PROLOGUE:
Charles Towne, South Carolina –April 30th, 1750
"Tell me again," she whispered.
Cheek to cheek, with their eyes peeled to the crystal blue skies, they laid long and opposite in the tall grass, like always. His skin was rough against her small face, chin furry from months spent at sea, collecting stories for only her. But he was handsome. He was never not wholly handsome to her.
She knew he was falling asleep by the peaceful sound of his breathing. And she knew that she wasn't supposed to feel what she did when she was this near to him, inhaling the salted musk of his clothes and black twists of hair. She knew she wasn't supposed to feel anything more than what she felt for her own brother, a familial affection. But as much as she knew what was expected of her, she couldn't help herself still, after four years of his friendship.
"Jack."
He groaned as he opened his eyes.
"Yes, little dove?"
"I want to hear the story, the one about the Grecian coast."
"Grecian coast…" he hummed ignorantly.
In frustration, Delilah twisted to lie on her stomach in the grass, staring sidelong down into his black eyes. She was completely taken by his curious expression. The hem of her white dress was already dirtied from the day's long adventures, sword fighting and shell-diving. She knew her mother would not be happy about that. Her sandy feet were crossed behind her, kicking in the sunlight.
"Tell me about the mermaids. How beautiful were they?"
"Words can't tell of it."
"You lie. Think of one."
He smiled and closed his eyes to the sun, trying to picture the young women in his mind's eye, each of them so different, of sprawling loveliness.
"Ethereal," Jack finally proclaimed with a smirk. "There is your word."
"Ether—eel...? Whatever does that mean?"
"It means they were a peculiar bunch o' beauties, otherworldly creatures really."
Delilah toyed absently with the shells of her necklace.
"Did they wear seashells in their hair?"
With a late afternoon yawn, Jack rolled over in the grass. He rested on his forearms the same as she did, his shoulder-length hair a mess of trinkets and sand and grass. He smiled at her impish face, the face of a child too curious for her own good and his alike. He loved that most about Delilah Hawkins.
"Seashells, of course," he agreed with a thoughtful gaze. "Scales of every color you can imagine covering their legs, and hair as long as their tails, some o' them. There was one, Persephone. Oh, like the goddess herself. She had little pink starfish bound t' her ears."
Jack reached out and tugged at the lobe of Delilah's ear as she giggled.
"That's not possible."
"Anything's possible."
She thought about that for a long time, turning to her back again and staring up at the drifting puffs of clouds. She wanted to reach out and snatch one for herself, carry it home in the palm of her hand to show her brother and Papa and Mama. She was sure that if Jack thought anything was possible, then it was. But she needed confirmation.
"You mean it truly, anything in the world?"
"Aye," he sighed and relaxed to the ground once more, their cheeks touching in the same way— rough to soft, innocent to hard worn, twelve to a staggering twenty and eight.
He'd never felt safer in all his years than he did lying in the grass with her, or on that coast of that southern colonial town, or welcomed in the Hawkins' home as a brother, a son. It was as if his position with the Company disappeared whenever he was in Charles Towne. It was as though he could conquer the whole world without ever stepping foot off that bank of sand and peace. And that was nice. It always was, for a while or so.
Things hadn't been so complicated then. The world hadn't turned upside down on him yet. He was simply Jack, Captain of the Wicked Wench and supplier of East India goods to the flourishing Americas.
It was a very different time in his life. It was a believable sort of period, where children's stories about mermaids were as potent as actually seducing them off the coast of Greece. He traveled the Atlantic as he pleased under crisp white sails. He gave orders smoothly, without the fierce tongue he'd been raised under. And he fought nothing but his own yearning for real adventure each day. Luckily, for that he had a right-hand charlatan in Delilah, child prodigy to his spirited mind.
An echoed call from her mother arrived with the crashing waves on the shore, and Delilah leaped to her bare feet, struggling to pull Jack up as well.
"Let's go," she shouted and scampered off through the high yellow cattails.
"I'll race you to supper!"
He gave her a head start and stood smiling on the sand hill, watching her tumble and skip in her dress down the path. After an extended count of five, he hurdled after her with arms spread wide and legs strong, certain he hadn't felt so free in years. When he reached her heels, he wrapped his strong arm around her tiny waist and threw her over his shoulder, a giggling, wind-swept mess of a child.
It was that moment in fact, which he would always remember had been the beginning of the end, of his very first life.