The Heir to the Pirate King
A/N: Welcome to a new story from Funness! W00t! Um…enjoy? I know the beginning is a little slow, but bear with me. It'll get better. I hope…-smiles- Read and review, please?
Prologue:
The island had been inhabited for as long as anyone could remember. Sparrow Island had staved off the tourists, but ushered in a deficit. It was becoming very expensive to stay on the island with the necessity of technology in the business world. Sparrow Island was a small spit of land on the equator. It was just big enough for the essentials: a major farm, a small airport, and a strip of stores. Today was a cloudy day, threatening a storm. The oldest house on the island had been renovated lightly throughout the years, and legends surrounded the house like the sea to the island; suing to swallow it completely.
Three people were all that was left of the family that built the house. A small girl sat on the porch, staring out to the cliffs. Their house sat on the crossroads. Down was the beach, with white sands and gentle waves while up were the cliffs, dangerous, sheer, and rocky. The girl loved to sit there and listen to the enchanting melody of the sea. She was seven years old and a thin wisp of a girl. Her dark brown hair curled wildly in the salty mist and wind. Her eyes were big and brown.
Her parents had been fighting, again. They always fought.
"The villagers told me, Bethany, a ship hasn't docked here in ten years. Ten years! Do you honestly believe this magic ship is just going to poof itself into existence?" That was her father, Steven Mason. If he didn't see it, it didn't exist.
"Maybe not. Maybe it has nothing to do with magic. All I know is that The Flying Dutchman will be here any moment." Her mother was soft spoken and lovely. She'd tell her stories of shooting stars, of adventure and love.
Lost in reverie, the young Isabelle watched the rolling sea, admiring the blues and greens of the ocean. While she watched the dim sun set, a flash of green lit up the sky like a large firework from another island. But that wasn't right, her child mind reasoned. As the light receded, a speck arrived on the horizon.
"I should be out there, watching for him…"
"Him? Who is this him?" Her father exploded. "You're not to leave this house. If anyone's going to meet The Flying Dutchman, it'll be me!"
"But the docks---"
"Oh, I'll be at the docks, awaiting this old lecher." He stormed out of the house, slamming the screen door as he went toward the town.
Turning back to the sea, Isabelle heard her mother sob, as the speck loomed closer. Curious, Isabelle got off the porch and clambered down to the beach. A long boat had just landed.
"Ahoy!" came the call. A man was sitting in the long boat, simply watching; waiting.
"Hello!" Isabelle said back as she approached.
"Do you have it?" he asked.
Isabelle looked at him oddly as he got out of the boat. His dark brown hair looked like hers. He had a beard and mustache. His eyes seemed to hold the secrets of the world, and he closed them, savoring the stable feeling of land. His black shirt was open to reveal a ghastly scar across his chest.
"Have what?" she responded. This man scared her.
He reopened his eyes and made a face at the girl. "Is Bethany in there?" he inquired.
Unable to think, for if she could think, she would've lied, Isabelle nodded. No wonder her father was mad. That man was very pretty, and he had a strange accent. She remembered her mother saying she loved accents. He started walking to the house and Isabelle had to run to catch up with him. Before he opened the front door, she regained her wits and called "Wait! Who are you?"
The man turned back and winked as he entered the house. Isabelle followed closely behind.
"You!" Bethany cried. She jumped from her seat and fiercely hugged the man. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and her brown hair a mess.
"I got your last bottle. I apologize for not writing back, it's been pretty busy." He let her go and paid Isabelle no heed.
"Right, that oil spill."
The man shook his head. "It wasn't just a spill. It exploded near a cruise ship. So many people." He paused. "It is good to see you. Where is your husband?" he questioned, looking around for him.
"Looking for you!" Isabelle chimed in. She moved into the light. There was something eerie about this man that frightened her. Were her eyes deceiving her, or was a sword attached to the man's hip?
"Is he, now?"
Bethany looked worried and attempted a smile. "He thinks you're my lover, or something. He got so upset when I told him I had to go meet you."
The man smiled a bit. "He doesn't believe you?" Every time, he mused, there is always someone who doesn't believe.
She shook her head. It was time to tell him. It couldn't be helped. "He wants to sell the house."
His eyes went wide. "No. He can't. This is the only place I've got to make port. What's the use of walking on land when I've got nowhere to go?"
"I don't know. You'd better go into town before Steven comes back and finds you here." Isabelle wondered at her mother's sincere and genuine concern. Who was this man that she cared so much about?
The man rolled his eyes, and then his eyes landed on Isabelle, who was standing beneath one of the old lamps.
"Is this Isabelle?"
Bethany nodded.
In amazement and wonder, he stepped nearer to her. "She looks just like ---" He knelt down and brushed the strand of hair away from her eyes. "Elizabeth. It's amazing. Just like when I first saw her."
The back door opening got a jump out of all of them.
"I told you he wouldn't be here. You were just being irrational. Like always…"
"Quick," Bethany mouthed.
Swift as the wind, the man ran out of the house, barely making a sound.
"Didn't I tell you?" he repeated as he returned to the front room. Bethany looked to the ground in shame.
"No one in town saw any green light, except for Larry, but he had just got out of the bar, so you can imagine his mind…"
"He's real!" Isabelle blurted out. "He was here! I saw him," she added seeing the fury in his eyes.
"He was here?"
Bethany shot Isabelle a look. It was over. All over.
"I don't believe this. Bethany, how could you?" Steven paused, hurt and angry. Then, suddenly, it all clicked. "Is that where those letters in the bottle go?" His sanity snapped, and he ran out of the house, again.
Bethany sighed in resolution. It was times like these she wondered why she had married her husband. When she wondered what had made her fall in love with him, if she was truly in love with him. "Isabelle, the next time the man comes, you're not to tell your father." That should have been obvious to the girl.
"Who was he, Mother?"
Bethany paused to think. "His name is Will Turner. He was a sword smith in the eighteenth century…" And so she related the story, glazing over the gory details. She went through the family tree, as she had been told when she was a little girl, just having seen the Captain for the first time.
"So, upstairs, there's a chest with an actual beating heart inside it?" Isabelle looked absolutely horrified.
"Come with me." Bethany led Isabelle up the creaky staircases, past the hallways and the bed chambers. She entered one of the many guestrooms, and Bethany pushed an old dresser away from the wall to reveal a hole in the wall. She gestured for Isabelle to follow her through it.
"Where are we, mother?" she asked.
"This is the only way into the attic. Shhhh…In case your father comes home. He might hear us, and he must never know."
Finally, the small space opened up into a room with no windows or chairs. One thing was in the room. A metal chest, covered in dust.
"Is that it?" she asked. Her mother nodded.
"Go ahead and listen. You should be able to hear the heart."
Grossed out, yet transfixed with curiosity, Isabelle laid her ear to the side of the chest. There, faintly. Past the locks and metal. Past the wood of the second chest. The soft thud of a beating heart.
"Is it safe?" Will asked, startling the two.
"Will, don't do that," Bethany requested.
Will laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Your husband was raving. He seems to think it's all a trick so you can cheat on him."
"That's not right at all. You're a distant grandfather or something."
"I'm removed greatly by this time, but I've still got Elizabeth for ten more years aboard the ship. You can tell your husband I'm in no market for love." He looked at the chest, and the little girl, whose ear was still held up against it, listening to the heart beat, entranced.
He smiled. "So, what's happened since your last letter?" he asked Bethany.
