AN (12/19): Sorry for the long delay...I gave myself the week off, for my eighteenth birthday...
(12/20): I finished this in tech today...I'm so ahead of the rest of the class...
Chapter 23: Curse?
Jack had absolutely refused to discuss anything with Bootstrap, and was completely oblivious to the talk his men were having behind closed doors. He didn't want to see that everyone was losing respect for him as a pirate. All he wanted to do was forget seeing Meagan die every time he closed his bloody eyes. It was driving him insane, pretending to be the extrovert he normally was. Jack used to be unable to understand those men who felt it was better to hold their tongue than to express their opinion...but now he could relate to them. He hardly ate anymore, for it seemed like such a stupid chore. Food seemed to taste like the blood he'd had in his mouth, from biting his lip behind that door.
Every time he looked at himself in a mirror, Jack could swear he saw someone alien inside of him smirking maliciously back. Almost like it was telling him to enjoy the fact he'd killed someone very dear to him...abandoned his daughter, just because she'd be an inconvenience. He disgusted himself.
Sighing, Jack was pulled out of his thoughts as a knock sounded at his door. He put the quill he'd been using to scribble his thoughts down on a scrap of paper down on his desk before standing up and walking to his cabin door. Surprise surprise...there stood none other than Bootstrap. However, he had a very worried look on his face...which was very unusual. "What is it?" Jack asked tiredly, rubbing at his eyes and smearing his kohl slightly. Jack hadn't had a decent night's sleep in almost a month, now.
"Jack...we need t' talk...right now." Bootstrap stepped inside Jack's cabin (something that was never done, for Jack had particulars about his private space). He twirled around and swiftly shut the door after looking around a few times. "D' ye realize wha's about t' happen?" he asked urgently, slowly turning again to face Jack.
Jack frowned and was very tempted to pull out his pistol. His hand twitched down to his effects and started playing with the gun with one of his hands. "No, mate, I 'ave no ruddy idea. Wha's abou' t' happen, then, other than me kickin' ye out of me cabin?" He sat tiredly down on his bed, running his fingers through the now coarse and worn material that served as his blanket.
Bootstrap actually rolled his eyes. "Jack, come off it...ye mean ye 'aven' realized wha' they're plannin'?" He rolled his light brown eyes again as he noticed the blank stares of Captain Jack Sparrow. That man could be blind, if he wanted to be.
"Plannin'? They? Wha' sort of nonsense are ye thinkin' of now?" Jack sighed slightly, pulling his hand to his lap and flipping it over, to examine the rawhide he had tied to his palm to keep the ropes from burning him, while working in the rigging. It was hard to swing around on ropes without the rawhide.
"Thinking of?" Bootstrap shook his head softly. "Jack...I know tha' they're plannin' somethin'. Somethin' horrible." He sighed and sat down in one of Jack's armchairs, setting his feet up on the bed, as if to say something.
"Why d' ye 'ave t' be so bloody vague?" Jack asked, forcefully restraining himself from pushing Bootstrap's feet off the bed. That would be a bit rude...but he couldn't help but think of all the disgusting things his friend had walked through in those worn boots.
"Because if I tole ye exactly, they'd know," Bootstrap replied quietly. "Think about it, Jack Sparrow. If ye value yer ship, ye'll think abou' the way ye 'aven' really been runnin' things." This was his last attempt at getting the man to think reasonably again. Honestly...Bootstrap couldn't understand why Jack was so...out of it, as it were. It didn't make any sense. Hawksmoor and Skip said that the raid of the governor's house had gone fine, save for that pistol shot...no one knew who Jack had shot, anyway.
Jack nodded slightly, still not sure what Bootstrap was hinting at. It felt like a part of him was dead...which was why he'd practically given all power over to his crew. They were itching for some sort of adventure...he knew that, but he didn't know how to fill that itch. There weren't any treasure maps around...or...what about those coordinates?
It was a noisy, hot, miserable room filled with far too much smoke that assaulted the nostril along with the fragrance of urine, ale, rum, blood, and slovenly disorder as you stepped inside the place. The tavern had been named White Dove years ago by a man with a dream, but his dream had obviously turned into a nightmare, based on the smells and sounds inside this decrepit room with peeling boards more liable to give you a splinter than to keep the wind out. The stars could be seen through the slats of weary wood, twinkling their merry way across the sky as they tried to ignore the aberrations that man constantly created. This was a crime against nature, to put creatures inside a building such as this that leaked every time it rained. That didn't stop man from asserting his dominance and placing a goat on the counter, near the haggard looking barkeeper that would probably rather pluck your eye out than fill your order the way you wanted it filled.
