The ship shuddered again, jolting violently.
Father rushed for the sail's main line, pulling at it in the hopes of catching a rogue wind to get us away from this spot, but it was fruitless. "Why would you do that?" he shouted at me. "You fool!"
But I only grinned, mouth agape. "So it is him!"
He looked at me in horror. "Is that all you care about? We're doomed, Anna! Away from the edges, now!"
I obeyed, but as soon as I moved, the boat lurched again, and it felt as though something had attached itself to our rudder and had begun to pull us below.
"Is he doing this?" I cried in a panic, latching onto the mast.
"Well you called him here! What do you think?"
We both cried out when we heard a thunderous creak and the backend of the boat began to dip lower and lower, so much so that seawater was nearly about to pour inside. Father threw himself over me, latching onto the mast as well, saying, "Don't let go. Whatever happens to me, promise me that you won't let go of the mast."
"I promise!" I replied, closing my eyes as my heart pounded in my chest. "I promise!"
Then, something odd. A sharp snap sent us lurching forward, then we began to skate across the surface of the water, almost as though we were being towed. Though this time, instead of to the depths, we were being led straight towards the island outcropping. Father remained grasping tightly to me as we watched land draw nearer and nearer. Finally, he shouted, "Brace yourself!" as the hull of the Dauntless made contact with the land along the shoreline. The sheer force of the impact sent us flying out the starboard side onto the shore. My father, who had tumbled out ahead of me, scrambled to get to dry land, while I, disoriented, remained fumbling in the shallow water. Suddenly, I felt a firm grip of something take hold of my ankle and begin to pull me backwards.
"Father!" I screamed as I was pulled below. I choked as salt water filled my lungs, and my vision became blurred right after I saw him turn and race after me. Wildly I flailed, trying to kick at whatever had taken ahold of me. Just then, I felt Father's grip on my arms, and I was now amidst a forceful tug of war. I continued choking beneath the water as I felt my body stretch, and I could tell Father was losing his grip in the loose sand of the shore. Then, inexplicably, the force on my legs vanished, and I hastily kicked myself back to land as Father pulled me back to the surface. He dragged me up and out and we together collapsed on the beach, far from the water.
After a few minutes, Father, still laying down, panted, "Why…in the hell…did you say…that name? Never…say…that name!"
"How…would I know that?" I heaved. "Neither of you…said a thing!" I sat up. "That…that was him, though? How has he returned?"
Father turned his head, glaring at me. "We're not doing this," he said simply, standing and marching further inland.
I followed him. "I already know who it is!" I cried. "What harm is there in telling me the rest?"
"You already know too much," he said, spinning around. "And now you've marooned us here for god knows how long. They know we're here, so I hope you're happy with yourself."
My stomach fell. "…they?" I asked. "He has a crew?"
He regarded me carefully, calculating his options. Finally, he winced, as he made the choice to let over a decade of secrecy finally slip. "No," he said somberly. "He has an armada."
"It didn't take long for him to reveal himself to us," Father said by the light of a bonfire we had built for ourselves on the shore as night fell. "As soon as I had sent you and your mother off, he successfully tethered us to the ocean floor. Hours later was when he first made contact. We couldn't see him, only hear his voice. Unmistakeable, almost as though the voice came from inside our own minds."
I shook my head. "But how did Jo—"
"Name!" he snapped.
"Sorry! How did…he come back? Mother always told me that he died in the War on Piracy. I thought when Will stabbed the heart—"
"That's what we all thought," he said sadly. "Believe me, Anna, it's been years of speculation. The only thing that Turner and I can fathom is that perhaps once he became the Captain, he was sent to the Locker himself."
I furrowed my brow. "How?"
"All enemies of the Captain wind up in the Locker. That's how I got there."
It suddenly became clear to me. "…so, when Will stabbed the heart, his enemy was sent to the Locker."
He nodded. "We hadn't yet made it to all corners of the Locker and freed all of the prisoners he had racked up. We assume he formed allegiances with those who remained and together they formed his crew. We have no idea how we managed to gain so much power, however, let alone escape from the Locker."
I shook my head in disbelief. "You couldn't break free of the tether?"
"You think we didn't try?" he asked. "It was impenetrable. Plus, he had stationed some of his crew to watch us at all times. We couldn't see them, just always knew they were there, listening and watching. One can't very well form a counterattack when you're constantly being watched. And just saying his name summoned him, as we quickly discovered."
It suddenly hit me. "That's why you couldn't tell Mother. If you said who it was, he'd come and capture her."
He only gazed sadly back at me. "She was our only hope of escape. We had hoped our clues would be enough, but inwardly, we always knew a return from him would be the furthest thing from her mind."
"Did…he ever say anything about why he was doing this? What is he getting from forming a crew?"
Father shook his head. "We haven't the slightest idea. He said…many things. He very much likes to hear himself talk." His eyes grew distant. "He remembered me. And Turner, of course. He said that anyone aboard Turner's command never truly knew what it meant to serve the Dutchman. He said that the Dutchman was judgement, and all of us had previously been free of judgement. He was here to deliver on our sins and show us the true meaning of suffering." His voice trailed off as he became lost in the memories of the past. He then shook himself free from them as he said, "And deliver he most certainly did."
My heart ached for him, as I was only able to imagine the amount of torture the crew endured from their captors over the years. "And…that's why Will freed the crew?"
He nodded slowly, then asked, "Now that you know, do our actions make a bit more sense to you?"
