A/N: It's about time I thanked you guys for being so good about reviewing. I really appreciate it and it gets me psyched to update faster. BTW, no I did not notice the "cliffhanger" pun at first, and am now smacking myself in the head :o)
Enjoy!
When Jack said "Go," he and Willie started running full speed towards the cliff. Elizabeth gave them a second's head start and then ran too, still hanging onto their hands.
When they reached the very edge Jack and Willie stopped short and swung her forward with all their momentum, shooting her out into the air like a sling shot.
She screamed the whole way across but landed safe in the mud, skidding and tumbling to a stop with several feet between her and the edge. "All right," she shouted across when she finally felt secure in her seat. "I made it!"
"Thank goodness for that," Jack muttered to Willie. "Can't imagine what they would have done to us - your father and Barbossa. Now, you next. Let's try... this way?" He knelt down and cupped his hands on the ground.
Willie got a running start and on his last step landed on Jack's hands. He vaulted off for the jump aided by the best push Jack could manage, and still just barely crossed the gap.
He landed on his face and had to scramble for a grip against the slippery wet ground, but with Elizabeth's help he steadied himself and finally dared to stand. He looked back over at Jack. "All right... your turn!"
Jack was hesitating.
"Jack, come on!" Elizabeth shouted to him. "You can do it! I promise! We're right here, we've got you!" She and Willie edged as close as they dared and leaned forward, arms outstretched. "Willie, this is never going to work," she muttered out the side of her mouth.
"I know," he answered steadily. He continued beckoning for Jack to jump.
"We might slip. Get ready to drop him."
"I am."
"Oh God here he comes..."
Jack got a running start and leaped out over the crevasse. He came very close to landing on solid ground, but as they had all expected, couldn't quite make it. He flailed around at the wet dirt on the edge of the cliff, trying to get a handhold as it crumbled, and managed to snag Elizabeth's ankle.
She fell and started trying to kick free and scoot backwards - the mud she was sitting on was dripping away right beneath her and she was sliding down towards the drop. "Willie! Help me! Get back!"
She was screaming contradicting instructions to him and, surprising no one, he opted to help rather than escape. He sat down on the ground behind her, dug his heels into the mud, and reached under her arms and tried to pull her backwards.
"Too- heavy-" he grunted. He shifted a little to try for more stability. "Captain, it's too heavy! Come on - you're pulling her! I'm slipping - I'm slipping!"
"Then... stop... her bloody... kicking!" Jack shouted up at him.
Elizabeth squirmed a little but found no purchase at all with her hands or feet - if Willie let go of her now, she and Jack would go flying right over the edge. As it was they were sliding down slowly, and the ground was melting away in the rain faster and faster...
"Jack, he's right," she said. "Please..." She felt mistreated, angry, almost betrayed. It wasn't fair of Jack to depend on her! He was supposed to be so good at cheating death - not dragging other people down into it!
Jack couldn't make out the words over the wind, but he knew exactly what she was saying. "Cmon, don't be like that," he answered quietly, knowing she couldn't hear his words either. He was hugging her calf with both arms, trying to pull his knees up under him. "We'll figure something-"
At that moment Willie's foothold slipped, and he crashed into Elizabeth's back and she fell forwards. As they skidded down the last few feet to the drop, Jack let go of his death-grip on her leg and went for the only possible anchor in reach - the bone he kept in his hair. He jammed it deep into the wet dirt with one hand, caught Elizabeth's wrist with the other, and held his breath to see if they would go over or not.
There was a great jerk as she stopped, dangling over the abyss and kicking her feet uselessly. Screaming her head off, too, as if that would help.
Jack was lying flat in the mud, oozing slowly downwards, and he knew they wouldn't last long. "Lizzie! Knife! Now!" He shouted at her. "Do it or I'll drop you!"
Finally his orders got through to her, and she pulled her knife out with her free hand and held it up.
In order to procure a free hand of his own, Jack let go his hold on the reindeer bone. He yelped with pain at the sudden brutal yank on his hair, and then even louder when he actually grabbed the knife by the blade.
But he swung his arm up and sank the knife in to the hilt, as far up and to the side as he could reach. Maybe if they distributed their weight a little better they would be able to climb up-...
