Chapter Four
Psychology
The Black Pearl seemed to almost hover ghostlike upon the waters; its previously whole sails now slightly tattered. There had been a storm earlier in the day, but when the sun had gone so had the bad weather. Now the ship was all alone in an ocean not only of water, but also of crystalline stillness.
Jack opened the door of the crews' quarters. "Miguel, Moses, get up."
In the dimness of the damp room, two figures—one large and very obviously of African descent, the other a small Hispanic man—slid out of their hammocks and followed Jack. Neither said anything, knowing he would make his wishes clear.
"Go down to the hold an' fetch that stone chest, the coffin-lookin' one," said Jack, voice low in an apparent effort to keep the orders clandestine. The two crewmen nodded sleepily and descended deeper into the bowels of the ship. Five minutes later, grunting with the effort, they hauled the chest in question up to the main deck.
"Back to sleep with ye," said Jack, once the chest was topside.
"Cap'n-" Miguel protested, but was cut off by a sharp glare from Jack. Moses shrugged, his dark skin gleaming in the starlight, and returned to his bunk. Casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, Miguel followed a moment later.
Jack blew all the air out of his lungs. Once he heard the crew quarters' hatch shut, he shoved the lid off the chest.
Gold glimmered up at him, each piece a ghastly relief of a skull surrounded by a spiky halo. Jack slid his fingers across the wealth, the coins clinking softly beneath his touch.
"'Twas all over this," he murmured to himself. "Cursed gold…" That struck him as ironically funny, and he chuckled softly.
Jack replaced the lid, and then began pushing the chest. He was a slender man, more disposed to acrobatic feats than those of brute strength, and before the chest had moved a foot he was puffing slightly.
This only increased his satisfaction, however, when the chest and its ghastly contents went plummeting over the side of the ship, making an enormous splash.
"What'd ye do tha' for?"
Jack did not jump; he had weaned himself from surprise a long time ago. Instead he turned around smoothly, as if he knew he had been watched the entire time, and said, "Why do you think it concerns you?"
Sofia shook her head. "I ne'er thought I'd see the day that a pirate such as yourself would voluntarily dispose of all that gold in such a manner."
"It's not day, for one thing," said Jack, a cheeky smile twitching on his lips, "an' you've never met a pirate such as myself before now, so how can ye say? 'Twas my gold, can do what I like with my own effects."
Sofia sighed and shook her head, making her bangs dance. "I 'spose. But why?"
"Cursed," said Jack, as if this were the most reasonable reply in the world. Sofia nodded.
"Curses ain't to be played with. Good thing to chuck it overboard, then." She approached the railing and peered over, as if expecting to catch the gleam of diseased gold from the sea floor.
"You know something about curses."
Sofia snorted. "No, but I know the power o' the little devils. One o' 'em s' what sent me out on this life. But do you really believe in them, Cap'n?" she added, casting Jack a curious glance. He didn't seem like a suspicious person. Sofia herself was, but she had good reason.
"Been under one meself," Jack said lightly. "Interesting thing. Got to see me own insides for a bit. But them what was under it for a long time, they're the buggers what mutinied against me an' set me roamin' for ten years."
Sofia nodded. "At least, then, we have that much in common," she said softly. "Not cursed in and of ourselves, but certainly shaped by one."
Jack grinned. It was too good to pass up. He tilted his head and leered openly. "I don't know about myself, but you seem to have been shaped rather well, if I do say so."
Sofia's eyes narrowed. "Put yer eyes back in yer head, Jack Sparrow," she snapped, "afore I remove 'em altogether."
"Would you really-"
Jack never got the rest of his sentence out; Sofia threw a left hook in the second time in as many weeks, landing it on Jack's jaw. Despite himself, Jack saw stars- he needed to stop underestimating her, he thought groggily as Sofia stalked back below decks.
Sofia couldn't bring herself to go back to the crew quarters, amongst all those sleeping men that smelled rather odd. So she stomped her way to the galley. Joseph was asleep under the table, curled up with a blanket and twitching slightly in his sleep, but she didn't bother him.
