The farther away from England's cold waters they sailed, the more the ever-hungry sharks dared to lay siege to her.
True to her word and with more than a little enjoyment, Anna-Maria shot them with the Captain's musket when they first drew near the ship again. The Captain cooed and crowed over her all the while, praising her improvements and dismissing her failures, and for a precious few days, there was peace.
But curiosity for the woman who had slain so many of their kind and whose mind trod so close to their own drew them after the Jolly Roger. And though as individuals they were not especially clever, as their ranks increased the sum of their collective intelligence made them cunning indeed. Soon the sharks began to move further and further out of musket range, and though the Captain was able (with more than a little boasting) to kill them at first, eventually they followed at such a distance that not even Hook's incredible marksmanship could kill them.
Out of the reach of gunpowder they might have been, but the sharks could certainly reach her thoughts and her dreams. Her nights of untouched sleep were a distant memory before long. Each night they came upon her in her sleep and savaged her with visions of cannibalism and death, though she did not know whether they meant it as a torment or a gift. It was impossible to tell.
The Captain wracked his brain for some plan that might bring her relief, and the crew watched her deterioration with mounting anxiety. She spent her days in a haze of exhaustion and fear, and only sought her bed when she had no other choice.
The Captain decided that the only thing that could ease her pain was landfall, so he abandoned his usual hunting trails and brought all the speed of the Jolly Roger to bear on the horizon.
He had thought that ignoring possible prey (and therefore, plunder) would have sown anger amongst the crew, but there he was mistaken. Not a single voice was raised in protest against him. From the Bosun, down to the lowest deck-hand, all wanted to see Anna-Maria saved.
Even so, land was weeks away, and none of them felt certain that she would last that long.
The sun rose, and Anna-Maria stirred.
Smee held her hand as she woke, as he had taken to doing these past few nights. Her sleep had been especially tortured, and his poor mistress was covered in a sheen of sweat. His heart swelled with concern for her as he helped her sit up with gentle hands.
"Miss Maria," Smee began, knowing it was futile, "Will you not take some opium to help you sleep?"
Anna-Maria, the woman who held his Captain in thrall, simply shook her head, too exhausted to speak. He sighed. He had experience with the night terrors of difficult masters, but these hauntings were something else altogether and they had grown even worse since she had come aboard. He did not know of anything to help her, so he tried to comfort her instead.
Smee put on his cheeriest voice, "I'll have tea brought to you, then."
She kept a hold on his hand, not letting him leave. "It is too much, Smee." Anna-Maria's skin had turned sallow and she had lost a little weight too, by his reckoning. There were sunken pits beneath her eyes too. He hated to see her looking so little like herself. "I cannot go on like this. I cannot live on land or sea. What should I do, Smee?"
Smee resisted the urge to sigh. Miss Maria had a tendency towards melodrama when she was unhappy, but Smee was used to that too, after all.
He was not blind to her suffering, though, so he gave her an indulgent smile. "Ask the Captain, Miss. He knows all about nightmares."
Those dark eyes brightened just a little with curiosity. "He does?"
"Oh yes. He may be able to help." Smee did not know if the Captain could help her, but he was willing to consider anything, at this point.
"I don't see how. These are not dreams, Smee. I keep telling you. They're visitations."
Nervous chills crawled up his spine at those words. Every crew member aboard the Jolly Roger had his own way of dealing with the supernatural horror Anna-Maria had brought aboard with her. Pete had taken to performing a long (and probably self-invented) series of warding rituals every morning before he got up for the days labour. Saltson used his head and told everyone who would listen that she had not hurt them yet, and showed no intention of doing so. Smee thought Saltson was trying to convince himself too. And as for himself, he chose to ignore it as often as he could. Neverland had been uniformly strange, so he had known no better. But this place was different. You could go whole years with barely a single strange thing happening and then, before you knew it, you had a shipwrecked half-woman, half-squid on board.
Smee was only unkind when ordered to be and, all sycophancy aside, was very close to being a good person, but some days the oddness of Anna-Maria was hard for him to confront directly, and this was such a day.
So Smee just kept pouring her tea and piling her plate with biscuits, and they did not talk of her illness anymore.
