For much of her time in that foul little room, Anna-Maria lay dying.

The room had a bench along the side of one wall, a bucket, and nothing else. It was small enough that she could barely stretch her arms without touching the walls. It was filled beyond anything the sisters could have imagined, a rank smell that crawled up their noses and took root in their bellies. The floors were thick with something too thick to be water. Anna-Maria prayed it was only blood, but suspected it was not. Time was lost to them because the brig had neither windows nor light, save what little crept in from under the door.

For most of the first day, the girls cried piteously and hammered at their door. Anna-Maria fully believed that after a few hours, the vile Captain would come to the door, brandishing his arrogance and his spite, and could perhaps be convinced to let them go.

He did not come.

Anna-Maria had never known imprisonment, nor any real deprivation of comfort for any length of time. She paced as much as one could pace in a place that was scarcely two strides wide and swore as many promises of revenge as she could imagine. But once this restless anger left her, she felt even weaker and more desperate than before. She was torn between dread that the door would open and the pirates would come for them and hope that they would, because at least then she may be able to see the sky.

Every sleep-cycle or so, a crew member would toss in a bowl of muck or a flask of what she could only call alcohol through the slot at the bottom of the door. Their food and drink would have been barely enough to sustain one of them, though most of it went to Charlotte. Anna-Maria was both the appetite and the will to eat, but she was simply too unwell to stomach more than a mouthful.

Anna-Maria's agonies grew worse with every hour, until she could barely stand from the pain of her head. She could hardly believe how much pain she was in from a mere collision with a tree trunk. She had been blessed with good health her whole life and had was just as unused to pain and infirmity as she was to imprisonment.

The one benefit of their time in the brig was that it allowed Charlotte to rest her injured leg, and soon she was able to walk upon it without great pain, though she complained of a slight limp every now and then. Anna-Maria tried and failed to muster up sympathy for her sister, but being convinced that she lay at Death's own door she had a hard time of it.

As Anna-Maria lay upon the bench and tried prevent her head from splitting open, it occurred to her that it was very strange that a pirate captain should request two girls to be brought alive aboard his ship and then simply leave them be. She could see no reason for him to keep them captive if not to take pleasure from their suffering. Although perhaps for him, knowing that he kept two women in the brig like animals waiting slaughter was pleasure enough. Did he intend to keep them here forever? The man, if a man he was, must be mad. And yet he had never seemed to be without reason and wit, save for when he had hauled them into this horrible place. In that fantastical moment, he had seemed more a force of nature than a man.

She raised a hand to her scalp and flinched in pain when she felt the baldness and the huge lumps there. He must have torn out handfuls of her hair when he pulled her to this wretched place. She could still feel his grip upon her.

His strength terrified her still.

On their third day in the brig, although to them it felt like many more days had passed, Anna-Maria's pain had reached such a crescendo that she begged Charlotte not to call out at the door any longer. Sound became excruciating to her. Charlotte had tried to examine her head, but without light it was impossible to see the wound. Besides, her sister's gentle hands touching her head had made her scream loudly enough that the crew must have heard; she could dimly hear laughter coming from above deck.

On the fourth day, she could barely move or speak. Worse, her sleeping hours were plagued by nightmares. In one nightmare, she was drowning underwater and mauled by sharks past the point of death. Though they killed her, she could still feel her remains being eaten by the senseless creatures, a senseless torment. Even though she was underwater in the dream, she was able to scream, and she would wake up screaming and thrashing as she fought off things that were not there. As terrifying and embarrassing as it was, the cause of the nightmare was no great mystery; she had been badly frightened by the sharks in the water and so her mind dwelled on it even as she slept. That was not so unusual.

The other nightmare was worse, though less brutal. It was an insidious, nameless dread. In those dreams she fled from one end of the twisting bowels of the ship to the other, but there was no escape. A monster hounded her through the wood of the hull and no matter where she hid, it always found her. Though she could not hear or see the thing, she could feel it looking at her. The dreams were as real as anything she had ever felt. Whatever it was, it sniffed her out with a dreadful alacrity. The helplessness of it left her weak and shaking when she awoke.

She had at least one of these visions every night. She tried to explain the dreams to Charlotte, but her sister saw them as dreams born of her hunger and suffering. Even having seen a magical being, a Siren of myth with her own two eyes, logic and reason ever ruled Charlotte and tempered her imagination. As for herself, she wanted to believe that her dreams were just the delusions of a dying woman. She could not. She had never been prone to nightmares or delusions before now. She did not believe that she had lost her mind. She was made of stronger stuff than that.

