Ten years have passed and the curse has been broken. Will has returned to the mortal world and Elizabeth, but all it not as it appears and Will has secrets of his own, which may destroy them all.
PROLOGUE
I am the Sea
The last man to say those words had lost his way.
Davy Jones.
Once Calypso had loved him, but she was not prepared for the intensity of human love, the all-consuming madness of it all and she could not return his love in the way he so wanted. It was not in her nature. So he grew angry and cruel and spiteful, and he cut out his heart and buried it away, forsaking his precious humanity for a cold, hard immortality.
The bitter irony of it all was that in doing so Davy Jones set into motion events that would finally make Calypso understand the bitter-sweet nature of human love and the pain that he had suffered.
Whilst trapped in her human form, she learned the true meaning of love; the passion and lust of the night and the heady-joy of a passing fling; the pain of betrayal and that desperate need of want, but also the joy and the warmth of being in a lover's caress. All wrapped in fragile skin, the Goddess came to understand what he must have felt and why he had cut out his heart. To be free of that pain, it would be a blessing, but it need not have been so.
But one thing she also now knew was that not all men are driven mad by love.
Her new Captain knew the pain of heart-break better than most. She saw it in his eyes as he stared out at the horizon, lost in thought, a dark ghost at the helm. Part of her regretted choosing Will, but the moment he had stepped foot into her cabin on the bayou, his fate was sealed. There was nothing Calypso could prevent it. Forces older and more powerful than she had already chosen the young man and, truth be told, Calypso had no desire to challenge them.
Calypso needed a champion, the sea a master and the Dutchman needed a Captain and the dead a saviour. Jones had failed in all of these things. Turner would not.
Time is fluid for those who are Gods. The past, the present, the future, all are meaningless when you can bend time. It was simply an arbitrary division that humans make to mark their passage. So the first time she looked into those dark eyes, she saw her Captain, and knew that the Fates had bought him to her.
Oh witty Jack may have wanted immortality, but the Sea, she wanted more and Calypso had caressed William Turner's cheek and knew he was the one.
And in that final battle Destiny was played out and fate made sure that William Turner would stab the heart. Calypso, howling across the ship, watched as the story, already told, played out, driven by those most terrible human emotions.
First there was Jones. Full of spite, he lashed out. A deliberate cruelty, for Will was all that offended him. In love and beloved. Husband, son and friend. Surrounded by those he loved and who loved him. The girl on her knees in the rain, the bedraggled father almost lost to ship, and Jack Sparrow, eyes wild, clutching the heart. The boy bound them all. So Jones drove the sword deep into his heart and laughed. A petty act which would be his downfall. Hoist on his own petard.
Then there was Jack. Almost as fickle and wild as the sea himself. Oh Calypso knew him well. Jack's ways were as unpredictable as her own, but she knew him to be true. She had no fear. Jack would follow the path laid out for him and be true to himself. Despite all protests to the contrary he was a good man and could not stand by and watch as one he loved died, not when there was a chance to save him. And Jack did love the boy. Many years before the younger Jack Sparrow had shown her the truth of his heart and he could not hide this truth from her. She saw it that day in the cabin as she had caressed the younger man. Jack's eyes had betrayed him, but only to one who knew him like she did.
So Jack had taken Will's hand and wrapped it round a broken sword, and guided him towards his destiny. The Heart was pierced and all that was foretold and promised become reality, in a simple, desperate act, born out of love.
The father, grief-stricken, played the final part. He cut out his own son's heart and holding it high, offered it to the Dutchman and all was set right again. The ship bound himself to this new Captain and Calypso rejoiced.
Turner was now her Champion, and unlike Jones, he would not become a monster. He remained pure, true to his love and true to his duty. He sailed her seas and ferried the dead. Oh he was not innocent, but there was a part of him that refused to be corrupted by the world.
Death and suffering had always been his path but he had travelled it well. A boy without a father. A childhood cut short by a mother's death. One form of innocence stolen by the cruelty of men as he battered his way across the sea. The harsh words and blows of an old drunk. The pain of loving one from afar.
And yet always he refused to be cowed by the world, to have hope, to see the best in those around him. Even though his heart was gone, his soul was pure. And now, Lord of the Sea and Captain of the Ship of the Dead, he bought that innocence and hope with him.
Calypso would have set him free if she could, but the Dutchman needed a Captain, and not even the Goddess of the Sea could change that fact and if she were honest, though it was not in her nature, she needed him too. For over time she had came to love him as well.
So Calypso watched over her Captain, and waited and pondered, for soon it would be time. Ten years had passed and there was a choice to be made.