls, creating a funnel from north to south. Her tribe was the most southern.

JoJo picked up a spear from the platform. Hunting always helped to cheer her up when she was in a bad mood. The nature of a hunt forced her to calm down and focus only on the prey. It was her favorite pastime. She also found a long piece of sheepskin and tied her breasts tight to her body. She always wore the sheepskin during hunts. If not, her breasts got in the way of a throw with the spear or made running awkward. None of the other tribal-women covered up their breasts as she did. Then again, why would they? None of the other women hunted. They had husbands or fathers to hunt for them. JoJo had no one so she taught herself to hunt a long time ago by watching the tribal-men from her place in the umbrella thorn tree. She was the only female hunter she knew. The sheepskin was her own invention and she only wore it away from home where no one could see her. As a zaha, she stuck out enough already as it was.

From her vantage point in the tree, JoJo shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. She searched for something to kill and found a group of wild boars close to a small swampy lake a mile away. The boars rolled themselves in the mud on the bank. They were oblivious of their surroundings and JoJo put a finger in her mouth and stuck it into the air to determine the direction of the wind. It came from the east so she could approach the boars straight on without them picking up her scent.

As she crept up on the boars through the tall grasses, JoJo hunched down to keep out of sight. She was a skilled hunter with a spear, and she had the ability to get really close to a prey before delivering the deadly throw. She could even get closer than most of the men. Her own theory was that it was because of her skin color. It was lighter than that of the other tribespeople. She easily blended in with the light brown surroundings, which the savanna's dirt and grasses created.

Breathe slowly. Calm down.

The boars did not see the young girl approach. JoJo took her time, picking the one boar she would try to spear. She chose a juvenile. The meat of an adult wild boar was tough and needed a lot of cooking. She could roast a juvenile over a slow fire and eat directly from the bones.

JoJo crouched. Something startled the boars and they looked up. Their ears turned as they listened to the wind. JoJo kept an eye on the tall grasses that swayed in the breeze. The straws pointed straight at her. She was still down wind and the wild boars could not smell her. She did not think they could hear her either, but as if spooked by something, the boars suddenly took off, galloping away from the lake. JoJo was close enough to throw her spear at them and she jumped to her feet. With a powerful thrust, she sent the spear flying through the air, but it missed the boars entirely and instead, embedded itself in the soft dirt close to the lake. She cursed and followed the beasts with her eyes. They did not stop running, but continued to flee. She would have to find something else to hunt.

JoJo walked through the tall grasses to the bank of the lake and retrieved her spear. She turned to go back to the umbrella thorn tree when a wisp of black smoke to the north caught her attention. She reckoned that the smell of a fire had spooked the wild boars and she squinted at the blazing sun to see what was going on. At this time of the year, no tribes dared to burn grassland to make room for fields. It was too warm and dry and a fire could easily get out of control.

As she watched the black smoke rise, it grew in size, becoming larger and darker every second. Soon, an ominous black cloud covered the northern end of the Hrafsa Valley from east to west. It seemed to come closer. Something was wrong, JoJo realized. Plumes rose from several places across the valley. It was a big fire and it was definitively out of control.

JoJo felt her heart beat hard in her chest and hurried back to the village. She needed to warn the others in her tribe. She needed to warn her mother.

'Fire! Fire!' she yelled and ran in between the huts that comprised the village. 'Fire! There's a fire!'

Most tribespeople slept at this time of the day. It was midday and they thought it was too hot to be out in the sun. However, JoJo's yelling woke them up and their heads popped out through the doorways to see what was going on. Immediately, they noticed the black cloud.

'What's happening?' Caballa asked worried when she reached her daughter. First, she feared that it was something that JoJo had done.

JoJo panted. Her lungs hurt from the fast run.

'I don't know mom. I don't know, but I don't like it.'

She bent over forward with her hands on her knees and gasped for air.

JoJo's mother frowned and narrowed her eyes so she could better see what was going on in the other end of the valley. The black cloud spread from the north. It would soon reach them.

'Me neither,' she mumbled.

All the tribespeople had gathered in the middle of the village. They were fifty-three people in total. All of them, both men and women, only wore a loincloth made of skin to cover their most intimate parts. The people of their tribe decorated their faces with pointed bones sticking out of their cheeks in a row from the chin to the ear. At birth, the children got the first cheek piercing and the line of bones grew longer through the years. JoJo was nineteen years old and had three bones sticking out of each cheek. Her mother had five.

The eight elders of the tribe stood in the middle of the gathered crowd and discussed what they should do. The discussion point was whether they should all flee the fire right away or send someone north to see what was going on. They did not get to agree before a man from one of the other tribes to the north came running through the village.

'Slavers! Slavers! Run away!' he yelled in panic and continued further south.

