Chapter 8
The next evening she did not find it necessary to go retrieve her message, she had a suspicion that none would be found inside the flask anyway so instead she excused herself early from her evening with Will and returned to her chambers in hopes of an encore to the previous nights performance. As the blood red sky changed to pink then violet then slowly to deep bluish black, she monitored the horizon as though the very safety of the town were dependent on it. The evenings first twinkling stars made their appearance and she patiently sat on the windows ledge breathing in the night air and letting the cool, ocean breeze caress her skin. She waited for hours yet nothing appeared on the horizon and no beautiful, illuminated insect showed up to act as a pointer. Eventually, Elizabeth moved to a chair and started to fall asleep so she resigned herself to the fact that sitting and waiting for a sign was not the way to go about this. Her father had always told her a watch pot never boils, and now she was beginning to appreciate the wisdom in that little phrase. She walked over to her bed and crawled under the sheets, pulling them up to her chin and letting the ocean breeze lull her to sleep.
Her sleep was not dreamless though, but instead of the pirate captain, she dreamed of a story once told by her mother when Elizabeth was a young girl living in England. A Japanese legend about supernatural sweethearts, it's a tale that had long since slipped into the back of her mind until tonight. The story is about a young man who was heading home from a wedding party when he saw, just in front of his house, a firefly. He paused a moment, surprised to see such an insect on a cold winter's night with snow on the ground. While he stood and meditated, the firefly flew toward him, and the young man struck at it with his stick, but the insect flew away and entered the garden adjoining his own.
The next day he called at his neighbor's house, and was about to relate the experience of the previous night when the eldest daughter of the family, the young man's betrothed, entered the room and exclaimed, "I had no idea you were here, and yet a moment ago you were in my mind. Last night I dreamt that I became a firefly. It was all very real and very beautiful, and while I was darting around in the night air I saw you, and flew toward you, intending to tell you that I had learnt to fly.
Upon waking once again in the darkness of the caribbean night Elizabeth spoke allowed to herself.
"A strange dream!", she exclaimed.
She couldn't understand why after all these years she would suddenly remember this story so vividly and dream of it as if she had heard it a million times before. As she processed this a movement caught her eye and she let her glance drift to the open window. Before she could comprehend what was happening she found herself surrounded by hundreds of fireflies filling her room and lighting it enough to cast soft shadows on the wall. They danced in front of her, beside her, near the floor, at the ceiling, they surrounded her yet none came within an arms reach of her. She sat in awe as the brilliant messangers delivered their message of freedom through flight and as she returned her gaze to the window she once again saw the dark outline of a ship. A beautiful ship. The ship of a man who had finally found freedom and now he had come for her.
As quickly as they arrived, the tiny night visitors left and Elizabeth felt her body warm at the thought of who sent her such a beautiful message. If there were any more doubts in her mind about what she should do about her future here in Port Royal, they had now been erased.