My body is somewhere far up North.

I don’t know where exactly, only that they are keeping it stored in some sunless cave, deep underground. On the outskirts of Providence.

My brain is somewhere much closer. That piece of my corporeal form is being kept in a metallic cylinder, made from metals mined on some distant and alien world. Precisely which world, I am not certain. Nor am I certain in which Southern colony my brain is being held. Only my new masters know. And they are not anxious to inform me.

In exchange for the safekeeping of my various body parts, I am to become a planter. A planter of crops unlike any native to this world. While cotton may be king to Southern colonies, and tobacco of similar merit in the Northern ones, neither were to be my crop. Mine was to be strange fungi. Strange fungi that feed my strange fungi masters. Masters who go by the name: Mi-Go.

It is hot on the island where I am to plant this fungi.  Hot and wet and in the middle of the Great Atlantic, far from the shores of my pilgrimaging forebearers. Yet this was the price for sojourns to the stars that are yet to come. That is what my masters told me.

I arrived on the tiny island, one of countless in a vast archipelago, after many days of travel from the southernmost tip of the northern New World.

It was a fitful and frightful journey. Gigantic waves crested the sides of our schooner, dashing us to and fro with all the malignant spite of some unseen vestigial thing lurking beneath the waves. We lost three deckhands, cast overboard on three separate evenings along the way. Their cries echoed against the dark waters before vanishing among the roaring surf. I shivered, or at least, my new flesh did, at the thought of even more hideous things that feasted on their bodies, things that turned the black waters crimson red with their passing. 

My masters weren’t the only things that stalked the world, nor were they the most insidious.

We finally arrived on the twelfth night after we entered the islands at my new home. We sailed into a shallow bay beneath a full moon, passing through a fine mist that had lingered about our ship for the past few days. The mist had emerged from the ocean waters as soon as the first island in the chain was spotted by our lookout boy, a young Angolan; his dreary exclamation one morning more a croak than a warning bellow “-‘and ho!”

The route we took was well away from the common shipping lanes, and farther still away from the more established plantation isles of the archipelago. If we had ventured in those more familiar waters, our passage would have taken considerably less than the twelve days and nights to sail through the Bermuda isles, yet my masters had demanded discretion and thus, we arrived all the same.

Our landing was rough.

A storm, seemingly from nowhere rose up to greet us. A squall is what the captain called it, for the winds stirred on the horizon but rapidly descended on us as we approached the crescent-shaped beach which was drenched in the serpentine rays of a dispassionate moon; the distant orb cast long and equally perfidious talons across the bay.

But the captain, a burly man of Dutch descent, and wholly ignorant of the exact details of our voyage, or its eventual outcome, barked out orders over the screeching torrent, his muscled arms motioning for crewmen to scurry this way or that; batten down this bit of rope, tighten that latch with yet greater strength. And as they had done through the long voyage, the crew dutifully obeyed, even pushing each other when they saw one among them grow lax in their ardor for whatever task was at hand.

I had come to see the determination fixed across their faces when the work demanded it. Three lost companions, a month on high and dangerous seas and sailing to an unknown island, half the crew given to early scurvy according to our surgeon who was a drunk- they yet remained undeterred. A hearty bunch, indeed. Or desperate. The captain had chosen them well. Determined, and unattached. None possessed a family, at least that is what they informed the captain during their brief recruitment. They would make a fine addition to the island, more so perhaps than the ones in the cargo hold below. Unbeknownst to them, of course.

I watched the crew as they braced themselves against the winds, moving like crabs along the wooden deck, clinging to whatever they could. I knew nothing of sailing and huddled as close to the quartermaster as I felt comfortable as our two-masted schooner made its way through the torrent. I should have been below decks, in the captain’s cramped quarters, the only indoors on the ship other than the hold below, but I felt the island calling to me, and I emerged from it as soon as the howling winds erupted.

A brief rumbling of thunder echoed in my ears, just as the sky split open in the distance ahead, directly over the island which sat a mile or two away. The flash lit up my new home in shades of dark greens hiding black mysteries topping the crescent shaped beach that spread out in leering and welcoming angles on either side of the horizon.

The island was larger than I had anticipated.

Stolen novel; please report.

It rose out of the sea from white-capped waves that were clearly stirred up by the squall. Based on the distance and the brief bit of lightning in the dark which further illuminated its dimensions beneath the full moon I gauged it was easily five miles across. I made this assessment not from the mappings shown to me before and during the month-long voyage by the quartermaster, but by my years among the colonies of Rhode Island.

By trade, I was an agriculturalist. My former masters, wealthy and wishing-to-be Englishmen and colonists who used the whip and the watchful eyes of overseers to ensure their crop turned a quick profit, sought me out for my god-gifted talent of knowing which soil to plant in and how long it would take to grow a rich yield. I became an almost divine instrument, with the sale and exchange of land passing through my small cabin, deeds and titles between natives, settlers and royalists alike, seated at my dinner table to discuss plots of tobacco and corn.

After years of learning which of my land prospects turned profitable, and thus proving my divine talents, I also became adept at identifying land that was fit for the raising of livestock. This may seem a strange amalgamation of my more arborical ability, but you would be surprised how much the geometries of land affect the well-being of animals.

And so, the peoples of the colonies began to seek me out not solely for crops but also for their purchase of land fit for sheep, horses, hogs and eventually cattle. In truth, I knew nothing about animal husbandry, but I knew which land, which grass, which woods, which plants, which direction would be somehow most conducive to keeping the animals well-fed and healthy, even during times of sickness and plague, which the colonies suffered through much too often.

