(Chapter Eleven)
The Brethren
(An hour earlier…)
Will squinted to be able to see anything in the dim. How he could gather any information in this hole? He stood in an alley, covered by a tiled roof and leading off into the blackness of who new what.
"Who there." Came the chopped English of a disembodied voice.
"I was told I could find information about the brethren here."
"You have payment?" A greasy palm was held out to receive the coins. Will handed them over slowly and watched the man go through a ritual of counting the coins and biting them to be sure they were real before he would give Will his attention.
"Who tell you you find me here? Who say I have information you seek?"
"That isn't part of the game is it?" Will asked. It was a good strong phrase, and Will liked it.
"Yessss. You wan information bout the gathering of the pirates yes? I know much bout such matters, things trickle down, they reach my ears. You come to right place for this information."
"We will see. You have your coins, now tell me what I want to know."
The grubby man stroked his long white, sharply pointed beard, and look about conspiratorially as if the clay bricks of the alley had ears.
"What you want to knowing?"
"Where is the summit held?"
"There is a tight bay, hard to navigate. It is called The Herons Neck. Very tight straight, hard to negotiate. You make it through you find your way to a bay. There the ships gather. In the tight forested slope, above the bay, of black pines the network of paths leads up, up, up the mountain." He raised his hands, "and there at the summit, you will find the summit." He snorted with laughter at his own weak joke.
"Is there something else I need to know?" Something in the man's manner told Will that he hadn't quite finished.
"You must watch your step there. The men are anxious; one word could start a war." There was a crash at the other end of the narrow street that made them both turn to look. The shadows of two men stood at the entrance that led onto a quaint thoroughfare lined on both sides with covered fruit carts and the sounds of the nightlife of Singapore. The men were just standing there, preceded by what Will thought to be the indistinct yells of a drunken brawl.
His small informer looked edgy, he motioned franticly for Will to come closer. He rasped out a shaky whisper.
"The brethren, they say, will have visitors. My sources tell me that there may be an attempt to ambush the bay."
"By who?"
"Privateers…" He trailed off, his eyes widening at something directly behind Will. Two strong arms wrapped around Wills middle and tried to squeeze him in half. The small mouse of a man scrambled away into the darkness. And the arms of God knew what, lifted Will right of the ground. The man behind Will shook him violently, trying, it seemed, to dash his head against the bricks.
Will's arms were trapped at his sides. He couldn't reach his sword, his most effective weapon, and he was getting closer and closer to the wall with every jarring jolt that threatened to shake his head loose.
"It will be over soon." Said a slimy voice from the left, without an accent.
Will gritted his teeth, and kicked as hard as he could against the wall of the alley. He and his captor flew across the narrow space and smashed into the opposite wall with an oof" The man buckled and fell to ground his arms loosening their hold to fall limp at his sides. Will tried to shake of his dazed lethargy.
"Why you wretched…" The second man with the slimy voice tried to cleave Will's skull. Will rolled out from under the blow that started sparks on the wall, loosing his knife from his boot. His attacker cocked his arm for a second strike, but stopped short when his chest met unexpectedly with the cold blade of a perfectly smithed dagger. Will left it there, sticking out of the man as he gave a belabored little yelp and fell to the ground.
Will looked at his hands for a while, until it was so dark he could hardly see them. He had just stabbed that man. And he didn't have a drop of blood on him. It was so surreal. He felt sick to his stomach, and invigorated, and confused. He didn't feel like himself. He felt like someone that had been hiding, something that had come to life for that moment.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so he bent down and looked at the men that lay dead and unconscious on the ground with horror and awkward fascination. They weren't Asian. In fact they were obviously English from their dress, and even they way the one had spoken.
Will reached into bigger mans pocket, feeling a bit like a thief of a vulture, and pulled out a piece of paper that he could not read in the light. He pocketed the paper, promising to look at it when he had found Elizabeth, but forgetting for a long time in the events that followed.
When Elizabeth and Will returned to the ship the headed in opposite directions, fearing that they might strangle on another if they kept within reach.
