The Oldest Story in the Book
Chapter 37
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Pearl grinned as she swept her sword in an arch, emptying a man's intestines onto the floor. Emmie, who had been fighting the man in question, shook her head as she wiped his blood from her face. "I had him."
"Just watching out for my daughter," Pearl said with a grin.
"Or showing off for your father," Ethan said, turning a blow aside.
"Well, perhaps if he visited more often," she shot at the pirate, who was carving his own way through.
"If your darling husband would let me follow my normal path of pillaging and plundering-" Jack shot back.
"-Death and destruction," Norrington said, sidestepping a blow.
"Is that raspberry preserve on your sword, Commodore?" Jack asked.
"We need less arguing and more fighting, boys. More getting along wouldn't hurt either," Pearl said. "I'm making for the helm."
"Not yet," Emmie said. "There are still too many."
"If I stay here with these two it's going to drive me to impale myself on someone's sword," Pearl said, diving into the men.
"Does she want to die?" Norrington asked.
"Five years and you still have no faith in your wife?" Jack asked, cutting Norrington off as he moved to follow. "Honestly. Small wonder I never married."
Emmie chuckled as she continued fighting. "She's been at this a lot longer than you, Papa. Let her at it. We'll follow. She's in no danger when she's this excited."
They worked their way easily toward the front of the ship, finding Pearl fighting off a circle of men. "What took you so long?" she greeted.
"You're crazy, woman," Norrington said, letting Emmie, Jack, and Ethan cover them for a moment so that he could hug her.
"Always," she answered before turning to join the fight.
All Emmie would remember later was the sound. She was always certain, despite everyone telling her it was impossible, that she heard her mother's flesh tear. She turned the moment it happened, whether the sound or the flash of sword caught her attention. She saw the finish of the death stroke. Saw the blood arch from the boy's sword to fly over the deck and onto those fighting around them.
Emmie wouldn't remember moving either. She vaguely recalled using her sword to remove the impediment between herself and her mother. She wouldn't remember whether she cut the flesh in her way or simply moved it aside, whether it was the flesh of friend or foe.
The next thing she knew she was standing behind her mother, who looked up at the boy who was staring in shock.
He swallowed hard, staring at the sword stained with her blood as if he couldn't believe it. Didn't dare. "I'm…sorry," he whispered, so low it could barely be heard, as Pearl pressed a hand to the blood staining her shirt crimson, no doubt running onto the dark pants although those spots remained hidden..
"Well played," Pearl said to the boy with a short inclination of her head before her legs crumpled beneath her.
Emmie moved quickly, catching her beneath the arms and lowering her gently to the floor with her head cradled in her lap. Pearl looked at her, a bit dazed, as if uncertain how exactly she had gotten onto the deck. In a blink, however, they were clear, and focused totally on Emmie. A smile lit her face as she remained, unmoving, looking up at her daughter.
Emmie lifted her hands away from her mother, uncertain of what to do beyond desperately avoiding doing any more harm to her mother's torn body, to avoid causing her any more pain.
"Ah, darling. Glad you're here," Pearl sighed. "Afraid I really did it this time. Think your father will kill me?"
"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," Emmie said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "I'd be more concerned about grandpapa."
As if the words had summoned him Jack suddenly appeared before them. He fell to his knees in front of Pearl. "What have you done!" he demanded.
"Not a very good job, I'm afraid," she said, coughing and quickly removing the blood with her free hand although both the other pirates saw it. Jack's eyes met Emmie's over Pearl's head, and she could see the same desperation in his eyes she knew lay in her own.
Jack removed Pearl's arm and pressed the torn and bloodied shirt out of the way. He winced when she groaned just slightly under her breath, shaking her head a bit at her inability to stifle it. Jack sighed when he saw the wound, looking over Pearl's head to meet Emmie's eyes yet again and shake his head slightly as he replaced Pearl's arm. There was nothing to be done, and only pain to be gained if they tried.
Emmie lowered her head to hide the moisture stinging in her eyes. She chocked when the movement brought the scent from the wound. It was the scent of rot, of disease and death and excrement mixed together.
It was the scent every person that had ever smelled it feared. It meant certain death, by a slow poisoning of the body. A wound gone bad, something instrumental and unclean severed in the abdomen. Emmie was almost glad to see Pearl wipe more blood from her lips. Something else had been fractured inside, something important. This would end quickly. And yet…her arms tightened around the woman who had raised her. She didn't have enough time to say goodbye, to say what she felt, to tell her mother how she felt.
Pearl's free hand found hers, squeezed. Understanding, love, certainty passed between them in that moment, and this time the tears were those of thanks for her mother's understanding.
