Rebel Spy Read online

  ALSO BY VERONICA ROSSI

  Under the Never Sky

  Through the Ever Night

  Into the Still Blue

  Riders

  Seeker

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Veronica Rossi

  Cover photo copyright © 2020 by Rekha Garton/Arcangel Images

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Rossi, Veronica, author.

  Title: Rebel spy / Veronica Rossi.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2020] | Audience: Ages 12 up | Audience: Grades 7–9 | Summary: In 1776, fifteen-year-old Francisca escapes a dangerous life in the Bahamas by posing as a wealthy shipwreck victim, and soon finds herself a spy for George Washington in New York.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019025641 | ISBN 978-1-5247-7122-5 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7125-6 (library binding) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7123-2 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Impersonation—Fiction. | Spies—Fiction. | Social classes—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.R7216 Reb 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524771232

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Veronica Rossi

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prisoner

  Chapter 1: Wrecker

  Chapter 2: Deeper Water

  Chapter 3: God and Time

  Chapter 4: A Girl Alone

  Chapter 5: To Hide the Truth

  Chapter 6: For the Blood

  Chapter 7: Gravity

  Chapter 8: Comet

  Chapter 9: Lady

  Chapter 10: Drawn from Memory

  Chapter 11: Own Will

  Chapter 12: Sword for Sonnet

  Chapter 13: Across the River

  Chapter 14: Every Minute and Every Moment

  Chapter 15: Friends and Foes

  Chapter 16: To Be Worthy

  Chapter 17: Shot and Shell

  Chapter 18: 355

  Chapter 19: Blood and Thunder

  Chapter 20: The Key

  Chapter 21: The Hard Winter

  Chapter 22: Floating

  Chapter 23: Homecoming

  Chapter 24: Return to Ranelagh

  Chapter 25: Reckoning

  Chapter 26: Spy

  Chapter 27: Hell Afloat

  Chapter 28: Frannie

  Chapter 29: The Seventh Fathom

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOR EVERY 355.

  During the American Revolution, General George Washington employed a ring of spies in and around New York City, the headquarters for the British war effort in North America. These spies identified themselves in their letters by code numbers. One was known as “355,” which stood for “lady.”

  To date, her true identity remains unknown.

  The waves have rolled upon me,

  the billows are repeatedly broken over me,

  yet I am not sunk down.

  —Mercy Otis Warren

  New York Harbor

  July 1780

  I’d swum with deadly sharks and stolen from deadlier men. I’d survived hurricanes, war, and even love—but I didn’t know if I’d survive this.

  I pulled myself off the floorboards, my legs shaking as I stood. The cabin spun around me. I drew a deep breath to steady myself, smelling pine tar and bilgewater, tensing as the door swung open.

  Two redcoats hurried inside. One carried shears; the other, a length of rope. They were big men, filling the cabin with their bright regimentals and shocked stares. They obviously hadn’t expected to find a young lady in a torn silk gown, bleeding from a head wound.

  “We have orders to cut your hair,” said the one with the rope. He cleared his throat and raised the rope higher. “If you resist, I shall be forced to use this.”

  I swallowed thickly. I had an idea what this meant. “I won’t resist.” I stepped forward. “Go ahead. Cut it.”

  The man with the shears hesitated, then gathered my hair in a clumsy swipe and sliced. My long locks came away in his hand. He blinked at them like he was confused, then tossed them down and carried on hastily, cutting so close at times he nicked my scalp and left my eyes watering.

  As my dark curls tumbled to the floor, years of dance assemblies and fine dinners flashed before my eyes. I shut them and imagined I was feeling Mama’s gentle hands on me instead of this stranger’s. Mama, singing in Spanish as she teased out my tangles with the patience of an entire ocean.

  What would she think of this? I’d promised her I’d find a safe, respectable life—and done the exact opposite.

  “Why?” whispered the man with the rope. I opened my eyes. The candle on the floor guttered and popped, making his shadow writhe behind him. He licked his lips. “Why are you here? Are you—are you a spy?”

  “Shut up, Wilcox,” said the other one. Then he glanced at me like he wanted to know, too.

  “Tell me where I’m being sent and I’ll answer.” I already thought I knew, but I needed to be sure.

  They shared a look.

  “Go on, Wilcox,” said the one with the shears. “Tell her.”

  “You tell her, Bradley.”

  Bradley lowered the shears and exhaled, his breath sour with the smell of tobacco. “There’s whispers amongst the men you’re going to the Jersey prison hulk.”

