I woke up the next morning to the familiar sound of ship's bells. I jumped out of my hammock and walked over to Elizabeth. "Get up, Will." I smiled. She was glaring at me ferociously.
"It's too early." She moaned.
"Yeah, sure. I'll let you tell that one to the Captain." I began to walk away.
"Fine." I heard behind me. She sighed and rolled out of her hammock (miraculously managing to land on her feet this time) and followed me out of the crew's quarters. We walked on deck with the crew and formed a line. "What's happening?" She asked.
'The Captain's adressing the crew." I said. "Stay at attention." We watched as the captain inspected each of us as we stood at the ready. He then walked back up the the poop deck and looked down at all of us.
"Tell your names. One man at a time. We'll start with you, lad." He said, pointing to the end of the line closest to Elizabeth and I. Each man went through and told his last name. But I began to panick as I tried to think of a name.
"Turner." I heard next to me. I had to speak.
"Mer...Spa...Bar...Gi..." I tried to come up with a name that people wouldn't recongize. All I could think of were pirate names!
"Is there a problem, lad?" The captain asked me.
"No...n-no sir...no...I just..." I tried to think of an excuse. "I...I don't know me name."
"You don't know your own name?" He asked increduously.
"A...aye, sir." I wanted to slap myself. I didn't know me own name?!
"And why not, might I ask?"
"I was an orphan. I don't know who me parents are, and I don't know what me name was. No one does. Just call me Jack." I managed to come up with a story.
"Alright, lad." He looked bewildered, but the crew carried on with telling their names. The captain gave out his orders and within a time span of ten minutes, Elizabeth and I were swabbing the decks.
"You don't know your own name?" She hissed once we were alone. "What was that?"
"I couldn't come up with a name that wasn't a pirate name! All worked out well enough, so lets just forget it, alright?"
"Alright." She agreed.
"Turner...uh, Jack." We turned to see the first mate.
"Aye." We said in unison.
"We have more than enough swabs. Go work on the starboard rail. It needs to be finished." He handed us the tools we'd need to fix the rail.
"Aye, sir." We walked toward the rail and began to slap the coating over it. It was such boring work...
"What's this?" I heard behind me. A saw a sailor pulling out my and Elizabeth's dresses. I shot her a glance. She looked nervous.
"What it that?" Another sailor walked up behind him.
"Dresses." He said holding them up.
"I can see that!" The other man said.
"Well, you did ask!" He defended himself. "What do you think they're doin' here?"
"I bet they're from spirits." He said. I rolled my eyes. What idiots.
"Spirits? You know...I'll bet you're right!" He tried to take the dress from the other one.
"No, get away! They're my dresses, I found them! They spirits are probably hauting the ship now!" He pulled them away from the other man.
"I know more about spirits! We need to get those back to them!" He tried to grab the dresses.
"But I found the dresses!" He persisted. They began tugging on the them, determined to be the one to free the ship of it's apparent curse.
"What's all this?" The captain appeared at the fight. "If you both fancy the dresses, you'll just have to share. There are two of 'em there, choose one each."
"It's not like that sir. This ship is haunted." The man who found our dresses said. Elizabeth and I were trying to not watch them. It was just so funny, though!
"Is it now? 'N' you?" He turned to the other.
"The... female presence... amongst us, yes... all the men... they can feel it." He spoke up. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. These men were such superstitious idiots!
"The ghost of a lady, widowed before her marriage, I figure it. Searching for her husband, lost at sea." The rest of the crew began to join in the conversation.
"A virgin, too, likely as not."
"And that bodes ill by all accounts."
"I say... that we throw the dress overboard, and we hope the spirit finds it." The man who found them spoke back up.
"No! That - that will just anger the spirit, Sir. What we need to do is find out what the spirit needs, and then just get it back!" The other man said while trying to take the dress back.
"Enough! Enough!" The captain took the dresses from them. "You're a pair of superstitious goats and it's got the best of you. Now this appears to be no more as we have two stowaways aboard. Young women, by the look of it. I want you to search the ship and find 'em. Oh, and uh...they're probably naked." This caught the crew's attention, as they enthusiastically ran off in search of a woman they'd never find. Elizabeth and I chuckled as we joined in the search. No need to cause suspisions, eh?
"I have an idea of how to get to Tortuga." She said as we pretended to search through some cargo. "But it involved a good bit of playing into these men's superstitions."
"Pray tell." I mumbled. "It couldn't be hard. These men are the most superstitions people I've ever seen."
"We need to get our dresses back..."