JoJo watched him as he fled. He had fresh whip marks across his back and blood dripped from the wounds. She glanced north to see what he was fleeing from. In the distance, more tribespeople ran their way. Thirty or so white men on horses followed behind. They cracked whips over the fleeing tribespeople and shot pistols in the air. 

'Run mom! Run!' JoJo screamed hysterically. She pulled on her mother's arm and both mother and daughter ran south as fast as they could.  

All the other tribespeople reacted to her high-pitched scream as well and fled the village. Women and children started to cry in fear as they ran. Some stumbled as grown men pushed them aside to get past. The panic was infectious. Behind the fleeing crowd, the white men on horses drew ever closer. They herded the fleeing tribespeople like cattle further south, yelling at them and shooting pistols into the air to bring them closer together. Some tribesmen tried to escape to the east or to the west and scrambled up the steep mountainsides, but a whip or a shot brought them back.

The slavers had rounded up all the people from the six villages. Close to two-hundred-and-fifty, nearly naked, dark-skinned people fled for their lives. They ran in exactly the direction the slavers had counted on. JoJo and her mother ran along with the others. They held hands so they would not become separated. People screamed. JoJo thought of pulling her mother to the side and run for the mountains, but to her right, a young man from another tribe tried to escape that way. A slaver with a face severely scarred from acne stopped him with a whip. It cracked in the air and drew a red line across the young man's black skin from his shoulder to his hip. The young man cried out in pain and returned to the rest of his people.

JoJo was terrified as she wondered where the slavers might be leading them. Ahead, at the narrowest part of the Hrafsa Valley, a six-hundred foot long narrow ravine called Lion's Gorge drew closer and the young girl suddenly realized that the men on horses had led them into a trap. She yelled to warn the other tribespeople, but in the stampede, no one heard her until it was too late.

'It's a trap,' she shouted and tried to stop, but people from behind pushed her forward.

The tribesmen were the fastest runners and reached the ravine first. As soon as the rest of the two-hundred-fifty people entered the narrow stretch of steep-sided corridor, the trap sprung. In front of the fleeing crowd, on the other side of the ravine, a net and twenty soldiers dressed in blue uniforms blocked their way forward. Behind them, the slavers blocked their only retreat. In the chaos, a man tried to push his way through the white men and horses, but one of the slavers shot him in the head from close range. It was unnecessary to kill the man, but the slaver wanted to make an example of him and keep the rest of the tribespeople from trying something similar.

JoJo gasped. She held her hands in front of her mouth and closed her eyes to escape from the sight, but it was too late. The tribesman fell to his knees and slumped over. Blood pulsed from the hole in the back of his head where the bullet had exited his skull. The tribespeople screamed, but a second shot, this time into the air, silenced them again. Only a woman and two children cried after that. A husband and a father had died.

'Keep quiet or I will kill you all,' one of the slavers shouted angrily and got down from his horse. He was about forty years old, had week-old stubbles, and wore a grey uniform that looked like he had once been a soldier. However, the uniform was dirty and the man looked like someone who now was only in service of himself.

'I want all the women to the left and all the men to the right,' he shouted and pointed with a pistol at the steep sides of the ravine.

None of the tribespeople did as the man commanded. They did not understand what he was saying and a scared murmur spread through the confused crowd. Another man came down from his saddle and stood beside him. It was the man with the scarred face. He wore dirty black clothes and sweat glued his thin brown hair to his scalp.

'They don’t understand us. They are animals,' he snorted and the man in the gray uniformed sighed.

'Make them understand then,' he said and the scarred face began to give orders to the other slavers.

'Put the women to the left and the men to the right. Leave the children,' he ordered and all the slavers began to pull the men and women apart and shove them to either side of the ravine. The twenty blue-clothed soldiers kept watch over the tribespeople and pointed their riffles and bayonets at anyone who strayed from the group.

JoJo was terrified. She did not know what the men wanted. None of the tribespeople did. Everyone was too afraid to do anything. Too afraid to resist. A man grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side of the ravine, placing her with her back against the wall next to a row of other women. Her mother was a little further down the line. JoJo caught a glimpse of her. She looked apathetic like the rest of the tribespeople, her eyes blank with fear and confusion.

It took the slavers five minutes to divide the men from the women. They left the children sitting on the ground in the middle of the ravine. Afterwards, the gray uniform strolled in front of the two lines and looked at the catch.

'Bring the irons,' he yelled and two men dragged in crates of long chains with neck irons attached every three feet along its length.

The tribespeople gasped when they saw the chains. Many of the women began to sob and a young man tried to escape. The tip of a soldier's bayonet through his stomach stopped him.

The gray uniform shook his head.

'Black monkeys. They are all black monkeys,' he said and spat on the ground next to the dead young man.

Two of the slavers