One day, he arrived a few minutes late, approaching the lake at a run so he wouldn't me any later, rehearsing his apology in his mind as he ran, only to find that Kelly wasn't there. He waited several minutes, thinking perhaps she was late as well, not wanting to leave and miss her and not say good-bye, but when an hour passed and she didn't arrive, he began to get worried. He had just made up his mind to go look for her when she appeared, breathing hard. She looked about her furtively, then grabbed his arm and dragged him into the trees. "I'm not allowed to see you any more. My parents think you're a bad influence on me. I have to stay home. To learn to be a lady. Promise you won't forget me?"
"I promise," he said, putting his hands in his pockets. His right hand encountered something cold and hard, and he took it out: a ring. "Here. Take it. To remember me. I'm going away, too. My father thinks it'd do me good to be cabin-boy on a merchant ship. Says maybe I'll stop wantin' t' be a pirate."
She took a ring off her own finger and gave it to him. It was silver, with a single pearl set into it. "Come back for me. When you've got a ship of your own. Captain."
"I will," he promised. Sadly, he watched her leave, knowing he wouldn't see her for at least two years.
Two years later, when his ship returned to the harbor, he hardly recognized her. He had planned to tell her about all of his adventures, exaggerated only a little: how he'd seen a pirate ship, how they'd been caught in a storm, how the crew had come down with some illness and he'd had to work the lines. But when he saw her in that light blue dress, wearing a bonnet to keep the sun from burning her face, he felt suddenly shy.
"Still want to be a pirate?" she asked.
He nodded cautiously.
"Here." She shoved a bundle of black cloth into his arms and left him standing there, feeling confused.
"What ye got thar?" asked Picklee, one of his fellow sailors.
"Dunno," Jonny admitted. "Gift from my girl."
"Got a sweetheart already, eh? Good fer you, boy. Mighty strange gift she gives ye, though."
He didn't unfold the cloth until several days later, as they were leaving the harbor. White on black, skull with crossed swords: a pirate flag. Quickly, he rolled it into a ball, hiding the design.
The first run was uneventful, six weeks of clear blue skies and steady winds, selling their cargo at Nassau, then six weeks of travel back to England with another load of cargo. The second run began the same as the first, though the winds were not as favorable and the journey took eight weeks.
Everything changed when they entered the Caribbean Sea.
The day dawned clear, as had all the days before it (except the one when there were clouds blocking the sun, and they feared a storm which never came), and, as always, Jonny the cabin boy rose with the sun. He completed his tasks quickly, having grown strong and adept these past two years, and climbed the ladder to the deck to see if he could help the crew in any way.
"Sure can," said one of the men, chewing on some tobacco. He spit over the side of the ship. "Go 'elp the lookout in th' crow's nest. 'E thinks 'e's seen summat; maybe yer young eyes kin tell whether he's jes' imaginin' thangs."
So up Jonny went, up and up and up, until the ship was the size of a person and the people were the size of ants, and each tiny wave caused him to tip dangerously over the water. Terrified, he clung to the mast. Then he thought of the crew standing at the bottom, pointing and laughing. He knew they made fun of him behind his back; no matter how hard he tried, he wasn't one of them. He was the son of a wealthy landowner, and they were common tars, as common as tar. His skin was tanned from too much sun, and his palms were calloused from too much work, but he was still a young lord, who couldn't do a man's work to save his life. Well, this was the life he wanted, wasn't it? A sailor's life. When I get back down, he vowed to himself, I will laugh right along with them, an' say that I almost wet myself with fear, an' that it was worse than my first few days aboard the ship, when I couldn't take a step without stumbling. But first I have to get to the top. A gust of wind blew his hat off his head. He grabbed for it, almost losing his grip. For a moment, his resolve weakened. He swallowed hard, then resumed his climb.
Once in the relative safety of the crow's nest, he looked out across the water in the direction of the lookout's gaze. Yes, there was a ship. A very fast ship, approaching them from behind. As he watched, the blurry flag came down, to be replaced by a flapping black rectangle with a white design. "Pirates!" he yelled, clambering down the ropes, his heart beating so hard he feared it might escape his chest. His breath came in ragged gasps. "Pirates!" he repeated when he reached the deck. It was unnecessary; by this time the entire crew could see the black flag.
When the pirates boarded the ship, everyone threw down their weapons and allowed themselves to be herded onto the pirate vessel, while the pirates searched the merchant ship. One came back, a black cloth draped over his arms. He held it up before the prisoners and shook it, revealing the skull and crossed swords design. "Any of you recognize this?"
