Chapter seven

The filtered sunlight and slight fog made the river ride to Tia Dalma's both beautiful and threatening.

"Why is Jack afraid of the open ocean?" Will asked Gibbs.

"Well, if you believe in such things," Gibbs began, setting up for yet another story, "there's a beast does the bidding of Davy Jones- a fearsome creature with giant tentacles that'll suction your face clean off and drag an entire ship down to the crushing darkness." Gibbs shot us a meaningful glare, what it meant I don't know, but meaningful all the same. "The kraken. They say the stench of his breath is like…" He shuddered. "Imagine, the last think you know on God's green earth is the roar of the kraken and the reeking odor of a thousand rotting corpses. If you believe such things."

"And the key will spare him that?" Will ponders unfazed.

Gibbs shrugged. "Well, that's the very question Jack wants answered. Bad enough even to go visit…her."

"Her?"

"Aye, her."

"Tia's not that bad. You just have to ignore the voodoo and she's a very nice lady."

"No worries, mates," Jack states as we arrived at Tia's place an hour later. "Tia Dalma and I go way back. Thick as thieves. Nigh inseparable, we are. Were. Have been. Before."

I patted his shoulder as I bounced to her door. "Not so tough now, are ya Jackie?"

"My sister!" Tia called as I opened her door. "You've returned so soon?"

"Tia, I've only been gone for a little over three weeks," I reply as I pull her into a hug.

Tia nodded and looked over my shoulder. "Jack Sparrow."

I turned to look at the aforementioned man as he swaggered his way towards us, narrowly dodging a jar of pickled chicken hearts.

"Tia Dalma." He shot a fleeting look at me but kept his attention to her.

She stood and walked over to him. "I always knowed the wind was goina blow you back to me one day. To your room, sister," Tia ordered, "an' tend to our previous guest."

Out of respect and nothing more, I retreated to the room I once shared with my father. I could still hear everything.

"You…" she took a few dragging steps to the door. "You have a touch of… destiny about you, William Turner."

"You know me?" Will wondered.

"You want to know me," Tia told him. I had to hold back a snort. Tia was not Will's type, Jack's maybe but not Will's.

Shuffling sounded before Jack spoke up. "There'll be no knowing here. We've come for help and we're not leaving without it. I thought I knew you."

"Not as well as I had hoped."

And I thought I knew everyone. Apparently not.

"Come," Tia called as they began to move.

"Come," Jack repeated, probably to Will. A chair moved and someone sat down.

"What service may I do you?" Tia asked in a sultry voice. Then in a more commanding voice she said; "You know I demand payment."

But not from me, I teased in my head.

"Watch your thoughts, girlie," Tia called.

"Scuze!" I bellowed back.

"I brought payment," Jack told her. He whistled and a memorable monkey's chattering reached my ears. "Look," gunfire shot, "an undead monkey. Top that"

"Don't!" Gibbs mumbled. "You've no idea how long it took us to catch that."

The monkey bounded to my father's feet and frowned.

"I know Jack," I say as I pet him, "But Tia Dalma is doing the best she can. He'll wake soon."

"The compass you bartered from me, it cannot lead you to this?" Tia wondered.

Oh, that's right; Jack did get his treasured compass from her. I forgot about that. I snorted. Bartered? Hmm, yeah sure, that's how he got it…

"Maybe… Why?"

"I here you. Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants." I chose this time to rejoin the group. "Or do you know," Tia continued with a fleeting glance at me, "but are loath to claim it as your own?"

She stared at Jack in the creepy, smiley way she does as he blew something out of his face.

"Your key go to a chest." She resituated herself in her chair. "And it is what lay inside the chest you seek, don't it?"

"What is inside?" Gibbs wondered.

"Gold?" Pintel asked. "Jewels? Unclaimed properties of a valuable nature?"

"Nothing bad, I hope?" Ragetti inputted.

I looked to the drawing of a key and immediately recognized it from one of Tia Dalma's many stories. "You know of Davy Jones," I say leaning on the door frame, "da?"

The threesome nodded.

"A man of the sea. A great sailor, until he run afoul of that which vex all men."

"What vexes all men?" Will asked.

Tia gingerly touched his hand. "What indeed?"

"The sea," Gibbs stated.

"Sums." This was Pintel. How original.

Ragetti was next. "The dichotomy of good and evil." Now that was original.

"A woman," Jack uttered a bit fed up.

"A woman," I agreed, risking a glance at Tia before retuning my gaze to Jack. "He fell in love."

"No, no, no, no," Gibbs interrupted, "I heard it was the sea he fell in love with."

"Same story, different versions, and all are true," Tia snapped. "See, it was a woman, as changing… and harsh… and untamable as the sea… Him never stopped loving her. But the pain it caused him was too much to live with but not enough to cause him to die."

Will, annoyed slightly by the story, spoke up. "What exactly did he put into the chest?"

"His heart," I told.

"Literally or figuratively?" Ragetti pondered.

Pintel and Gibbs looked at him like he was the stupidest person on the planet. "He couldn't literally put his heart in a chest." Pintel looked to Tia. "Could he?"

She had a small smile on her face. "It was not worth feeling what small, fleeting joy life brings. And so… him carve out him heart, lock it away in a chest and hid the chest from the worl'. The key he keep with him at all times."

Will stood from his chair and turned to Jack. "You knew this."

"I did not," the captain countered. "I didn't know where the key was. But know we do. All that's left is to climb aboard the Flying Dutchman, grab the key, you go back to Port Royal and save your bonnie lass, eh?" Jack snapped and turned to leave.

A cloth wrapped around Jack's hand caught both of my and Tia Dalma's attention. "Jack, let me see your hand," I ordered

He held out the un-bandaged one. I stared at him until he rolled his eyes and handed me the other. I unwrapped it slowly, fearing what I already figured.

Gibbs gasped. "The black spot!" He did some weird superstition thing before Pintel and Ragetti followed.

"My eyesight's as good as ever, just so you know," Jack announced. I handed Jack's hand to Tia.

"Sister, go. In the kitchen, a gift for Jack. Go now!" Tia ordered.

"But what?"

"You'll know, Sati-Sara."

I nodded and stumbled around in the room until I spotted exactly what Jack needed.

"Davy Jones cannot make port," Tia explained as I returned. "Cannot step on land but once every ten years."

I handed the jar to Tia who in turn handed it to Jack, who hesitantly took it.

"Land is where you are safe, Jack Sparrow, so you will carry land with you."

Jack looked over the jar hesitantly. "Dirt. This is a jar of dirt."

"Yes," Tia led on.

"Is the jar of dirt going to help?"

"If you don't want it, give it back."

"No." He hugged the dirt closer.

"Then it helps."

Will stepped forward. "It seems we have a need to find the Flying Dutchman."

Tia sat back down and picked up her shells and shook them in her hands. "A touch of destiny." The shells fell into a very arranged-looking array.

Jack took a look at them and turned to leave, his crew following.

"Jack," Tia called after him. "Take de child wit you. She'll be of need."

Jack glanced at me for the first time since I rejoined the room. "Luna and I don't get along."

"You will take her." She smiled at me. "Go, Sati-Sara, and remember what we spoke of."

"Yes, ma'am."

Translations:

Scuze - Excuse me.
Da - yes