One

MAY 21, 1727

MIDDLEBURG PLANTATION

HUGER, SOUTH CAROLINA

My bare toes dug into the hardpacked earth as I clutched my diary close to my chest and looked up into the ancient oak tree overhead. The setting sunlight flickered through the drooping Spanish moss as I tried to still my anxious thoughts and calm my fearful heart. I took a risk writing the truth into my diary, but there was no other place where I could unburden my soul or try to make sense of my existence. The words I wrote in this sacred book were the deepest and darkest secrets I possessed, and I had to keep them hidden.

Everythig about my life was one secret built upon another. A fortress of mysteries, too high to breach. Some were the secrets I kept, and others were the secrets kept from me.

"Caroline!" Grandfather's stern voice drifted through the oak trees and the magnolias on our small tobacco plantation.

I turned away from the Cooper River and quickly lifted my overskirt to slip the diary into a hidden pocket in my petticoat. Though the words were shut away in the tattered book, the reality of my life was still with me—or rather, my lives. I didn't know what to call my existence, or why it happened to me. When I went to sleep tonight in South Carolina in 1727, I would wake up in Paris, France, in 1927 tomorrow. And when I went to sleep in Paris, I would wake up in South Carolina again the next day—with no time passing while I was gone. I had been going back and forth since I could remember. Perhaps from the very beginning of my strange life.

"Caroline!" Grandfather called again, this time with impatience.

I lifted the hem of my homespun gown and made haste over the roots and rocks toward the plantation house. The simple, two-story white clapboard building came into view through the thicket of trees. My grandfather, Josias Reed, was standing on the edge of the lawn, his arms crossed in disapproval as he waited for me.

"Where have you been?" he asked as I slowed my steps. His gaze fell to my bare feet, and the disapproval in his brow deepened. "A woman of twenty should know better. And today, of all days."

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I lost track of time."

"Our guests have arrived." He shook his head, looking at me from my uncovered head to my dirty hem. "You should have been preparing. Governor Shepherd is an important man, and he will not look kindly upon his oldest son marrying a hoyden."

"His son?" I frowned, confused. "I am not marrying the governor's son."

"What do you think this meeting is for?" he asked, his frustration mounting. Grandfather took a step forward and lowered his voice, no doubt worried that the governor and his son might hear. "Thomas Shepherd will inherit five thousand acres of the best rice plantation in America one day." He shook his head with disappointment. "I could make nothing of your fickle mother, but I will make something of you."

I had heard this threat my whole life. My mother, Anne Reed, had been a hoyden, as well. A motherless child with a penchant for recklessness and rebellion. She'd run off with the first man who had shown interest in her, and a year later she'd left me on my grandfather's doorstep.

Her recklessness had led to all our pain—and I vowed to never be wild and thoughtless like her. Yet how could I marry a man I didn't love?

"I do not want to marry Thomas Shepherd," I said, trying to appeal to his compassion, though I'd not witnessed it often. "I do not love him."

"You will obey me," he said. "If I can secure a marriage between you and Thomas, and we can join our plantations, we will be the richest planters in South Carolina. I will not have you thwart my plans." He turned and walked toward the back of the house. "Come. Dress for supper."

As I walked down the stairs and into the central room of our home, I felt all eyes upon me. I was wearing my best gown, my hair was properly restyled upon my head, and shoes covered my feet.

As my gaze met Thomas Shepherd's, my heart fell with disappointment and dread. He looked me up and down, assessing me with a coolness that was all business. He did not smile or offer any warm welcome but analyzed me as if he were purchasing livestock or seed.

"Caroline," Grandfather said as he lifted a hand to beckon me. "May I present Governor Shepherd and his son, Mister Thomas Shepherd?"

I curtsied as I'd been taught, and the men bowed. "How do you do?" I asked them, trying to hide the revulsion from my face and voice. Thomas was at least ten years my senior, and he did not bear the look of a man who worked his own land. He was thick about the middle, and his skin was pale, telling me he spent his days indoors. There was no depth to his gaze, no sign of intelligence or character.

"'Tis a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Reed," Governor Shepherd said. "Thomas and I have been eagerly awaiting this day."

"We've been working through the details of the betrothal," Grandfather said to me. "But I believe we've finally arrived at an agreement."

"Indeed, we have," Governor Shepherd said, smiling at his son.

I left the men to their cigars and brandy the moment I could be excused. It had been an unbearable supper as Thomas stared at me. Grandfather and Governor Shepherd spoke of farming and politics, though neither man included Thomas in the discussion. The longer I sat in his presence, the more I worried Thomas was simpleminded. Was he even capable of inheriting such a large plantation? Or taking a wife?

My pulse thrummed as soon as I left the room, needing to be free of the confines of my life. I couldn't marry Thomas Shepherd and be forced into loveless servitude to a man I didn't know. I shivered just thinking about him touching me or living with him day after day for the rest of my life.