Anna-Maria was on deck trying to read when she finally reached her breaking point.
The voices of the sharks had been a constant susurrus in her ears. Her attempt at playing piano earlier that day had been so bad that even the Captain had been unable to think of any compliments for her. Even reading had bought her no comfort.
She could not sleep. She could not do anything that had once bought her joy. Eating had become a trial, to the point where she could eat no meat at all, and nothing that the Cook could conjure up for her satisfied her.
She laid down her book with a sigh. She closed her eyes, which somehow made the noise even more unbearable and the visions all the more intrusive. A frustrated hiss passed her lips and her hand clenched into a fist.
The crew all stopped what they were doing to look at her anxiously. They had been tiptoeing around her all day, knowing that anything might set her off. The tense set of her jaw and the greyish colour of her tentacles, when they could see them, were enough to make her foul mood clear.
Giving up on her book, she stalked over to the railing to glare at the fins in the distance. The Well had given her keen enough vision that she could see them all too well, even though they were out of gunshot range. They were taunting her. Filling her mind with horrible images and their invitations to come join them. Well, enough was enough. They wanted her to go down to the water? Fine.
It was not that she was no longer petrified of the things. The night of their invasion of her remained the worst thing that had ever happened to her, and that included the interminable dread and squalor of the brig. She simply knew that she could not go on in this manner any longer. She had to do something to save herself.
Leaning over the side, she concentrated and tried to explain as best as she could to the beasts that she would be coming down to join them, but only under the condition that they stayed exactly where they were. She enforced upon them the idea that if they came any closer, she would shoot at them, and that in waiting they would lose nothing. The delight and longing that washed over her at her pronouncement would have once knocked her off her feet, but she was stronger now and withstood it with relative ease.
Satisfied that the sharks would allow her down to the water, she turned her attention back to the crew and spoke to them commandingly, for all that she was technically only a crewman herself, and an untrained one at that. "Beef. I must have beef, as much as can be spared and as quickly as possible!"
Her voice sounded faint and distant to her ears, but it did not matter. Eager to please her, a crewman passed along her request to Cook. Soon plates piled high with beef-steak were brought to her, and she threw them all unceremoniously into a bucket, pocketing the knives.
She gave the crew no time to think things through. "Jack, fetch me some pistols. Ten, no, twenty of them. Loaded, please. And will someone get a longboat ready? We'll need to weigh anchor, too."
Some crewman was off to tell the Captain within moments of her finishing her sentence, but Anna-Maria had known it would be so and was ready for it when Captain Hook came out of his cabin to face her.
He wore his rapier at his side, but that was nothing especially unusual. His proud face turned to her immediately, as if he had known exactly where she might be.
She had not expected him to appear so calm, considering her suspicious requisitions. Or rather, attempted requisitions. No one had made so much as a step towards the longboats and the ship was still moving, which she really should have foreseen. Her sway over the crew was not so great that such outlandish requests would be agreed to so easily.
And yet Hook was not raging, or shooting anyone. Could it be that he had begun to trust her?
"I see you have tempered your ambitions, Miss Westwood. This is rather less grand than your last mutiny. But it is a long way to the Caribbean in a rowboat."
She could not help but smile. So the Captain intended to be sensible today. That was a relief.
"I'm going down to the sharks." She said matter-of-factly.
Captain Hook raised an eyebrow at her explanation. "Are you, now? You do not need twenty guns to kill yourself, if that is what you're after."
She rolled her eyes. "Nothing of the kind. I'm going to train them."
He gave her a look of frank disbelief and consternation. "You are speaking of the great whites, tigers and hammerheads off our bow?"
"Yes."
His eyes swept around his crew, perhaps to see if they were as appalled by this development as he was. It was obvious that they were. "I see. You know it is madness, of course."
"Captain Hook, am I a prisoner aboard this ship?"
This was the first time he had ever heard her call him by name. She did not know it, but he did. To him, it sounded like a fine concession indeed. Names were powerful things, after all, and his especially so. To many it would only be uttered in fear or desperation. She had refrained from even using it, referring to him only by his title of Captain, so much had she despised him. But he could hear no taint of that in her voice now, and that brought him immense satisfaction and hope.
