A chime sounded from downstairs. Blinking awake, Rose sat up and stretched out her limbs. Throwing her legs over her hammock, she examined the looking glass adjacent to her. Ten years. Ten years and she looked far older than twenty-four. She had the dark hair of her mother and eyes of her father. She had noticed as the years had passed that her eyes had developed flecks of hazel color in their interior. She tried to remember if Jack or her father had these similar patterns to their eyes, but struggled to even recall their faces it had been so long. She constantly looked tired, the consistently moist skin as a result of the humid salt air of the bayou stretched tight across her face. Rose was a wreck.

Pulling the cotton sheet away from her dirty nightgown which at one time had been white, Rose embraced the humid cold of the early morning bayou. She stretched again, and then rose, looking out of her rusted and dusty window at the swampy darkness. Seldom times a flicker of sunlight would grace this fertile habitat, dancing and chasing away every shadow as it traveled with the wind. After leaving, the shadows would return and linger once again. A shallow breeze blew in from the north, carrying the salty scent of the ocean with it. It beckoned to her, calling her name. The sea was tempting her to travel from the boggy swamplands, and return to days of full sunlight and billowing sails and bustling streets, and not days of eternal darkness and silence.

"Come on, Angelica!" Rose muttered firmly to the collapsed heap on the bed alongside the opposite wall to her. "Tia called and you know as well as I that she waits for no one."

A groan was her only response, followed by a brief repositioning. Rose walked over to her and shook her shoulder. "Angelica! It's not going to be on me that you spent your night galavanting off to Lord knows where only to achieve half a night's rest and then proceed to not pull your end of the duties here. Get up!"

Rose turned away, going to her chest and proceeding to get herself ready for the day. It was Angelica's choice if she didn't want to obey Tia Dalma, Rose knew better.

Angelica's voice was dark and gravelly from sleep when she said, "How could you stand it? Living with him?"

Rose snorted. "Dreaming of Jack again?"

"More like nightmares," her counterpart replied, throwing her legs over the side of her bed. "But for how long did you live with him?"

In ten years, this was the most conversation Angelica and Rose had ever sustained. Cautiously, Rose responded, "Briefly. I traveled with him. When we were quite young, he and I visited from time to time, but never for long."

"Why did he bring you here?" Angelica asked as she adjusted her bandana.

Rose pulled the cotton sheet on her hammock into an orderly fashion and turned to her. "His first mate did it. He had immense power over Jack and Tia."

Angelica narrowed her eyes. "What power could anyone possibly have over Tia?"

"I don't know," Rose shrugged. Suddenly, she remembered something about that day that originally she had dismissed. "Although…"

"What?"

"It had something to do with that silver locket of hers."

"The music box?" asked Angelica.

"Aye. Barbossa knew something about that necklace… And what ever it is, he used it to get her to keep me here."

Angelica squinted in confusion. "So…by that logic, you can leave anytime you'd like. There's no prophecy keeping you here—just blackmail."

Rose shook her head. "Were it that simple. Tia said that I can't leave the bayou and rejoin Jack until the tides have turned, whatever that means. Nothing's happened in over a decade so far."

Angelica sighed in exasperation. "Always following the rules! Tia Dalma's Angel wouldn't dare lie, cheat or steal!"

Rose fumed, "Stop that!"

Angelica leaned toward Rose mischievously. "Why don't we turn the saint into a sinner, eh? There's no homing charm on you! I'll lead you to the taverns, introduce you to a man or two…"

"No thank you," Rose snorted, returning to folding her sheet.

"Have it your way, Hexfury," Angelica called, beginning to start down the stairs and into the main room. "I just think that eleven years of life without really living is an unfortunate waste!"

Rose rolled her eyes as her roommate departed, but couldn't help feel twinges of truth ringing behind her words. It had been ten long years, and Rose was tired of waiting for her life to begin. She had no way of knowing if Jack was alive or dead, what ever became of her childhood love Benjamin McHenry, or even if her father still sailed the seas. She was completely cut off in her tiny world, and longed for so much more.