Then Pearl's attention shifted back to the man who meant as much to her, in much the same way.
"I'm sorry Papa," Pearl whispered. All her insecurity reflected in that voice. She was suddenly ten again, begging her father not to be angry with her for the mistake.
Jack swallowed hard and nodded. "Everyone's number comes sooner or later. You had to go meet ol' Davy before me, did you?" While the tone was meant to be light there was a weight to it Jack Sparrow seldom had. This was the first time Emmie would be able to remember Jack being so starkly serious he couldn't even pretend to joke.
"Always trying to outdo you. Not that it was possible, that sort of legend," Pearl answered, her voice a bit lighter but no spark of laughter in her eyes.
"I'd say you've bested me here," he sighed.
"Pearl?" The Sparrows looked up as Edward Norrington bowled his way through the gathering crowd with his son close behind him.
He stopped, standing stock still to stare down at Pearl. He stepped back, stumbling into his son. "Not again," he whispered.
"Edward?" Pearl asked, tears gathering in her eyes for the first time. "I'm sorry, darling."
He fell to his knees, crawling swiftly forward. "What happened?"
"We've seen it before," Pearl said. She reached for him, and he quickly slipped her hand into hers. "How many men have we watched die like this?"
"Too many," he said.
"There are worse ways to go, although I'm not so found of the crowd."
Emmie was aware of those around her for the first time. The fighting around them had ceased at some point. The combined crews of the Black Pearl and Jade Emerald stood close to one another, but the merchant crew they had been locked in mortal battle with stood among them, staring at the fallen Sparrow. Scarred and bleeding men watched with fear in their eyes.
Emmie wondered fleetingly if it was the death of a legend the strangers had come to witness, or if they feared the equally well-known temper of the pirates that would be unleashed upon them in revenge for Pearl's death.
"Outdoing me again," Jack sighed.
"They're watching you," Pearl answered, attempting to turn a cough into a chuckle and failing spectacularly. "I don't have very long." Pearl's eyes searched the crowd. "I need to speak to the boy."
"The boy?" Norrington asked, shaking his head in confusion.
"It was me," a voice said. The boy, perhaps fourteen years old but wearing the scars of a man twice that age, stepped forward. His head was down, his sword gone, eyes dead. He looked like a man marching to the gallows after a swift sermon on the hell that awaited him.
He fell to his knees before Pearl, landing hard on the planks, his head and arms jostling with the fall. "If you demand my life, I will give it," he murmured without raising his head.
"I don't want your life any more," Pearl said. "I would have taken it earlier if you hadn't tagged me, make no mistake. But you won. The rules of the sea are very clear." She paused to cough. "But here's one you may not know about." She leaned forward, relying on Emmie to help press her forward. Emmie winced, imagining she could hear the rip of the fractured organs. The boy looked up at that, staring at the woman. "You have to live for me now. As I've lived for every person I ever killed. Every moment to the fullest, every fight to the last breath. Do you understand?"
The boy swallowed. "I think so," he whispered.
"You'll find it," Pearl promised. "You're a legend now."
"I'm not certain I want to be," he said.
"You'll come to it," she promised, leaning back again. "Go on, boyo. I've others to talk to."
The boy pulled himself to his feet, stumbling back to disappear into the crowd.
Pearl leaned back, looking up at Emmie. "I'm afraid I'm tired, darling one. Getting cold."
"Don't say that," Norrington ordered. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he shook his head wildly. "You can fight this. You're strong."
"I am," Pearl sighed. "But I'm not stronger than this. Not greater than death. It's taken me this long to figure that out." She shook her head, groaning as she shifted. "It's not fair, is it? We didn't have long enough."
"Forever wouldn't have been long enough," Norrington sighed. "For any of us. I love you. From the first moment I saw that. Never doubt it."
"I don't," she whispered. "And I you." She leaned toward him. He tried to press a short kiss onto her lips and pull away but she grabbed him, pulling him closer to give him a full, strong once-over. "I never do anything half-way," she whispered to him. "You know that."
Norrington shook his head, a half-smile on his face. "How am I to live without you?" he asked.
"Our little ones," Pearl said. "You have our babies to watch, my grandchildren to kiss."
Her eyes fell back to Ethan. "And you, Ethan. If I'd ever had a son you're exactly as I would want him to be."
"Thank you," Ethan said. "It means the world to me that you would say that. I've been proud to learn from you these years."
Pearl nodded, turning to her father. "Oh, Jack. What could I say to you?"
"We've said it, luv, over and again," Jack said, claiming a hand to kiss her knuckles. "I love you. You know that."