Will headed for the stern of the where he found Raggetti, Pintel, and Cotton's Parrot in avid conversation about the events of the day. Arguing about what exactly had happened and why. Will listened to their jabbering, and shook his head as the subject of the conversation became clear, and once again confirmed everything Will already thought of Jack. What a philanderer.
Elizabeth paced her cabin for a while, thoughts bubbling in her head, threatening to boil over. Foremost was thoughts of Will. They just couldn't communicate their thoughts and feelings. They just didn't understand each other. These things were soon overshadowed by other thoughts, mostly thoughts of Jack. But not the way Will thought she thought of Jack. She couldn't feel that way for Jack even if she wanted to. He certainly didn't feel that way about her.
She wanted to know how Jack always seemed to know what she was thinking, or feeling. Why he had changed so much, almost to the point of not being the Jack she knew, almost. She wanted to know what had happened, what had really happened in the Locker. Mostly, firstly of all, she wanted to know how she fit into it all. She wanted to push it aside as all a girlish fantasy, or delusions of grandeur, but Elizabeth couldn't help but think that she was intimately involved in whatever the trouble was. Some thing was going to happen, and she wanted to know how it involved her.
There was only one place that she knew she could find the answers. There were really two places, but she wouldn't dream of asking Jack in person, not with Will in the state of mind he was, and she couldn't imagine getting a straight answer even from this new more somber Jack. So her final and favorite choice by far was Tia Dalma. If you wished to know something of a deep and spiritual nature, and Tia couldn't help you then you were out of luck.
Elizabeth slipped out of her cabin, and spotted Will laughing and chatting with the crew like nothing had happened. "Men…" she hissed under her breath.
Tia wasn't at the helm, she was hiding in the head room, alone and pensive. She was staring of into space when Elizabeth entered the room. Tia gave Elizabeth a black toothed grin and said, "Elizabef, I been expecting you. Shut da door and sit down."
"You were expecting me? Somehow I am not surprised."
"Oh yes, I have been expectin this combersation for a long time now.'
Elizabeth laughed nervously, "That's great." She sank into a chair across from the voodoo priestess and wrapped her arms around herself. She was suddenly cold.
"Your question is a hard one to answer."
"I haven't asked it yet." Elizabeth pointed out, but Tia shrugged and continued.
"You wan' to know what 'as 'appened to Captain Jack Sparrow. You wan' to know what 'appened in de Locker. I can tell you but first you must tell me that you truly wan' to know. I do not offer some small fleeting truth that you can just forget. It is somefin deep and dark. Even dangerous for some."
"Who is it dangerous for?"
"You, firstly. You don't know what danger you have been in already by it. There are lots of enemies that, should they guess…" Tia trailed off.
"Who else."
"I would not doubt it is a danger to all them what is on board. But firstly it is dangerous to Jack himself, deathly dangerous to him."
Elizabeth felt very cold now. Did she really want to know? That was the question. Was this small, aching ignorance better than knowing what she had lived so long without? She swallowed her fear. Elizabeth had made up her mind a long time ago.
"I want to know."
Will tried to act light hearted, and join in the revelry, but he couldn't stop thinking about Elizabeth. He regretted everything he had said. Just because he had had a traumatic night, that was no reason to take it out on her. There was something else that was eating at the back of his mind, something he had forgotten.
He pushed his hands deep into his pockets and tried to think hard. His fingers found folded piece of paper. He drew it out. Memory instantly catching him up on what it was he had neglected to do. He moved out of the chummy circle of friends to read what he had found in privacy.
His eyes got gradually wider as he read through the entire thing. The contents become more and more alarming by the word. When he had finished he looked a bit like a startled fish, his eyes almost wider than was healthy. He stuffed the thing back in his pocket, and looked around. He had to find the captain. Where was that man?
The fist collided with the fat mans face. Along with the slightly slurred, "Anyone else want some?"
Norrington brought the mug to his mouth again, and drank down yet another swallow of ale. The Faithful Bride had run out of rum a long time ago. The tavern was filled from one wall to the other, with depressed drunken idiots ready to fight over anything.
