A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating. Thanks again for all the reviews and faves! Please let me know what you think of this one! Peace.
Chapter 4
For months I lived under that boat, working just the same long hours as I had before Mother died. After that first night, I no longer cried over my loss, opting instead to numb myself to it. I became a picture of stoicism, barely speaking a word as I drifted through the days, though I would still often experience crippling pangs of fear when I lay alone at night in the pitch darkness and the cold.
I became known by the sailors who docked regularly in Lortuna as the son of the dead harlot; yes, apparently my mother had quite the reputation with these men. Some would drunkenly slur about the misfortune of my mother's passing, phrases such as "she was a bloody good fuck" tossed around in a casual manner, as if they were simply commenting on the weather. At first I would get angry at such comments. Once, I even struck out at a man who had drawled something similar in my ear, though his exact words I cannot recall past the red mist that clouded my vision. Before the man could withdraw his spittle-coated chin from its uncomfortable proximity to my face, I had whirled around and landed a solid punch to the wretch's jaw.
I quickly learned to hold my temper, after the beating that cur of man gave me, which left me unable to walk for the best part of a week. I still remember crawling through the mud, blood-covered and dragging my leg behind me as I slithered back under the canopy of my boat. From then on, I learned to ignore the poisonous remarks, holding my tongue and my fists, and quickly gaining the misinformed reputation that I was dumb and mute; a reputation I was more than happy to assume.
And so the months drew on, and nothing changed, other than the ever-increasing difficulty I had in crawling under my boat as my body continued to grow, despite the lack of food it received. And then one day, a man rolled into town, a ragged, tired, and drunken waste of a man. And that's the first time I heard the name Davy Jones thrown around. Word travelled amongst the sailors, passing by my delicate ears on its way, that the stinking sod was looking for the wife and child whom he'd abandoned almost a decade gone by.
In my ignorance, I never deigned to believe I was the child for whom he searched; my mother had never told me of my father's name, and as far as I was concerned, he was a dead man. So the day that the very same man approached me, a certain glint of wonder in his eyes as he stood before me, I continued to ignore him as I did every other man, woman, and child in the town.
"They say you're a mute, boy," he growled at me.
I said nothing. I continued to sweep the wooden decking at my feet.
"Your mother, boy," he said, "They say your mother was a whore, who went by the name of Lena. Lena Jones."
I remember that familiar pang of anger rising up, and I remember forcing it down, just as I always did. My silence remained as I didn't even look at the man or acknowledge his presence. And that's when he became insistent, ripping the broom from my hand and forcing me to face him with a hand gripping the hair on my head.
"You might be mute, boy, but you can still nod your damn head," he grunted in my face, the alcohol smell smothering me like a fog, "Now answer the bloody question. Was your mother Lena Jones?"
I growled out a quick "Yes," before wrenching myself from his grasp.
I watched as his eyes grew wide, and I forced myself to meet them resolutely.
"How old are you?" the man asked.
"Eight now, I think," I grunted.
The man suddenly stood straight, clearing his throat.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Killian," I answered, the name unfamiliar after so long without saying or hearing it.
"Killian," he echoed, somewhat thoughtfully, "Well, boy, seems like I might be your father. My name's Davin, but people call me Davy."
Those were the words that changed everything for me. In that moment, I know I should have been relieved, but I was angry. My father was supposed to be dead. He was supposed to be a strong and upstanding gentleman, not the drunken mess of a man who stood before me. I remember suddenly turning my back, ready to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and begged me to listen to him.
He asked me where I had been staying, and I told him. He promised things would get better from now on; he had a plan to sail his ship around all the realms and he wished for me to go with him. Yes, he told me that he had his own ship. He took me to see it that very night. We sat side-by-side on the docks, looking at said vessel, as he told me some fools tale that I was naïve enough to believe.
He told me that he had been the captain of one of the king's ships, and had been sent out on a voyage of great importance, just days after he learned of my mother's pregnancy. He claimed that he had planned to return in time for my birth, and how he'd been so very excited, hoping that I would be a boy who could become a sailor like his father. He had been on schedule to return home, but a vicious, unexpected storm left him shipwrecked and stranded alone on an island, hundreds of miles from home. He told me that he had remained there for years, praying to find a way back to my mother and I, and that, just weeks ago, he had been rescued by his old crew. They had welcomed him onto a new ship, relieved to have found their captain after so many years. He had sailed right back to Lortuna, and immediately sought out his wife and child, only to learn of her death just months prior.