Through this mastery, I came to the attention of even more colonists, including Stewart Edmundson, the ship’s quartermaster and the person who introduced me an even new variety of master: the Mi-Go.

“Isn’t it safer for you below deck, Hiram?” Stewart hissed at me through the wind, smiling.

Edmundson was a skinny man with a worn face and narrow eyes. He had stringy hair pulled back into a long trail that ended just below his shoulders. It was an unusual style, one that I instantly took a dislike to after meeting him but now, among the crew of the Alnwick, seemed entirely appropriate. He dressed in leathers, breeches, a shirt and waistcoat, all of Indian make. He had a habit of smiling when cruelty was abound and judging by the winds picking up and screaming louder with each second, he was once again in-tune with the nature of his environment.

I opened my mouth, which tasted of salt and pork and biscuits, but a loud gush silenced me immediately, sending a shiver up my back despite my layers of decidedly more English attire. Stewart laughed, a sound that I could hear even over the winds. The noise split his face, revealing yellowed teeth, a few replaced by wooden imitations.

“I wished to see the island from a distance, Edmundson.” I called out over the wind, holding my coat together with narrow, veiny and unfamiliar hands. The climate was wet and warm, tropical as it had been for several weeks since entering the isles, yet my coat, a dark blue, kept the wetness from sinking into my bones, perhaps the only bit of advice our surgeon gave that I felt like following.

The ship lurched and I gripped the handrail, casting a sidelong glance at the helmsman, an elderly Brit dressed in his naval uniform despite having been exiled from the service decades ago. Edmundson only smiled again.

“Already looking for the best plot of land on which to harvest our crop?” Edmundson said, turning to face the island’s dark shape in the distance. The wind subsided slightly, and the captain’s orders came clear across the ship. He was berating two of the younger crew over something at the front of the vessel, or the bow, which I had come to learn was called. One of them, a young skinny thing whose name I had never gotten, must have replied which prompted the Dutchman to wallop him across the back of the head. A few of the nearby crew whistled out but carried on with whatever they were doing. The boy’s companion did nothing.

“I am unfamiliar with this vegetation. Despite my readings, I wanted to look and see how they grew from a vantage I might not have, once we set foot on the island.” My voice sounded strangely loud against the decreasing winds. And it still sounded unfamiliar.

“Good man, already working, even before we arrive.”

“It’s not just about the work, Stewart.” I replied, turning to face my shorter companion. My body, a tall, gangly thing which smelled of tobacco and indigo, still felt the dampness of the rain from the early morning, two days prior. And yet, the feeling was muted. “We have limited supplies, and we must ensure that my- our new home is sustainable. I knew many colonies that floundered their first season, not for lack of materials or even access to other communities but simply because of an improper initial design.”

“And trees, in the dark, can inform you of a proper layout?” Edmunson seemed unconvinced.

I repressed a sigh, and only nodded. Instead, I went back to studying the island through the haze of mist that still clung all about us.

Abandoned twenty or so years ago by the French, they had attempted to establish a foothold in the British Isles but had been strangled out of supplies not long after. Based on our approach, which Edmundson said was from the Northeast, I followed the islands’ contours with eyes far better than my own. Beneath the light of the low moon, I could make out three tall mounds that split the approaching atoll into three roughly equal parts, with the center mound the tallest and the Southern following closely behind. Most of the entire island was covered in lush fronded green, save for the southern portion. Halfway down the Southern landform, the island jutted outwards, extending to form what looked like a plateau resting on a vertical wall of rock. Grey-brown patterns reflected the pale moonlight that rose up to the green, grassy top of the mesa.

As I studied the island further, the wind picked up and the ship began rocking with a steady tenor I had grown familiar, if not accustomed to. My new body, unlike my old one, was both bald and thankfully blessed with well-adjusted sea-legs. Even so, I gripped the deck rail once more. This time, Edmunson followed suit.

We sailed forward, the crew moving about as the captain continued to shout orders and the helmsman hunkered against the wind. In the moonlight I could see the man’s hands tightened around the wheel. He noticed my stare and briefly returned it. His eyes were sallow and searching. I looked away.

As we drew closer to the island, the wind slowly died down and the sounds of the waves soon overtook their former maddening howls. I let my body’s muscles relax and went back to studying the island, looking for gaps in the lush vegetation. Another hideous rumble of thunder came followed by another flash of lighting descending above the island.

In that jagged bit of light, for only a brief second, I saw it.

It sat atop the plateau. Even from the distance to the island, which I gauged us to be less than a mile away from, I could see something situated in the center of the open mesa. It was only for an instant, but it appeared to be some type of tree, in the dead center of the jutted landform. Branchless and dark, it was tall and lopsided, listing to the South. I barely made it out in the lightning strike and after the glazing flash disappeared, I could only make its shape out as something black against the black, starry sky behind it. I wondered how such a tree had come to be there, the only tree? Perhaps the French had cleared the mesa of all other vegetation, leaving only that one? I considered an investigation of the plateau was warranted once we had situated ourselves; perhaps the French had found the most desirable wood upon that outcropped bluff. Wood that would make the need for supplies even rarer.

We sailed the rest of the way into the bay, Edmunson silent beside me as the crew began preparations for anchoring us and lowering the rafts to the now placid waters below. I was curious about the mesa but knew that from where we were, and where the former and abandoned plantation was supposed to be situated on the island, that the trek would have to wait. Our priority was getting to the wooden cabins and seeing exactly what type of condition the French had left them in. And for that, we needed the ones below deck.