Jillian Chantal

Tuesday Tales is a group of authors who share a word prompt each week to write to. Once a month, we have a photo prompt and those posts are limited to 300 words.  I’m still working on my pirate story set in 1739. The hero is taking the heroine to a plantation to meet with an old pirate who settled there once he stopped going to sea.

Be sure to check out the photos chosen this week by everyone and their stories. Check them out here. 

We rode past some fields. Seeing a number of shirtless men working, their skin glistening in the heat of the day, made me lightheaded. It was as if I’d returned to South Carolina. It had always made my heart hurt to see a foreman out with his cane watching for a chance to use it in some soul who he believed wasn’t working fast enough.

I had to avert my eyes even as I was ashamed there was nothing I could do to help these poor people. My opinion wasn’t shared by many of the Carolinians I was raised around but I think I could imagine myself as one of them based on how my grandmother treated me. True, I’d never had to work in a hot field but I’d been subjected to the same kind of caning these men faced.

Not sure how I’d manage staying at the plantation and keeping myself from crying, I allowed myself a bit of that luxury now. I hoped Leo didn’t notice. I kept the brim of my hat down just in case.

“We’re almost there.” Leo pointed ahead. “There’s the first outbuildings.”

I nodded but stayed silent as I didn’t trust my voice not to give away my tears.

Less than ten minutes later, the horses brought us to a stop in front of a simple manor house. It wasn’t nearly as ornate as many of the columned houses of my home but it still had a presence about it. Maybe it was that it was taller and broader than anything else out here.

It was painted green but some of the paint had faded in the sun. Pretty yellow flowers grew against its side.