Isabelle began to feel better but she was still weak. As the merchant ship pulled into Port Royal, she stood at the rail to watch the city come into view. She found it hard to believe that two and a half weeks had gone by since the world had been turned up side down. Only two weeks ago she had been sure of the world and Jack Sparrow had been alive.
"Your brother will want to see you." Mr. Mercer drawled behind her. Isabelle turned slowly to face him.
"As soon as I have a chance to freshen up, I shall meet him…"
"Oh no! He'll be wanting to see you immediately—he was most distressed when I reported your disappearance." Isabelle was still too tired to fight back. She stared at Mr. Mercer as the boat was eased next to the dock and the mooring lines secured.
"If you insist Mr. Mercer."
"I do." If he wasn't such a cold hearted man Isabelle would have sworn he smiled at her. In fact, considering the degrading nature of the situation she found herself in, she was sure he was smiling at her. He was probably enjoying her discomfort. She moved slowly down the gang plank. Her head spun and she felt exhausted after moving just the short distance from deck to dock. She leaned against one of the many barrels of freight took a moment to catch her breath.
"Miss Beckett!" Isabelle turned to see Mr. Norrington coming down the gang way towards her. "If I may?" He extended his arm towards her and she gratefully accepted it. "Lean on me." He whispered. He knew that she still hadn't regained all of her strength and had seen the look on her face when she was leaning on the freight.
"Thank you Mr. Norrington." She said as he guided her towards the end of the dock. "I'm afraid I'm not quite up to strength yet."
"I understand. I wish that I at least had an opportunity to shave before meeting his lordship. It would seem that he's overly anxious to meet with us."
"Yes, I too wish that-----" The vision of the blue eyed captain and the dark skinned woman over whelmed her and would have brought her to her knees if not for James Norrington's arm. He paused and quickly wrapped an arm around her waist supporting her.
"Are you alright?" He said looking down at her. For a moment Isabelle was sure she was looking up at the old captain, but slowly the face shifted back to that of James Norrington. She nodded her head slowly.
"I will be."
"This way Miss Beckett, Mr. Norrington." Mr. Mercer was at the top of the dock standing beside a carriage emblazoned with the company logo on the door. James handed Isabelle up into the coach and sat across from her and Mr. Mercer climbed in beside him. Isabelle rested her head against the plush blue interior and shut her eyes. Part of her wished that the ride to the Company headquarters would last forever, but the rest of her was glad that it was a short ride. She felt cheerless, drained, and cold. Jack Sparrow was gone; everything seemed dark and cold to her and she had been plagued with an inability to block out others' thoughts and emotions. The carriage rattled to a stop and Isabelle climbed out of the carriage with Mr. Norrington's assistance. She followed Mr. Mercer into the big building and was overwhelmed by the number of clerks and merchants running back and forth across the marble foyer floor. Climbing the stairs to Cutler's office felt as if she were scaling a mountain.
"Wait here." Mr. Mercer said as they reached the office. Mr. Mercer went in and left James and Isabelle in the hallway. Isabelle leaned against the wall and glared at the merchant marine that stood close beside James Norrington. Mr. Mercer had left the door slightly cracked and she could hear their voices carry out to the corridor.
"The last of our ships has returned."
"Is there any news on the chest?" Cutler was impatient. The feeling pricked at her skin like hot nails.
"None. But we did pick up a man adrift at sea." Mercer was relishing the moment when he would tell Cutler of his triumph in finding Isabelle. Isabelle remembered the spark she admired in Elizabeth and in the mysterious woman from her vision. Feeling brave and too tired to stand in the hall any longer she swept open the door and strolled in to stand beside the green wing backed chair. "He had these." She saw Mercer stride forward and place a folio of documents on her brother's desk. The merchant marine, leading James Norrington had followed her in, and seeing what Mercer had placed upon the desk, James' eyes grew dark and he made his presence known. Lord or no, his lackey would not steal his thunder.
