Chapter: Past, Present, and Pain
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And now you come to me—women with hands and feet as soft as a queen's, with more cooking pots than you need, so safe in childbed and so free with your tongues. You come hungry for the story that was lost, you crave words to fill the great silence that swallowed me, and my mothers, and my grandmothers before them.
-- The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
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It seemed Sophia could not slow her heart for hours after that dream. She lay in bed, sweat glistening at her brow, and tried to forget the image of Jack, her Jack, helpless. Jack was never helpless.
She'd dreamt of similar things before. Jack dying in a terrible accident, his ship finally failing him, an opponent killing him in a hastily planned duel. But never before had a nightmare affected her so. It wasn't a nightmare. It was real.
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After scarcely an hour or two of more sleep, Sophia awoke to the serenade of music from downstairs. She slipped on a robe and padded down the great, empty staircase. Elizabeth was clunking merrily away at the new harpsichord Sophia's parents had given her for her twentieth birthday just three weeks before.
Sophia new absolutely nothing about music and had no idea where or from whom Elizabeth had acquired the talent. The entire Cuthburt family was astoundingly tone-deaf, but, apparently, the girl excelled in the study of this particular instrument.
The music reverberated throughout the hollow house in waves. It was their last day here. After five years in these terrible rooms, this place that reminded her of her old life, her old self, she had had enough. Tomorrow they would move to a smaller, more modest home in a less extravagant division of Port Royal.
Elizabeth finished her piece with flourish and smiled at her cousin. "What do you think, Sophia?"
Sophia glanced at her. Elizabeth had lost none of her beauty in these five years but her eyes had grown hard. No man could keep her, although they tried with astonishing persistency. Her rape, it seemed, had put her off the opposite sex for the time being.
"It's lovely," Sophia murmured distractedly, and drifted off to the kitchen to tell the cook to make something for breakfast. Elizabeth took no notice. She was quite used to her cousin's preoccupied demeanor.
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Sophia had not ventured from her bed in a week. She'd come home, tears streaked down her face, blotching the pale hue of her skin an ugly red. Without a word she had gone to her room and stripped naked and climbed into her bed. Elizabeth and Charlotte tried everything but she just turned her back to them.
Now she had a fever. Three days of sickness that had not even tapped the pain she felt inside. She had dreams at night that rendered her exhausted and left her screaming when she woke.
Elizabeth stood next to Sophia's bed and watched her cousin, stricken with nightmares, plead into a pillow that was saturated with sweat and tears.
"No. . . I have to leave, Jack. I can't stay. I can't. I'm a fool. I'm sorry. Don't leave me. . ."
Elizabeth, tears brimming in her eyes as she sympathized with Sophia's pain, placed a hand across her cousin's burning forehead. Sophia's eyes, hazy with sickness, snapped open.
"Has he come yet, Elizabeth? Is he here?" She asked with a voice that was high and hopeful as a child's.
"No. No, Sophia, he hasn't."
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Sophia did not remember that she had been ill. She did not remember anything of the month after she had ruined everything. She had been a simpleton to believe that one dream, a stupid, insignificant dream, could dictate the future. She knew now from experience that dreams were meaningless and played with the mind like a cat with a ball of yarn. She was a fool and everyday it haunted her with the knowledge that she would never find the one she loved.
She'd tried, though. She'd sent letters to anywhere she ever remembered him talking about. Nassau, Ayuda, Tortuga. Everywhere.
James is dead. Tell Captain Jack Sparrow that James Norrington is dead and I am free.
The only response she had received was a hastily scrawled note from Nellie, saying matter-of-factly that she had not seen the captain of the Black Pearl in some time.
Sophia would have gotten on a ship and gone to search in a moment if she did not think that it would only break her heart further when she failed.
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The house was bustling now, a stark contrast to the empty, hopeless vacancy that it had been the day before. Everyone was moving, hauling furniture and other belongings into the two rented carriages that stood outside. Today they were escaping from this dreadful house.
Thankfully, Sophia had gotten rid of many of the various items that had been lying about the house after she let most of the staff go. Now there was only Charlotte, Elizabeth and she.
Will and the children had come to help. Little Elizabeth—it was somewhat confusing having two Elizabeths running around—was now six and a complete and utter ball of energy. Her siblings, Jack and Arabella, were just as excited as their sister but had enough dignity as preteens to conceal it. Sophia smiled faintly as she heard their little feet clomping about upstairs and imagined that she would think nothing of it if she had had children. If she could have children.
Will and Sophia had become great friends over the years. They both had experienced a great sadness, although the reason for Sophia's was more of a mystery.
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"And then the bloody man turned the boat upside down and we walked underneath the water! I was so surprised I couldn't talk for several minutes," Will chuckled, reaching for another biscuit as Sophia sipped her tea and managed scarcely a smile. Will, oblivious, continued. "I'm sure you have thousands more stories about Jack than I, Sophia."
