Book Three - Chapter Four: A Small Dance
Captain Jack Sparrow found Amelia again.
"What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked having realized that he had put off her request since she made it.
"About the journal," she said.
The captain sighed and rolled his eyes.
"What about it now?" he was afraid to ask.
"I know where we can take it," she said. "If we chart a course for Curaçao," she began to explain but then the captain cut her off.
"Curaçao?"
"Yes, it's a Dutch colony."
"I know that. My question is why we should want to go there?"
Barbossa approached and the two of them went silent.
"What's all this now?" the first mate asked, suspicious of this intimacy between his daughter and the captain.
"Your daughter's decided to try to navigate," the captain replied.
Barbossa laughed. Amelia scowled.
"If it's a Dutch colony then there's bound to be someone who can read Dutch," Amelia argued.
"What is, now?" Barbossa asked.
Simultaneously both Amelia and Jack replied, "Curaçao!"
"What of it?"
"Ewould's journal is written entirely in Dutch. No one here speaks a word of Dutch. If we go to Curaçao someone could translate it for us," Amelia explained but it was obvious that she irritated by having to reason with something that seemed so logical.
"Aye," Barbossa said.
"But do you know why it's a Dutch colony?" the captain asked the haughty young woman. "Curaçao is part of the India Company of the Netherlands, which basically makes it a bloody Dutch East India Trading Company!"
"So?" Amelia asked.
"So I'm not taking my ship to port anywhere near some blooming Hans Cutler Becketthoover!" the captain shouted.
"Listen, Jack, we wouldn't even need to make port," Amelia said. "We're pirates, why don't we just act like pirates? Honestly, so what if we spot a trading ship? We could just blow them out of the water, take on a few prisoners, have them translate it and toss them over right after."
Barbossa laughed, gleaming with pride for his daughter.
"My god, you are a ruthless wench, aren't you?" the captain said.
"'Tis a good plan," Barbossa said.
Both Jack and Amelia looked at the first mate with a certain amount of perplexity.
"Look," the captain said, "we're not doing it, we're not going there, and that's all there is to it."
"But Jack!" Amelia cried.
"Captain!" Jack reminded her.
"Then the whole expedition was a giant waste, now wasn't it? I've been trying. I've been doing all that I can to try and get something out of this, but if we don't find someone who can translate this then all we've got is Davy Jones this and Davy Jones that," Amelia said in frustration.
The captain and the first mate shot a long look at one another but said nothing.
"So there is significance in that?" Amelia asked cautiously, noting how seriously the two men were contemplating it.
"Aye," her father replied.
"Let me see that book," the captain asked of her.
She handed the journal to him. He flipped through a few pages but did not note anything of interest or legibility. Seeing this, Amelia put her hand over it and felt the side of the pages for the mid section. She opened it a little past the half way point. Sure enough, every few lines "Davy Jones" or "Jones" could be read somewhere in a sentence. The captain quickly flipped through a few more pages. He noted how the journal's entry date changed but the subject seldom did. He closed the book.
"Well now, that's just perplexing and bothersome," the captain said.
"What does it mean? Who's Davy Jones?" Amelia asked.
"Ye've heard of Davy Jones' Locker. I know ya have. Jones be the ferryman of dead souls, takin' 'em from the depths of the sea to the world beyond," Barbossa explained. "Except he don't do that no more. Takes out his rage on the livin', collectin' souls to man his ship, lettin' no man at sea find peace."
"And that's perplexing and bothersome because?" she asked.
"Because he spent a long time writing about Jones without being dead," the captain replied. "And Jones doesn't have him, now does he? He was ashore in the temple - in the bloody chest itself."
"Meanin' a man's able to see Jones and live to tell about it," Barbossa said.
"And bargain with him to sail the seas apparently. To find the utmost hidden treasures," Jack thought aloud.
"So that's it then?" Amelia asked. "That's the answer? The secret of Ewould's chest is that it is possible to bargain with the ferryman? Well that's not very useful," she said.
"Could be very useful if ye be the soul needin' to be ferried, or 'bout to be," Barbossa replied.
The captain and first mate excused Amelia, who was insulted by suddenly being shut out from the conversation when it was her idea to pursue it in the first place. The journal was left in Captain Jack Sparrow's hands. The politics of pirating still were not making any sense to her. Everyone kept changing their minds at every moment.
Amelia walked out onto the deck. The sun was starting to set. Some of the men were gathered along the side of the deck watching a yacht floating along. There was a party of some sort taking place on the deck. There was music playing and people dancing.
"Look at 'em," Pintel said to his crewmates. "Ever see folks dance like that before?"
"It's like - what do they call it? That French dance with the tutus. All prancin' and whatnot," Ragetti said.
They all laughed at the sight but were also very entranced by it.
Amelia took Pintel's arm. He was startled by it, especially when she started to lead him away from the crowd.
"Hey, now!" he cried, unsure of what was happening.
Once out of the crowd, Amelia started to position him. Moving his arms up, bending them at the elbow in a nice arch, pulling his shoulders back so that he was not so hunched over.