"I do," she sighed. "I've missed you. Will miss you until you join me."
"Might not be so long. I've been haunting this world a good while," he sighed. "I'm starting to feel my age."
"No hurry," Pearl said. "You'll come when you're meant to. Any message you'd like me to offer my mother?"
He sighed. "Tell her I love her." Jack leaned forward to kiss her forehead, slipping a bit on the pool of blood spreading over those close to her.
"She'll like that," Pearl sighed and nodded and leaned back further to look into her daughter's eyes. "And my darling Emmie. Any message for your grandmamma?"
"I tell her now, often as I think of it," Emmie assured her. "As I will you."
"You have to mind these men we've been put in charge of," Pearl ordered. "They don't have the good pirate sense we're gifted with."
"Count upon it," Emmie said.
"Is there anything we can do for you?" Norrington asked. "Anything you decided you wanted?"
"A fine Christian burial?" Pearl coughed. "You never give up, do you?"
"I've been around pirates too long," he said with a chuckle.
"No. Just send me to the sea. No use keeping Davy waiting." She sighed heavily, looking around her. "I've no regrets. If you want a stone, even without me there, perhaps put that on it. Such people in my life, so well-lived." She sighed again, coughed weakly. "No regrets."
"No one doubts it," Emmie assured her, hugging her close.
Pearl smiled, a sad smile, not her trademark grin but still so full of life. And with that her eyes closed and she gave a final deep sigh. Her lips fell, and the glow that seemed to constantly surround her, the crackle of energy that came with being a Sparrow, left with it. All Emmie had in her arms was the empty shell of her mother's corpse and the tears of those that had loved her.
The men gathered around remained silent as Norrington leaned forward to gather the fallen Sparrow from his daughter. "We'll set her on her way from the Black Pearl," he said, holding her close.
"It's as she would want," Emmie asserted, attempting to press the clotting blood from her clothing.
"There's something left to do," Jack said, eyeing the ship around him. "These men took my daughter from me."
"Jack," Emmie said. "It's done. Let's just go back."
"We're pirates," Jack snapped at her. "We have a code of honor. Someone has to answer. I say we burn her to the ground, after we lock them in the brig."
The pirates growled agreement, reaching for their swords as the merchants pulled back, shifting unsteadily. "I want that lad as killed her," one of the pirates jeered.
"There's no need for that. Jack, she wouldn't have liked this," Emmie said.
"Surely a little vengeance couldn't hurt," Norrington remarked.
"Papa!" Emmie cried. When he shrugged at her she saw a darkness, a coldness in his eyes she had never witnessed in him before. She swallowed hard, taking an automatic step away from her father.
Apparently her brother saw it as well, for he stepped quickly forward. "You're not murderers, either of you," Ethan spoke up in that soft voice that drew attention. "Not without need. Pearl loved that about you. The both of you. I'd think twice about letting go of that just because she's gone."
"She's right," Emmie said quickly, stepping forward. "She would want us to put her to rest quickly as possible and be on our way."
Jack gripped his sword more tightly. "Not without what's rightfully ours. She died for this plunder, and I'll not leave short a daughter and without the prize she was after." A wicked grin, not his glorious smile but a twisted parody of it he wore only at his most dangerous, twisted his lips. "And if some or all of them die in the fray, more's the better."
"You can take it."
Jack spun to face the man who had spoken, his sword rising to press the merchant's chin back. Fear registered in his eyes as he swallowed and stepped back. Jack followed, adding pressure to stop his retreat. "And who might you be? You're no captain."
"My captain is dead," the man answered, eyes straying toward the spot the crew had first crossed onto the ship. "I don't care to join him."
"Terms?" Emmie said quickly, ignoring the look Jack gave her.
"We'll hand it over. You'll get no trouble from us. Leave us able to sail, with supplies enough to get to a Port, and all will be well."
"All will be well!" Jack repeated. "I sail without my daughter. Her husband and her daughter must go on without her. How can all be well!"
The man stepped back, cleared his throat as sweat poured down his face. "A poor choice of words. I apologize."
"It's fair," Emmie said. "Jack, help Papa with Pearl. She'd dislike it if you missed her burial. We'll take it from here."
Jack shook his head, forcefully sheathing his sword as he glared at the man. "You are fortunate that my attention is needed elsewhere."
Emmie and Ethan nodded to one another as their father turned toward the Pearl with Jack following. Emmie waited until they were out of sight before allowing her brother to wrap his arms around her.
"You're very brave," he whispered.
"Only when I must be," she answered. She turned to look at the sailors standing around her. "You had best get to work."