No one spoke. Everyone's attention was riveted on the deck or on the pirate's evil-looking eye-patch.
Jonny looked around him and swallowed. "It's mine. My girl made it for me."
The pirate squinted at him. The one-eyed gaze gave Jonny the willies. "You look awful familiar, boy. Have we met before?"
"No," Jonny said in a voice barely above a whisper. He was certain he'd have remembered meeting a man with only one eye.
The pirate shook his head. "No, I suppose not. But I coulda sworn I'd seen you afore." Nor was he the only one.
Jonny, along with the majority of the crew, went "on the account," as it was termed, signing an agreement to become a pirate until everyone had acquired at least £1000, and to obey the code of conduct on the ship. Those who opted not to go on the account were dropped off at an inlet a few miles from Nassau.
The whispers followed Jonny wherever he went. "I swear I've seen 'im afore," they'd say, their gazes following him as he swaggered across the deck in an unconscious imitation of his older brother.
There was one crew member whom everyone avoided. Sam, they called him, or Stormwind, and he certainly seemed as foreboding as a storm at sea. But Jonny noticed that he never went out at night, only during the day, and at night he avoided the patches of moonlight that shone through the windows. This relieved him, although the pirate's way of looking at him, as if he could see all the way to his innermost thoughts, still unnerved him.
One evening in the mess hall, he decided he'd had enough. He gave his bandana one final tug to get it comfortable. There was a reason he wore it, besides the fact that he was a pirate now. Without his hat, his shoulder-length hair kept getting in his face, so he'd begged a strip of red cloth from one of the pirates in order to tie it around his forehead to keep his hair back.
Now he stared insolently back at Stormwind, daring the man to do something. To his surprise, the man began to grin. He'd never seen him so much as smile, and the grin startled him. It was lopsided, he noticed absently. A half-hearted half-grin that bespoke of painful memories.
Then the man spoke, the first time he'd done so in Jonny's hearing. "Give 'im a beard an' a mustache an' 'e'd look like Jack Sparrow." Scattered laughter. A few nods of agreement. "Come over 'ere, son, so I c'n talk wi' ye wi'ou' shoutin' across th' room."
Not sure what else to do, Jonny obeyed. He sat down on an upturned barrel across from Stormwind.
"What's yer name, boy?"
"Jon," he replied, giving the name he went by on this pirate ship.
"Full name," Stormwind grunted.
Jonny didn't plan to say anything, but those hard blue eyes seemed to bore holes in him, and he spoke almost in self-defense. "Jonathan Kingsley."
Something flickered briefly over Stormwind's face, too fleeting for Jonny to identify. "Are you by any chance related to Jacob Kingsley?"
"Jacob?" Jonny repeated, leaning forward eagerly. He'd had no news of his brother in years, not since Jack had sailed to the West Indies in search of a legendary island that didn't appear on any maps. "You knew 'im? How is 'e? Is 'e a pirate?"
"He's dead," Stormwind replied in a flat voice. "I take it he was your brother?"
Jonny opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Unable to speak, he could only nod. Dead. He's dead. Jacob was dead. It couldn't be true, but it was.
"I'm sorry," Stormwind told him. He truly seemed to mean it.
Jonny shook his head as he wiped angrily at his tear-filled eyes. "It's not your fault."
"Oh, but it is," Stormwind whispered, as if to himself. "Barbossa's fault, really, but I was there. I was there, an' I didn't do anythin' t' stop 'im."
"Tell me everything," Jonny demanded.
"I met 'im when 'e was seventeen. 'E was a passenger aboard a merchant ship we attacked. We were goin' t' drop 'im off near some harbor, but 'e said no, 'e wanned t' go on th' account. So we signed 'im on an' I taught 'im th' ropes. 'E was a quick learner. A few months ago, we attacked a merchant ship, a good, fast ship we decided t' keep. Made Jacob Captain. 'E renamed th' ship th' Black Pearl. 'E sailed to Tortuga wi' only me an' Bootstrap an' Barbossa, an' we picked up a crew wi' th' intention o' goin' t' th' Isla de Muerta. Three days out, th' crew mutinied." Now there was a haunted look in his eyes, as if he were reliving the experience, and didn't like it one bit. "We marooned 'im on an island an' left 'im to die. That's th' last I ever saw of 'im. I returned to the island later, but I couldn't even find a body to bury. Musta been washed out to sea."
"Why?" Jonny asked. "Why did you do it?"
Stormwind spread his arms helplessly. "For gold...and madness."
"I hate you."