The fat pirate backed away. He wasn't the first person to be decked by the bad tempered newcomer with the excellent sword on his belt.
The fat man retreated to his group of friends, all of the windblown persuasion and prodigious girth. They whispered amongst themselves and crouched close over the table.
James Norrington, again no longer a commodore, or a captain, or anything important quite frankly, had found his way back to Tortuga and crawled back into the bottle. He smiled sometimes to himself when he thought of the rotten irony of his life. He had been something once. A man with prestige. A commodore in the royal navy. Betrothed to be married to the most amazing woman he had ever met…and then he had lost it all…and gotten it back…and lost it again. He raised his eyes to the sky, actually the dusty rafters, and thought to himself, you are enjoying this aren't you?
Then he would sigh, take another drink or the watery ale and be in a totally new state of mind, quite ready to murder anyone that looked at him the wrong way. This was how the last several days had gone. Anamaria had been watching it from her own corner of the tavern. She was intrigued and repelled by the dirty ruffian that lent against the beam, sitting on a barrel and thrashing anyone that took fault with him. Her girls had been laughing at him privately. It was a nice bit entertainment, in their lackluster world, to watch this man who alternatively prayed and pummeled his fellow bar patrons.
Anamaria didn't find it funny; she found it out of place. This man wasn't mad, she new that much from his various showings of lucidity. However something had happened to him that had caused this change, she was sure, in his usual behavior. And with all the strange things happening, like the man with the information on the brethren. Then there were the others, the whole crew that had arrived, asking questions of a peculiar nature, concerning the locations of certain pirates, all sounding suspiciously familiar, and having left without saying a word. Now this man, and there had to me something to do with this whole mystery. She felt it.
She crossed the room coolly, fooled by the curious looks of her crew, and asked for to mugs at the bar. She dropped a coin or two on the counter and headed toward the solitary figure on the barrel, staring at the ceiling.
"Can I tempt you." She offered him a flagon.
"Less of a temptation than a necessity these days, wouldn't you say?" He took the cup without thanks and swallowed down a greedy batch of swigs.
"You are new here." She said trying to start the conversation.
"Or you are, I have been here before." He said in very good English. Anamaria smiled.
"I know pirates, and you are not one." He gave her a look that could kill.
"That is where you are wrong, my dear." He set down his drink with dangerous slowness and pulled back his sleeve. "I have been lately sealed. Isn't it lovely?" He showed her the pirates brand, the hideous red patch of burned skin that hadn't healed properly yet.
"I am one of you now." He said so that everyone could hear. "Drink up me hearties! Let's all be miserable together!"
"Shut up your mouth you drunk. hick" Yelled a man from the balcony, slobbering all over himself in a drink induced stupor.
"Mock us as much as you want," Added a nearly toothless man of thirty, carving at the corner of a table with his knife. "But you share our fate. Left to rot here of drink and despair, held captive by hostile waters."
"Don't talk to me about fate!" Norrington yelled in answer, then speaking to only Anamaria, "I could tell you stories of fate that would turn you stomach."
Anamaria looked at him intently, beneath the general grim and grief, he was a handsome man, with bright animated eyes. He intrigued her more than ever. "Tell me."
James Norrington, the pirate twice over, began a story of the sea, of piracy, and misery, and magic. He told the room a story of love, and stupidity. A blacksmith and the governors daughter. A witty pirate, and there was some cheering when he was named, that had trifled with forces to big for himself and won. Anamaria listened intently, this was what she wanted to know. "He won until his debt came due."
Then he talked about Davy Jones. As much as he knew. What he knew about the heart, and what he knew about the crew of the Black Pearl, "I don't know what happened to the ship. If Jack found a way to escape I would no longer be surprised. I do know that Elizabeth was with them, and the William Turner, rash, stupid, courageous William Turner won't stop until he stabs the heart of Davy Jones."
Up to this point the room had been almost totally silent. In Port Royal, if he had talked like this he would have been laughed out of the tavern, but these were pirates. They believed in the wonders the world had to offer…and its' horrors. And no class of people on earth respects and fears Davy Jones more than the ones that leaned forward in their seats and listened to him speak.
