Prologue A Girl Called Charlotte Year 1702 (14 years before the films)

"Avast!" Thomas growled sending Charlotte into flights of laughter. He'd tied a rag across one eye and was brandishing a stick, feet wide apart as he stood astride the barrel at the docks. He glanced down at his friend with a frown as she clutched her sides.

"Come on Char," he grumbled, poking her with the stick.

"Alright, alright," she giggled, flapping him away and pulling out her own weapon, a wooden spoon.

"Avast!" Thomas began again and Charlotte, tensing her cheeks so as not to smile, clambered up onto the barrel next to him.

"You won't escape me Dread Pirate Thomas!" she called and their weapons clunked together as they entered into a long and arduous swordfight. She giggled as they fought, head scarf slipping down over her forehead as she ducked and dodged. Thomas's little brother watched in delight, too small to climb up after them but old enough to enjoy the drama.

Sailors pushed past them gruffly as they played, unloading the small boats tied at the jetty. When the children were tired out they sat down with Thomas's brother and looked out at the bigger ships in the harbour.

"I'm captain of that one," Thomas announced suddenly, pointing at a sloop bobbing up and down not far away. "And I'll have a blood red flag with a big skull on it." Charlotte pretended to look scared then laughed.

"Look!" she cried dramatically. "It's the wrecked ship Black Charity!"

Thomas cracked up laughing when he saw the little fishing boat covered in barnacles, its mast snapped in two.

"That's not a legendary ship!" he chuckled. "I don't think they discovered Atlantis in a dinghy!"

Charlotte scowled at him.

"It's a shipwreck, it's at the bottom of the ocean," she argued.

"Never mind," Thomas conceded with a smile. "It's just a story anyway."

They stayed a little longer, idly watching the bustle around them. But the afternoon soon darkened and the fishermen and casual seamen turned into filthy sailors and whore hunters and they decided it was time to go home. They said their goodbyes and Thomas took his brother's hand and headed off.

Charlotte waved to them until they were out of sight and then set off nervously along the docks. It was later than she had thought and even though she was only thirteen the men were leering at her, following her progress with yellowed eyes. Her pace got faster and faster until she was almost trotting over the cobbles.

"Charlotte!"

Charlotte looked up and smiled when she saw her elder brother Jim walking towards her. Relief flooded through her and she waved eagerly to him.

What happened next seemed to be slowed in time. She saw the man come up behind her brother, opened her mouth to shout as he raised the club but too late her brother tried too look around as it came down on the back of his head, stunning him. Charlotte broke into a run as a second man grabbed Jim by the arms and began to haul him along the jetty to a waiting sloop. She could hear herself screaming at them to let him go as if from far away. Her brother was recovering, beginning to struggle and shout but the club came down again.

When Charlotte reached the jetty the vessel was already making for the open water beyond the harbour. She leapt into the water and began to struggle through the waves, her clothes becoming soaked and weighing her down. Each stroke of her arms seemed to take her further away from Jim, not closer. For a moment she slipped under a wave and when she came up spluttering and coughing the ship was too far away.

Tears mingling with salt water she struck back towards the dock and pulling herself up onto dry land, ran for home.

Later Charlotte listened to her mother sobbing as she lay curled on the floor behind her bedroom door. Her cheek still stung from where her mother had struck her earlier. She thought of her brother, press-ganged at the age of eighteen, alone and hurt and scared. Would she ever see him again?

She heard her father suddenly break his solemn silence.

"I'll go after him," he sighed. "I'll find him."

"Oh don't be stupid," sobbed his wife hysterically. "Your leg, you can't sail anymore. We'll never find him. I'll never see my beautiful son again. If only, if only she hadn't gone down to the docks. If only she had come home when she should've!"

She broke down again and Charlotte felt her stomach clench tight. Her heart felt like ice in her chest and she wondered for a moment what would happen if she just stopped breathing, if she closed her eyes and slipped away. The guilt was like a great suffocating blanket pressing down on her and she cried herself into a nightmare sleep.

She awoke barely a few hours later from the cold of the floor against her side and she lay still for a moment. Finally she managed to rise and went to the mirror. Her cheek still glowed red, like a mark of guilt on her skin, and she gazed back into her reflected brown eyes. Her mother would never forgive her. Charlotte had taken away her eldest child, her only son. Her father couldn't chase the pirates so that left Charlotte. Little Charlotte, who played pirates all day long safe in the knowledge she would never come across one. Who pretended to stow away on ships, sail to distant lands and fight great battles.

She went to her chest and opened it. There were the clothes Thomas had lent her for their sea-faring games. How many times had she marched up and down the docks, deceiving all the sailors into thinking she was a boy? Short brown hair stuffed up inside the cloth cap, dressed in the shirt and trousers. How many times had she been offered work as a cabin boy, as a powder monkey? And every time she had laughed to think she could get aboard their ship and sail away with them into the horizon.

She took the clothes out and stared at them for a while. She felt the cool of the night soothing her stinging cheek and she angrily hit herself across the face, bruising it further.

Maybe if she brought her brother home, her mother would forgive her.