"No, you are not."
"Then if I want to go down to them, you must allow it."
Captain Hook knew that he must do no such thing, and if anyone else had dared speak to him in such a way they undoubtedly would have met a very painful demise. Anna-Maria was a crewman now, and everything that implied. He could set her to scrubbing the decks, or back in the brig if he liked, with a word. That was his right as Captain. But that would earn him her hatred, so he reigned in his anger at her attempts to command him. He could be patient, when it was necessary to accomplish his goals.
Besides, hearing his name coming from her lips had put him in a very fine mood indeed.
So he simply asked her, "You have a plan, I take it?" She nodded. He gave a hum of satisfaction. "Good. But plans have a tendency to go awry." In this, he was speaking from his own experience. "I will accompany you."
He had expected her to rail at him, but instead she merely looked puzzled. "You will?"
"Certainly. I find myself particularly anxious for the safety of my newest crewman. You are no master pistolier yet."
"Alright." Still no tirade? But she was no child. She had a quick mind and could see reason. He could not believe that she wanted his company, but she could clearly see the benefit to herself in it. That would have to do, for now.
Hook bade the crewmen prepare the guns and longboat as requested and before long they were being lowered down into the sea by ropes, with Hook yelling up at the crew to lower them more gently.
Anna-Maria was peering over the side into the sea. Distractedly, she said, "I cannot guarantee you won't be eaten."
Hook's fear was covered by a suave smile. "Your concern for my welfare is touching."
Anna-Maria rolled her eyes, but she did not really begrudge him his playfulness, as she suspected it was as much to calm her as anything else.
They settled down into the water with barely a splash.
Sitting in the ocean with only a few inches of wood between her and the sharks, and with her once-nemesis as her guard no less, all seemed rather ridiculous all of a sudden. But Hook was watching her and likely the whole crew was as well; she could not back down now. She had to see this through.
Opposite her, the Captain had laid his pistol across his lap and was watching her with a raised eyebrow.
"What now?" He asked.
Yes, she thought, what now, indeed?
Focussing her thoughts to a knife's-edge, she reached out to ascertain the sharks mood. Predictably, the voracious hive-mind erupted into madness and they would have swarmed the boat if she had not told them sternly, with the threat of her guns behind her words to stay exactly where they were.
Trying very hard to sound as if she knew what she was doing, Anna-Maria said to Hook, "Turn around. Please."
His eyebrow rose yet higher but he said nothing and did as she bade him. She glanced up at the crew to see them all peering over the side, obviously curious to see what she planned to do with their Captain, a bucket of steaks and a longboat filled with pistols. She called for them to turn around and, not knowing what else to do, they all obeyed, though they were clearly unhappy about it, being shameless gossips, to a man.
She hardly knew where to look as her fingers fumbled at her buttons. Glancing between the sharks in the horizon, Captain Hook and the crew up above, she divested herself of her dress and her petticoat until she stood wearing only her shift.
As he heard the unmistakable sound of fabric rustling down, Hook turned his head the slightest bit, though not enough to see her. In a quiet but delighted voice, he exclaimed, "Miss Westwood, what are you doing back there?"
Blushing to her ears, she explained awkwardly, "I don't want to ruin my dress. Don't look."
He went rigid. "You mean to go into the water?"
"I have no choice. Shooting them does not work for long, and by the time the Jolly Roger next takes a ship, there is every chance they could threaten my sanity again. Besides, I do not think they want to hurt me. Not really."
Had they ever really wished her harm? Dozens of them had swarmed her and Charlotte, but they had not given her so much as a scratch, for all their terrifying circling. Surely if they had really wanted to eat her, one man, no matter how great a shot, could have kept her from being eaten?
The idea of surrendering herself to this danger was strangely comforting. She was strong, and her tentacles could kill any man save Hook, but she knew they would not be enough against this threat. If they wanted to kill her, they would, and that was that. Either way, she would have rest.
She lowered herself in, inch by inch.
The sea washed over her. It was like a balm to an injury she had not known she had. The ache of her tentacles, so ever-present that she had almost forgotten it was there, receded with the lull of the waves.