"It's called a Minuet," Amelia said. She took hands. "It's a combination of sinking and rising to step." She showed him a sink and rise, which is just a bend in the knee and a shift in the weight. Of course Amelia did it much more gracefully. "Then you put it into a moving step - always stepping lightly to the counts of the music."
Pintel moved his feet awkwardly. Shuffling along and bending too low making his sink too long and his rise too sudden. Amelia took him back and forth with the steps - hers always looking elegant. Then she released one hand and stood beside him doing the same steps, as was proper, but her not being in front of him caused him to stop moving his feet altogether.
The men had gathered around the dancing couple. They snickered and commented amongst each other. A small handful, Ragetti included, tried to follow the steps. Amelia left Pintel and met with each man who was attempting the steps. She walked though it, one at a time, always gracefully.
The captain and the first mate came out on deck and were not prepared to see the sight. As Amelia was moving to the next man, she unexpectedly turned to her father. She knew that Barbossa would dismiss the whole thing as being silliness so that deflated her spirits. However, Barbossa took her hand, gave a bow and kissed it. He led her out and completed the dance entirely in step. This was the first time that any of the men had seen Amelia in her fullest gracefulness. They could have all forgotten that they were still aboard the Roving Maid and not in some ballroom or theatre watching the fluidity of the dance. When the tune had ended, both father and daughter bowed to one another. Applause was had on the yacht, but it could not be heard above the applause on the ship.
Amelia was everywhere blushing. She turned to her father and asked him, "Since when did you learn the Minuet?"
"Ye'd be surprised to learn 'bout the hoops yer mother made me jump through the whole time I was courtin' her," he replied.
He looked up, saw all of the men standing around and staring at him.
"As ya were, ye yellow gaping cods!" Barbossa cried out to them.
The men quickly shuffled around to at least get out of sight of the first mate and look as though they were doing something useful.
When the coast was clear, Captain Jack Sparrow came up behind the young woman, who was still staring out at the yacht as a new song played and the dancing continued. He kissed her shoulder, inching his way towards her neck. Amelia rolled her shoulder to push him away.
"No one's watchin'," he said and continued on.
She rolled her shoulder again but with more determination this time.
"What? What did I do?"
"Nothing," she said sullenly.
"Damn it all, woman, don't you start this," he said. "Look, I'm asking here."
"Who's asking?" she said, "Is Jack asking or the captain?"
"I'm the same person, Love."
"In general, yes," she said quite sternly, "but you alter in slight details. For instance, the captain doesn't care a bit for what I think and feel, whereas Jack does so long as it amounts to his own satisfaction or profit otherwise."
"Good god, woman, I hardly left you alone for ten bloody minutes and now all of bloody hell has broken lose!"
"My point exactly," she said turning to walk away from him.
He took hold of her arm before she could be out of his reach.
"I don't have enough rum in me to be doing this, so out with it," he said.
She exhaled loudly, and then said, "So what have you and my father decided?"
"Well, Davy Jones has no need for anything but souls so he'd be a hard man to bargain with unless you've got one you wish to give up. So far we can't think of anything worth the trade so we'll leave it be. We've done our duty here so we'll ship out in the morning," he replied.
"For?"
"We thought that Singapore would be best."
"What's in Singapore?"
The captain gave a little chuckle as he said, "What's not in Singapore?"
Amelia did not join in the humour so he quickly checked himself. He gently pulled on her arm, leading her closer to him until he could get an arm wrapped around her waist. He held her in front of him and leaned his head against hers.
"Hey," he whispered, "what's gone sour between us?"
She took a long pause before even thinking of answering him.
"I was the one who was pressing on the significance of the journal, Jack. You dismissed it from the first and at every point I brought forward," she said.
"I wasn't going to risk running into another Company," he said.
"It's not even about that, Jack! This was my project and you shut me out!"
"Barbossa and I were on the same page. It just seemed easier to go through it quickly with him than to have to stop every two seconds to try and explain it to you," he said. The moment he did, Amelia pulled away fiercely but Jack brought her back tightly. "Sorry! Sorry. Those were the wrong words."
"What exactly am I to you, Jack?" she asked. "Am I just one of the deckhands to be used by you? Or am I just another one of your salty wenches?"
"No, you're not," he said. "Amelia, you know I'm crazy about you. There's nothing in this world that I wouldn't do for you."
"Then answer the question. What am I to you, Jack?"
He looked into her eyes, seeing the waves tossing in a storm and he felt lost them.
"Everything," he said softly and sincerely. "Amelia, you're everything to me and not an ounce less."
She turned her eyes away from him and bowed her head. Jack propped her against his shoulder.
"You just have to try to trust me," he said.
"And you me," she replied.
"I will, Love. I will."
She had forgiven him, but could not linger there any longer, already having taken a great risk by standing there so intimately. It was at that moment that Jack had begun to realize the depth of what he had gotten himself into. Until that point, he had never had to justify he reasons for being with the young woman, not even to himself. Secrecy was vital if he wished to continue the affair, which he did, but the careful balance that would be needed to maintain it he was not quite so prepared for. Jack had never before been with a woman who could not be paid off. He had never included a woman in his occupational affairs before. It was at this moment that Jack realized how blindly he was conducting his life. His choices seemed to matter so much more now, even the little choices.