"I took the liberty of filling in my name." He said coldly. Lord Beckett looked at him and caught sight of Isabelle in the same sweep. He ignored her and motioned for James to step closer.
"If you intend to claim these, then you must have something to trade. D'you have the compass?"
"Better." James reached into his coat and pulled out a leather bag and flung it carelessly on the desk top. Isabelle gasped as her head was filled with a shrill shrieking sound. Every eye in the room was drawn to the leather pouch that throbbed as if it had a life of its own. "The heart of Davy Jones." Beckett stared a moment at the throbbing sack on his desk and then locked eyes on Isabelle. She was a disheveled wreck and her eyes, focused as they were on the small bag seemed sightless to him. She was not seeing what they were seeing. He rose from his desk and stepped toward her.
"Isabelle, are you well?" He asked with a knowing smile as he came near her. He glanced at her hands where her fingertips ghosted over the raised embroidery of the green brocade. When he looked back to her face she was only just tearing her gaze from his desk.
"What?"
"Are you unwell?" He said again.
"Yes. I have been ill for some time." Cutler leaned in close to her.
"You can sense it, can't you?" He whispered. "You can feel it; it really is the heart, isn't it?"
"Yes." She whispered back. "Please—I can't be here. I can't be near it."
"Not until you tell me everything I want to know."
"My lord…." James Norrington said from his spot by the desk, but was silenced when Cutler held his hand up.
"Did I ask you?" When Norrington didn't speak Cutler turned back to Isabelle. "Tell me, why did you skip off in Tortuga? How did you manage to meet with him?" He nodded at the former Commodore who strained to hear their conversation.
"I got lost in Tortuga. I managed to find my way to the docks where I found Captain Sparrow's ship. I stowed away." Isabelle glanced over Cutler's shoulder at Norrington willing him to be silent as she was about to lie. "They had no idea I was on board. When they went to shore, I followed in a separate boat."
"Quite the criminal. You can take the girl out of the poor house, but you can't take the poor house out of the girl."
"Captain Sparrow is dead." Every eye turned toward her. "He's dead, you have nothing to fear from him anymore."
"You are sure of this?" She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The heart beat again on the desk, loud in the silence of Cutler's office. "You saw it in a vision?" Again, she nodded. Cutler returned to his desk and sat down in the carved chair. He glanced at the heart on his desk and at the woman who his father had adopted. If she was right, then he now controlled the sea as no other could, and no one could stop him.
"You have done well. You may go home, Isabelle. Rest, Sister, for you have had a very difficult trip." Isabelle shuddered at the endearment and nodded numbly. She would have run from the room had she any strength at all left to her. She didn't even bother to shut the door and moved slowly up the hall.
Clerks moved in and out of board rooms and traders railed at accountants who pinched every pound and shilling possible from the merchants. The corridor swam ahead of her and she had to brace herself against a table top. A brocade upholstered chair stood beside it and she sat heavily in it and rested her head against the polished mahogany of the table. The wood felt cool to her sunburned face and she relished the feeling of it. She focused on the place where her forehead touched the table and willed the rest of the world; the shouting, the heat, the fire, the storms, to melt away. She nearly teetered from the chair and slid to the floor but was caught and held upright by strong hands.
Why? Why won't they ever let me disappear? Why can I never just slip away unnoticed?
She opened her eyes and focused on James Norrington staring intently at her.
"Miss Beckett? Isabelle?" She felt blissfully numb suddenly and had to concentrate all her energy to listen to him. "What's the matter? What can I do….?"
"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me about that thing?" A tear slid slowly down her cheek and her head lolled backwards. She should be angry with him! He had kept the secret of the heart from her. If he had told her about it, she would have known from whence the strange visions had come! She could have blocked them out!
"I didn't want you to be afraid…I didn't know…"
"I could have fought it if I had known. I could have defended myself…"She gulped as another beat rent the air around her, but all were oblivious to it. She thought if the heart beat any louder the walls would begin to crack.