"Jack, I'm slipping!" she cried.
There was nothing playful or teasing in his tone when he looked down at her and growled, "Bet you don't want me to let go now, do you?"
She had his wrist squeezed in both her hands. "Jack, please..." She was crying far too hard to be of any use whatsoever, and for that reason alone he knew he had to comfort her.
Not to mention how his guts were twisting with the way she looked at him. "All right, darling, it's all right," he soothed over the driving rain. "Come on - of course I'm not letting go. Lizzie. I've got you."
She was sobbing with relief and saying something - it looked like thank you - but he knew their prospects were not great whether he held on or not. Jack was afraid to shift even the slightest bit, and even if his arms did not give out soon the anchors certainly would. In a flash of lightning he looked around for Willie and found him with his own problems: struggling to crawl towards safety without sending any more mudslides down onto the people a few feet even nearer to death than he was.
"Stop moving!" Jack shouted.
"The ground's not staying put!" he shouted back. "If I don't move soon I'll be washed right over!"
"You're telling me! Look, we need another knife. Have you got one?"
Elizabeth pinched Jack's arm to get his attention. "Don't let him come down here!"
Right, Jack thought grimly, Because then there'd be two of you for me to haul up, instead of one. "Toss it here, son, and get you gone."
"But Mother-"
"I've got her. We're fine here." Jack figured it was the perfect time to lie - if they survived then the lie went undetected, and if it turned out he didn't have her and they fell to their deaths... well, in that case he still wouldn't have to sit through a lecture about telling the truth, would he.
Willie tossed the knife down and Jack realized he needed his other hand to pick it up. With some difficulty he convinced Elizabeth to let go of his wrist and hang onto his legs instead so that he could try to climb.
Twenty harrowing minutes later, they had progressed the few feet necessary to get Elizabeth back on the not-quite-solid ground. She crawled up in Jack's wake, holding onto his sash more for reassurance than anything else, as they slowly made their way up out of the danger of the sliding mud. He was bleeding from both hands due to careless handling of the daggers, from his scalp as a result of the use he had made of his dreadlocks, and from the lip where Elizabeth had kicked him before she fell.
Not to mention the mess he had made of his shoulder trying to hang onto her. When they got to a place with solid ground underfoot and a tree to shelter them from the rain, Jack tried moving and discovered that it required several rotations and two painful pops before he could even put his face in his hands.
Elizabeth sat down beside him, still crying. "I'd forgotten how awful this feels," she murmured as she dabbed at his lip with her muddy sleeve, and then gave it a kiss. "I can't believe... Jack, why didn't you let me fall?" She scooted behind him and rubbed his shoulders, fiercely.
He shrugged. "Meant to, but forgot," he invented wearily. "Don't you worry, I'll get it right next time. Besides," he added, looking up to smile at her, "I suppose after all it's a good thing, because Barbossa would have my head if you didn't come back. How about this: give us a hug and we'll call it even, all right?"
She squeezed him so tight he thought she might end up killing him after all.
Through all this Willie sat nursing his own scrapes and bruises without interfering. He was impressed beyond measure by Captain Sparrow's performance, and though he knew that a thank-you and probably an apology was in order, felt just a little too intimidated to deliver it as yet.
Jack, for his part, after one wry thought about adding this incident to the list of times people had tried to kill him, stopped thinking at all. As soon as Elizabeth had calmed down a little he curled up in her lap and fell straight into an exhausted stupor, lulled by the sound of the rain and the rocking of her body as she cried.
Tia Dalma had spent the day cleaning house. She sat at the table holding jars up to the light one by one, trying with "help" from her guest to remember what was in each.
"Eyeballs!" Annie declared cheerfully.
"Aye, what kind?" Tia frowned and shook the bottle a little.
"Not person ones," Annie decided, picking at a stain on the table. "Person ones are in your head not a bottle, and they're not that bad color, and they're not on a string either. Can I play with those?"
Tia grinned - the girl was pointing to her collection of shrunken heads. "Why not." She set aside the jar of (human) eyeballs, fetched Annie a couple of the heads, and got back to work.
Tia had a feeling that her days in this bizarre cottage were numbered. Was she going to die? Move? Trade in this hideous human body for something a little more appropriate to her station? She didn't know, but in any case it would not do to be unprepared and leave her lair a shambles. She opened up a little box of twigs and held one over a flame to see if it was still good.
