Chapter 35: Playing with a Shark
The last thing I screamed before my back hit the cold, sea water was, "Adam!" and then I heard nothing more. Water rushed into my ears and I shut my mouth closed and sealed my eyes from the brackish water. My first impulse was to get back to the surface, for surely I was sinking rapidly to the bottom of the sea. But it seemed as though my thrashing and kicking and internal howling got me nowhere but further down into the deep. Dammit, Astrid. Now you are going to drown and because of what? A stupid bicker with Adam.
My limbs felt weighed down with cannonballs and my lungs were being squeezed from the lack of fresh oxygen. My struggle to reach the surface was getting weaker by the moment and I began to feel very sleepy very quickly. Something sharp brushed against my arm, but I was too unattached to consciousness to feel the pain. My mind was turning black and welcomed strange images into my drifting and fading memory.
I wasn't sure if I was dreaming, or dead, but I still pictured an image in my head. It was of a little girl. She sort of looked like me, I wasn't sure, but she was playing in some sort of garden. She seemed very happy, dressed comfortably in ragged pirate gear and a red bandana over her curly mess of brown hair. Her laugh was light and clear and every now and then her blue eyes would sparkle with the own laughter that escaped from her mouth. I almost wanted to laugh too, for indeed it was an uplifting illustration in a time where one's mind was preparing for certain demolishment.
She appeared to be running from something, as if she were playing a chasing game. So thrilled and occupied with her own silly excitement, she collapsed to the ground, and a pair of tanned and leathery hands picked her up and tickled her. I thought I felt my own giggles bubble out. The man's hands were adorned with exotic gold and jeweled rings and on his right wrist was a tattoo of a sparrow in the sun. Sparrow. He too was dressed in weather-worn pirate attire, and I knew who he was immediately. He was Jack. Captain Jack Sparrow. And I had a certain feeling that I was the girl he was playing with. "I'm a shark an' I'm about to eat ya!" he cried, positioning his hands to form some sharp toothed shark mouth. The girl, or me, depending on how one looked at it, shrilled and got back up and drew an invisible sword from an invisible scabbard and struck the "shark" with a victorious blow.
"Ha!" she puffed. "I got you now, sharky!" She leapt onto his back and pretended to tie his limp hands together as if she were the greatest shark hunter in the world, and as soon as Jack was all tied up in non-existent ropes, she fell back onto the grass and tittered happily.
"Ya gonna free poor sharky here, love?" cried Jack, still pretending to struggle with his imaginary bonds.
"Nope!" replied the girl. "Sharky's never gonna leave Astrid again." So the girl was indeed me.
"But poor sharky has a ship and a crew, and without them, sharky might be caught from the bad men and killed!" said Jack, his eyes wide in fictional fear.
"Really?" gasped the girl, getting up to help the "poor sharky."
"Yeah," said Jack, falsely nodding in agreement.
"All right, I'll let sharky go." She bent down beside Jack and pretended to untie his bonds and set him free, but as soon as the fantasy knots were loosened, he leapt up and grabbed her and she let out one ear-piercing shriek of laughter.
"No fair!" she cried.
"But we're pirates, lovey. We don't always have to play fair. So, sharky's caught the ruthless captain of the Pearl!" he laughed, and the girl squirmed playfully in his arms, trying to free herself again.
"Captain Astrid Sparrow's still got her sword, sharky! So let the Captain go!" She looked up into the face of Jack and her blue eyes looked painfully stricken, as if her fun was sudden taken away from her in one agonizing swipe. Slowly, Jack set her on the grass and looked at her with dark, almost misted eyes.
"Sharky will let Astrid go, if Astrid will learn to let Sharky go." The girl was silent for once and a soft sniffling noise began to come from her wrinkling nose. Childishly, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve and whimpered to Jack.
"You're not going to leave me, are you?" she squeaked, her face already lined with the invisible streams of water. Jack seemed pained for once and held the little girl close, cradling her like a baby.
"No, I won't leave ya, love," he sighed miserably.
"Then can we play another game?" asked the girl, unaware of the pain in Jack's eyes and too much of a child to let the opportunity of another game pass.
"Sure, love. Lead the way." He stood up and she eagerly took his hand and skipped ahead through the gardens, tagging Jack along with her.
A sudden burst of noise drew me away from the sweet memory or dream, whatever it was, and I heard something erupt in my ears. "She's breathing!" came a familiar cry. Indeed I was breathing, for I took in a large breath of air and quickly sat up because my lungs and stomach were filled with ocean water. With eyes still blurred and a mind refusing to come together, I rolled onto my side and spewed out all the salt water from me, and at once, I felt remarkably better.
"Astrid! Are you all right?" came another voice. I recognized it right away. It was my Daddy. I felt two strong arms haul me up as I regained consciousness, and while I stood, wobbly on my feet and shivering from my fall into the wondrous ocean, I finally opened my eyes.
"Yes, Daddy. I'm fine," I said weakly, my head still in a daze. Dad hurriedly took off his coat and wrapped me in it to keep me from shivering, but I then realized after he had put it on me that I was surrounded by a very large group of people and Mum's beautiful dress, not to mention my corset, were not on me. I was in my underclothes in front of high-class society, dammit, and Mum's dress was nowhere to be seen and my corset was in two pieces on the wet wooden dock.
My attention was immediately seized by the odd situation I was in and I looked frantically around, trying to figure out what was going on. The first thing that grabbed my eyes was a trio of young men who were dripping wet. "What happened?" I asked, directing the question to the young men. Their heads were cast down and some of them sniveled from the cold water.
"You fell, Miss Turner," said one. The one who had spoken looked up at me, and his eyes met mine. Adam. "Thankfully, your brother, Lieutenant Murray and myself jumped in after you." He grinned weakly, most likely because he was uncomfortable with the situation, and I returned the smile as I laid my head on my Daddy's shoulder. I felt oddly tired for some reason.
"Thank you, Lieutenant Locke," I replied. "And thank you, Midshipman Turner and Lieutenant Murray for risking your lives to save me." The boys nodded their dripping heads and I began to drift away into slumber again. "Where's Mum?" I asked Daddy.
"Right here, Astrid," said Mummy, as she walked forward and took me by the hand. "Come Roland, Adam, Kenneth, you all follow me. Let's take you all to a place where you can dry up." Without question, we all followed my mother through the amazed crowd and to a carriage awaiting us. It was then when I noticed that the sailors at the harbor were quite drawn to the strange event that had happened, and their sunburned faces were creased in strange amusement and confusion.
But despite all the chaos that occurred because of my stupid fall, I still could not help but wonder if what I saw in my time of unconsciousness was a dream or a memory. I hated that one's mind could play tricks on oneself. It all made things too difficult to explain, explore, and verify.