The man with the knife spoke again. "What good does this do us now? The East India Trade Company, has constructed, and is still building fleets of frigates to patrol the waters. Your story is useless as telling a dead man how he came to die."
"Not to mention," Anamaria noted with a cold-as-stone voice, "You have admitted to us that all this is in part your fault."
James laughed, a wild lunatic laugh. "What is then…you going to kill me? You think it matters to me?"
There was a steely silence, before he went on. "There is nothing you can do is there? Or is there? You cowardly pack of cutthroats, you wouldn't risk yourselves if your own mothers were in danger. What would you risk for your way of life?"
"So what do you suggest we do?" She asked him.
"This is your situation. You have two primary enemy forces readying themselves to eradicate you. You have about fifty ships in various conditions out there waiting for you in the bay. They have two-hundred ships, a sea monster, a cursed crew with a practically immortal captain. If you don't act you will die for certain and if you do you probably will anyway. Life is an amazing thing isn't it?"
"He is right. We are sitting around waiting for our own deaths!" Random members of the crowd began to shout various things.
"A meeting of the brethren has been called." Said one.
"Poppycock!"
"No it's true, they are readying a counter strike!"
"Aye!" Yelled several others.
"Can we afford to wait for them?"
"We have no choice."
"And what do we do?" Anamaria squared with the man before her and asked again, daring him not to answer.
"The only thing we can do. Prepare for war, and wait for a miracle."
Will knocked on the door as if he would bang it down. Jack debated with himself what Will's motives might be and whether it was wise, in the interests of self-preservation, to let his in.
"Jack, I know you are in there. Let me in!"
"I am not sure that is the wisest course."
Will sighed, "I have to talk to you, it's important."
"Can you talk to me without drawing your sword?" Jack placed his hand on the bolt.
"It isn't about that…it is something concerning the brethren." Jack pulled the door opened rather quickly, after that.
"Glad to hear it."
William entered the room and looked around. It was cleaner than he had expected, but there wasn't much there. One dresser sat against the wall, Jack's sword and pistol rested upon it, and at the other end of the room was the bed, where Jack sat down, and leaned against the wall. In his hands he held a bottle of rum, a full bottle of rum, and he made not attempt to pull the cork.
"What's on your mind?" Jack said, uninterested.
"I have come across some information concerning our voyage to the brethren." Will pulled out the paper. "When I was in town, I met a man who gave me information that I think you should hear."
"Is that so?" Jack stared off into space, musing.
"He said there was an effort to ambush the gathering of the brethren."
"Ha, I find that highly unlikely. The location is secret and the entrance to the bay is too narrow to bring in a large enough group of men to do any ambushing whatever, savvy?"
"That is what I thought too, but that is when I came across this." Will handed it to Jack, who looked down his nose at the folded paper, and set down his rum to look at it. His face became intense as he read what was written there.
"Where did you find this?"
"When I was speaking to my informant, two men snuck up behind and attacked me. After a struggle, I searched them and found this on the ones person." Jack went from intense to grim to flippant.
"Something like this could be easily forged, what we are looking at is likely no more than some kind of hoax, or coincidence."
Will asked, amazed, "You really believe that?" Jack did not. "Look at it!" Will swiped back the paper.
"Detailed description of you, me, and the rest of the crew, information on where we might be found, the price on all out heads dead or alive. This piece of paper amounts to a wanted poster, and a death sentence. Did I tell you who had it? To men, English men, that looked for all the world like any pirate I have ever seen."
"It means nothing Will."
"It has to mean something!" Will was getting agitated.
"Even if this is real, what does it do? You are on a pirate ship. Did you expect that we would be left all by our onesies, never challenged? We are fugitives, and as such we get a certain amount of unwanted attention. Nothing more than that."
"But they were English, what were they doing in Singapore?"
Jack raised his arms, "What were WE doing in Singapore?"
"All I am trying to say is, these weren't usual bounty hunters. And THIS…" Will held up the paper and pointed to the bit that explained the reward. "isn't a usual reward. What about the threat to storm the bay."
