The wind blew my short hair straight back as I pushed through the thick foliage of the forest behind the lighthouse. This was uninhabited land on Shipwreck, and separated the lighthouse from the town for several miles. Using the sword which I held in my left hand, I chopped down protruding branches as I passed to clear my path. I raced around a palm tree, laying my back flat against it as I tried to slow my breathing and listened.
I could hear dried fronds and twigs snap beneath his boots as he stalked through the foliage, as well as my pulse in my own ears as I heard him draw nearer and nearer.
"Come out, come out, Norrington," Henry chided, standing only a few meters off. "Are we going to finish this, or do you forfeit yet again?"
I rolled my eyes. He was trying to rile me up to get me to reveal my location. It wasn't going to work. Well…it wasn't going to work this time. Every other time he had succeeded in drawing me from my hiding place. So, this time around, I took a deep inhale and resolved to say nothing.
"Are you really suggesting a forfeit?" he goaded again. "But you were doing so well this time…for once."
Pursing my lips, I quietly stewed. Once this boy got close enough, I was going to take immense pleasure in catching him by surprise and ending this once and for all. I took a quick look around my surroundings to see if there were any final means by which I could gain an advantage over him. A ha! I thought as I suddenly found the cracked stump of a fallen palm tree. Holding in my breath, I darted for it, reaching it in only three wide paces, where I jumped atop it and used it as leverage to latch onto the side of another nearby tree. My boots and right hand now gripped the grooved bark of the tree where I was elevated several feet above the ground, while my left hand still held my sword. I knew Henry would have heard me scurry over here, so now all I had to do was hold onto the bark long enough for him to wander right under where I was hiding to leap atop him.
From this vantage point, I finally caught sight of him, as he carefully stepped closer to my tree. "You should have stayed where you were," he called out. "I wouldn't have found you then!"
You aren't going to find me now, either, I thought in triumph.
"You still tread too heavily," he continued. "For someone so small, you stomp around like an elephant. It's a dead giveaway."
Finally, he began to approach my tree. I calculated my descent, then launched myself off it and barreled right into him, sending us both careening to the ground. We both pushed away from each other and held up our weapons defensively, but I grinned upon seeing him so surprised.
"And what would you know about elephants, Island Boy?" I chided.
He sneered, pushing his long brown hair back out of his eyes. "Nice trick," he admitted. "However, you have failed to disarm me, so it was for nothing."
I shrugged. "Well, I got to watch you eat your words, so that was pretty satisfying." I lunged towards him, leaping to my feet and taking a wide swing with my sword over my head which he quickly deflected with his own. He then was quickly on his feet as well, giving me two swipes on either side of me that I managed to dodge. Our blades then crossed in an X until he managed to push me off. I darted behind another palm tree, where we then clanged away at each other from either side of it. Finally, he grabbed my free hand and pulled me towards him. I stomped heavily upon his right foot, causing him to let me go. I then swung my leg low to take his feet from right under him, sending him to the ground once more. To add insult to injury, I kicked leaves into his face before making my escape, racing out of the forest and towards the lighthouse. If I made it back successfully without him catching, disarming, or "killing" me, I would win, and this was the closest I had ever come.
I could see the white outline of the lighthouse through the trees, and I felt a wide grin spread across my face as I neared the taste of victory. It swiftly vanished entirely, however, when a hand latched onto one of my feet, causing me to crash to the ground flat on my stomach and my sword to fall out of my hands and skitter out of my reach. I rolled onto my back to face my attacker by hand, but it was no use. Henry, with bits of leaves and dirt sticking to his sweaty face, was crouched over me, his sword at my throat.
"You're a dirty fighter," he said between breaths.
I raised my eyebrows. "You're one to talk."
He rolled his eyes and stood, sheathing his sword and offering me a hand to help me up. I begrudgingly took it and began to pick leaves out of my hair once I was on my feet. I grabbed my sword and sheathed it forcefully as I stomped out of the forest and into the clearing.