He said he had lost hope of finding his child, and had taken to drinking the past few days, haunted by the blank face of the son he would never find. That was how he explained his appearance, likened to that of a street beggar rather than a captain. He told me that he heard word of a boy, the son of a whore with the same name as his late wife, who worked down by the docks day after day. And that is how he had found me.
The way he spoke was convincing; he had the fastidiousness of a well-practised liar, that was for sure. And I had fallen completely under his spell. He promised me that we would be together from now on. He would take me away on his ship the very next morning. He would teach me to sail, so that one day I could become a captain like him.
He told me fabricated stories of his time alone on the island, and of his days as a sea captain. He told me he had thought of his child, whose face he could only conjure with his imagination, every day, and his wife whom he had loved so dearly. I hung on his every word, feeling like I finally understood the truth of my father, and allowing myself to believe that I'd finally found my way out of the dark.
That night, we sneaked onto "his" ship, The Bonetta. He said we should sleep in the hold; that he didn't want to dirty the captain's quarters until he could bathe and change out of his ragged clothes. I suppose that should have been the first warning sign, the first indication that he was deceiving me. Indeed, over the years I have often questioned how I could have been so stupid as to believe his lies; I often forget that I was just a boy, forced to grow up so fast.
I fell asleep beside him, at last allowing myself to feel safe, content. It was such a deep sleep that I didn't hear him get up to leave, nor did I hear the men on deck try to snatch him after he'd slipped out to relieve himself. It was only when I was awoken the next morning to see four sailors standing over me, stern frowns across their faces and no sign of my father, that I began to see the truth.
I was hauled from the hold by the scruff of my neck, and placed on a wooden stool before the true captain of The Bonetta. When I asked where my father was, they told me that the man, Davy Jones, was a fugitive. They had tried to arrest him last night, but the slippery scumbag had escaped, fleeing into the night without a second glance behind him at the boy he was once again leaving in his wake.
I didn't bother trying to argue that my father was no such man, as I felt all the lights switch on in my brain, and the broken pieces of the puzzle slotted into place. My hopes were dashed in a split second, as I realised the truth of my abandonment, and the cold, hard fact that I was once again alone and unwanted.
Emma took a pause in her reading to contemplate what she had just learned of her pirate's past. She knew those feelings of abandonment he had described. She could still feel them now, despite her parents' re-emergence in her life. It was a pain that she realised would never truly go away.
She found herself wondering if Killian ever found his father again. Davy Jones. The name was one she had heard many times in tales of pirates and the sea. The so-called guardian of the evil spirits of the sea. She wondered if Killian knew of the significance of his father's name in this world.
Deciding it was best to keep reading the book before asking the man, himself, any questions, she turned her attention back to the pages of script before her, and continued her journey into her pirate's past.
I stayed in that group home for the next four years. The first couple of years were hard, but I guess they helped me learn how to look after myself. By five years old, I had more street smarts than kids twice my age brought up in real families. As time passed, the older girls in the home were moved on, but I stayed, and soon I had been there the longest out of all of them.
By the time I was seven, I had learned to be the strongest, and I naturally grew into the role of kingpin. The operation of the home never got any better, but I learned to adapt. At last, I started to feel like I knew how life worked, and I was naïve enough to believe it would always be like that. I watched other kids go to foster homes, and while on the outside I scorned the idea, a part of me wished for a family of my own, just like I'd had when I was a baby. I guess, at that point, I hadn't given up hope that somewhere, there was a place for me.
Things changed again, around six months after I turned seven. They told me there was no longer room in the group home for me, but they'd managed to find a foster family. I was terrified. I hated living in the group home, but at least I understood how things worked there. The idea of going into a new place instilled a fear in me that I hadn't felt in a long time.
Days later, I was being introduced to my new family, a married couple named Karen and Terrence, and their three spoilt kids. At first it seemed OK. I had my own room, even if it was barely big enough for the bed, and more like a storage closet than a bedroom. Karen even gave me a bracelet with my name on it; it was a little tacky, made from a chain of cheap glass beads joined by a thick, black thread, but it was the first gift I'd received in years. When they were showing me around the house the first time, I noticed the kids had all kinds of toys and games. There was a drum kit set up in the garage and a whole host of bikes, scooters and skateboards strewn over the front lawn. It didn't seem so bad.