Sofia started pacing through the small galley, wishing for more space but unwilling to go topside and risk running into Jack again.
"That bloody pirate," she said furiously. "Just because every woman in the bloody Caribbean is after his hide, he thinks I ought too as well! Arrogant whorespawn!"
She kicked a kettle that had been lying on the floor. Joseph started.
"Huh? Is it breakfast already?" he mumbled, more asleep than awake. Sofia fled.
Much to Sofia's relief, the deck was vacant of all but Gibbs, who was half-asleep at the wheel, and the few men in the rigging paid her no mind. Sofia was left to pace in peace.
* * *
St. Christopher's island was not a prominent trading spot; in fact it was almost considered a non-entity by merchants. That was exactly why Jack had docked there while they performed the necessary repairs to the ship- no one would bother to notice them.
Sofia had been suffering from a touch of cabin fever, and the instant she was allowed she headed for the nearest tavern. Most of the other men did as well, but with rather more unsavory things in mind than she. They had two days of shore leave, and intended to make good use of every moment of it.
Ever since the little tryst between her and Jack several days before, Sofia had been uptight and irritable. Nothing could sooth her nerves better, she decided, than getting absolutely schnockered. Passing out on the tavern floor was not only imminent, but also downright appealing.
Later, when Sofia fully realized the consequences of her actions that night, she would curse herself and every other person alive for not preventing it. But by that time it was far too late. Back in the present, Sofia was cheerfully drowning her woes in whiskey.
She was fully unaware that she might end up drowning herself as well.
* * *
Sofia groaned and sat up. She felt as if something furry had crawled into her mouth and died. It brought no consolation to discover that said fuzzy thing was her tongue.
Sofia groaned again and staggered to her feet. For a moment the room spun around her, but it righted itself and she leaned against the wall in a misguided effort to hold herself up.
"I loathe hangovers," she muttered despondently, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. Sofia rarely got bad hangovers, accustomed to alcohol as she was, but sometimes the Powers That Be saw fit to punish her for her extensive drinking. This, apparently, was one of those occasions.
Sofia put her hands down and blearily surveyed her surroundings. For a minute she was puzzled, but then her heart sank and her stomach gave a sickening lurch.
She was in the brig of the Blackbird. Sofia would know the place to her dying day- the damp darkness, moldy straw, scratching sounds from stowaway rats, and the single small porthole, just inches out of her reach. It was the first place aboard the Blackbird she had any clear recollection of, and it was where, almost fifteen years previous, her mother had died.
"Awake then, poppet? Good."
Beyond the bars of Sofia's cell a ghastly image resolved into being- that of Jordan's dirty, pockmarked, leering face. She lifted her chin, eyes blazing defiantly, but inside she was all jelly.
"Jordan," Sofia said coolly, eyes narrowed. "Here we are again. So what'll it be this time- the rack, hot pokers?"
Jordan chuckled softly- a low, sinister sound that sent shivers up Sofia's spine. He stepped closer and rested his arms on the crossbars. For a moment it seemed that he was the one caged and not Sofia, and she barely contained a smile at the image.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll think o' somethin' fittin'," he said, eyes raking up and down Sofia's form. She shuddered and hugged herself, feeling exposed.
"Frightened, lass?"
"Not o' you," she retorted, hardly thinking about. "Nor tha' pack of mangy, addlepated dogs ye call yer crew."
Jordan nodded slowly, a disbelieving smirk oozing across his repugnant face. "O' course, lass."
There was a short silence, made longer by the panic growing in Sofia's chest. "Where are we?" she asked sharply.
Jordan shrugged, but his eyes glittered with barely concealed amusement. "Not certain, lass. Summat chucked our navigation instruments o'erboard."