By the time a week had passed, the pain in her head had lessened and Charlotte proclaimed that she surely must survive since she had lived so long. Besides, sister, Charlotte had said dryly, you only hit your head upon a tree. Only you could make such a small thing so serious. She smiled to see her sister had retained her sense of humour even here.

As her strength returned to her, she found she could eat a little of the slop. She was shocked when Charlotte helped her eat the stuff, spooning the mush into her mouth until it was all gone. Her sister must have been very worried about her. Eating helped chase away some of the dizziness. Her head was still sore, but nothing compared to what it had been.

Despite the improvement of her health, her nightmares had followed her into her waking hours.

Not the nightmare of being eaten alive, though she would have preferred it. It was the other one. The one that stalked her from one end of the ship to the next. She could feel the creature through the wood of the brig. As incredible as it seemed, she could not disregard it. It pulsed through the walls at her, and when she moved from one side of the brig to another, she could feel it following her. She observed the thing, not with her eyes, but with some other sense. It defied all logic, all education, but she could not deny that the world had outlandish things in it, even if she did not understand them. Was this how ancient mystics had felt when they communed with the dead? She had only the scraps of knowledge that she had gathered through her senses to guide her.

If it could do so, it would burst through the ship and devour her. She felt strangely certain that the thing might have already tried it, but had not been strong enough to destroy the hull. Whatever it was, it was not the thing that had tempted her and her sister, she knew that much. The siren had wanted to cultivate their dreams and feed off of them. This creature was different. It wanted to devour so much more than her happiness.

As troubled as she was by her nightmares and her ever increasing certainty that they had taken physical form to haunt her, even that could not distract her always. The sheer boredom of their imprisonment sank in as her injuries healed. In a room with nothing to see, with no-one to talk to but each other and nothing to do but starve and thirst, they spent much of their time plotting escape attempts that became more and more absurd as the hours went on.

"If only we had a hair pin, we could pick our locks and escape." Anna-Maria said wistfully once. She had read of such things in novels. Sadly, all their hair pins had all been washed away by the sea. Anna-Mara tried hard not to think about what she must look like, let alone the smell. Despite everything, she still had her vanity.

"Yes, if only we had hairpins." Charlotte had replied sardonically. "And any idea how to pick locks."

They could not think their way out of their predicament. They suspected that there were guards outside their door, and without weapons, the element of surprise or hairpins, they had no idea on how they could rescue themselves. They each thought on, but did not speak of, the diabolical strength of the one-handed Captain and how easily they had been locked in here. Charlotte did not apologise for her idea of trying to dupe the Captain into accepting them as guests, and nor did Anna-Maria ask her to. What was done was done, and truly any other pirate captain would surely have been tempted by offers of reward money. Their captor was not such a man, unfortunately. She could only wonder at her luck; to have found the only pirate Captain on the seven seas who did not care for gold was quite an accomplishment, even by her standards.

As time went on, if indeed it did go on, the sense that she was being watched by unknown predator grew ever stronger. She could feel it moving, the restless pacing on animal that could see its prey but not get at it. Fear had begun to give way to perplexity as she considered the thing. No priests had ever spoken of such supernatural things to her, so she had only her own logic to go on.

The thing hounding her felt real hunger, just as she did. Did demons hunger? How could a being without form know starvation, whether it was a demon or a phantasm? Could it be a mere physical animal, like herself? But if there really was a beast out there in the water, how could it possibly keep up with the ship? How could it target her so keenly? For it was targeting her, she knew that beyond a doubt. It had no interest in Charlotte, from what she could make out. It knew her. It was familiar with her scent, her being. She half expected to hear the thing whispering to her through the wood. She did not mention the creature to her sister again. It would do neither of them any good, as she knew Charlotte would not believe her.

Being a person prone to rash behaviour, Anna-Maria was struck with the idea that perhaps she could communicate with it. She would make no deals with it, she was not so stupid as that, but if it had the ability to reason there might be a chance she could convince it to leave her be. Cautiously, without even understanding how she was doing it, she opened her mind to it. She willed it to speak to her, if speak it could, and explain its presence to her or leave her be.