"Fought? Defended? Isabelle what are you talking about?" Mr. Norrington was confused but he was unable to get an answer from her. A liveried footman was suddenly beside him and was sweeping Isabelle up and away even as her eyes rolled back in her head and she lost consciousness.
"Miss Beckett is a very sick young woman." Mr. Mercer said. "She'll be cared for at home. You will leave your lodging information with the clerk downstairs, that we may better find you when the time comes." Mr. Mercer swept down the stairs after the footman and left James Norrington alone in the headquarters hall.
Isabelle's dreams were filled with strange images. She thought that she might review Jack's death, or even some of the nightmares burned into her mind from her stay so many years ago in Bedlam Asylum, but none of those scenarios were visited upon her.
Instead, she saw candles on dark water, fire in the water, and a soft, swirling mist that blended everything together. A steady beat echoed through the skeletal cypresses as they stretched up into a blue gray night. She saw a house tucked amongst the cypresses, and a warm yellow light filtered out of it to reflect in the black water, and in the eyes of the various creatures that inhabited the dark waters. Even in such a serene place she felt an incredible amount of guilt. It weighed her down like a stone; she was afraid it would drown her in the black waters beneath her.
She awoke with a gasp and realized she was not in the swamp any longer. Her room smelled of roses, not stagnant water and decay. The walls were bathed in silver blue light from a half moon that hung over the protected cove of Port Royal. Dark shadows reached up to claw at the ceiling and decorative plaster work. Where had she been? Why had she been in that bayou? She didn't have long to think about it before she sank back into her dream.
The golden light from the bayou shack illuminated jars filled with things that crawled, slithered, stared, or had once crawled, slithered and stared. As Isabelle looked around she saw Mr. Gibbs, Pintel and Ragetti. She saw William Turner throwing a knife into a carved up table top. That explained the dull thunk-ing noise that filled the air. In the corner of the room Mr. Cotton, the tongue-less man, stood staring at the various objects. Elizabeth looked as if she had the weight of the entire world upon her shoulders. The dark skinned woman Isabelle had seen in a few of her other visions brought mugs of something hot for the pirates. Isabelle pulled away from them and woke again in her own room. Why had she been drawn to that? What had the purpose been. She sobbed softly into the darkness and wished the sun would rise and end the horrible dreams. A maid came in and helped her drink some water and before the sky had lightened too much, Isabelle went back to sleep.
She was thankful, her sleep was deep and dark and was not plagued with any dreams at all. When she did wake, the sun was low in the sky and the doors that opened onto her balcony stood open. The light weight curtains billowed in the breeze that smelled of salt blowing in from the sea.
"So, you're finally awake?" Isabelle turned away from the colorful scene of Port Royal to face Lord Cutler Beckett. "Back with the living?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'm very glad to hear it." Isabelle closed her eyes and sighed. "So, is the heart really the heart of Davy Jones?"
"My lord, what other heart would beat independently of its owner's body?" Isabelle said as she stared at Lord Beckett. "I have been plagued by a vision of a man and woman. I'm assuming it's Jones and the woman he loved."
"Jones only loved the sea." Cutler said.
"No. There was a woman…as chang-ing, and harsh, and untamable as the sea. Him never stopped loving her. But the pain it cause 'im was too much to live wid. But not enough to cause him to die." Cutler stared at her as if she'd grown a new head upon her shoulders. The voice had not been her own but from whence it came, she did not know.
"You are sure of this?"
"Yes."
"And who was this woman?"
"I don't know." Isabelle shook her head. "I don't know…." Cutler patted her hand where it lay on top of the coverlet in a brotherly fashion.
"You've done well, Isabelle. I look forward to doing business with you again." Isabelle shuddered. She really had been bought and paid for. She was his toy, his play thing, and until he chose to release her, or she broke, she was going to be his for a very long time yet.