  My knees nearly crumpled beneath me. Prison. I’d guessed right. But even worse—the Jersey. Where men were sent to die. Where no women were sent at all. I’d be the first one. The only one.

  “Your turn,” Bradley said, impatient for my answer.

  “No. I’m not a spy,” I lied, though I could’ve told the truth. I’d been caught; the worst had already happened. But I didn’t owe these men anything. Certainly
not what I valued most. “This is all just a misunderstanding,” I added, and in spite of everything, I felt a smile tug at my lips.

  Bradley snorted.

  Snip went the shears.

  When he was done, I ran my hand over my scalp, learning a part of myself for the first time. I felt sharper. Honed. I could feel the air around me the same way I used to feel the ocean when I dove.

  The marine with the rope—Wilcox—stepped outside and came back with a bundle of folded clothing.

  “You’re to change into these.” He set the bundle on the berth, then turned away. Bradley went to stand beside him.

  I stared at their backs for a moment, letting a wave of fear pass. Hands trembling, I unlaced my gown and petticoats and let them slip off. My stays laced in back, though.

  “I need help,” I said.

  “I’ll go get—”

  “No.” I knew who they’d bring and I couldn’t bear to see him again. I went to Bradley, turning my back to him. “Cut the laces.”

  “Lord forgive me,” he muttered. Then he sliced a path up my spine.

  The pressure of the stays gave way and my lungs eased fully open. I stepped away and tossed them on the berth, then pulled my shift over my head. As it billowed to my feet, gooseflesh rippled over me and I had the strange realization this was my first time bare in the presence of a man. That it was two men and nothing at all how I’d hoped it would be.

  I pulled on the shirt and trousers, the ozenbrig material rough as a cat’s tongue. Such a part of my past—and now my future. There were leather shoes as well, dirty and worn, but a decent fit.

  “I’m ready,” I said. Another lie, but a strange calm had befallen me. I felt as quiet inside as winter. I was trapped—but freed from decisions. From calculations and lies. All I could do now was continue.

  The men turned.

  Bradley shook his head. “There’s no being ready for where you’re going.”

  “Miss…” Wilcox’s brow pinched with distress. “Whatever you may have done to find yourself here, surely it can be undone?”

  I thought of Townsend and the intelligence I’d given him. “I hope not.”

  I’d given up everything for it.

  I had given my very life.

  West End, Grand Bahama Island

  August 1776

  The last time I ever went wrecking was August of my fifteenth year. I was still just a wild girl then, living in West End, not a thought in my head about war yet, nor about spying. My mind was only on Mama.

  She’d passed on to heaven only a week earlier, but in my imagination, she was still breathing. Still singing to herself as she stirred the pepper pot soup. Still telling me stories about her girlhood days in España as she worked a comb through my sea-brined hair.

  When Sewel came to fetch me to go wrecking—Sewel was Mama’s husband, not my real papa—he found me in the garden pulling weeds and daydreaming of the great castle in Baiona that Mama used to run through barefoot when she was my age.

  “Francisca,” he said, in the same gravelly voice he used with the goats and the swine.

  I set my spade down and shaded my eyes as I looked up. With the afternoon sun over his shoulders, I couldn’t see his face—only that he was already swaying. “Yes, sir?”

  “Storm’s coming in fast, and the currents is swirling round Valparaíso wreck.” He said it Val-prizo. Not how Mama said it, the right way, like our Spanish forebears. “Get your diving trousers on and don’t make me wait, else you’ll be swimming out there, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He leaned over and spat tobacco so close to me I could almost taste it. Then he turned down the beach trail, grunting with every step he took on his foot with the missing toes.

  I tugged my gardening apron off and hurried home, eagerness and dread tumbling in my stomach. I loved diving wrecks more than anything, but it meant spending time alone with Sewel.

  Pushing through the door, I stopped to breathe in the last traces of Mama’s scent—a mix of sweet coconut and the sour sweat that had come when she’d taken to bed for good. My gaze went to the empty mattress, then to the dirty pots stacked by the basin and the sand dusting the planks beneath my feet. I’d always taken pride in this house. It was made of salvaged ship’s timbers, puzzled together with pine logs I’d helped cut down myself. At night, with whisper of the surf drifting in, it felt like living inside a great conch shell. But since losing Mama, nothing felt the same.

  Kneeling before the trunk, I found the trousers and shirt I used for diving and changed into them, leaving my jumper and sweaty shift where they fell. Then I sprinted to the beach, my stride long and smooth without petticoats slowing me.