Henry jogged to catch up to me. "Oh don't be a sore loser," he said, grinning. "You nearly had me that time!"
I glared at him from the corner of my eyes. "Don't patronize me, Turner, you're only embarrassing yourself. Go on, continue to revel in your own glory. 'Oh look at me,'" I mocked, using a pompous, elevated voice, "'I'm William Henry Turner, no one can match my skills. I practice twenty-three hours a day!"
He looked unamused. "I don't sound like that, for one, and two, I don't practice twenty-three hours a day." He shrugged as we finally cleared the forest and made our march up the hill to the lighthouse. "It's nothing personal. It's not in your blood to be a better swordsman than I am."
I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes. "You really do believe that swordsmanship is an inherited trait, don't you? At first I thought you were just taunting me, but now I'm afraid that you actually think you're somehow entitled to being a skilled fighter!"
He began to cockily walk backwards as we continued our walk. "Prove it otherwise! Your father always failed to best mine, you've always failed to best me! How long have we been training now?"
He knew as well as I did that it had been nearly eighteen months since we resolved to plan out a future escape together to go rescue our fathers. In that time, we had agreed to learn and prepare as much as we could to ensure our own success and safety once off the island. But eighteen months had been around seventeen months longer than we had originally anticipated. Every day meant more danger and uncertainty for our fathers, and while our preparation was necessary and still incomplete, we both felt the ever-present panic at the metaphorical sand timer on our father's fates. So I gave him a pointed look as I said, "Too long."
We stopped walking at that point, having reached the back door of the lighthouse. Henry gave a heavy sigh and laid a hand on my shoulder. "I know," he said sullenly. "But we're close. I can feel it." He looked as though he wished to say more, but he was cut off as Elizabeth at that moment caught sight of us out the back window of the lighthouse and came outside to greet us, calling out, "There you both are! I was wondering where you had wandered off to."
Henry immediately drew his hand back from me and we both hastily moved a far enough distance away from each other as she approached. I raised my eyebrows and snorted, "Henry's back on his, 'Turners best Norringtons at everything,' rant again."
Elizabeth sent a glare at her son, who sheepishly replied with, "We were training in the forest again. And she lost…again."
Elizabeth only smirked and raised an eyebrow at me. "Turners best Norringtons at everything?" she asked skeptically.
I grinned once I understood her meaning, then reached for my pistol, unfastening it from its holster. "Go get your gun, Turner," I commanded Henry. "Put your words to good use."
Henry's face lost all color. "Must we?" he squeaked pathetically.
I checked the bullets in my gun nonchalantly as I mocked him with his own words, donning a deep voice to mimic his. "'Are you really suggesting a forfeit? But you were doing so well this time…for once.'"
Henry just exhaled deeply from his nostrils. He knew that in the past year my training with Elizabeth had gone over extremely well, and that he had no chance of besting me in a shooting competition. He just stood there reluctant to make any sort of move whatsoever.
"Go on," his mother finally said, shooing him inside. Begrudgingly, he obeyed, sulking within the lighthouse to go retrieve his pistol from his room.
Elizabeth chuckled as we watched him leave. Once he was out of earshot, she turned to me, saying, "You two, I swear. If you would leave that age-old Turner-Norrington rivalry behind and embraced your Swann-Hexfury sides, you'd find yourself far better allies than foes."
I smiled weakly and quickly nodded, "Perhaps," I said, trying to deflect from the topic. "But then again, its the rivalry that keeps us at our best."
Elizabeth shrugged. "Granted, but there's some things that won't change. Henry might be the better swordsman, but he will never surpass your marksmanship."
I beamed at the compliment. Elizabeth had been an apt teacher, and I was glad to have her on my side. Henry finally emerged from within the house, loading his pistol and clicking the barrel shut. "What's the target?" he asked.
