~*~
Chapter Eight
Anything Because Everything
~*~
Barnaby and Will waded back to the shop to find the floor covered in an inch of water. The pans had overflowed and the rain had widened the gaps in the ceiling. They worked quickly to gum the cracks before the rain began again.
"You and the girl, boy," said Barnaby gruffly.
"What about Serenity?" asked Will, smoothing over one of the reparations with the palm of his hand.
"Something there?"
"You mean something romantic?" Will jumped off the chair he had been standing on, water seeping into his boots. He picked up the chair and turned it around to start working on another section of the ceiling. Barnaby grunted 'yes'. "Why would you ask that?"
"Ya seem so gentle round her," Barnaby said, pounding his fist on the ceiling to work the gum into the crack. "She changes ya, boy."
"I've known her forever," said Will, "of course I'm going to care about her."
"Not just that, Willie Turner, and ya know it better that I do."
Will sighed and didn't answer, knowing that the old man wouldn't let go of an idea once he had one, until he wiped his mind clear with drink. Unfortunately he was right, and his teacher took his silence as a yes.
~*~
Serenity banged the board in with the butt end of her hammer, sealing up the troublesome window for good. She drove some nails into the sides of her house to keep it there, running her hands into the cracks between the two boards to make sure that they were secure. A sigh escaped her lips as she drove another nail in for good measure.
"Something the matter, Miss Serenity?" said Daniel in his standard mocking serious tone.
"No," she replied shortly. A moment later she felt his fingertips brush across the bandage that was still wrapped beneath her hair. "Please don't touch me, Daniel," she said, her words accented by the staccato manner that she had adapted in speaking to him. Daniel tossed a searing smile in return to the back of her head and then walked away. Serenity's hand was shaking as she gave the board one last satisfying whack and then went to check the rest of the windows.
~*~
The rain and winds began again as Elizabeth sat at the candle-lighted desk in her room. Elizabeth Turner, she wrote in graceful script across the piece of paper she had laid on her desk. A dozen of the same signature had already been written and scratched out on the paper since the winds had picked up for the first time and the servants had begun panicking. They had been walking around nervously, wringing their hands and smoothing their aprons, dusting spotless pictures until they could see the reflection of every one of their pores in the glass.
Still displeased with the look of the two words on the paper, Elizabeth scratched them out again and this time looped the capital E more, and curved the top bar of the T in a graceful arch. She added a swirling design under the two words and set the paper in front of her again for scrutiny. A small smile crossed her face as she carefully ripped it out and placed it on her bedside table. Her fingertips lingered on it for a moment before she sat down again.
So Serenity Williams was the girl that Will turned had been seeing at his workshop. Elizabeth agitatedly tried to figure out what that poor girl had to offer him. She was not rich, and she wasn't beautiful. She had the waist that she had grown up with, her figure went unrestrained by a corset, her complexion was slightly off, her lips weren't smooth, her eyes were set too close together, her chin was slightly too strong. I'm prettier than her- right? Thought Elizabeth desperately. I have to be prettier than her! I need Will… but does Will need me? He has to…
He just has to.
~*~
Serenity curled up in her bedroom, which was entirely dark, as her candle had blown out accidentally. She didn't wish to think of how she was going to get down the stairs without having to take another trip to the doctor's home, and she didn't want to think about Daniel. She didn't want to think of anything because everything was wrong.
The winds once again howled against her window, and the rain beat against the inn in a fury. The skies opened up their wrath upon Port Royale, as if trying to clean the town of some evil. The scourge continued into the next day and didn't begin to slow down until lunch. By dinner the skies were clear and pink, as if asking for apology from the town for the punishment it had to endure.
The first thought on Will Turner's mind was escaping from the shop. It was dank and smelly with two men crammed in there for twenty-four hours without a break. He took the horse and rode it through the river that remained in the streets towards the beach, which was covered in little ponds and puddles of rain and salt. The sand sparkled like a pirate's treasure chest as the sun hit it from the west. He viewed the surf from the back of the horse, glancing down at the ground, searching for any stone that caught his eye. There were a few pretty ones, but none of the beauty of the conch that he had found after the first storm.
Footsteps sounded softly on the beach behind him, and he twisted himself in the saddle to see who was approaching. To his surprise, it was Elizabeth, who had left her guard behind at the top of the sloping beach. "Miss Swann!" he said, surprised, as he slid off his horse and bowed to her. Elizabeth smiled.
"Hello, Mr. Turner," she said, smiling and tilting her head down slightly in greeting.
"You can call me Will," he said, his mind racing to his pocket, into which he had slipped the conch on a leather thong. Now, he thought, now would be the perfect time to give it to her. "I"-
"I can only stay for a moment," Elizabeth said, squinting out at the ocean. Waves capped and rolled in on a watery surface that was smoother than glass.
"Oh," Will said, his good mood deflating. His hand went nowhere near his pocket.
"Look at this shell!" Elizabeth said, scooping up her skirts in one hand and bending down to pick something up off of the ground. She then held up to the light possibly one of the most ugly shells that Will had ever seen, but he was willing to allow Elizabeth her own opinion. He smiled gently at her.
"Yes, beautiful," he said, tilting his head closer to hers so that he could get a better view of the brown spotted thing that she held in the palm of her smooth, white hand. She moved her head away from his, as if she was uncomfortable, but her words contradicted her action.
"I want you to have it," she said softly, her voice growing more intimate.
"Really?" asked Will, genuinely surprised.
"Yes, Mr. Turner," she said, smiling, showing even, white teeth. "Of course. It reminds me of you."
"Thank you…Miss Swann," he said awkwardly as she pressed the shell into his hand. "I have something"-
"I must go," said Elizabeth. "Goodbye, Mr. Turner." She walked up the beach to her guard, her hair shining gold in the sun, as Will reached into his pocket to give her the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.