"Like I said, it is about as possible for them to storm the bay as it is for you to keep reign on dear Elizabeth." Jack's tone became bitingly sharp.
Will glared at him, his temper rising. "You stay away from her."
"Oh, don't worry. I wouldn't dream of meddling with your lass."
"What do you think you are playing at? She isn't just another random bar girl for you to trifle with, and toss aside." Will started walking out to the door.
"William, one of these days your innocent view of the world will fall away and you will see things as they really are. Pray you are ready for it, because it will be a rude awakening indeed." Jack slammed the hatch shut and fell back on to the bed to stare out the circular porthole, at that sight he hated so much.
Tia leaned across the table and patted her hand. "I knew you would."
"Tell me what happened to Jack. What did the Locker do to him? Why could I see his memories? Will he recover? How am I involved in…whatever is coming?" These questions answered would somehow make thing clearer. Maybe if she could understand what was wrong with Jack she could organize her own thoughts and feelings.
Tia Dalma leaned back in her chair, resting her elbow on the armrest, in the perfect storytelling attitude. Provided you were telling a story at a funeral, Elizabeth thought, from the expression on her face.
"To know the nature of dat thing which haunts Jack Sparrow, you must know the nature of his prison. Davy Jones' Locker be a place of mystery. You can hear one-hundred stories 'bout it, and they mayn't have a speck of truth between them. But there are two things that are de unchangeable truth. Firstly, the Locker is a prison of da mind, created for da special purpose of exploiting dat which will hurt you da most. Your prison is dat lonely darkness, your punishment is your own worst fears an' memories." Elizabeth tried to control her overwhelming guilt, and put her hand to her mouth. She had had a sheltered life for the most part. A rich father, and a good life had protected her from the cruelties of the world. If she had a nightmare, she didn't know what it would be.
"The second rule is unbendable. It fold into the nature of the place. Nothing can be removed from the locker without somefin of equal value being left behind."
Elizabeth thought about this for a long time, and Tia watched her carefully seeing the things begin to click into place in the girls mind. The more Elizabeth thought about it the more terrible it became. "That is so cruel."
"Cruelty is da purpose." Tia had grown dark, deathly like a burial dirge.
Elizabeth swallowed to ask her question, fearing it's answer more than any other. "The Edge Racer replaced the Pearl. I see than now. But we also took Jack away from that place. What did we leave behind for him?" Elizabeth had a queer feeling that it could have been anyone. She wouldn't have been surprised if it was her and she just hadn't realized it. Actually that would have answered some of her questions.
"I did not know exactly what would happen to Jack when he came back. I didn't know what would hurt him the most. I did, however have an idea of what manner of thing would be left behind. I wish now that I know how the Locker effected him, that it could have been different." Elizabeth felt half scared and half impatient to know what it was? What had happened? Tia continued.
"Jack Sparrow is a man of his own creation. He created a legend of himself, and others made it grow. He be expressed in his ship, the sea, his way of life." She smiled a little bit "Him way of doing only that what has benefit to him. Not caring about anyone but himself."
Elizabeth looked at the table in front of her. She didn't want to hear things like that. It was sad somehow.
"Him was happy that way, or at least content. Dat is, till he found something he wanted more, and couldn't have." Tia was intense again. "He ran away from this thing he cared for more than anything else. He didn't want to be tied down by it, he didn't ever want to be entangled by this…emotion again, but the memory pursued him. That, among other things."
"I don't understand any of this." Tia Dalma stared intently at Elizabeth in a silent moment as if to say, "What cruel dealing of fate involved you so intimately in this?"
"You have to understand that there were two parts to Jack Sparrow. On the day the Kraken attacked, against him better judgment he let his honest side win out."
Elizabeth nodded, "To save his crew, and his ship. But what does this have to do with anything?"
Tia gave Elizabeth an odd list but continued. "Everything, Elizabef. It were that what he lost…"
"What did he loose!?"
"Mercer, are the ships prepared?" Beckett was in a foul mood. He had taken it out on three tea cup this morning already, and the servants still expected to clean more glass from the floors of his study and mop up yet another cup full of his bitter tea.