Jack was inside this horrid place, listening intently to a man with only one finger on his left hand and a face so scarred that it was hard to see what his mouth actually looked like. Jack thought he almost resembled a potato, because of the sunken brown eyes about the same distance apart on his face as he'd seen eyes on a potato. Of course, he wasn't about to tell the weathered man what he thought of his appearance. Jack could tell that he was in the presence of a very wise sailor.
"They say, lad, tha' there's more treasure in tha' thing than in the French treasury." The man was completely serious as he leaned forward and grabbed the mug of rum Jack had purchased for him (as well as refilled) as a way to pay for the information. It was how leeches such as himself were able to live after they were too old to be at sea, for he was definitely too old. The stringy white hair was a dead giveaway, flowing down his shoulders like spilled milk as he contemplated Jack carefully. The look in his wizened eyes was almost enough to make Jack shudder.
"An' you're positive tha' tis on an island tha' doesn't exist, unless you know where it is?" It really had been pure chance that Jack had overheard this conversation. Perhaps Lady Luck was back on his side, for Jack knew that he had to do something soon to satiate the anger of his crew. They'd been simmering with hardly any good catches for several months now, and Jack could finally see he needed to do something. Jack had ordered the Black Pearl to Tortuga, so they could at least get rid of some of the pent up energy they had with the strumpets…that's what they were here for, right? Jack had been to every other tavern in Tortuga but the White Dove, which is why he'd come into this dank environment in the first place. He would've left immediately, if he hadn't heard the old man say something about an island that couldn't be found. His mind had instantly jumped towards the small slip of paper he'd found in his pocket, giving directions to something that didn't exist.
Barbossa, sitting next to Jack, was watching the interchange with only a mild amount of interest showing up in his body language and facial expressions. He sighed softly, drumming his fingers on the distressed table a few times as he waited for the old man's response. Surprisingly, Barbossa hadn't objected to hearing tales of treasure. Jack had expected him to…then again, Barbossa had been quite exuberant (or, rather, as exuberant as he let himself get) about treasure when Jack had triumphantly returned to the Pearl with half the treasure he'd been intent on getting. Perhaps Barbossa realized that people really did bury treasure, even though it seemed like a tale to tell small children to make them dig deeper when getting a hole for the bathroom each year or so.
"Aye, lad, tis on an island tha' cannot be found, except by those who already know where tis." The man sighed softly, a frown tugging at the corner of what Jack was assuming to be his mouth.
"D' ye know where the treasure is, then?" Barbossa asked, a frown gracing his face as well as the man took another long drink of rum. He hated questioning the elderly…they could never just come out and say what it was you wanted them to say.
"Nay," he responded softly, sounding almost sober for a moment. "If I knew where the island was, I'd be out getting' the treasure, disregardin' the curse entirely."
"There's a curse?" Jack asked as his eyebrow slowly raised itself up in slight disbelief or surprise…it was hard to tell which, especially since Jack had a few rums himself during their conversation.
"Aye, lad, a curse," the sallow man replied, looking back towards Jack. "They say tha' the Heathen Gods placed a terrible curse on the treasure." He smiled mysteriously and winked, his permanently tan face full of both excitement and dread as he paused dramatically.
"Wha' sort of curse? An' wha' heathen gods?" Jack asked. He didn't believe any of this, as evidenced by the other eyebrow going up in disbelief. As he waited for the man to respond, he grabbed his mug of rum and took a swill of the amber liquid.
"They say tha' Cortez 'imself was the first man t' lay eyes on the treasure. The heathens were tryin' t' make him stop killin' their kind…thought tha' the gold would satiate 'is greed. Of course, Cortez wasn' exactly the sort o' man that could be swayed by mere money, when 'e could kill the godless heathens an' take all their money for Spain, so he accepted the treasure, see, in a big ceremony. After the ceremony was complete, 'e shook hands slowly wiv the priest in charge and waved his men forward, who killed all the heathens present as he stabbed the priest in the chest himself. Apparently the Heathen Gods decided t' curse the treasure…t' try an' make the debt Cortez racked up for those innocent heathens be paid…whoever finds the gold an' takes a piece is supposed t' turn in'o some sort of heathen himself."
