The next day, Rose was once again on Barbossa's meal duty. Begrudgingly, she brought a bowl over to his cot in the side room and held it out to him. "Here."
Barbossa sneered at the meat inside the bowl. "What is it?"
"Food. Eat."
He glared up at her. "What sort of meat?"
Unfazed, Rose said in monotone. "Monkey. I finally couldn't take him anymore. Enjoy."
Barbossa's eyes flared in a equal parts shock and rage, and Rose rolled her eyes. "Bloody hell, it's pork. Eat it."
He pursed his lips and ruefully snatched the bowl from her. She crossed her arms and leaned against a nearby wall.
"Ya don't have to keep watch over me, Teague," Barbossa snapped.
"Oh but I do," she retorted. "I was given express orders to make sure that you eat the whole thing."
He merely grumbled something inaudible under his breath, then put the spoon to his mouth and gagged. The effects of the curse were still strong on its crew. For ten years, the men couldn't eat, sleep, or drink anything, and so, much like Ben, once these features were introduced back into their lives and they had to sustain themselves, their bodies found it difficult to do so after the years of abuse and constant transformation.
"Can't eat?" Rose snorted. "Maybe you shouldn't have mutinied, then."
"And what would you know of it? You've spent all of what, the past year aboard the Pearl?"
"I watched as Benjamin McHenry suffered the same as you suffer now."
Barbossa scoffed. "McHenry was a deserter, and you a fool."
"Perhaps, but at least we chose the winning side."
"Who's alive and who's dead, Teague? Look's like I'm the victor!" he growled, forcing the meat down his own throat with great difficulty.
Rose was seething. "What exactly do you think you're going to do once you can walk again?"
"Already told ya, lass," he quipped. "I'll be taking back what be rightfully mine."
"And how will you do that without a ship and a crew?"
Barbossa put the bowl down and looked up at her. "Ye…ye haven't…?" When he saw that she had no idea what he was referring to, he raised his eyebrows and returned his attention back to the bowl. "Hmm. Interestin'."
"If you honestly think I'm going to let you just walk up and steal the Pearl back from my brother…"
"Oh I know ye will, dear," he interrupted condescendingly. "And believe me, it won't be stealin'."
Just then, Tia entered through the beaded curtain.
"Perfect timing," Rose said through gritted teeth. "Tia, kindly remove all sharp objects from this room before I kill your patient and you have to bring him back to earth a second time!"
"Heyyyy…" Tia said warningly. "Take a moment away fer a time," she suggested. She then instructed for Rose to take several crates of items that she had just traded for medical supplies and charms amongst some islanders upstairs in the storage room. Rose happily obliged, eager to be away from the infuriating man who was tormenting her with his snide comments.
Rose sneered upon finding a bushel of green apples that were among the cargo Tia had traded. She had heard Barbossa request these from Tia, but couldn't believe that she delivered on this demand. She loaded crate by crate upstairs, and just out of spite, hid the apples behind a guinea sack, halfway hoping they'd rot before Barbossa ever found them.
Having completed this task, Rose descended the stairs and made her way closer towards the room to ask Tia if there was anything else she could help with. She stopped dead in her tracks, however, once she heard Tia Dalma say with her voice lowered, "I seen da one whose heart will replace Jones. Ya must help me."
Rose quickly scurried behind a boudoir and kept her eyes focused upon the doorway through the beaded curtain as she continued to listen. She saw Barbossa limp to and fro across the room, trying to fully regain his ability to walk once more.
"What's in it fer me?" he asked in response.
"Your life," Tia replied. "Dat not be enough?"
Barbossa stopped, turning to her with a sly grin. "You need me, don't forget. I be needin' a bit more persuasion than that."
Tia rose and walked slowly towards him. She then grew extremely close to him and wrapped her arm around his neck, smiling seductively. Rose recoiled in horror and was prepared to look away, when Tia all of a sudden laid a hand on the side of Barbossa's face. Her expression changed, and suddenly, the entire left side of his face transformed back into a the half-rotted skull from his cursed days. "Does dat persuade ya?" Barbossa leapt away from her in horror and wildly ran his hand all over his face once it had transformed back into flesh once more.
Barbossa pursed his lips and finally conceded. "Very well. We have an accord." He began to pace the room again as he said, "It's all as well, I s'pose. Jones will die, Jack will take the Flying Dutchman, leaving me room to take the Black Pearl."
Tia just stood there in the middle of the room, her eyes following him as he walked. "Ya know I can't be promisin' you Jack's ship. Da song will sung soon enough, n' nuddin' will be as it once was."
"Surely not," Barbossa corroborated. "And we have a years-long journey ahead of us yet, I am certain of it. When does this all begin?"
"By da light of the next moon," Tia replied.
"Aye. Then there's no time to lose."
They then retreated into the back room out of Rose's earshot, and it was probably for the best; Rose's head was spinning from all she had just learned. Tia and Barbossa were making a secret pact behind her back. There was some alternate reason why Tia brought him back from the dead. Was Jack really going to take Jones's place as Captain of the Flying Dutchman? And what was this song they spoke of?
Rose had a long, restless night ahead of her as her mind toiled through all of her unanswered questions. But little did she realize that the worst was yet to come, "by the light of the next moon."