Wordlessly, Elizabeth fetched a stray rope, then motioned for us to follow her towards the deep foliage again, where she tied it around a palm tree that marked the edge of the forest. She then positioned us a few paces away from it and spun us around so that our backs were to the tree.
"Alright, on my mark," she began, "You will both walk slowly towards the lighthouse and away from the tree. When I call out, 'Fire!' you will both spin around and shoot the tree. The closest shot to the rope is the winner. Understood?"
I smiled again. Elizabeth and I had practiced this technique again and again for weeks on end. Though never competing against someone else, knew I was capable of doing this challenge.
She stood a few meters away from us, and cried out, "Ready? Begin!"
Pace.
"Scared?" I whispered with a grin. It was my turn to chide.
Pace.
Henry snorted. "Hardly."
Pace.
A thought occurred to me, a way to get inside his head before we were to shoot. "Your mother's onto us."
Pace.
"What?" Henry asked in alarm.
"Aye," I replied cryptically.
"Well? What did she say!" he pressed.
Pace.
I gave a slight shrug. "Wouldn't you like to know."
"What? What does that even-"
"FIRE!" Elizabeth shouted.
I spun on heel, positioning my right arm beneath my left forearm, closing one eye, and focusing the other on my target. In a split second, I squeezed my left index finger on the trigger and felt my arm recoil upwards at the momentum of the bullet leaving the gun. Henry's bullet hit the tree first, but landed at the base of the trunk, whereas mine hit the rope precisely, causing it to snap and fly off the tree entirely.
I donned a smug grin and turned with eyebrows raised to my competitor. "Say it."
"Say what?" he huffed.
"Say it," I repeated.
"You're better at shooting," he finally said.
But it wasn't enough. "Say it."
Groaning, he mumbled, "Norringtons can best Turners."
"That's right," I said with a curtsey, placing my gun back in the holster.
Elizabeth swept to my side, giving me a congratulatory pat on the back. "Nicely done! That was more precise than I had ever seen you shoot before!" She gave an impressed look as she said, "Hmm. I suppose the rivalry is beneficial." After a moment, though, she turned to me earnestly. "Now that that's settled, Rose wants you back at the storeroom, Anna."
Henry and I exchanged a knowing glance, and he gave a small nod. "I'll walk back with her, Mother. I've got some unfinished business to wrap up at the storeroom myself."
Elizabeth considered this, then said, "Alright. Just be home before sunset. Don't get underfoot, and please, do try not to antagonize Anna too much, "
"Pssh!" I scoffed as we headed down the hill towards the path to the fortress. "You know as well as I that you ask an impossible request."
"Sadly, I do," she called after us. "Be safe, you two!"
"We will!" Henry and I cried out together, walking at a brisk pace. Henry's gaze was over his shoulder, watching his mother go back into the lighthouse and grow further and further from us.
"Is it safe yet?" I asked.
"Not yet," he replied. "Not yetttt…alright!" He turned to me, his eyes wide and concerned. "You said Mother was onto us? How so?"
I snorted. "She's not onto us, I said that just to unnerve you."
He sighed in exasperation and shoved me off the path as I continued laughing. "You cheat!" he teased. "You had me terrified."
"No, we've still got both our mother's convinced that we're too polarized to be capable of plotting anything together," I assured him. "Which reminds me, how's the money coming along?"
For months now, Henry and I had been saving money to buy our own boat. Henry would take a portion from his weekly paycheck at the blacksmith shop, whereas I would contribute from any spare shilling I found at the storeroom. One of the local fishermen, Mr. Marshall, had just purchased a new vessel and was ready to part with his old vessel. Before even considering buying the boat, Henry and I would sneak away from our daily chores unbeknownst to our mothers and interrogate Mr. Marshall about every last part of the boat. We charmed him enough that one day, he took us out in the boat and taught us to sail. I was careful to not touch the water, as not to alert my mother that I was out on the sea, and the day was so helpful. It was after our repeated visits thereafter that Mr. Marshall told us that if we procured the proper funds, he would sell the boat to us and us only. We would have been foolish to turn down his kind offer, and besides, the boat was much larger, sturdier, and safer than it would have been to take the dinghy on our intended voyages.
