Usual disclaimers… woe is me!

Blue Trinity – Cheers!

Capn – yes, it's Cotton's bird.

Dru – mwhahaha!

Ani – quick reunion makes short story!

Mab – Thank you.

Yoshimi – Nice to see you back. Changed your name again?

Moulin – My chapters end where they end – sorry.

Bules – What imagination you have! Bessie and Theo? (giggles)

Gale – Sorry, this is another no-Jack chapter… but he'll be back.

If you aren't mentioned above, then I didn't get a review from you before uploading.

Chapter 12 – Uneasy Rumblings

Bryn Corbin was not happy. "Are you sure?" he snarled at the cowering man before him, despising the informant despite the information he had brought him.

"Aye, Captain Corbin. A pale blonde woman with seven children. She's at Port Royal!" The man bobbed nervously, anticipating another violent outburst from the new captain of the Black Pearl. His hands snaked out from the rags that passed as clothes on his body, catching the bag of money that was thrown at him.

"Disappear!" Bryn ordered, shaking with anger. Port Royal! Why on earth had she gone to Port Royal? Did the stupid bitch think the Navy would protect her? The man fled, leaving the door open behind him in his haste to leave. The butler, who had survived the assault on the grand house, knocked courteously on the doorframe.

"Captain Jervis to see you, Captain," he intoned, making way as Simon Jervis strode into the room.

"Well?" Bryn Corbin demanded. "Have you at least got some good news for me?"

Simon Jervis reluctantly shook his head. "We got the men to dive, even though we had to kill a few for them to risk the waters. The sharks had been pretty busy on the corpses…"

Bryn shrugged. "And?"

"They searched everywhere. I told them we wanted a body with a red bandana and a stripped sash, but they did not find him…" Simon apologised.

"Sparrow wasn't there?" Bryn gasped. "But he was dead! Nobody could have survived that shot, even one so lucky as Sparrow!"

"Most likely the few survivors returned and retrieved the body. Perhaps they buried him somewhere…" Simon suggested. "I spent a while searching, but there was no sign of them either…"

"Well, at least we have one line of enquiries we can follow!" Bryn snarled. "Ready The Crow as soon as possible. We are going to retrieve the one person that is likely to know where the grave is… they would have made an effort to tell her the soft-hearted saps… Bessie Sparrow."

"Where is she?" Simon asked, not having been privy to the previous conversation.

"It seems she has taken shelter at Port Royal. We will wait until the naval ships are elsewhere and then hit the town with both ships. If we cannot get her, get one or more of the children! Threaten them and we have her!" He grinned, delighting in the thought of getting his hands at last on Jack Sparrow's widow.

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Several weeks later

Bessie looked in dismay at her son before her. Jack's eye was blackened and his lip was split and she dreaded to think of the bruises beneath his dirty shirt. "What happened?" she gasped, worrying for Pearl who had gone to the market for her.

"Some boys jumped me," he admitted, "but they came off worse!" He started to laugh, but decided it hurt too much and stopped.

"And what did you do to provoke it?" Bessie asked cautiously, worrying that this was not the first time that he had come home with bruises from playing with his namesake at the Turner household or running errands for her.

"I didn't do anything Mother, honest!" he protested. "They just attacked me… said I was a pirate and should be hanged!" She brushed his shirt aside, grateful not to see marks about his neck. She looked up, relieved to see Pearl return.

"Are you alright?" she worried.

Pearl nodded, but she burst into tears, placing her basket on the floor. "Pearl?" Bessie straightened from seeing to Jack and dashed over to her. "What is the matter?"

"I didn't get to the market, Mother," the girl sobbed in her arms. "I found Daffodil…"

"You…" Bessie began, not having realised the cat was even missing. Now elderly, she had shown little sign of wishing to leave the house and seemed content to bask in the window in the sunshine, ignoring the open window.

"They hurt her!" Pearl cried, pulling back the cloth over the basket to reveal the cat. She had clearly received a kicking, she was covered in blood and mewled pitifully as Bessie touched her. She stopped, her hand frozen as she realised that her tail ended in a bloody stump an inch from her body. She looked up at the faces of her children who had come to see the cat, quickly picking up the basket and placing it on the kitchen table so that the youngest would not be distressed.

"Dance the jig! Dance the jig!" the macaw screeched on seeing the cat, having flown back in through the open window shortly after Jack had returned.

"Nobody goes out alone!" she decided, "Not even you Jack, or Pearl. We all go together or we do not go!" She knew that there had been ill-feeling towards her within the town, but not to the extent that they would threaten her children. She wondered if Daffodil would live, praying that there was nothing injured inside her. "Jack, bring me some towels! Pearl, keep the little ones amused!" She took the basket over to the kitchen table, gently probing beneath the fur of the cat, praying that the few cracked ribs she could were the worst injuries. Jack hurried from the bathroom with the towels and she gently lifted the cat from the basket, steeling herself as Daffodil protested, knowing that she was hurting her but realising it could not be helped. Cutting one of the towels with a sharp knife, she gently washed the area around the stump of the tail, wrapping it tightly with some cloth before tenderly sponging the rest of the cat clean. Only when she was satisfied that nothing more could be done did she rinse the blood from the bottom of the basket, placing the dry remnants of the towels to make a soft bed and lifting Daffodil back into the basket. Worriedly she put the basket by the fire, hoping the warmth would lull the elderly cat to sleep.

Pearl looked up from where she was playing half-heartedly with her siblings. "Will she live, Mother?" she asked worriedly.

Bessie knew she could not lie to the children and she sighed heavily. "I don't know," she admitted. "I have done what I could, but it is up to Daffodil now." She smiled with false brightness. "Come, let's see what we have for dinner, shall we?"

The children obediently walked towards the kitchen area, Pearl picking up and carrying Emily, nearly dropping her in shock at the sound of shattering glass behind them. Bessie looked up in horror at the three large stones that had landed on the floor, smashing her windows and showing the floor with shards of glass where, only a few moments before the children had been playing.

"Quiet!" Bessie ordered, running to throw the bolt on the door, which had been forgotten in the panic over Daffodil. "Sit together, in the middle of the room," she said, hugging the children to her and praying that nothing else would happen. She had thought that they would be safe here, but now she realised she was not. Tabitha started to cry, her tears starting her younger sisters off. Bessie looked at the door worriedly, relieved when it was not forced and no more stones came through the window – or worse. "We'll be alright," she assured them, speaking with more conviction than she herself felt.

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The three boys clustered around the soldier, handing their hands out for the coins that he dispensed. "She'll be scared now, Sergeant," the largest boy laughed, wincing slightly as his loose tooth wobbled. "She's got no front windows, the cat is dead and the older boy isn't so pretty!" His companions chuckled too, but the older man refrained from noting that they too did not look too pretty either. Young Jack Sparrow had clearly given as good as he had received. "Was there anything else you wanted?" the boy asked hopefully.

"Not yet," the sergeant said softly, "not yet. I know where to find you." He might not be able to reach beyond the grave to get his vengeance on Jack Sparrow for the death of his brother, but scaring his widow would do nicely for a start.

"Pleasure doing business with you!" the largest grinned, pocketing his coins and disappearing down one of the many alleyways of Port Royal. Yes, it was definitely a pleasure doing business with Sergeant MacKay.

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Jacob Summersby crept out of town, relieved to discover that Bessie Sparrow and the children were indeed at Port Royal and that, if the informant had been telling the truth, they were living above the chandlery down by the docks. He jogged along the path, anxious to return to the bay where the two pirate ships sat at anchor, hiding and waiting for dark to launch their attack. Captain Corbin, for once, would be happy with the news.

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