The sight of her nanny lighting fires and changing the smoke's color by humming was far more interesting to Annabelle than the pretend conversation her heads were having. "Now what are you doing?"
"Working magic," Tia answered without taking her eyes from the flame.
"Can I help?"
That got her attention all right. "You wan' to learn de spell?" She giggled at the child's vigorous nod. "Well I doan teach no magic for free."
"Oh. Well at home I have some money," Annie said hopefully.
"Dat's all right," Tia purred. Tonight she had discovered some gaping holes in her inventory, and it was well worth a few spells to fill one. "Yar a sweet little maid, child, and we doan see many o'dem here. Look into my eyes, and hold out yar hand." Keeping the girl mesmerized by her warm smile, she drew a bone knife from her bodice.
Hours later, Annabelle was rattling around a crusty cup with her eyes closed. "Will the bones really listen to me?"
"Yes - near yar whole family be touched. Even yar brother can spell - and dat's rare, you know. Mostly be de women who- Oh..." She frowned at the way the bones had fallen this time. "Dis is a bad ting."
"Nooo," she whined, "But you said-"
"I said dey are all alive. Dem in our hearts we ask after, all still live. But dey are having problems. What kind, do you tink?"
Annabelle stared hard at the pattern of bones on the table, trying to remember what it meant when... "Um... problems with the earth?"
"Aye, parfect. Problems wit' de eart'." Tia flashed her a smile stained with potions too powerful to let a child taste. "Maybe a beast, maybe a storm. But no matter - dey are alive. Now we put de bones away - I need to make a different kind of magic."
"What kind? Can I try too?"
"No - dis kind use de powers you don' have yet. De greatest powars of all - de power of all dis" Tia raised her arms and spun around slowly.
She had tried today, very patiently and in very small words that a child would understand, to explain how much more powerful woman was than man. Annie hadn't understood at first - the men were so big, could throw things, could kill people... and Tia had explained that the men's so-called "power" was useless, considering how "Nobody t'row not'ing when I don' say, and be sure de men not so big when I put dem on dere knees. Dey doan kill nobody widout my order, everyone do what I say. And dat is de best power of all."
Tonight, she decided, she would show off a little by projecting herself into Davy's dreams. It was unnecessary; the message she had for him could be delivered by half a dozen easier methods. She'd decided on invading his dreams because it was impressive to watch, and Tia liked people to be in awe of her, and she did not like little girls to grow up ignorant of their powers. The child would learn sooner or later how to vex men on her own, but in the meantime, someone ought to show her how easily even the strongest and coldest male could be bent by a smile.
"Far more powerful dan readin de future in tea leaves," she murmured to herself, gratified that Annie looked up from her shrunken heads to listen.
The next morning Barbossa watched the explorers' approach through the spyglass but managed to hold his tongue until they were actually standing on deck right in front of him.
"What the blazes were you three doin up there?"
"My fault - my fault entirely," Jack said right away. "We should have come back last night, I know, but I was having far too much fun mud-wrestling with Elizabeth."
"Mud-wrestling?" Will repeated, staring at their ruined clothes and the dirt that caked their hair.
But Barbossa was not distracted so easily. He swatted at Jack's head and his hand came back bloody. "And this be what?" He caught Jack's wrist and squeezed til the fist unclenched. "And this? Not to mention the black eye."
"Oh, she... err... plays a little rough." Jack snatched his hand back and wiped the blood from his forehead. "I'm fine. Really. And I found out which way we need to go. The bloody bird's got quite a start on us, though. We'll have to make good time."
"I always make good time," Barbossa snapped, already kicking himself for showing concern. "Now let's go tell me the bearins, and then if you need to clean up you can do that once we're underway."
Jack hurried after him, trailing mud from his shredded clothes, trying to put a filthy arm around him while Barbossa growlingly fended it off. "Clean up? What on earth are you talking ab- Ow!"
TBC.
I'm going away this weekend, so I will try to post tomorrow before I leave. Or, if that fails, I'll traipse all around unfamiliar cities looking for internet cafes, as usual. :o)
Leave me some love!