"The fleet is nearly finished, the construction should be finished with in the week."
Beckett scribbled angrily at a peace of paper like he wanted to rip it in two with his quill. "And the offensive? When will we be ready to start that?"
"The crews have all been hired, the supplies are ready. We only await the completion of the final ships." Beckett took a fevered ship of his fourth cup of tea, which also happened to be the first one he had actually drunk.
"You may have noticed, Mercer, that I am a bit agitated of late." Cutler rattled his cup back into its place on the saucer.
"It did cross my mind, sir."
Beckett picked up several pages on his desk, bending them savagely. "Do you know what these are? This one is a request for funding for our expedition to Madagascar; I sent it to out offices in London. It was returned to me unopened, another message…this one…attacked to it saying that our operations in this region were not of high enough priority to merit more attention at this time." Beckett took another drink from his tea, and slammed the cup down hard enough to start a crack in the saucer.
"If this letter had been addressed from the governor it would have been opened immediately. Because to them, Port Royal is important when it comes to the aristocracy, the full blooded aristocracy, but not when the letter comes from a lowly agent. Someone who earned his rank, without being born into it." Beckett slammed the papers down on the desk, making his tea slosh out of the cup. He held up another page.
"This one, is a report from out scout ships. They keep getting disturbing information from the privateers we hired, something about a gathering of force by our enemies. Something called the brethren. Our friend Jack Sparrow is with them. You remember him don't you Mercer." Beckett's clerk rubbed his face like he could still feel the pain of the branding iron fracturing his cheekbone.
"Very well sir."
"Well, he has found his why into the Asian seas, and he has friends. And, if this is to believed, he is rumored to be preparing and attack of his own."
"They won't be able to muster enough man poor to defy us, My Lord."
"I sincerely hope you are right. Things would go very badly for all of us if that happened." Cutler's veiled threat didn't go unnoticed. He picked up the last sheet of paper, expensive, heavy stationary, as if it's words held some sort of communicable disease. "And this is from out mutual friend, Governor Swann. No longer will he stoop to coming before me to beg my aid for his daughter, he litters my deck with this trash." Beckett succeeded in swallowing the last gulp of tea without smashing the cup to pieces and started pacing.
"You realize that if it weren't for that muttering twit, I would be the next in line for the governorship. I already have more than enough power to control him, but he has all the prestige. He gets all the respect."
Mercer had been with Beckett long enough to see what he was driving at, "What do you suggest?"
"We are setting out for a great victory are we not? Extend to him an…adamant invitation to join us on Endeavor, for the coming voyage."
Mercer smiled his evil smile, "It is impossible to tell in battle. Should unexpected fighting break out, accidents could happen."
Beckett mirrored his morbid joy, "Exactly. Make it look clean; it would be better if no one ever found the body of the ex-governor. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal." Mercer nodded and backed out of the room.
Beckett felt marginally better, but he still threw his tea cup into the wall for good measure.
"What did he loose!?" Tia Dalma raised an eyebrow when Elizabeth raised her voice.
"If you don't understand Jack Sparrow you can never understand what the loss means." Tia tried to explain, but Elizabeth made it clear that her time was up.
"I am tired of these word games, or mind games, or whatever you are playing. Tell me, simply."
Tia Dalma wasn't pleased but she said, "To put it bluntly, Jack Sparrow has lost him love of the sea."
The concept took a while to sink in. Elizabeth tried to imagine Jack without the sea, or the sea without Jack, but the idea was ludicrous.
"But what does that mean? Jack doesn't care about the sea anymore?"
"No, Elizabef, he can not help but think of it, and wish to be near it. He can remember what it was like to be free and what it was like to love the sea but he cannot love it." Elizabeth gave Tia a quizzical look and the agelessly sarcastic figure sighed with exasperation. "You been in love right?"
Elizabeth nodded, suddenly very uncomfortable. "Imagine if you can, all the longing and heartache, them most acute of painful sensations. All the things that let you know you're in love, all but the joy you can take in dat thing of your affections. Or even the consolation that you love dat ting in spite of da pain. It is so wif Jack. He can remember what it was like to be free, and though he still has his pirates life, his ship, and the sea to sail he can take no joy in them."