Jack was shaking his head lightly through the whole story, as was Barbossa. Heathen gods? They couldn't put a curse on anything, for they didn't exist. Obviously just some attempt at making extremely superstitious pirates afraid to go after the gold. Jack would do something similar, if he wanted to hide something…by making things sound worse than they really were, you would be able to go back and claim your gold at a later date. Of course, just having it on an island that couldn't be found was a good enough hiding spot…obviously someone found it, though. "How'd it get on the island, though?" Jack asked, not liking the logic of this story.
"I don' know everythin'," the man replied with an offended scoff. Why'd he just wasted his time telling people that story, if they didn't even believe it? "Perhaps the Heathen Gods jus' decided t' put it there. Or maybe Cortez 'imself. He could still be alive, for all ye know."
Barbossa scoffed at this and suddenly stood. "Come on, Cap'n…this is nonsense. Why don' we go spend our money in a better abode?"
"Good idea," Jack replied, slowly standing and pushing his chair in. "Well, old man, I hope tha' someone will find tha' treasure one day…no sense in talkin' about it otherwise. Ye'd jus' be wastin' other people's money."
The old man merely laughed. "Well, ye seem t' 'ave figured it out…though, I am fairly sure such a treasure exists. Pass it on, when ye get t' be me bloody age." He laughed and slammed the empty mug onto the table.
Jack nodded slightly, as though promising to do just that as he followed Barbossa out of the miserable place onto the street. "An' why did ye want t' listen t' a man wiv a story abou' an island tha' can't be found?" Barbossa asked critically of Jack as they walked away from the noisy laughter towards the docks. He glanced over at Jack and saw the man smirking in the moonlight.
"Because I think I know where tis," Jack replied, a glint in his eyes. "Since there's no such thing as curses...well, I don' see why we can't a' least try t' find it, eh?"
darkmistylagoon: Millions? Really? That'd be spiff-tastic! I want to be an author, actually...thanks for the applause, and for the review...and if I can get you to think about it on a sub-conscious level, all the better. -giggles and tosses you a freshly baked cookie-
Aliana Archer: The Commodore is a creep...I'll agree with you there. And poor Jodi...such a tragic character, willing to do anything for her brother...and poor Jack! He'll forever be tormented by his lost love...and no, he's not very bright. That's what makes him so fun! Thanks for the happy birthday! -tosses you some birthday cake-
padme17: I don't like going out of town...I'd miss my beautimous computer too much to go away...thanks for the review, and sorry for the delay!
Jack's-Island-Angel : Well, I'm glad you think tis too good to point out any flaws, Kess. -grins- I haven't been on for a while, eh? I should come on more often...but I'm really busy, right now.. Thanks for the review! I really appreciate it!
orcachick2005: Aye, poor Rosemary...but Jodi did what she thought was best, after all. And no worries...he's going to abruptly lose that act, in a few chapters...or maybe one chapter...depends. And Bootstrap is giving up...that was his last attempt, up at the start of this chapter. No more. And...woot! That's so spiff-tastic! Except for the part that some of the songs aren't even from this year...but that's okay. Thanks anyway! You get...erm...a rose. Yep...a red rose.
Alteng: You're so good at noticing things I forget to put in...wow. That deserves a yellow rose. And poor Ragetti...but Jack really had to vent some anger...and he's a good punching bag, as it were. Thanks for your constant support and helpful comments!
Jack does have a bit of a feminine side...probably because I'm the one writing him...twist him to what I think he should be like, ya know?
Jack: Well, I thought it'd be too cruel for Meagan to be in with the governor...no matter. And Jodi is incredibly forgiving...she'd never kill someone. Though, I think Nathaniel deserves it. -nods- She'll probably convince him that Rosemary was from an orphanage...or something. Jodi will think of a way to take care of her. She wouldn't let Nathaniel hurt her...and thanks for the review! You can have...erm...a pink rose.
sunkist3208: Whose t' say that Rosemary isn't really Sandra? Rosemary happens to mean bitter rose...just thought you'd like to know...anyway, maybe Jodi will call her something else...you never do know. And Jack...well, he kinda got over it...and Jodi now has a daughter to take care of...go Jodi! And the commodore..well, he's a jerk. How'd you like my potato man? -giggles and remembers the conversation about Hannah and Dustin we had once- Thanks for all your support, Whitney! You get a spiffy....well, you get the first copy of my story...it suddenly surfaced next to my computer. Has the prologue and chapter two written out...