Sofia blew a lock of hair off her forehead, masking a sigh. She mentally measured out the odds of the Black Pearl chasing after her, and came up with an abysmal number of twenty-three to one, provided they even noticed her absence before she was dead. Not encouraging in the least. But then, she'd escaped Jordan's clutches before and she would do so now. It couldn't be all that hard, she supposed.
"But even so," said Jordan, interrupting Sofia's calculations, "we'll be sailin' a good bit- off to Africa, givin' us all sorts of time to play with ye." He leered again. "But you'll be in perfect health long afore we reach any port, an we wouldn't want ye half-asleep." He tilted his head to one side, giving his sinister face a sickly cast in the dim half-light.
Sofia swallowed hard. This was it- she'd never see land, or the Black Pearl, or its mad captain ever again.
The idea made her sad, somehow.
Jordan grinned and tipped an imaginary hat. "G'day, lass," he said cheerfully, and then walked off through the gloom, leaving Sofia to her own thoughts.
Not that they were any comfort.
* * *
Jack glanced at the crew lineup once more, trying to see if anyone had escaped his notice. No one else was forthcoming.
Jack swore softly. Sofia was missing. She was not the type, he surmised, to abandon a just captain and a good ship- either she was dead drunk down some alleyway, or something highly unpleasant had happened to her. He turned sharply.
"Gibbs! Go and fetch the harbormaster, and ask after a ship by the name of Blackbird. It'll either be under Gandillon or Jeremiah Jordan. If not, ask after Sofia at the taverns." Not waiting for Gibbs' response, he looked back at the crew and barked, "Ready the ship! We sail with the morning tide."
The crew scrambled to fulfill their duties. Gibbs scrambled down the gangplank and towards the harbormaster's office, wondering why Jack was so adamant about finding one tardy female. Sofia, in Gibbs' mind, had no reason to stay with them now that she knew where the Isla de Muerta was.
But Gibbs was a good sailor, so he did as he was ordered despite his own reservations.
Two hours later, he came back to the ship. Had he been capable of writing, he would have been clutching a handful of notes, but as it was he was desperately reciting the news in his head.
Jack was in his cabin, poring over a map. Gibbs blew in with neither knock nor any other ado, and slammed the hatch shut behind him. Jack looked up at the noise, an expectant expression on his face, but Gibbs half-fancied he could see a note of stifled panic in Jack's eyes.
"No Blackbird, Cap'n, but there was one goin' by Raven, under a man by the name o' Jordan Gandillon. Harbormaster said he weren't no frenchie, but he din' pay it no mind. An' the barkeep at the Dancin' Donkey said a lass wearin' men's clothes and short hair was dragged off by a couple o' big lads, wearin' outdated British uniforms." He took a deep breath, having said all that with very few breaths to speak of, and shook his head. "Las' night, a' the latest."
Jack nodded absently. "Jordan's got her, right enough. Slimy cad. Have Joseph run to the market, ask af'er the 'Raven's' supplies, how much she stocked up. Soon as he finds out, we'll head out."
Gibbs' brow knotted slightly in confusion, but he nodded and said, "Aye, Cap'n." He turned and left the cabin, but not without a questioning glance over his shoulder that went ignored.
Once alone, Jack sighed. He'd been staring at the map for the better part of an hour and had yet to understand any of it. His brain had been running in dizzy circles the entire time.
It didn't make any sense- he'd had female crew before, besides Sofia and Ana Maria. They'd been good lasses, good sailors. If one of them had vanished, he would have written it off as them chasing their own dreams, and not bothered with the search. The same with any of his other crew- any one that fell behind, got left behind. It was a basic rule for pirates- chasing every wayward crewman would've sent the entire pirate population down to Davy Jones' Locker.
Then why, Jack thought with exasperation, was he so stuck on finding Sofia? Or even, heaven forbid, rescuing her from her own mess? It didn't make any sense.
Will had done the same thing, he thought irritably, shoving the map across the table in one reckless movement. But at least Will had a reason-
At that point Jack stomped on the thought, ground it to dust, and went outside to count constellations.