She got no satisfactory answers and soon regretted opening a dialogue with the thing, as do many foolish young girls who make themselves vulnerable to spirits. Her night-terrors became more and more powerful, and so too did her sensitivity to the beast. She could not speak to it, nor it to her, but she knew it better. It was a simple thing and she could glean only two things from it; the hunger and malice it directed at her. It reminded her of the Captain, in a primal sort of way. A base creature, likely incapable of altruism by nature. But she knew that it knew her. That was beyond a doubt. She heard it whispering to her, vague promises of violence and desire.

Sleep became more exhausting than replenishing, and she avoided it where she could.

One day the door was wrenched open and light spilled in. The girls had lived without light for over a week and it burned their eyes to see it. Anna-Maria threw up her hands over her eyes to shield them but still she could not see a thing in all the white blaze.

"Come on girly, the Captain wants words with ye." She heard a gruff voice say. She heard Charlotte being dragged from the room and waited for the pirates to take her too. They did not. She stumbled forward, feeling blindly for the opening and freedom when the door slammed shut again. She had been left behind. She had been left behind! She pounded on the door till her hands hurt. Once again, Charlotte had needed her and she had failed. She screamed for someone to open the door, but there was no answer.

She waited in her cell as the minutes dragged by, alone with the lust of the beast. Scenarios raced through her mind one after the other. The man who had had them hunted across the island, then locked them in this place as if it were all a joke, had her sister alone. She fought off hysteria as bravely as she could. Charlotte would not want her to rant and wail. She would demand that she do something useful instead of giving into her hysterical nature.

Alone in the brig, Anna-Maria honed her hatred as a soldier sharpens his sword.

By the time the door opened, her mind felt as calm and cool as a frozen lake. She was ready to take vengeance on her sister, who had surely been defiled and likely killed. When the door opened and the light flooded in, she was waiting for it with eyes closed, and sprang forward to leap upon the pirates. At that very moment, Charlotte barreled into her and they both fell backwards onto the slimy floor the of the cell. She lay there stupefied for a moment as the reality hit her. Charlotte was alive. Her hatred was quelled by love and relief. She burst into tears of gratitude.

"Charlotte, oh Charlotte, you are alive! Are you hurt? Did they-?" She could not finish the sentence. She ran her hands blindly over her sisters soft face to reassure herself that she was all in one piece. Charlotte batted her hands away with a tsk.

"Yes yes, I'm fine. For goodness sake Anna, cease your dramatics. You're as bad as that villain." But she gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze as she said it, and Anna-Maria knew her sister was glad to 'see' her too.

"What happened? Tell me everything!"

"There isn't much to tell. It's all very odd. The pirates lead me to Captain Hook's chamber, which is as opulent as a lords, and the Captain fed me breakfast. It was the strangest thing. He acted the perfect gentleman, as though he had not locked us up in here for days. There was an immense feast laid out, too much for three grown men to eat, and he bade me eat with him, so I did."

At the mention of a feast, Anna-Maria's stomach began to grumble loudly. "I don't suppose…"

"I asked him if I could bring any back to you and he said he would not allow it. Something about how dogs should not dine with their masters."

Anna-Maria spluttered with outrage.

Her sister continued, "Anyway, he made comments about how remarkable he thought I was. He served me tea as if I were a princess and he a humble servant. He seems completely taken in by our false identities. Then he told me how sorry he was that the accommodations here did not meet the standards of a woman of my stature, and wished me a good day. Then he had his bosun bring me back here."

Anna-Maria thought for a moment. It defied belief, but Charlotte had never been one to tell stories. It must have happened as she had said. "He is a madman. There can be no other explanation. Unless he is still pretending we believe ourselves his guests." But it seemed so unlikely. What would be the purpose in it? What would he gain from pretending to be fooled, now they were his prisoners?

"He said he would see me again tomorrow. I suppose I shall wait until then. What choice do we have? There's no escaping this place."

Anna-Maria was baffled by the senselessness of it. She could only conclude that the Captain was using them for sport in some way. This entire thing could just be some sort of game to him.

If there was anything Anna-Maria hated more than being locked in a dungeon like a town drunkard, it was being toyed with. That and being left behind while her sister drank tea and feasted like a queen.

When Charlotte was gone, it felt like she was gone for days. She knew that it could not possibly be so long, but the isolation wore on her terribly. She paced and paced in her cell, and beat the walls, with only the spirit in her mind for company. Sometimes she thought that she could sense more than one of the things, but it did not invade her thoughts with its hunger as it once had.

