1Chapter 08:
Elizabeth's letter to Jack Sparrow was to go to Tortuga to that same pub Patricia had drank her self into a stupor long ago. The Watch was her best bet in finding the captain. She hoped that the letter would find its way to the restless pirate, moreover entice him to make the trip to Port Royal again. The letter would not reach for some days so she couldn't expect him for another week or so. She wished it reach him sooner but even with the Black Pearl, which Jack still sulked and wistfully dreamt over, it would need that much time to sail the waters. Either way, who even knew if that letter would find its to Jack Sparrow when it reaches Tortuga.
Elizabeth arrived just in time for the lunch Jane, the household servant, had prepared. Jane was taking up a tray to Patricia in the upstairs bedroom when Elizabeth caught her and offered to bring the tray up.
"Just take my food to her room," Elizabeth requested with a kind smile. "I'd like to eat with her."
"Yes, ma'am," Jane nodded her head and went back down to gather the food.
Elizabeth arrived at Patricia's bedroom and smiled at the new mother cradling the little boy in her arms as she sat at a chair by the window. "You look comfortable," Elizabeth murmured taking up her own chair next to Aidan and Patricia.
"I am," Patricia grinned. She ran a finger across the baby's cheek and smiled at the little coos he made in response. "I can't believe this little person was inside me no less than a week ago! It just boggles my mind when I think about it."
"It puts me in awe. I can't even imagine what it was like going through that myself." Elizabeth poured some tea into cups and separated the sandwiches for herself and Patricia. Her companion smiled and reached over her child to take one.
"When are you and James having some of your own?" Patricia teased over bread.
"Not anytime soon, that much I know," Elizabeth smirked. "He won't be returning to the Caribbean for a very long time."
"Why not?"
"You just took the trip yourself. England and Port Royal are far reaches of the Earth from each other." Patricia nodded and looked back at her son. Elizabeth sighed and took a sip of her tea. "Patricia, may I be frank?"
"Of course, Elizabeth," Patricia replied, knowing what Elizabeth was going to say even before she asked permission to say it.
"I think that, since England and all this large business project has started, Will's priorities have shifted and I don't think they shifted well." She could see that Patricia paled for a moment and then turned to the window. "I want you to stay until I'm sure that you're being taken care of as well as my new nephew. Till I know Will will take care of you unconditionally."
"He's taking care of me just fine and he'll take care of Aidan just as well," Patricia said, defending her husband.
"Then why isn't Will here?" Elizabeth asked.
"Because sometimes taking care of his family means leaving us every now and then," Patricia answered.
"I cannot believe you are siding with him," she rolled her eyes. "His place is here with you. Anyone could have delivered those packages. It didn't have to be him!"
"Jillian is just that way. We'd lose him if we didn't go by his orders."
"That wasn't what you were saying when you first arrived. You were ready to throw him to the sharks for leaving you like this."
"He only promised to stay till Aidan came. Aidan's come. He's free to go about his business again."
Elizabeth sat back on her chair letting go of the years of posture training she had endured before. She was too exasperated with the two. If she was willing to look at it a certain way, she could see they were right. Sacrifices had to be made in a marriage. It just so happened that, in her marriage, James was the one sacrificing his needs and so Elizabeth didn't really understand the concept as well.
"If you really insist to see things in his point of view, then fine," she sighed. "But you're still staying, staying until Jack comes anyways."
"Jack? Jack's not coming anytime soon," Patricia frowned. "Why would he?"
"Oh, he's coming. I just sent him a letter to ask him to see the new addition to the pirate family," Elizabeth grinned.
"Well, that's only if we had pirate blood in our veins," Patricia laughed, cradling Aidan, glad for the lighter subject. "But I don't have any and Will hates them enough to erase whatever pirate he might have had in him if he had that blood to begin with."
Elizabeth pursed her lips. "You never thought that your father was a pirate?"
"No. Why would I?" Patricia shrugged.