Totally at ease, she swam to the swarm, and they opened their minds wide.
She didn't know how long their quorum lasted. Time moved differently beneath the waves, and though she felt her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she never felt the need to breathe.
Certain terms were agreed to. Boundaries were set, concessions made on both sides. They would have their fill of any 'meat' that fell into the water during their battles. They would not share these experiences with her. She would be obliged to come into the water at least once a week, and feed them if they were ever desperately hungry. They would leave her dreams alone, and would (begrudgingly) respect her desire to remain an individual person.
It seemed to her to be an unfair deal, overall, but she knew that she was hardly in a position to bargain. They had the power to drive her mad, after all.
Eventually, Anna-Maria surfaced. The air above the waves felt heavy, to the point of being intoxicating. Her head swam with it, and she felt a deep urge to sink beneath the waves once more.
Her ears popped and the sound of the crew (and Hook) calling her name filled the air in a beckoning chorus. She had never heard anyone say her name with so much joy. Any discomfort the world above the sea brought her was forgotten as they called her home.
She swam back to the longboat and pulled herself up with only a little effort.
She felt liberated. Lightheaded, still, but that was nothing. She pulled on her dress with steady fingers, and accepted the blanket the Captain offered her.
Hook did not say a word, being too preoccupied with keeping his composure. It was far from easy. Good manners did not allow him to pry into her business, and he had never been taught how to ask a lady, in all seriousness, if she was still a human being.
He watched as the lady turned her face to the sea again. Something passed over her face, and the beasts immediately drew closer. Her delicate hands dipped into the bucket and came out dripping red, and with complete equanimity, she began feeding the meat to her new pets.
Hook had seen, and done, a great many horrifying things, but the sight of the beauty so calmly feeding monsters struck him as singularly terrible. There was nothing charming about it. It did not draw him to her, as had her attempts at murdering him, or her use of his musket. Instead, it only made him keenly glad that she believed him invulnerable to harm.
Eventually his shock faded, and Hook recovered himself. He perceived that they had been sitting in silence for a long time, and that was unforgivable.
As she tossed steaks into the sea, Hook said with a grand air, "Have I ever told you of my battle against the Crocodile of the Black Castle?"
He knew he had not. Though he had told her a little of Pan, and even less of Wendy, the Crocodile he had not yet touched upon at all, for reasons the reader may easily guess.
Anna-Maria's curiosity was easily secured by this grand introduction. "No, but it sounds thrilling."
Hook heard the interest in her voice gladly, and seized upon it, "Well, this reminds me of it. You see, this is the same Crocodile that ate my hand, all those years ago. It was the size of a street, and it's teeth were as long as your fair arm."
This tidbit drew her attention firmly to him and her hands slowed in their work. Dubiously, she repeated, "A crocodile the size of a street?"
Hook ignored her cynical tone. "Even bigger, I dare say. But listen, let me tell you how I led the creature to its doom-"
Hook launched into a tale as preposterous as it was enchanting, and Anna-Maria could only listen in awe and disbelief.
Seeking to protect the hapless people of Neverland from the beast that terrorised them, Hook had cunningly lured the creature to the Black Castle; a dilapidated ruin that had long since sunk into the sea, and into a trap from which it could not escape. He had tangled it up into a great net woven from mermaid's hair, but the clever Crocodile had sawed at the net with its knife-like teeth and, with a mighty thrash, escaped from its restraints, and all had seemed lost. But Hook would not give up. Buying time for his crew to escape and be spared the wrath of the beast, Hook had bravely climbed an immense statue and vanquished his enemy there; armed only with his sword and his courage.
And there Anna-Maria could restrain herself no longer and asked him, "How could you have slain this beast at this Black Castle, Captain Hook, if upon the sash of your own musket I see the story told so differently; that you fell into its jaws? Moreover, a simple comparison between the size of yourself and the creature shows that it couldn't be anywhere near as large as you say, unless you have shrunk since leaving this strange Never-place."
After only the slightest hesitation at her sound reasoning, Hook called upon all his powers of storytelling and deceit to weave an elaborate explanation that somehow made him seem even more heroic than before.
