RETURN TO THE BLACK PEARL
I can't believe I'm updating this quickly. This almost never happens anymore.
CAST OF THOUSANDS: We agree. This is highly suspicious. Where is the real author, and what have you done with the story?
FAKE ME: All right, all right, I confess! I'm not the real author! Please don't sue me! I've got the story in my pocket! Here, take it!
CAST OF THOUSANDS: And the author?
FAKE ME: Bound and gagged in my trunk.
CAST OF THOUSANDS: That's probably for the best. Well, since we've got the story, we might as well post it.
Chapter Six: A Change In Plans, Continued
Anamaria slid into her seat of the night before with the comforting weight of the black pearl in her pocket, desperately hoping the seedy-looking pirate wouldn't show up and wondering in the back of her mind what would happen if he didn't.
She fiddled with the pearl through her pocket as she waited for him to show up. Her eyelids drooped, but she forced them open—she had to be alert in a place like this. If she weren't, her throat would be slit in a moment and the black pearl stolen from her lifeless hands.
But staying awake was hard. After leaving the tavern last night, Anamaria had returned to her cabin on the Black Pearl. She had placed the black pearl in her chest and had practically fallen into her bunk, completely exhausted.
She hadn't slept a wink.
The second after her head hit the pillow, her eyes popped open as voices filled the cabin, whispering, "Let us out."
The voices rose and fell like a wind, gradually getting louder so that it was all Anamaria could do to keep from screaming as she lay in her bunk, frozen with something akin to terror.
A gnarly hand grasped her shoulder and Anamaria wheeled around, drawing her cutlass in belated defense.
"Easy," said the seedy-looking pirate, sounding amused. "It's just me."
Anamaria relaxed as far as her rattled nerves allowed her to. "D'ya have the money?" she managed to asked.
"Aye," he said ruefully. "An' getting' it' cost me an arm and a leg."
"Looks to me like they're both still attached," she shot back. "And don't ye think that—" she flashed him a glance of the black pearl—"that this is worth it?"
"Lass, if ye knew what that really was, it'd be costin' me a sight more," he said grimly.
Anamaria eyed him narrowly. He knew something about the pearl that she didn't, something that had caused him to fork out the outrageous amount of money she had demanded for it.
"Why is that?" she edged.
He showed her a predator's grin that was all teeth. "A story for another time."
"Tell me," she coaxed. "For curiosity's sake."
"Curiosity wasn't part of the deal," the seedy-looking pirate reminded her. He pulled out an enormous bag and dumped it on the table between them. "This was."
This was it—now or never. I need the money," Anamaria reminded herself, and, closing her eyes, slowly put her hand out to relinquish the black pearl.
The door to the tavern was flung open with a crack! that caused her eyes to snap open in alarm. But she couldn't believe what they told her, and any thoughts about the black pearl or the seedy-looking pirate were banished instantly from her mind as she froze in place by an emotion that might have been acute astonishment mingled with fear.
A short, balding man with yellow teeth and eyes stomped through the door and practically slammed it on a taller, skinny man with one organic eye and one wooden eye, both of them, most likely, with a tendency to roam. Behind these two seedy-looking characters—seedier even than the pirate that sat across from Anamaria—trooped half-a-dozen more just like them.
Anamaria knew them all, by face, although not by name. She snapped out of her frozen trance and grabbed the seedy-looking pirate's hand, pulling him down to the floor.
He made a noise of surprise as he went down, and Anamaria quickly wrapped her hand across his mouth. "Be quiet!" she hissed at him, and tried to listen in on the pirates' conversation.
The seedy-looking pirate pulled Anamaria's hand off his mouth. "Who are they?" he whispered.
She didn't look at him. "You've heard about the mutiny of the Black Pearl, haven't ye?" she asked.
"Aye," he responded. "I've heard stories. Jack Sparrow's first mate turned on him, right?"
She glared at the pirates, who were ordering drinks at the bar. "Right. And these are the mutineers."
"Ah," he said. "But why are you hiding from them?"
"Because," Anamaria whispered, "about a year ago, Jack got the Pearl back. And I helped him. They'll recognize me. And I want to know what they're up to. So be quiet."
A tall man with long black hair and a beard stood on a table and addressed the pirates with a tankard of rum in hand. He wore large gold hoops in his ears and was dressed flamboyantly in purple and scarlet. "Well, mates, the end is in sight," he began smoothly. His tone was polished and oily, and it didn't take a genius to see that he thought quite highly of himself.
Anamaria stiffened under the table. "What's he doing here?" she whispered hotly. "He's not one of them."
The seedy-looking pirate glanced at her. "Who's that?" he questioned.
"Hawkins," Anamaria spat. "He wasn't one of Barbossa's minions, but he's almost as bad. He was Jack's first mate before Barbossa, and his protégé. Jack was like a father to him, taught him everything he knew, and that sorry excuse for a pirate stole everything he had and ran away in the middle of the night."
Her eyes narrowed into reptilian slits. "I'd like to know how he to be the ringleader of these reprobates."
Hawkins continued. He used dramatic, theatrical gestures when he talked, much like Jack did, but his were decidedly fake. "We've hunted and searched and scavenged for one long year, but now…" He trailed off, and leaned in close to the pirates. "We've got him. Right in the palm of our hand. It' taken some doing, but now the Sparrow is a sitting duck."
"They know we're here," Anamaria whispered in disbelief.
Hawkins's voice rose dramatically. "We can now take our long-overdue revenge on Sparrow, and get our ship back as well!"
This was punctuated by many cheers by the pirates. Anamaria almost felt sorry for them. They had been taken in so obviously by Hawkins's glib ways and his persuasive tongue. Fools, she thought contemptuously.
But she had to warn Jack about them. Fools they might be, but dangerous ones. "Come on," she hissed to the seedy-looking pirate, and headed towards the exit on her hands and knees, out of sight from the pirates. The seedy-looking pirate followed her in surprised obedience.
REAL ME: Mummpheowwha!
CAST OF THOUSANDS: What was that? We can't understand you with that gag in your mouth.
REAL ME: Mummp-hmmm, mummpheowwha!
CAST OF THOUSANDS: Ohhh. She says she wants you to review. You'd better do it. She's been locked in a trunk for five days now, and she's hungry and out for blood.
