And now... the REAL story...

Disclaimer: Weird, but I think all these characters could be considered mine... Well, I suppose I made them up, so... yeah? Right?


PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IV
PART I

All at once, the scene changes. It is a windy night, and a harsh breeze howls through the streets on the island of Saint Lucia. A long cobblestone street winds down the center of the town. At the end of this street is a ramshackle tavern, with a wooden sign swinging wildly from its overhanging, bearing the title "Le Sirène" in cracked, yellow letters. A figurehead of the tavern's namesake bedecks the front of the building.

Inside the tavern, patrons enjoy themselves while swigging drinks, dancing, laughing, and making merry. A fiddler sits upon a barrel, playing a jaunty tune at what seems almost like warp-speed. A couple women are giggling and sitting upon the laps of some very enthusiastic sailors. One bosomy, severe-looking women with pale, powdered skin and reddish-blonde flyaway curls smiles her way through the crowd, playing a good hostess to the tavern. However, as she steps into the bar area and kitchen, her demeanor turns sour and her irritation shows through. She picks up a broom, hikes up her skirt and squats on the ground, brushing some of the straw on the floor to the side with one hand and using the handle of the broom to knock on what looks like a wooden trap door in the floor with the other.

Below, a small, dark-haired girl sleeps amongst a cluster of barrels in what looks to be a dirt cellar. A book rests across her face with one hand resting atop it. She sits up slowly, taking the book off her face as she does, and we see that she has straw tangled in her messy hair. She squints up at the trap door, which is now shaking violently from being beaten with the broom. She turns quickly to her side, brushing away some of the hay to reveal a small cluster of baubles and trinkets, then carefully rearranges the straw so that the items are hidden once more. The pounding persists, and she scowls and stands to look up at the trap door with a look of utmost animosity etched across her face. She climbs up the latter to the door.

She lifts up the wooden flap and looks unapologetically up at the severe looking woman, Madame Géroux. Madame Géroux demands what the girl, Katherine (called Kat), has been doing. Kat tries to explain herself, but Madame Géroux shushes her. Monsieur Géroux smiles and laughs with a patron, then approaches angrily. He hisses about why they should even keep her there at all, which Kat points out quite easily is for the free labor, which Madame Géroux reproaches angrily. She snaps that while she has been sleeping, there has been no one to clean out the bedpans in the rooms and the patrons are beginning to complain about a horrible smell. Kat answers that it should be none of her business whether or not bedpans are cleaned, and that one of these days she will get off the forsaken island for good. Madame Géroux laughs coldly as Monsieur Géroux walks away, a smirk on his face. Madame Géroux taunts Kat, ridiculing her well-known dream to make the journey to London. She points out that even if she found someone to take her, they would never agree to it with such 'unsatisfactory leverage' (haha, a no-boobs joke). Kat gives the woman a steely look, saying that she shouldn't count on it - that sort of leverage can only get you so far (taking a dig at Madame Géroux's own unsavory situation). Madame Géroux ceases her laughter, her face pinching into an expression of quiet rage. She hisses through clenched teeth that Kat had best watch her mouth, lest she let it slip to Monsieur Géroux where the patrons' jewelry's been slipping off to as of late. Kat glares back at the women, then crawls silently from the hole and begins to walk away. Madame Géroux swats her with a broom as she passes to head for the stairs, reminding Kat that any 'misplaced' jewelry should come to her.

Kat heads for the stairway to the hall above, where an inn portion of the tavern exists. As she makes her over, she ignores the whistling and gestures of the patrons, and even manages to lift a coin purse off of one man with his back turned to her. She smiles as she moves past, then takes a peek at her loot and stuffs it down her bodice. In her distraction, she winds up bumping into a well-dressed man in a black dress-coat and a hat to match. The man has very sallow skin and odd goatee. Kat is startled and tries to move away, but the man corners her and asks how he may acquire a room. Kat points out Monsieur and Madame Géroux, identifying them as the ones that he should speak to, and leaves him in the doorway. Happy to be rid of the strange man, she bounds up the stairs, grabbing a cloth that hangs over a hook in the hall, and a bucket of water, then trudges to the first door in the hall. She knocks on the door, and a heavily made-up tavern wench opens the door as she giggles at a half-clothed man resting on the bed behind her. She turns to Kat, instantly losing her jovialness and snaps at Kat that they're busy. She slams the door in Kat's face. Kat sighs and rolls her eyes, then moves to the next door. She knocks, but there is no answer. She sniffs the air, detecting an odd odor. She touches the door and it swings slowly open.

