For who, to dumb Forgetfullness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day

Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?

Immortal

Chapter Eight

The Eighteenth Century

Barbossa kept his prisoners in the darkest, deepest hold on the Pearl. It was a small square-barely more than a crawlspace-tucked away in the back of the ship. Dark waters sloshed into the space. Light and air never came in. The captives, chained about their wrists and feet and necks were weighed down in the dark cold water. Barbossa had finally caught to Jack's wiles, and would risk no chance for any sort of escape. Besides, with the curse upon Sparrow, Swann and Turner, he could bury them away wherever he wished with no fear of them dying on him.

And so might have the arrangement continued, if the Pearl had not been fired upon, and the cannon ball had not torn through the wall of their prison. The wood splintered; brilliant sunlight and gurgling water jetted though the gaping hole. They made their escape, sinking to the bottom of a shallow reef. Their lead heavy chains took them down to the bottom. Three chained figures were stuck, almost laughably, on the sands of the bottom of a reef.

Carnivorous fish eyed them…Jack eyed them back. There was not enough blood in these cursed corpses to inspire a shark's frenzy. Three inane buoys waited at the bottom of the reef. And then the sun set. The moving moon went up the sky and beamed down upon the sea. Her rays penetrated the shallow water of the reef.

The thin skeletons found it easy to slip of their shackles. They made to walk underwater. However, after so long in the bottom of a ship, it was difficult to learn to walk again. So three stumbling skeletons, a morbid sight, sloshed through the water to the nearest deserted island.

Jack's luck with deserted islands did not run dry. Before long, the three were picked up by a kindly merchant ship. By the time the sun set, however, Jack, Elizabeth and William overran the ship, left the crew to its fate on an island, and set sail with the hull full of precious clothes and ivory.

And skeleton Jack was at the wheel of this stolen ship. There was a hole in his collarbone where a merchant had shot him mere hours before. The dark waves crashed against him and loose lines whipped his skeletal frame and the wind cut into his fleshless cheeks. And he felt nothing. And he smiled.

William ran the length of the ship, securing the rigging. He lifted his hands within sight of his eyes but did not flinch at his decay. The boat swayed and he stumbled, tripped by the corpse of one merchant man. Will gathered himself, and looked into the man's countenance. A bewildered expression flashed across Will's face. He had killed this man during the fray for the ship.

Elizabeth was in the hull. An oil lamp swung from its suspension on the ceiling, casting weird shadows on the piles of loot. She caressed the crimson satin and stroked the violet velvet. Slowly, she withdrew her hand. Like one awaking from a dream, Elizabeth gazed with horror upon all these beautiful, stolen things.

"The worst part," she muttered to herself, "is that I want still more."

They learned to deal with the curse; they each came to terms with their lack of sensations. Although none of them, really, could satisfy their greed. They drifted on the sea, pirating to their bloody hearts content. Or discontent. With each new raid, they only wanted more.

Before long, they found Gibbs and Anna Maria and a motley crew of demented pirates. The plundering and pillaging continued.

And as they sailed across the sea, they kept half an eye open for Barbossa. Revenge can also burn bright in the heart of the cursed. Will and Elizabeth did attempt to find old William…but any efforts were futile. There is a lot of ocean in the world.

And Jack never aided them much in their endeavors, and Will suspected why.

Jack may have been immune to it; or perhaps he enjoyed it; but Elizabeth and Will felt the fear they inspired among the crew. Every sly glance and hushed whisper they sensed. For this reason, they hid in the captain's cabin at night. But nothing could hide the indisputable fact that, as the other crewmembers aged, Jack, Will and Elizabeth were preserved.

The old ship was patched, and re-patched. The moldy wood was replaced so many times over it was not the same ship anymore. The march of the years was plain on the faces of the crew and on the ship. The Immortals were untouched.

One night, Anna Maria died. She lived to be relatively old, as pirates never make it many years into their profession. However, time, or fate, or God, had not forgotten her. Her coal black hair turned dirty white, her teeth decayed, and somewhere inside, her liver eroded from too many nights up drinking. She died in the captain's cabin. Jack stayed by her body.

That is how William found him that morning. Some putrid, thin light of dawn spilled over the plastic-features of Anna Marie. Jack gave Will a strange, ghastly look. They met eyes for a moment; and there passed a grave understanding. Will forget his words of comfort, stepped out of the cabin, and shut the door. For another night, Jack kept vigil over Anna-Maria's corpse.

The next day, the pirate was gone. Elizabeth and Will would not see Jack again for centuries.