"Well," Elizabeth trailed off, looking slightly uncomfortable. "People talked when I was younger. They always wondered why he was gone for so long and there's the whole thing with how your father died. People just wondered if pirates had anything to do with all of it. I mean he did have connections with them. Everyone knew that."
"Just because my father and I lived a life that could come out of Shakespeare's tales doesn't mean he had anything to do with pirates," Patricia muttered, not wanting to remember just how her father had died. It wasn't something that she liked in her past and the fact that she witnessed the scene was enough to want her to bury it under more appealing memories. "He loved the romance in the stories of treasures and swordfights. That was all."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that he was and I didn't mean to bring up bad memories." Elizabeth bit her lip and tried to think of something to lighten the mood again. "Oh! The medallion!"
"What?" Patricia looked up from her food and saw Elizabeth run out of the door and run back in with a small jewelry box.
"Speaking of treasure," Elizabeth grinned. "I've been meaning to give this to Will since you've come but it never seemed quite right. I thought he might be angry with me if he had known I had it all this time. I think it'd be better coming from you."
"What is it?" Patricia put the sleeping Aidan in his cradle and took the velvet box into her hands. She opened it and saw a golden medallion. It looked old even though it shined in the sun and her brows furrowed at the etched skull in the middle.
"I found it with Will when we found him at that shipwreck. Call it childish ignorance but it looked like a pirate medallion. I was afraid he'd be questioned for it so I took it before my father or James saw," Elizabeth explained. "Now that it's been so long, I'm afraid he'd be angry with me for keeping it for so long, never telling him." She looked up and saw the way that Patricia was holding it and the way she stared at it. Thinking that Patricia was angry, she let out a hurried apology.
"No." Patricia turned the medallion over and saw the same etching. "I'm not upset or anything. Will might be but I'm sure he'll get over it. The past is the past. It's not like it will come back to haunt him or anything of the sort. That's just in the stories."
"Then what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked.
"I have one just like it," Patricia replied. "Can you go to the vanity and get me that little music box?"
Elizabeth acquiesced and fetched a purple box locked shut by a gold keyhole.
"Just like it? Are you serious?" Elizabeth hurried to Patricia's side and watched Patricia open the box with a key that hung on a necklace she wore. The box opened and she saw a great number of jewels and underneath it all was what seemed like a gold coin. Patricia took it out and Elizabeth gasped. The medallions were indeed identical. Mark for mark, skull for skull, there was no mistaking that both had similar origins. "Where did you get yours from?"
"My father," Patricia gulped.
"Do you think your parents and Will's parents might have known each other?" Elizabeth asked.
"I don't know," Patricia frowned. She sat back down at her chair and put the medallions on the tray where the food was set. "I mean, I'm sure I'm just being paranoid since you were just talking about pirates and all but…" She trailed off and looked at ocean just outside. "It does make you think though."
"Yes," Elizabeth agreed. She picked the medallions up and rubbed her handkerchief on it. "It got wet," she muttered, shining it. "Water must have accumulated on the tray."
"I think I'll keep them both in here," Patricia murmured, taking the medallions and putting them back into her music box, "If it's important, then it'll come up again. For all we know, it just might be the same jeweler with a taste for Indian culture."
"You're probably right." Elizabeth returned the medallions to their proper place. When she sat back down, Elizabeth looked outside, frowning at something she just noticed. The winds have changed.
Miles and miles away, where the undead waited and waited a sign, a swarm of pirates had begun to emerge from caves hidden by fog and magic. In the waters of Ile de Muerta, the island that could be found by only those who already know where it is, the Black Pearl let down its sails and its captain boarded to the helm.
"Can ye feel it, boys?" Barbossa cried over his crew and a resounding 'aye' followed. Barbossa threw his head back in a laugh. Years counting to over a decade had passed since the medallions silent cry had made it to their ears across waters and wind. They could hear it now. They could hear its call and Barbossa and his crew intend to heed it.
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