Sophia shrugged and set her tea down to pull little Elizabeth on to her lap, despite the persistent wriggling of the girl's three-year-old body. Sophia had become somewhat of a surrogate mother to the children during the past years since her return.
"To be completely honest it is all a bit of a blur, Will," she lied, "I don't remember many specific stories."
"Bollocks, Sophia," Will stated, matter-of-factly, once Elizabeth had squirmed away to play with her sister. "Jack's not an easy man to forget."
Sophia's serene expression faltered. "I prefer not to reminisce about such things."
Will frowned, his sweet face displaying utter concern for his friend. He had suspected something had happened between Sophia and Jack, and from the look in Sophia's eyes it had not been pleasant. "Christ, Sophia. What did he do to you?"
Sophia stared at him for several moments before abruptly spouting forth a stream of laughter. "Don't be an idiot, Will. Nothing like that!" Once her mirth had been repressed into intermittent chuckles she spoke again. "Did you think he'd raped me or something of the sort? Honestly!"
Will hushed her; the children were in the next room. "Of course not! Jack would never do that. I just. . ."
Sophia waved a hand in dismissal. "He was as much as a gentleman as he is able. My time on the Black Pearl was. . . interesting." She picked up her tea again and raised it to her lips to mask the sadness that lay like an open wound on her face. "But it's behind me now."
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Sophia wiped the dust from her hands as she gazed with evident satisfaction at her newly decorated room. It was small, as was the house, but that suited her wonderfully. She had never fully gotten used to the expansive space in the old house after living on a cramped ship for so long.
The bed stood in the corner, facing the door, for she superstitiously believed that it was not one's best interest to have one's back towards the entrance while in bed. There was a window and a dresser beneath it. A mirror hung on the wall above the vanity. Sophia sat on the cushioned chair and looked at her face in the mirror, streaked with dust.
She was always surprised by her looks these days. Her face was the same. Lips, nose, skin, ears, hair. . . everything was in its place. She'd remained unchanged, save for her eyes. They were closed and crisp as steel. As brittle as frozen glass.
Sophia sighed and went into the privy to wash her face and arms free of grime. The day was late and she took off her work dress and changed into something softer to sleep in.
The nights were the worst. The nights when she remembered everything about him. The expression on his face when she said something that amazed him, the sound of his breathing when she lay awake beside him, the way he moved over her before she closed her eyes and let the pleasure claim her.
Sophia turned her face to the side and looked out the window, her body trembling with what she remembered, her skin crawling with the knowledge that she would never again feel his touch.
Then she let her thoughts stray.
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She remembered everything about him and it was torture. She remembered his voice and his body. She remembered his eyes, black as the charred wood that was left in the fireplace every morning.
They said that she was broken. They said that she had been tormented painfully, that the vicious scallywags had killed her spirit. Whispers followed her everywhere. She was the widow who had been kidnapped by pirates. She was scandalous.
She let them believe what they liked. There was no use attempting to stem rumors that only developed by the hour.
Many men approached her—courted her, she supposed—in the years after she returned. They wanted to save her, to heal her, to protect her. The sadness and terrible wisdom in her eyes attracted them. She knew she must have seemed very different from the spoiled, bubbly girls they were accustomed to.
The affection was one-sided.
She was twenty-nine, now. Five years she'd lived a meaningless life in this town. She was past her prime, past marriageable age. She felt ancient. Her face would have been smooth if she could erase the tenseness from her features, the grief, but she was old by society's standards.
Sophia did not care much for society's standards anymore. It was a useless mold.
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She did not see Will again for another week or so until he burst through her door, uncharacteristically anxious, and nearly scared the wits out of Elizabeth. Nowadays the girl was always at her harpsichord and the instrument let out a resounding, off-key chord when she fumbled her notes in surprise.
"Will! What the bloody hell are you doing?" Sophia gasped, rendering Will speechless for only a moment. He had never gotten used to the crass language that her time on the Black Pearl had so graciously bestowed upon her.
"Jack. He's in trouble. I've only just heard," he wheezed, still winded. Sophia's fingertips froze where she had been idly tracing the polished wood of the stair banister.
"What?"
"I overheard two guards speaking. They said that the 'infamous Captain Sparrow' had been caught. He's been in prison for months, Sophia. They're holding him in London."
Sophia had stopped listening. She thought only of her dream.
Jack lies face down in a black cell where they dropped him.
"Oh god. . ." Sophia's weak legs carried her to a chair and she dropped like a woman with the vapors.
"Sophia?"
Sophia covered her face with her hand and tears leaked from between her fingers. Will's voice was very faint as he called her name. She whispered one thing before she stood and turned to climb the long trek of stairs up to her room.
"I saw it."
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I was afraid, though, the blame would find a way to stick to them. That's how blame was.
-- The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
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A/N: Bet you didn't see that coming! Well, maybe you did.
I apologize for the wait, but I did warn everyone that chapters might be slow this year. I hope this chapter isn't too confusing. You should be able to figure out where the flashbacks are :). Thanks to everyone who reviewed the prologue, as short as it was.