  As I came through the trees, I saw thick clouds bunching on the horizon and whispered a quick prayer they’d stay there. In West End, two things that never stayed away long enough were hurricanes and hunger.

  Sewel had already gotten the wherry past the breakers. Two other boats bobbed out there as well—our usual wrecking crew. Also every inhabitant on our island. Jonah Baines and his boys were pressed together in their little red skiff, three heads of equal height gleaming like polished copper. Moses Wiggins and his daughter Mercy floated closer to shore, Mercy waving when she saw me.

  I smiled and waved back as I broke the first waves with my feet. Then I dove, and all I could hear was the ocean’s singing, the bubbles and waves as they rose up and blended with my breaths. With every kick and stroke I felt a little stronger. By the time I reached the wherry, I’d shed some of my sadness and felt halfway to being me again.

  I grabbed the gunwale to pull myself in.

  Sewel’s hand came down on my wrist. “Molasses would’ve got here first, Francisca.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t let go. I knew better than to meet his bleary eyes, so I kicked in place and stared at the red feather on his new round-brim hat. The very day Mama went in the ground, Sewel had sailed for Nassau, returning only that morning. While I’d poured my tears into her pillow, he’d gone hat shopping.

  At last he let me go. I climbed aboard and checked that my shirt covered me in the right places, though there wasn’t much to cover. Then I squeezed the water from my braids.

  Sewel turned to speak to Mr. Baines, making his voice loud enough so Moses Wiggins could hear as well. Moses and Mercy were runaways and Sewel never spoke to them direct. “Tide’s an iron hook today. Best we run past Memory Rock, then veer north.”

  With that, the men got to raising the sails and setting a course, except Moses, who had no sail and had to row his way out there.

  Soon as we got underway, Sewel unstoppered a bottle of rum and leaned back, resting his arm on the tiller. I could see the silvery letter M branded on the brawn of his thumb. It was Mercy who told me what that letter stood for—manslayer—but I knew what it meant long before I learned the word for it.

  I turned fore and trailed my fingers through the water. With the waves rippling and my dark braid hanging over my shoulder, I could almost imagine it was Mama’s face staring back at me instead of mine. Fathoms below, an angelfish spooked and disappeared into a bed of whip seaweed. Over on the Baines boat, the boys starting singing songs about Captain Teach and the good days of pirating gone by, when earning your daily bread was as easy as taking it from someone else, while Sewel and Mr. Baines called back and forth about the war with the rebellious American colonies.

  Wrecking was how we earned our daily bread. We helped ships that had run up on sandbars or reefs as they cruised through the Bahama Channel—sandbars and reefs we knew better than anyone. If the ship couldn’t be kedged back to deep water, we hauled away the cargo for a share. In rarer times, when the ship was a total loss and sank, we dove for its sunken spoils, sometimes uncovering them for years after the wreck itself.

  I dove for sunken spoils. Sewel
never did the diving because of his missing toes, he claimed, which made no sense to me. Fish swam, didn’t they?

  Sewel had told me once how he’d lost them on a burning merchant ship when a fiery yard fell and smashed half his foot. He’d nearly been killed that day, he’d said, but God looked out for drunks, fools, and sailors. God must’ve loved Sewel fierce ’cause he was all three.

  Like he was peering into my disloyal thoughts, Sewel stretched out his leg and ran his foot against my shin, the thick scars scratching me like bark.

  I pulled away, my heart jumping in my chest.

  Sewel shook his head at me. Then he tipped the bottle back and drank.

  * * *

  By the time we got to the Valparaíso, the empty bottle rattled round the bottom of the wherry and thunder rumbled in the distance. The tide was so high that only the tip of the old wreck’s mainmast stuck out, like a cross staked right in the sea.

  “Less go, Francisca,” Sewel slurred. He tossed the anchor overboard and spat at the sea to bring us luck. “We en’t got much time.”

  I checked the rope belting my trousers. The sea flashed like pewter, dull and dark. I always felt a little dizzy when I couldn’t see to the bottom, not knowing what awaited me down there.

  “Get diving.” Sewel pulled off his hat and wiped his sweaty forehead. The rum had brought the blood into his eyes. “And best not disappoint. I en’t got a drop of patience today, understand?”

  Anger rose inside me like smoke. “Yes, sir.”

  Over on the Baines boat, Owen and Daniel Baines shoved each other and laughed as they dove in. Mercy and Moses were already in the water and their tiny boat ran up and down the swells empty. I sucked in a few breaths, readying my lungs, a feeling of strength and daring filling me.