We were several months in on our payments now, so Henry replied to my query with, "It'll be ours in just a bit."
"A bit?" I asked.
He hesitated before he replied, "…I give it five more months."
"FIVE MONTHS?!" I shouted in disbelief.
"I know," he said demurely.
"Henry, we don't have five months to just wait around! We're ready now! I've had crates of supplies stowed in my room for ages. We both can sail, we both can fight, we both…well, I can shoot…" He glared at my joke as I continued, "To be ready to depart and have just one factor beyond our reach is horribly frustrating."
Henry gave me a sidelong glance. "More than one," he reminded me. "Where's our heading, Señorita Columbus?"
I gave an exasperated sigh and raised an eyebrow. "Turner, I will push you off this cliff. We'll have our heading tonight, given that you don't mess everything up."
Henry laughed, then said, "I know what my part of the plan is, you're the one I'm uncertain about. Do you think Rose will buy our act?"
I took a deep breath and swallowed my fears. "God, I hope so."
Back at the storeroom, I tried my best to act natural, though I knew I was failing miserably. For about an hour, I had been fiddling and rearranging empty glass bottles on a shelf, my eyes peeled for sight of my mother reappearing around the corner where the shop turned into her workspace and hospital. She had been preoccupied with seven customers all complaining of a shared cough one after the other. This was to my great annoyance, as my staged plan revolved around her being free from dealing with the Shipwreck inhabitants and able to see my actions. I cast what had probably been my thirtieth glance to the table where Henry sat pouring over volumes of my mother's books. From his vantage point, he could see what was going on in the hospital, so he was my only access point to my mother's doings. When I finally caught his attention, I shot him a look that said, "Well?!"
He looked over, then after a moment, he mouthed to me, "Almost done."
I gave sharp sigh and returned to my bottle sorting. I had only one chance to get the information I needed to get from my mother, and I couldn't afford for the moment to pass me by today.
Finally, I heard her final customer's footsteps and turned my head sharply. My mother was following closely behind the woman, saying, "So remember, brew the tea three times a day; No more, no less. It should help both you and your sons and fix you up in no time!"
The customer took her leave, and I readied myself to make my move…but to my dismay, Mother turned and instead had her attention solely on Henry.
Looking up from his book, he smiled and remarked, "Busy day today."
"Aye," she replied, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. "All of them with a cough. There's a sickness going around, so take care when you go into town as not to catch it yourself and spread it further."
"Noted," Henry said with a nod.
Mother swept around the table to stand over Henry's chair, smiling as she looked down at his book. I too craned my neck from across the room to see what it was he was reading. Mythologies of Creatures of the Deep.
"Find anything useful?" she asked.
Henry shook his head. "Nothing lately. I mostly read it for nostalgia. I always loved this book."
Mother grinned. "Aye, cover to cover since you were small. It always was your favorite."
"I always liked the Kraken best," he said, flipping through the pages with care. "After hearing all of Mother's stories about battling it, I liked to look at the illustrations and wonder what it must have been like." Distantly, he then murmured, "It made me feel closer to Father."
I watched as Mother's brow furrowed as empathy and pain spread across her face. But Henry soon brightened, looking up at her cheerfully, saying, "It was the first thing I asked Father when I met him, you know. I bombarded him with questions about how he managed to escape the beast twice! Mother had to practically pry me away from him, I was so excited."
Mother then gave a small smile and laid a hand on Henry's shoulder. "Take it."
"What?"
"The book. It's yours if you want it."
Henry was shocked. "Are you certain?"
"I have no further use for it," Mother said with a shrug. "If it means so much for you, I'd rather you keep it."
