Chapter three: Hidden talents

The forth day out around the coast to Port Royal, the captain called that they should anchor near an empty bay, to give the crew a break to go swimming or catch some of the wild game. A fair few stayed on the ship, though there would be rotations.

Anya was content to sit on the deck and sunbathe. Isaiah was on her lap, swaddling taken off and in a simple little under clothes. There was no need for propriety at the moment. He was happily asleep...the sun warming his face.

"Are you going ashore?" Anya cracked a lazy eye open to see Francis standing above her. She squinted at the sun, and he moved into its rays, shadowing her.

"No." She said simply, and closed her eye.

"Not even to swim?"

"Not even to swim." Anya confirmed. She heard Francis walk away, but new and more lighter boot steps soon followed in his wake.

"Should you have the baby out in the sun like that?" Anya opened her eyes and sat up, frowning at the captain.

"He likes it," she shrugged. Jack kneeled down besides her and peered at the sleeping thing.

"You want to hold him? Anya asked, picking him up carefully and holding him out. Jack shrank away from the baby, and so she set him back in her lap.

"No," Jack looked curiously at the maid. She could have been pretty, but he saw the scars and wondered what had caused them. She seemed placid, though disturbed inwardly about something. Like there was a puzzle she needed to figure out, but had no pieces. She had taken off her cap, and her dark hair was twisted up into a knot of braids at the back of her neck.

"Why don't you leave the baby with someone on the ship, and come ashore to swim?" He said after a moment.

"No. I am content here on this chair in the sun," Anya leaned back again and closed her eyes, clearly dismissing him.

Jack stood up, confused. No one had acted like this to him on his ship. Well...there was the mutiny, but that was different. Here was a lowly maid pretty much telling her to leave him alone...on his ship! He walked away, shaking his head.

"Someone help me!" Anya's eyes snapped open as the cry came from the water. The small tender was bumping against the hull, and someone was calling for aid up.

"What is it?" She asked Francis who was the one to run to the opening in the bulwark. It was no dusk, and the second rotation had gone. Francis shrugged.

A man was hauled up, and was bleeding profusely. His right arm had a large gash through it, and he seemed faint. Anya–without exactly knowing what she was doing–all but shoved Isaiah into Francis' arms. She ran to the small cabin that she was given, and grabbed her sewing box, and the kerosene lamp that was burning low. She hurried back up to the deck, and forced the man down onto the wood.

"Hugh, is it? Hutt, hold him down. Can someone fetch something like rum...or gin? Anything like that will work." a bottle of rum was shoved in her hands. She placed two fingers over the opening and dribbled it on the wound. Hugh let out a groan of pain. She then dipped a length of thread from her box into the rum. After that she bade the man to drink; and as he was eagerly gulping down the vile drink, Anya took the smallest needle she had out of her box, took off the cover of the lamp and put the needle up to the flame. This done, she threaded the needle, and began to sew up the gash.

"How did this happen?" She asked, brows furrowed. Someone was smart enough to grab another lamp and so she had more light to work by. She was making conversation so that perhaps Hugh could take his mind off the pain he must have been feeling.

"I can't quite remember," Hugh said, resting his head against Anya's stretched out leg. She let him, and decided against conversation.

A small cheer came up from the remaining crew as she finished, and Hugh was carried off to the sick bay.

"How did you do that?" A voice asked from her elbow, as she gathered up her things and was looking around for Francis and Isaiah.

"What?" Anya looked around and saw Jack standing in the shadows behind her, his arms crossed.

"That was quite amazing. You acted faster then Hutt, who was practically the doctor on the ship. You had to have learned that from somewhere."

Anya shrugged, and brushed back a piece of loose hair. "I don't know. It just sort of...came to me." She admitted.

"Something like that just doesn't 'come to you'," Jack said, stepping out of the shadows. Isaiah was placed in Anya's arms and she checked him over; he seemed to have sustained no damage in being in the care of a pirate for a few minutes.

"I don't know!" Anya cried, annoyed at the mans persistance.

"You are very strange, Jackie," Jack said frowning. "How exactly did you come into the care of my late wife?"

Anya blinked. "She hired me."

"Well yes..I know that. But where were you before?"

"Port Royal," Anya shrugged. "I was working as a maid in the governors household. Then I got tired of the same place, I made my way to Maria."

"Port Royal? If you have never sailed before...how did you get all the way to Port Maria?"

"There are other ways to travel, Mr. Fox, other then by ship." Anya smiled wryly.

"Its Jack Sparrow now," Jack said curtly. Then, something seemed to dawn on him. "You said you were a maid in the governors house? And you look Russian..." he trailed off and walked away, clearly distracted. Anya watched after him, her face screwed up in confusion. Though Isaiah started to cry; she put it out of her mind.

"She isn't," Francis said stubbornly. "She can't be! She doesn't even talk like a Russian. She sounds purely Sussex,"

"But if she has never sailed before, and only remembered being in Jamaica...how did she get that accent?" Jack demanded.

"I dunno...maybe she grew up in a Sussex household? Its possible." Francis shrugged.

It was late at night, and the two where in the captain's cabin. A few candles were guttering in a tray on the main table, casting glows about the place. Jack was pacing slowly; Francis sitting at the oval table.

"I think she has lied to us," Jack stopped in front of the younger man. "I think she has indeed played us for a fool. What kind of name is Jackie anyhow? Anya Jacqueline," Jack stressed. Francis shook his head stubbornly.

"She is no more Russian then you or I. I think she has amnesia, though."

Jack snorted. "She has her memory like you or I," he said in an imitation of Francis' voice. "Fine. We are going to keep her on the ship until we find out for sure. Tell her that I need to talk to my sister-in-law first. Then if what I find out is true or false we detirmine what to do next,"

Francis had to agree.