RETURN TO THE BLACK PEARL

Hello, hello, hello!

CAT OF THOUSANDS: Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

ME: Hey!

CAST OF THOUSANDS: You're late again.

ME: It's not that big a deal. And besides, I'm busy.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Sure.

ME: No, really! Whoever said that your senior year is the easiest year of high school was a big, fat, stinky liar.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: We're not fat. And it's true.


Chapter Seven: The Missing Links, Scene One

Will folded his arms and pressed them tightly against his chest, leaning against the wall of Jack's cabin.

Jack looked at the floor and folded his fingers into steeples. "It was a long time ago,' he began. "Neigh on twenty years. A bit more, maybe. Back then, your father and I were crewmates on the bonny ship Bloody Mary, Will."

Will couldn't help but flinch. He was still uncomfortable hearing about his father's history as a pirate.

Elizabeth shuddered. "What a horrible name," she said.

"But a bloody fine drink," Jack commented. "The Bloody Mary was under the command of a man named Roberts. A good man, as you know some pirates can be." Here he looked ironically at Norrington, who regarded Jack with a skeptical look.

"Named the ship after his daughter, did Roberts," Jack continued. "He had a wife, but she never liked sailing; lived in a fine house in England while Roberts was at sea. Suited them both, I imagine, until the day she died and left him with a girl he'd only seen once or twice a year. So he took to live with him on the Bloody Mary. She quite took to the pirating life. Quite the little firebrand, was your mother, Will."

Will felt the sensation of a glass bottle shatter over his head. He felt like the breath had been knocked out of him. "What?" he gasped, with the air of a man drowning in a sea of surprising news.

"I don't suppose she ever told you that," Jack said to Will thoughtfully.

"I should think not," snapped Will.

"Oh, well," Jack said philosophically. "There's quite a few more skeletons hanging in your family closet, boy, so you better get used to seeing the bones when they're pulled out. Yes, your mother was a pirate. Bloody good one, too. She came to live on the Bloody Mary right after William and I had, er, joined the crew, so to speak," Jack said rather evasively.

" 'Joined the crew?' " Norrington said suspiciously.

"In a manner of speaking," Jack said defensively. "Anyway, it was love at first blood and all that when William and Mary first laid eyes on each other."

"Wait," said Elizabeth, her eyebrows knitting. "Love at first blood?"

"Oh, they had a few lovers' quarrels now and again," said Jack airily. "There was hardly any deaths at all. But I worked my way up to firsts mate and William was quartermaster. Thick as thieves, we were."

"You were thieves," observed Norrington.

Jack waved this aside. He closed his eyes for a moment, and Will was taken aback by this brief moment of weakness. "But this story begins in the Gulf of Mexico, where Roberts was looking for a merchant ship to seize. Preferably a Spanish one. Spanish merchants from the New World tended to have shiny things, like gold and silver.

"What we found were slaves." Jack slammed a fist down so suddenly and fiercely that everyone jumped. Except Anamaria. She closed her eyes and looked faintly sick.

Will glanced warily at Jack. It was so unlike the self-possessed—some said demon-possessed—pirate he had thought he'd known.

"Slaves?" whispered Elizabeth, looking confused, when suddenly her eyes flickered to Anamaria in horrified understanding.

"Aztec slaves," whispered Anamaria. "And I was one of them." Will could see a tear trickling down her cheek. Norrington, he saw, was looking at her too, only he looked faintly embarrassed by her tears. The seedy-looking pirate looked alarmed by this display of emotion and slunk deeper into his dark corner.

Gibbs reached out with a gnarled comforting hand and patted her gently on her shoulder. "There, lass," he said, sounding as uncomfortable as the rest of them.

"Those dirty pigs," Anamaria snarled. "They stole us from our families, ripped us from our homeland! Anything was better than being with them. Even being a pirate!"

Will saw Norrington jerk slightly in surprise and frown thoughtfully. Will suspected that this was the first time he had ever been forced to wonder why pirates became pirates. He knew how that felt. He'd wondered often enough how his father had become a pirate, and Jack. But it looked like that was a story for another time.

Jack gave her a moment to compose herself, and gently carried on. "We took the slaves onboard the Bloody Mary and sank the slave ship with the slavers tied in the hold. Roberts never liked slavers. Went against his morals." Jack made a face suggesting this concept was alien, mystifying, and that he thoroughly agreed with it.

"We were taking the slaves to Tortuga, where Roberts planned to set them free. But we got caught in a storm, the worst many of us had ever seen in out lives. And when it cleared, there she was.

"The Black Pearl."

Jack's face softened slightly at the mention of his beloved ship. "She wasn't called that then, of course. Her lettering was faded, but we could still make it out. Her name then was the Doña Muerta. She was just drifting in the water, and there didn't seem to be anyone aboard. Of course, Roberts saw a prime opportunity to add a ship to his personal fortune and start himself a fleet of pirate ships. So he assigned me as her captain and sent me and William over to check her out."

Jack cleared his throat, managing to look a bit sheepish. "I'm sorry to say that my intentions were a touch less noble than usual."

Norrington snorted. "Your intentions are never noble."

Jack looked highly affronted. "Shows how much you know. And it was William's idea. He and Mary decided to elope. So we snuck her with us in the longboat. And, of course, Anamaria decided she had to come along, so she stowed away without any of us knowing."

He closed his eyes tightly. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "What we found on the Doña Muerta was worse than any nightmare I had ever had.

"Skeletons. There were skeletons everywhere. On the deck, in the hold, there were skeletons. In the captain's cabin there was a skeleton laying in bed with a map and a magnifying glass by his side. The Pearl—" Jack paused, appearing to struggle for words—"She looked like she did when Barbossa had her. Only worse. Back then, she was a ship of the dead.

"There was a figurehead of a woman on the bow, but she was so covered with seaweed and mussels that the only thing we could see of her was her hand, reaching out. And the black pearl that she held."

Will glanced quickly at the black pearl, still laying on the ground. Although the Black Pearl still tossed and turned, it didn't budge.

"William and I began to move her away from the Bloody Mary. Or rather, we tried to. Her wheel wouldn't hardly budge. Until, when Roberts finally noticed what we were doing—or attempting to do—and began to fire at us.

"The firsts shot was the only one that hit us. After that we were too far away for the cannons to connect. And that first shot didn't even damage her. It only took out the black pearl in the figurehead's hand."

"And that was that," Jack finished simply. "We took the Pearl to Tortuga to get repairs and a new crew. William and Mary got married, and Mary stayed behind in Tortuga when we headed off. Three days later, I was marooned on an island and Barbossa had my ship."


So, read, review, and wait for the next chapter.

CAST OF THOUSANDS: Feel free to spam her if you become annoyed at her lateness.

ME: Is lateness a word?

CAST OF THOUSANDS: It is now.

Seriously, thanks to my lovely new reviews from Raberba girl and SweetTiggerOMine for inspiring me to actually complete this chapter. Feel free to bug me whenever you want a new chapter. I don't mind.