"That is terrible, I understand what that would do to Jack…" Elizabeth did.
Tia finished the thought, "It is destroying the rest of him slowly. No matter what happens when you made a deal with the Dutchman there is no way to win."
"But you spoke of danger. The danger to Jack I see, if he is, in fact losing a little of himself at a time, but where is the danger to us and the crew."
"Part of what was Jack's greatest fault was also him greatest strength. Him ability, and an ability it were, to think of himself to the exclusion of all others was him strength. It is hard to threaten a man that has not but himself to care 'bout. But you know I and know, we have seen it, his honest side, what you might even call his selfless side. He no longer cares what happens to him or him Pearl. He no longer cares to live anymore."
"So that day on the ship, when we were attacked. Jack really had no intention of coming back did he?'
Tia shook her head. Elizabeth carried the thought on a step further. To think this had been the question she had wanted to ask weeks ago, even before they had saved him, though with different intentions. What were those intentions? "Jack Sparrow can't love?"
Tia Dalma frowned more deeply. "What he has, he cannot love. And what he loves, he cannot have. That is the manner of his curse."
She imagined how horrible something like that would be, but she couldn't think of a thing that Jack loved but couldn't have. "I don't understand."
Tia Dalma continued in an off-handed manner. "Good, tis better that way. Safer."
"You're making it worse. I don't know how I am involved here. Why is it safer that I don't know? Why could I see his memories? What is the connection between us even now?"
"To da first question, I will not answer it. If fate dictates that you should know then you will discover it. Though, I feel sorry for him when you do. Poor William." Tia pressed forward before Elizabeth could ask another question. "To da second I have an answer for you. You and Jack be connected, you could hear his memories and he in turn could see you even from where he was. You think that that dream you had of him were a coincidence. Him and you got somfin doin' between you, unfinished business. When you find what dat may be the connection is broken."
"But my connection to him is broken. I don't see his dreams anymore, I can't hear his thoughts, or feel what he is feeling."
Tia grinned so widely that she showed all of her black teeth, "Your connection to him may be broken Mrs. Turner, but his to you were another story." She laughed. Elizabeth got red in the cheeks.
"You mean…all this time he could…and he never said a word!" Elizabeth stood up from her chair and looked like she might begin pacing the room. Or she might just scream her exasperation and be done with it. But something gave he pause. "What did you call me?"
"Dat will be your name soon, will it not? I were trying it on for size. Do you think it fits you?"
That night Elizabeth Swann, soon to be Mrs. William Turner, didn't sleep well at all.
They set sail the following morning, after a long time of haggling with some of the merchants at the port, and a bit of discussion with Sao Feng and his subservient captains. It was decided that the Asian ships would lead the way to the Heron's Neck, because it was a passage, though seldom traveled, well known to them.
Elizabeth and Will kissed and made up early the next morning amidst a veritable rain storm of apologies and empty promises. They ended their reunion with a peck on the cheek, then move as fast as they could to another part of the ship to avoid another fight. Elizabeth's glances kept slipping to Jack, and then she would feel guilty about it. But she couldn't help it. He was more interesting than ever now, and even more tragic. Ever time her eye's chanced to stray in his direct she found him running his hand along the railing, or staring intently and, she saw now, with profound sadness at the green-blue waves.
She almost went to speak to him several times but she couldn't. She was trying to prove something to someone. She didn't know what or who.
The traveling was easy. The weather was fair. But the crew milled about uneasily. Something was very wrong with the sea, even Elizabeth felt is, even Will felt it. Jack was the only one that seemed completely oblivious. It took only one more day to reach the entrance to the passage. It was less of an entrance than a gaping maw poised to devour them.
Jack laid his hand expertly on the helm, which Tia relinquished willingly. "If anyone has a mind to wish us good luck, it can't hurt." Jack gritted his teeth, and led them unto the narrow opening that showed its' teeth to them in a sinisterly inviting grin.