Though a heartfelt sentiment, this act of charity made my stomach feel like it was twisted in knots. Despite Mother insisting to Elizabeth, Henry and I that we would continue our research tirelessly together nearly two years before, Mother had remained oddly distant from it all, letting the rest of us continue our work while she always seemed to busy herself with other tasks. Whenever one would ask her a question or postulate a theory, her answers were vague and unhelpful. Giving up one of her volumes was another sign of her giving up the fight to get Will and James back. It wasn't that she didn't want them safe and restored to normal, it was that Father's words had cut her to her core, for she hadn't been the same since. Her passion was all but gone, and she wandered about the fortress like a ghost. She never went into town, further perpetrating the "Sea Witch of Shipwreck," rumors that followed me, as her daughter, every time I passed through. To me, she remained warm and loving as ever, but with a twinge of sorrow hanging in the air always. And whenever I mentioned my father, she was quick to change the subject as soon as she could.
Perhaps the most indicative of this change in her spirits was that she had never asked for the locket back; Calypso's silver crab music box with Father's ring looped around its chain. I had kept it since the second Return Day fiasco, where she had tossed it on the table in defeat. I had grabbed it that night before Henry and I tried to make our escape, and she hadn't spoken of it since. It was always around my neck instead, where I kept it safe just in case she ever decided she wanted it back, though in all that time, she never once asked about it. It was as though she had divorced herself from her past life on the Dutchman entirely, as though that was the only way she could cope with what had happened to her family.
I was stirred from my thoughts when I caught Henry giving me a pointed glare, motioning with his head to the left, where Mother was about to disappear back into her hospital. I suddenly snapped back to the task at hand, and hastily threw myself into the corner wall, intentionally knocking into a stack of coiled maps and sending them sprawling all over the floor. Mother stopped dead in her tracks at the commotion.
"Oops!" I feigned. "What an oaf I am! Better just…pick these up…" I tried not to make direct eye contact with Henry, who from the corner of my eyes I could see shaking his head at my terrible acting.
"Are you alright?" Mother asked. "Do you need any help?"
"No, no!" I said perhaps a little too insistently, "No, I've got it! Carry on!"
She gave a small smile, then disappeared around the corner. Perfect! I thought as I began to rummage through the chaotic mess of maps. I quickly found the one I was looking for, separated it from the rest, then as quickly as I could, coiled the others and placed them back in the corner in a haphazard heap. I then grabbed the map and pretended to read it for the first time, even though I had been studying it for a week now.
I wandered around the corner towards my mother's desk. "Mother?" I asked innocently. "What's this?" I laid the map out across her table.
She regarded it, looking at the markings in black ink depicting Shipwreck, then a thicker black line that had been drawn after the map's printing extending to an island that read, "St. Martin," then extended North all the way to London, England. "That's a map of the Atlantic," she calmly explained. Then, looking up at me in amusement, smirking, "And if you don't know that by now, then clearly I've taught you nothing."
"No, I know," I said, placing my finger on the two thick black lines. "What are those? Was this a map you picked up off a trade, or…or maybe you made those lines, or…?"
Mother folded her hands and placed them on the table in front of her, taking a deep breath. She cocked her head to the side, peering around me and asking with one eyebrow raised, "Seeking out the trident again, eh Henry?"
My face fell. She had seen right through my poor attempt at a ruse. Expertly, however, Henry replied with, "Don't ask me. I know nothing about it." The liar. It had been his idea to seek out the trident in the first place! True, I had found this map, which I knew had to do with the trident's location, but up until then that had been my sole role for the search. However, Henry was acting wisely; The less likely we made it seem like Henry and I would ever work together, the less likely it would be that our Mothers would catch us before we had a chance to run off again.
Mother's eyes then landed on me. "You know very well what this is."
I sighed, taking a seat next to her. "But tell me again! I want to make sure I know everything about the Map No Man Can Read."
