My body is somewhere far up North.

  I do not 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. A world among many it would seem. While cotton may be king in the 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.

  I was told that it would be 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.

  The tiny island was but one belonging to a countless and vast archipelago. It would be weeks of travel from the tip of the 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 into 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 were not the only things that stalked the world.

  After we entered the atoll islands it took twelve more days and nights before we finally arrived. A fine mist emerged from the ocean waters as soon as the first island in the chain were spotted by our lookout boy, a young Angolan; his dreary exclamation one morning more a croak than a warning: “Land ho!”

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

  Our landing was rough.

  A storm 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 drenched in the serpentine rays of a dispassionate moon; the distant orb cast long and perfidious talons across the bay.

  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. Muscled arms motioning for crewmen to scurry this way or that; batten down this bit of rope, tighten that latch with yet greater strength. 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.

  A dutiful bunch. Or desperate. A month and a half sailing to an unknown island with three already lost overboard, half the crew given to early scurvy according to our surgeon, a drunkard and yet the crew still followed orders. The captain had chosen them well. They would make a fine addition to the island, more so perhaps than the ones in the cargo hold below.

  I watched as they braced themselves against the winds, moving like crabs upon the wooden deck, clinging to whatever they could. I knew nothing of sailing, and I thus huddled as close to the mysterious quartermaster as was comfortable, our schooner making its way through the torrent. I should have been below decks, in the captain’s cramped quarters, the only covered section of the ship besides the hold, but I felt the island calling to me. And so, wrapping my books and parchments in an Indian blanket and placing it in my small metal chest, then dousing my sole candle I had ascended into the howling winds to take up my usual spot besides the ship’s quartermaster.

  A brief rumbling of thunder echoed in my ears as I closed the wooden door behind me. Just as I did so, the sky spit forth a bolt of white lighting in the distance, illuminating the island slouching on the horizon ahead, a dark slumbering leviathan. 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 atoll was larger than I had anticipated. It rose out of the sea from white-capped waves 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 during the month-long voyage by the quartermaster, but from my years of service among the colonies of Rhode Island.

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  By trade, I was an agriculturalist. My former masters, wealthy and wishing-to-be wealthy Englishmen and colonists 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 fit for the raising of livestock. This may seem in strange periphery to my more arborical ability, but I learned from a strange text many years ago, acquired through a land trade as payment, how much the geometries of land and the placement of structures 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 to build in, at which time to construct one’s buildings, all that would be most conducive to keeping the animals well-fed and healthy, even during times of sickness and plague, a common fallibility the colonies suffered through much too often.

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

  “Isn’t it safer for you below deck, Hiram?” Stewart ventured through the wind.

  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 gust silenced me immediately, sending a shiver up my back despite my layers of English attire. Stewart laughed, a sound that I could hear even over the wind. 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, 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 charcoal, 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 naval uniform despite having been exiled from the service decades ago. Edmundson only smiled again. Softer this time.

  “Already looking for the best plot of land on which to harvest our crop?” He faced the island’s dark shape in the distance. The wind subsided slightly, and the captain’s orders echoed against the waves. He was berating two of the younger crew over something at the bow. 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 unlike any I might have once we set foot on the island.” My voice sounded strangely loud against the decreasing winds. Loud and unfamiliar.

  “Good man, already working, even before we arrive.” His shout sliced through the mist filled wind.

  “It’s not just about the work, Stewart.” I replied, turning to face my shorter companion. My body, a tall, heavy block of a thing which smelled of tobacco and indigo, felt the dampness of the mist creeping through my clothes and yet, the feeling was muted. “We have limited supplies, and we must ensure our new home is sustainable. I knew many colonies that floundered their first then subsequent seasons, 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. In the howling silence that followed between us, I studied the island through the hazy mist.

  Abandoned twenty or so years ago by the French, they had attempted to establish a foothold in the British Isles but been strangled out of supplies not long after, courtesy of piracy. Based on our approach, which Edmundson said was from the Northeast, I followed the islands’ contours with eyes far better than my own had ever been. 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 with. 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 against our hull 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.

  For only a brief second, I spied something upon the mesa.

  It was situated in the center of the bluff. I barely made it out in the lightning strike and after the glazing flash disappeared, I could only divine its shape as something black against the black star littered sky behind it. A tree, judging by its height and largely vertical nature. Branchless and dark, lopsided, listing to the South. I wondered how such a tree had come to be there. Perhaps the French had cleared the mesa of all other vegetation, leaving only that one? I considered an investigation was warranted once we had situated ourselves; the French may have found the most desirable wood upon that outcropped bluff. Wood that would make the need for supplies even rarer.

  We sailed into the now windless bay, Edmunson silent beside me as the crew began preparations for anchoring us. They made ready to lower rafts to the placid waters below. I was curious about the mesa but knew from where the abandoned plantation was supposed to be situated on the island that such an investigation 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.