That day was surprisingly busy for the three women. Sickness had hit the bayou, and therefore all bayou-dwellers came flocking to Tia Dalma's shack to find healing. Some believed in Tia's healing powers. Those were funneled to the back. Rose however went hard at work grinding together a variety of herbs and poultices that would most definitely help. It was hours of visitor after visitor, and neither Tia nor Angelica nor Rose had any time in between each patron to even speak to one another.

Finally, the traffic began to die down. Rose, who had been stationed at the front of the main room began to clean up the rogue herbs that had fallen on the ground beneath her. Angelica entered and promptly plopped herself onto the nearest chair.

"I'm exhausted," she pouted.

Rose sighed. "All you did was place people into various lines."

"Which is exhausting! All you did was play with your bloody plants!"

"And probably save lives," she added.

Angelica moved on from this thought, sitting straight up and turning her gleaming eyes towards Rose. "Wait a moment…"

"What?" Rose growled. She knew this look from Angelia, and it only meant trouble.

She stood, and began rummaging through drawers in the shelves surrounding them.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked.

"I'm trying to find that locket," Angelica's muffled voice said from inside a cabinet. "See if I can find out whatever secrets it holds!"

"No!" Rose cried. "You are not going to blackmail Tia Dalma!"

Angelica's hair flipped over her shoulder as she sharply turned back to Rose. "Do you want to get out of here or not?"

"Not like this, I don't! It isn't right! After all she's done for us…"

Angelica only waved her off, continuing to rummage through Tia's belongings. Rose went back to her work, refusing to give in to Angelica's schemes. This continued until Angelica had worked her way over to the side room window that overlooked the rest of the bayou.

"Hey," she called. "I found the locket."

Rose groaned. "Leave it be. I will not defend you if Tia finds you."

"No, come here."

"I'm busy!"

"Will you please come here!"

Rose threw her arms down at her side and angrily stomped to where Angelica looked out the window, motioning for Rose to do the same.

"I have night blindness, O Wise One," Rose growled, reminding Angelica that whatever she was looking at in silent fascination could not be seen by both spectators.

"It's Tia!" Angelica whispered, peering out of the shutters. "She's standing in the water waist high. She's holding the locket in her palm…"

Rose shrugged. "So? She's a mystic! She's keen to the strange and unusual."

She could only watch Angelica's face, and quickly noticed how taken aback her cohort was. "She…" she stammered. "She's moving the water!"

"What?" asked Rose.

"She's moving it with her hands…but she's not touching it!"

"Moving it how?"

"Little ripples! She seems to be in some sort of trance!"

Rose shook her head in disbelief. "You must be mistaken," she reasoned. "She must be holding some sort of a stick—"

"I swear it! She's moving the water!"

This was foreign to Rose. After eleven years, Rose was certain that she knew the extent of Tia's powers. Why would Tia retire herself into such a secluded part of the bayou and perform such an incredible feat in secret? Angelica did have a point; there was far too many secrets about Tia Dalma that Rose had never dared question until now.

Suddenly, Rose was thrown out of these thoughts from a quick yank of the arm by Angelica, who cried out, "Duck!" and pulled the both of them so that they were hiding behind the window ledge.

"Did she see us?" Rose whispered.

"I think so…" Angelica replied, swallowing.

Rose's mind started racing in hopes of finding some excuse they could use to divert their obvious spying. "We could just say that we heard a strange noise in the—"

"That would never work!" Angelica interrupted. "I'll just tell her the truth! There's strange nonsense going on and we want answers!"

"Is everything just a battle with you? You're constantly fighting everything that crosses your path! Isn't it exhausting?"

"Well if you weren't so stubborn—"

"Oh I'm the stubborn one?"

"Yes, you—"

Their quarrel was interrupted a pointed clearing of the throat. The two women looked up from their crouched positions under the window to find Tia herself, who had entered and was staring down at her apprentices with pursed lips.

Instantly, both Angelica and Rose leapt to their feet, trying to distract from the even more obvious nosiness that they had just demonstrated. Both began speaking at once.

"Tia I was just telling Angelica that I—"

"—we needed to find you, and we—"

"—well you see, I was missing the comfrey and I—"

"—heard a strange noise coming from the—"

Tia silenced them with a flick of her finger, then rendered them completely speechless with two simple sentences that they both had longed to hear for over a decade now:

Da tides 'ave turned. Ya both be free ta go.