She shook her head. "You already do. You know as much as I know. I had a diary with a ruby on the cover that claimed to be from the explorer Galileo. I hadn't the time to look into it, but I knew it contained secrets and most likely led to treasure. Barbossa came into the storeroom just weeks before Henry was born, looking for a diary to give to a woman. I gave him Galileo's diary, I saw him plan a course for St. Martin, then England, and that was that. It was only when I was aboard the Dutchman that I read that Galileo sought the trident of Poseidon in his lifetime, a trident with the power to reverse all sea curses. The diary was said to contain a map that 'no man could read,' but deciphering it would lead right to the trident. I of course wanted it to free all of us onboard the Dutchman, and we searched regularly for the trident, for the map, anything. I drew on this map to remind myself where Barbossa had gone, in hopes of finding him or the diary, but we found nothing."
I narrowed my eyes. "But the diary didn't go to him. It went to a woman, correct?"
"We don't know that," she corrected. "He wanted a plain diary for her, and I was the one who pushed him to take Galileo's, telling him to look into its secrets. There's no way to know if he actually gave it away or kept it for himself."
"But he still could have given it away," I reasoned.
"Aye, but to which woman? He said nothing about her to me. It's been twenty years since then. She could be dead or have traveled anywhere in the world, pawned it off for money because of the ruby embedded in the cover, anything."
I began to wring my hands in frustration. "But the map," I said, trying to redirect the conversation, "It goes to St. Martin first, then to England. Didn't Barbossa ultimately become a Navy privateer when he went to London?"
"Aye."
"Then what do you reckon he went to St. Martin for, if not to bestow the diary upon his intended recipient?" She didn't answer me, so I continued excitedly, "It must be there! It's at least a start!"
She only shook her head sadly. "Anna, I've been there," she murmured. "You were only two years old at the time, and I left you with your father. I searched for days and came up empty. I would have found this woman had she been there, and I would have found the diary if Barbossa had left it there as well."
Voices outside towards the docks then drew her attention from me, which therein marked the end of this conversation. She stood, preparing to go see who was preparing to make port, saying to me, "It was a good path, but it's already been traveled. Keep searching for others."
I didn't look at her as she left, my eyes still fixated on the map. This wasn't all. There had to be more…
"Henry, it's nearly sunset. Best get home to Elizabeth, now," Mother cooed as she left the room.
Henry waited until she was definitely out of earshot, then said, "Well that went well."
I turned around to him with a grimace. "Do shut up."
He stood, coming to the table and leaning over it to examine it closer. "Well, at least we know that its very likely the book was there at some point. It's a start, and I think a pretty reliable heading."
I shook my head, uncertain. "But what happens if we don't find it, Henry? What then?"
He gave a small half smile, which somehow managed to lift my spirits slightly. "We do what Rose said; we try a new path. We find your uncle and convince him to help us, we travel all around the world, I'll even join the Navy if that's what it takes! As long as we're off this island, we're much closer than we've ever been."
I must have still looked unconvinced, for he waited a moment, then said, "You're going to have to start thinking up boat names."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because in the time you were fooling around with those bottles, I calculated that I could put a bit more money from my payments at the blacksmith shop into our fund without my mother realizing it." He grinned wisely as he said, "Anna, that boat will be ours in only six more weeks!"
My mouth fell agape at this revelation. Though we both inwardly wished we could leave at once, six weeks was far better than five months, as he had originally thought. Soon, we would be on the seas, that much closer to our shared goal. I would have embraced him our of sheer joy if Mother at that moment hadn't reappeared in the doorway to the storeroom, a hushed tone in her voice.
"Put the map away," she said to me, then to both of us, "This conversation ends here, understood?"
"Aye," Henry and I both said, though we were completely confused. All made sense immediately however, when I saw who had arrived at Shipwreck Cove; a familiar face who Mother had insisted could never know about what had happened to the Flying Dutchman.
"Grandfather!" I exclaimed as I ran into the warm embrace of the infamous Captain Edward Teague.