And then that evening I began to see the truth of it. They only had five chairs around their circular, wooden dinner table, so that night (and every night after) I was forced to stand and eat my meals from the kitchen countertop while the family enjoyed their meal together in the dining room. They insisted that mealtimes were "family time", and that I'd understand one day if I ever had a family of my own.
I was never allowed to play with any of the other kids' toys, and I was never given my own. If I tried to touch the scooters or skateboards, one of the other kids would invariably snatch it away from me or push me to the floor. Every weekend, Karen and Terrence would take their kids on long bike rides into the forest and camp overnight, leaving me at home to feed their youngest daughter's hamster.
When I opened my first ever pack lunch at school, and pulled out the crusts cut from the other kids' sandwiches, a banana that was well past ripe, completely brown and soft, and one of the cereal bars that one of the boys had thrown in the garbage yesterday when it wasn't the kind he liked (he wanted the chocolate chip ones, not the dried fruit ones), I realised how this was going to work. I then spotted my foster sister across the lunch hall, a fresh, crunchy apple in her hand and four beautifully square peanut butter sandwiches in front of her, crusts cut off. That marked the first day on which I stood up, and without touching my food, emptied my lunch box into the garbage can.
While my lunches at school were absent, back at home every mealtime was the same. I'd be given the chewy part of the meat that nobody wanted, or the part that was slightly burnt, the soggy, overcooked vegetables left on the kids' plates. On the days I was afforded the privilege of a shower, I had to be the last one in after the last drops of hot water ran dry, and I stood beneath the freezing cold stream of water, never truly having time to clean myself for fear of catching hypothermia.
Nine months I lasted there, never once complaining, barely speaking. I took the mocking from the three kids, never answering back, never making a move to respond. Until one day I snapped. The family had gone out for a picnic in the local park, leaving me behind, as usual. The sun was shining, and the outside was calling to me, so I went out to sit on the swing they had in the backyard. I was still there when they all returned home. Normally I wouldn't be allowed to play on it, but for some reason, on this day, I couldn't bring myself to care.
I swayed slowly back and forth on the swing, my toes never leaving the solid ground beneath me, receiving no joy from the movement but somehow revelling in the knowledge that I was breaking the rules. Jason, the eldest boy, aged fourteen and built like a bulldog, saw me on the swing from the kitchen window. He came charging outside, swearing like I'd only heard in R-rated movies, before coming up to scream in my face. I didn't move. I just glared back, completely impassive to his aggression. And then, next thing I knew, his fist had collided heavily with my jaw, and I tumbled backwards from the swing, landing hard on my back in the dirt with a resounding thud.
The other kids, Joseph and Serena, rushed out the back door, laughing as I fumbled to stand up. At first, I intended to back down, to run back inside and disappear like I always did. But as I saw the smirk on Jason's smug, piggy face, I felt something snap in my resolve. And before I knew it, I had tackled him to the ground, and I'd landed five or six punches to his face. Then suddenly, I was ripped back and away from him by Terrence, and thrown violently backwards into the support poles of the swing set. Next thing I felt was the sharp slap of the back of his hand upon my already bruised cheek, as he swore at me and called me all the names under the sun.
That evening I was back in the group home, nursing my blackening eye with the bag of frozen peas I had sneaked up to the bathroom, following a stern lecture from the social worker about how hitting other kids wouldn't be tolerated, and that if I ever wanted to have a proper family, I'd need to learn to behave myself and get along with people. I think that was the moment my trust in people, my belief that one day I wouldn't be abandoned and tossed away anymore, was completely destroyed; every ounce of hope that I'd had left had been crushed, just as easily as that cheap, glass bracelet as I brought my foot down upon it in indignation. In that moment, I felt more like that small, insignificant, worthless pile of broken glass lying haphazardly on the bathroom tiles, than the girl staring back at me in the mirror.
Despite the despair Killian felt upon thinking of Emma in such a state, he couldn't help the slight proud smile that crossed his face at the notion of her punching the daylights out of that lad. That was the Emma he knew; strong and unwilling to sit back and take the misfortune dealt out to her. But at seven years old, she was already showing signs of becoming the pained woman he knew today, and the tragedy of that was not lost on he of all people; it was a sign that the damage that led her to be so closed off, so untrusting, occurred at a much younger age than he had anticipated.
Somehow, that only strengthened his resolve to fix those trust issues, one reassuring word and one comforting action at a time. His eyes returned to the book, ready to dig deeper into the origins of his Swan.