Anna-Maria, not being a complete fool, did not believe one word in ten that passed his lips about the Crocodile that day. It didn't matter. By the time the bucket ran dry, she was laughing almost to the point of tears.
Anna-Maria looked to the water again and after a moment, the sharks moved off. The Captain called up to the crew to pull up the longboat, smothering a groan of relief.
Inch by careful inch, the crew began to draw them up. Captain Hook lounged on one end of the longboat, arms spread and face uplifted as he contemplated the sky, and she sat in the other, sneaking secretive glances at him. She wondered how much of what he had told her was true, and if the nightmares Smee had told her of had been about this Crocodile.
They were almost up to the ship again when Captain Hook smiled and asked, "Miss Westwood, whatever is the matter? You have been staring at me for some five minutes."
She supposed she had. She had never been a subtle woman.
"This Crocodile you defeated," She started cautiously, "Has it ever visited you in dreams?"
The mischief fled his face at that painful reminder. The dreams of Pan and the Crocodile had been with him for decades. Longer than most men lived, perhaps. "It has. Why do you ask?"
"Well, it is only that if you vanquished it," Though privately she was more inclined to believe the story the sash had told than his boasting, "and yet it still haunts you, the sharks could do the same to me."
His reply was swift and certain. "I doubt it. The case is not the same. They adore you. They are your servants, now." He dipped his head to her. "Bravo, Miss Westwood."
Later that day, she lay in the bath she had come to think of as hers and came to a decision that had been a long time coming.
She was losing her hair whether she liked it or not. Though she knew that much of what the Captain said was either lie or exaggeration, she believed he had been telling the truth when he had told her that she could not simply make another wish to unmake all her problems. The well had given her what it had thought she wanted, for whatever reason, and here she was. The way she saw it, if she accepted her bond with the sharks, her ability to breathe underwater, and even her ink, perhaps this part of herself was something else that she could accept.
All things considered, if she were to be a freak, she would rather be one by her own choice. The thought made her smile a little. Wasn't it possible that this part of her wish could be less daunting to her if only she embraced it, as she had embraced the rest of it?
Feeling at ease with herself, she called out, "Smee, would you join me for a moment?"
Smee came in a moment later with his eyes averted. She explained to him that she would need his assistance in cutting her hair. She was surprised when he offered no resistance, but simply fetched her a mirror and a long-handled razor and lathering soap.
When he returned, Anna-Maria took the mirror and forced herself to look at her scalp. Not a cowardly half-glance, but an honest and full assessment of the situation.
The remnants of her once-lustrous hair were ghastly to look at from where they protruded between her tentacles. The ragged strands resembled weeds, more than anything. She was forced to admit that she would look better without them.
She would be mocked for it, surely, but it was inevitable that she would lose it all anyway. Best to do so on her own terms.
Her choice made, she held out an expectant hand. "Smee, the razor, please."
Though he was ultimately little more than an instrument of Hook's will, Smee had been given clear instructions to facilitate her happiness in every way possible, unless her requests directly endangered herself, Hook or the ship. Smee could see no reason that Anna-Maria shaving her hair could break any of these rules and he was inclined to help her regardless.
He obeyed, and patiently instructed her in what to do. Anna-Maria listened with a serious look on her face and asked only a few questions.
Smee would have left her to it, had he not realised that if she made a small nick upon her pretty head, his life would be forfeit. He weighed it up in his mind; which would be the more painful way to die? By her corrosive ink, or by Hook's wrath?
It was not a difficult question. Resolutely, Smee took back the razor and shaved off the hair from the woman's head, grey-faced and sick to his stomach the entire time. But Anna-Maria had no intentions of hurting him, so neither did her tentacles, and they did not make any movements towards him and stayed a pale blue, for which he was very grateful.
When he was done, Anna-Maria looked in the mirror and nodded. "That's better. I think."
And it was.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, the next one is arguably my favourite so far and is the start of my favourite 'mini-arc' in the story, so get excited for that! XD
A huge thank you to the person who Followed the story earlier today. Seeing that gave me the determination to push through with editing and publish the chapter!
Any questions or comments, please drop a review!