Anna-Maria continued to lose hair as time went by. Thankfully she had enough of it in the first place that she could arrange it in a sort of bun to cover the bald spots, that and the great lumps growing on her head. She showed them to Charlotte, who was so deeply disturbed by them that she said nothing for hours, except to ask her if they hurt. They did not, not very much anyway. Three great lumps, easily the size of her finger. Could they be some sort of boil? As the days went by, she was noticed that they seemed larger and more swollen than they had been. Charlotte instructed her to pray and she did, but she could not hear God in the brig, and she had begun to wonder if he could hear her.

The Captain continued to summon her sister and dine with her. They were at a loss as to what his purpose was, until one day Charlotte returned to the brig in high spirits and exclaimed, "I think I have discovered it, Anna. I think I know the blackguard's plan."

Tearing her gaze away from the wall she knew the creature lurked behind, Anna-Maria bade her sister continue. Not knowing what he had planned for them had been a cruel torture, as cruel as the confinement itself.

"He is trying to get information out of me. About the island we washed up on. He was trying to cover it up with compliments and offers of cigars, but I saw what he was doing. He is not so clever as he thinks, thank God."

Anna-Maria reasoned it out, running a hand through what was left of her hair. "The island? Why would he ask you of it? We were only there for a day or so."

"Surely there can only be one reason for it. I think there is something on the island that he wants, and he thinks we have it, or at least know where it is."

Anna-Maria felt something click in her head. "Treasure? He thinks we uncovered treasure?" It made sense, she knew that pirates often hid treasure on islands so remote that only they knew it's location. The sea was vast and many such islands existed, no doubt. Perhaps they had simply been unlucky enough to get in his way. She cursed the siren again.

"I believe he thinks we saw it and hid it for ourselves, or else he would have tossed us overboard days ago. The Captain is not a man to act on charity, and he expressed no desire in harming us. He wants to know anything that we know. He has already begun to offer such luxuries as he can provide to me, for the remainder of our voyage. You see? He wants something from us. If we can only come up with some lie about seeing treasure on the island, perhaps he might let us go free..."

Charlotte began to talk excitedly about how the Captain was having clothes taken in for her, and how they would be near English waters shortly. When that happened, their nearest port would be Plymouth, and he would take them there, if it suited them.

Her stomach sank to hear the way Charlotte talked. There was an assurance in her voice. Her sister seemed to believe that if they told the Captain what he wanted to hear, he would let them walk freely from his ship. Anna-Maria did not believe it for a second, though she did think Charlotte was right about the treasure.

What Charlotte had said about the Captain expressing no desire to harm them struck her most of all. How could Charlotte believe that to be true?

He is already harming us, sister. No matter how many cigars he offers you, or how much food he crams into you while I starve, he is harming the both of us. Do you not remember him leading you into this room by the point of his hook, or the smile in his eyes as he did it? Do you not remember how the strength of the Devil himself was upon him when he towed me behind him as if I weighed no more than a child's doll?

Anna-Maria adored and worshiped her sister as very few siblings do, but it was at this moment that she became sensible of the first of her sister's many flaws; her absolute faith in gentility. Charlotte believed that a man who showed good breeding could never mean any real lasting harm, and that if a man was wicked, it would show on his face and in his manners. The foolishness of it, from a sister she believed to be wise above all others, struck her with almost physical force.

Now, Charlotte could not really be blamed for believing a lie she had been told her whole life by every person of any authority she had ever known. We tell it to our children in stories, we tell it to our friends in our gossip and we unknowingly tell it to ourselves when we meet someone new. It is a sort of promise the people of the world made to one another, that an evil person will have the decency to identify himself with a coarse accent and a mole on his chin so that everyone can avoid him. But the Captain used his natural good looks (though they were lost on Anna-Maria) and fine dress as a cloak of secrecy to conceal and excuse his barbarism and cruelty, and the elder sister was utterly deceived by it.

Neither of them had ever seen this faith betrayed before, but Anna-Maria could see it now. She did not know how the Captain had discovered her sister's weakness, since she herself had not seen it until this moment. All that mattered was that he had found the chink in her sister's armor of common sense, perceptiveness and fortitude, and was exploiting it for all it was worth.

The next day, when the door opened, the summons was for both of them.