The room is very dark. Kat enters, covering her nose. She reaches for the flint on the table by the door, strikes it and lights a candle. As she does, a body is illuminated on the bed behind her. She turns and shrieks, covering her mouth and bumping back against the table behind her. She reaches back for the candle and lifts it, lighting her way over to the form. His body is arranged in an odd fashion, clutching a walking stick to his chest. His hat is covering his face, so she lifts it up. His face is clearly bloated and discolored--he has been dead for a few days, at least. Kat gags and covers her mouth, dropping the hat back on top of his face. She notes to herself that the offending stench that everyone had been complaining about clearly wasn't that of a bed pan. She goes to open the window to let some fresh air in the room. As she does, something to her right catches her eye. Something is glinting in a hole in the wall from the light cast by the reflection of fire from the window pane. She slowly moves to the hole, holding up her candle to it. Something shines back at her again. Thinking for a moment, she bites her lip and reaches her hand cautiously into the hole, then pulls out a ring decorated with a deep ruby gem. She examines the ring a bit, then glances over her shoulder at the man on the bed before slipping it onto her finger.

Suddenly, the door bursts open. Madame Géroux stands in the door way. Kat turns around quickly, hiding her hands behind her back. Madame Géroux swears in French, lifting her apron over her nose in response to the stench. She curses the dead man for renting the room, and, noting the hole in the wall, for defacing their fine establishment as well. She leaves to go fetch her husband to get some men to take the body outside, and Kat breathes a sigh of relief that she wasn't caught with the ring. She goes to pull it off her finger, but the ring is now stuck. She begins to panic, sticking her hands in the putrid room-washing water in an attempt to grease up her finger so that she may slip off the ring. But she can't get it off.

Cursing, Kat jumps to her feet and moves out the door, concealing her hand beneath part of her dress. She slips down the stairs, hoping to find a way to get the ring off somewhere else or by some other means. She begins to edge her way through the crowd.

Without warning, Kat is stopped by the sallow-skinned man with goatee once more. He cuts her off and she tries to move away, but the man grabs her arm. Kat is disturbed by the man's persistence. He lowers his voice, pulling her closer, then says that he needs a particular room… one which may have had a gentleman patron very recently... A man with a walking stick? Spanish, he adds. She nervously repeats that the man should ask Monsieur and Madame Géroux and that she can do nothing for him. The man holds on to her, insisting that perhaps she could just show him to the room and that he's looking for something very particular which the man may have. His hand has slid down to grip her hand, and he touches the ring. He looks down at her fingers and a look of recognition registers on his face. Kat realizes that even though he has gotten the description of the dead man upstairs wrong, what he wanted from that man is very much on her finger. Kat is at this point quite fearful. He moves to grab her, but luckily, the man is distracted by another patron's stumbling into him. Kat swiftly edges away and back up the stairs.

Kat rushes back to the room and the bucket of water. With a renewed sense of urgency where the ring is concerned, Kat begins to scrub harder at her finger with the cloth.

An abrupt scream from downstairs startles her to look up from the bucket. More screams follow, and shouting, and sounds of movement and crashing. Kat stands and runs out the door, looking down the stairs. A crew of motley looking pirates stand spread about the room below her, their swords drawn, ready for battle. One of them, she notes, is the sallow-skinned man. The rest of the patrons are scurrying around, looking for an escape. She leans over the railing, hoping to get a better look at the rest of the assailants, but the railing cracks under her weight and a piece of wood falls and lands on the floor beside the pirates. They look up at Kat, whose eyes widen as the pirates below smile. Two of the men break away from the others and begin to head up the stairs. Kat runs back into the room and grabs the dirty water, then rushes back out and pours the water down the stairs. The pirates slip on the grimy suds and fall backwards, biding Kat some time. Kat rushes back in the room and for the window. She stops short, realizing that she should grab a weapon. She looks around the room for something to fit the bill, and her eyes rest on the staff in the dead man's hands. She cringes, then walks over to the man and, with great disgust, pulls his stiff fingers from the walking stick and takes it.

She rushes back to the window and climbs out onto a small ledge and into the night sky. She grabs onto the swinging Sirène sign and onto the next ledge, then climbs into the window which opens up above the landing. Another pirate immediately rushes her, but she clocks him in the face with the walking stick. He falls back, clutching his nose, and the sallow-skinned man attempts to grab at her. She ducks away from him and runs through the crowd and to the kitchen. A pot is boiling over a fire in the middle of the room. The sallow-skinned man has followed her in with a few of his friends. She runs behind the pot and the men approach her, laughing. The sallow-skinned man asks her that she just give him the ring so that he won't have to take extreme measures. She pushes the boiling pot over onto the pirates' legs and feet, causing them to howl in pain and clutch at their burning legs. Kat turns and runs again, making a rush for the back door. As she leaves, the sallow-skinned man clutches his burnt legs, shrieking and cursing, ordering his men to follow the girl and get the ring.

Kat bursts out onto the street, and rushes down and alley. She can hear men shouting behind her, so she ducks and crawls into the darkness. She edges her way down an alley, glancing behind her to make certain that she isn't being followed. She stops, breathing hard, thinking she has gotten away. She leans onto her knees, smiling a little at her success, but is hit in the back of the head by another pirate and is knocked out cold.