I stared into the fire. "I spent so long blaming you. After hearing about how many times Mother tried to get answers just to be turned away but now… Now knowing all this, I would have done the same." I could feel my chest tightening and my lip begin to quiver as upset coursed through me. "Why did this have to happen to us? Why our family—why—?" I let my emotions get the better of me once more as I burst into tears. Father shifted so that he was at my side and wrapped his arms around me as I cried bitterly into his shoulder.
"Shh," he said quietly. "Anger changes nothing. Believe me, we've had years to process every possible emotion at our fates. You come to accept it and then move onto how next to proceed. And what comes next is saving it from happening to anyone else."
I held him tighter and shook my head. "No, we shall undo this. We'll find a way to best him. I know we can."
I felt his chest rise in a heavy sigh as he said something that I refused to acknowledge: "You don't know that, Anna."
We spent a day and a half on the island, which ultimately proved useful in that it gave us a chance to resupply via a freshwater spring before heading off again, though I had completely run out of food and was unable to find any alternatives to replace my previous stock. We let such a significant amount of time pass so that hopefully, Jones and his invisible cohorts had hopefully lost track of our whereabouts. Father was wary upon re-entering the water, however, and as we pushed the Dauntless back out to open sea, he jumped, gazing westward and exclaiming, "What was that?"
"What was what?" I asked, looking in the direction he was.
"That splash. Did you see it?"
My eyes scanned the area, but I saw no signs of disturbance. "No?"
"I could have sworn I saw something…" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Perhaps just a fish?" I asked. "Oh," I said, suddenly growing alarmed. "Could it be a shark? Are there sharks around here? Please tell me there aren't sharks around here…"
He rolled his eyes. "Only the kind that eat jumpy, adolescent girls," he said, pushing the brim of my hat over my eyes again playfully. "Well, whatever that was, it appears to have passed. Now into the boat. We're already massively behind the pace, and they know we're out here now. There's not a moment more to lose."
As night fell that evening, and we had successfully made our way back on our route without incident, I had caught Father up on all of mother, Henry, Elizabeth and my various attempts to free the Dutchman, including the details of Henry's and my trip. After a time, I decided to postulate a theory I had aloud for the first time. "I think Barbossa has a daughter," I announced.
Father only raised his eyebrows in vague interest.
"What?" I asked incredulously.
"And what brilliant reasons have you concocted to explain that theory?"
I scoffed, "He was giving the journal to a mystery woman, aye?"
"…and 'mystery woman' begets 'daughter,' does it?"
"Will you let me finish, please? When I came aboard his vessel, you should have seen him. He rushed out and immediately asked me what my name was. He seemed…disappointed when I told him."
He shrugged. "My name's not very impressive."
I rolled my eyes. "No! He seemed disappointed that…I wasn't someone else. So by that reasoning, she would have to be around my age. Mother said he told her, 'she'll be clever…' She'll be! As though she wasn't already! Because she was but a baby at the time!"
"What difference does that make?" Father asked, clearly not comprehending.
"Well…what became of her? Did she pawn the diary for the ruby? Was it stolen from her? Where did she go? She's only slightly older than Henry…who is she?"
Father only shifted where he sat. "Well, hopefully she has a better temperament than her father, if that be the case."
I stared off towards the horizon, deep in thought. "I really thought I was close to finding that diary," I said. "It's still out there somewhere."
He just nodded slowly, his eyes downcast. "You did the best you could," he said gently. "But it could be anywhere. I think the trident is a lost cause."
I stewed silently at my father's ever-present defeatism. The odds were most certainly monumental, but there had to be some spark of optimism still present—otherwise why was he still here at all? Why had he "never stopped fighting" to get back to us, as he proclaimed. Maybe the trident was a dead end, but Father was here with us now, and now knowing what I knew, it was all the more beneficial to our cause.
Carefully, I tiptoed around my next question, which I tried to ask as inconspicuously as possible. "So you take me back to Shipwreck, then what?
He blinked. Clearly he hadn't thought that far ahead in his plan. "…I return back to the Dutchman," he began.
My heart dropped. "But Davy Jo—"
"NAME!"
"HE'LL… punish you!" I pleaded. "Horribly, once you return."
He only shook his head. "I'm resolved to that fate by now. I can't leave Turner alone down there."
"You can't go back," I implored him.
"I can't stay here! Look at me!"
But I was persistent. "Mother and I won't let you anywhere near the sea without first working out a way to save you. With you telling us as much as you know, all of it. Every last detail." When he averted his gaze towards the ocean, I moved closer to him to try and get him to listen to me. "Father, I mean it. We'll free you both. We'll find a way."
"How? So your mother managed to pull me out, she can't just do that with Turner. He cannot walk on land. He's bound to that blasted vessel, and that vessel isn't going anywhere unless he commands it to."
I opened my mouth to protest once more, but he had a good point. Though he had bested me for now in this argument, I resolved to keep thinking of solutions, any solution to keep him with us. I sighed and changed positions so that I was sitting with him, my arm pressing against his for support. "You can't go back there once this is all over," I pled one final time. "Don't."
I felt him move his arm around my shoulders as I leaned more of my weight against him. After a moment, he said, "You wanted to free your friend from her prison didn't you? Well now I have to free mine."
Though this did little to comfort me, I was warmed by this declaration that my father considered his former rival now his friend, something I'm sure no one would have anticipated. But then again, who could have possibly anticipated any of this? Jones was back, and whatever the reason, he had the upper hand.
