Black Ceremonies by Charles Black, David A. Riley

somehow held onto despite everything. And young Jake was a big lad, and pretty handy with his fists.
    “But would you believe it, we needn’t have been so worried. You see these islanders were all women. Beautiful, dusky maidens. And, boy, did they make us welcome! Couldn’t do enough for us, treated us like kings! Let’s just say they were real friendly like, if you get my meaning, Father.” For a moment, I thought the sailor was going to have the audacity to wink at me, instead he grinned lewdly.
    “Didn’t speak a word of English, though, but it didn’t matter. I mean, if they had, you can bet, as I told Jake, that it wouldn’t be long before they’d start nagging us. Anyhow, they seemed to know whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it.”
    Despite my frown, the mariner’s grin grew broader.
    “My dreams had come true, although I suppose part of me did not really believe it was real. I had been studying the positions of the stars, but they did not make sense. Their alignments were all wrong, and they were wildly different each night. I thought it was a dream and that I was still really drifting at sea in that little lifeboat, or maybe I was dead, and gone to Heaven. Where were their men folk? I wondered but never really let it concern me. Here we were on this luxurious tropical island surrounded by beautiful, willing, subservient women.
    “We all had our favourites among the women. I was particularly fond of a real beauty whose name was Nia. Long, dark tresses, lovely blue eyes, and a perfect smile. And what a body!” the old sailor sketched a figure with his hands.
    Finally realising I was frowning; he hurried on with his tale.
    “We must have spent a fortnight there, by which time we had well and truly recovered from our ordeal. I don’t think any of us had thoughts of leaving. It was Paradise, you see.” He sighed, “Little did we know that we were soon to leave our Garden of Eden and go to Hell.
    “On what was to turn out to be our last night on the island, the women held some kind of religious ceremony. Unexpectedly, afterwards there was another terrible storm akin to the one that had wrecked the Mary-Anne .
    “I’d noticed that, during the ceremony, some of the women wore exotic jewellery – Nia among them – and naturally I was curious as to how they had come by it.
    “I managed to make my interest clear to Nia, and she indicated that it had come from another island. That news took me by surprise. There were no other islands visible from our side of the island, and neither myself, Ali or Jake, had bothered to explore very far inland. Life, ye see, was far too pleasurable for us to bother with such things. The possibility that there were other islands beyond this one hadn’t even occurred to us.
    “Of course, I indicated that I wanted to be taken there. And like everything else I had wanted since landing on the island, my wish was granted.
    “The storm raged long into the night, and I feared the village would be blown away. But the next day dawned bright and clear. The sea was calm, and, remarkably, the village was undamaged.
    “I had not expected that everyone from the village would set off in a flotilla of canoes to this other island. I had not even intended telling Ali or Jake what I planned.
    “And so it was that our stay in Paradise came to an end.
    “This other island was farther away than I had expected, and I dozed on the voyage, as must have Ali and Jake.
    “When Nia roused me, we had arrived. It was clear that we were on a very different island. I have already said that, by rights, there didn’t ought to be any islands in those waters, and where they took us to, didn’t ought to exist anywhere.
    “I think all three of us sensed that this was a bad place to be. I suppose we should have got in one of the canoes and left straight away, but no one wanted to let on how scared he was. Besides, there was the lure of finding some of that jewellery of such strange design. And the