Panic began to overwhelm me, and I felt breathless as I raced up the stairs, an oil lamp in hand. Tomorrow I would be in 1927 and could have a reprieve from this life—yet I would wake up here the next day and it would be waiting for me.

There had to be an answer—a way out of this nightmare.

The house was long and narrow, with three rooms on the main floor and three above. Grandfather slept in one room on the far end of the upstairs, and I had the middle room. The room on the opposite end had belonged to Mother but had been locked my whole life, a reminder of all the secrets that had been kept from me. Twice, I'd tried to break into that room, but both times I had been discovered and thoroughly disciplined with the rod.

I stopped at her bedchamber door. What was my grandfather hiding from me? Was my mother still alive? Would she help me if I could find her?

I didn't think twice but went into Grandfather's bedchamber in search of the keys. Setting down the lamp, I began to look through his bureau drawers. My heart was pounding so hard, I could hear the beating in my ears.

Finally, I found a key ring, and then quickly replaced everything I had dislodged in my search. I returned to my mother's bedchamber door, and with shaking hands, I slipped several keys into the lock until I found the right one.

When it clicked, time felt like it stopped.

Tossing a glance over my shoulder, I slowly turned the knob and then slipped into the room, closing the door behind me.

My breath was shallow as I looked around, holding my lamp high. The room was nondescript. A four-poster bed, a bureau, a washstand. Disappointment weighed down upon me. I had hoped this room would reveal the answers to my questions. I opened each of the drawers and looked under the bed, but it was all empty. Nothing remained of my mother.

As I turned, the lamp in my hand cast a shadow over the wall across from me, and I noticed a slight variation in the wainscotting. Frowning, I moved across the room. When I reached the wall, I ran my hand over the wainscotting and felt a piece shift.

Slowly, I removed the panel and sucked in a breath.

There was a hole behind the wall, and within was an envelope.

With trembling hands, I lifted the envelope and brought it back to the bed. I opened it and pulled out the paper within. My mouth slipped open as I skimmed the page.

It had been written by my mother, and she had dated it New Year's Eve, 1707. It was three months after I was born, about the time I had been brought to my grandfather. I had assumed she left me on the doorstep and didn't show her face—but how had this letter found its way inside the wall?

I leaned closer to the lamp to see the words my mother had penned twenty years ago.

I suspect you will hate me, Caroline. As much as I hated my mother for abandoning me and leaving me in the care of my father. He tells me she died in Salem in 1692 but refuses to tell me how or why. There can only be one reason a woman of her age died there that year and it is kept a secret. She was a witch. Did she curse me? Is that why I must suffer through two lives, because she hated the child she bore?

My pulse thrummed in my ears. Did my mother have two lives, as well? Had I inherited her curse? I continued to read, filled with both panic and exhilaration to know I wasn't the only one.

I hate myself for leaving you with my father, but the difficult life you'll lead with him will offer you more advantages than the difficult one I've chosen for myself. You might wonder why I don't abandon my life in Nassau, but that is the trouble with love, isn't it? We give up anything that makes sense to be near the one who makes us feel the most alive. That is what your father does for me. That is why I am returning to him. I left before my pregnancy was obvious and will never tell him of your birth. You would not be safe if he knew you existed.

I write this to you now because I wish my mother had left me something. I wish I could explain why I've left you—why I left South Carolina in the first place—but it will only hurt you more. I've never told anyone the truth about my lives, and I wouldn't expect you to understand it, either. I shall carry the secret to my grave, though that inevitable day feels closer and closer. Mayhap, when you read this, I will no longer be alive. But that might be best for you and anyone else who knows me.

The letter ended on that final, fatalistic, note.

My mind spun with all the implications. My mother had two lives, just like me. She'd brought me to South Carolina to protect me from my father—but why? Would he have harmed me if he knew she was pregnant? Grandfather said the sea merchant my mother ran off with was a cowardly, weak man. Surely, he wouldn't have wanted to harm his own daughter. Why would my mother need to keep my birth a secret from him? And why was she living in Nassau? The only thing I knew about Nassau, Bahamas, was that it was the Republic of Pirates until nine or ten years ago—and it still had a reputation for depravity and crime. Pirate leaders like Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, and Charles Vane had either been pardoned by the king or killed, but there were still some pirates who plied the Caribbean.

Had my mother been associated with the pirates? Was she still living in Nassau? Could she tell me why we were burdened with two lives? I desperately wanted to understand what was happening to me. Did she hold the answers?

And could she keep me from being forced to marry Thomas Shepherd?

I heard a footstep on the stairs and quickly turned out my lamp. It was Grandfather's tread, slow, heavy, deliberate. My heart beat hard as I held my breath, praying he would not suspect I was in Mother's room. Because if he found me with her letter, and knew what I was planning to do, he would keep me under lock and key.

His footsteps didn't even pause or hesitate by Mother's room, and a few seconds later, I heard his door open and close.

After waiting a few moments, I slipped out of Mother's bedchamber and locked the door. I would need to work fast if I was going to get away without notice.

Nothing would stop me from finding my mother.