Disclaimer: Here's a reminder: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean. Disney does.
A/N: Enjoy!
Chapter 13
James Norrington had been in Allenport nearly a week and had seen no sign of Morgan White as of yet. He had heard plenty of stories from the simple town folk but they did not have much information that James could use to his advantage. Most of the villagers had offered their stories at a small price but done of them were too useful to him. He felt he would soon be depleting his funds before he received any substantial news on Morgan.
He had walked the streets of the town every morning and would know them by heart if his watch over the town continued. James was beginning to wonder if the information he had received was useless to him. Perhaps White had already heard of his temporary residence in Allenport and had already spent spies to watch him as he searched for her. He was also considering that perhaps it was Morgan herself who had sent the man to lead him here and was laughing at his expensive while she continued to practice her piracy in the Caribbean. James was angry at himself for following the advice of a stranger he didn't know. He chided himself, realizing that it would teach him to take information from unknown informants.
"Commodore!" a voice shouted to him from the end of the street. He knew it was one of his own men before he turned around. James only wished they had good news for him.
"Commodore! It's Lieutenants Ricks, Fielding, and Wheelwright, sir!" the tone of the soldier's voice said everything to Norrington. He knew it was bad news.
James ran down the street, his sword jostling in his side and rattling loudly. If they had any information, it might mean Morgan was on the island. It would mean his information was good at that but he wasn't sure if he had wished for any news if it meant another death for someone he knew. When he reached the soldier who stood at the end of the street, he quickly showed the Commodore the way.
"Lieutenant Ricks and Fielding are dead, sir," the soldier said, quickly leading him down a side street. "Wheelwright was knocked unconscious and is finally coming around."
"Did he say anything?" James asked worriedly as he kept quickly in step with the officer.
"No, sir. Not yet. Gillette bade me to fetch you before he said anything, sir," the soldier replied as they turned a corner and quickly hurried towards a cluster of British men down the street.
The two men slowed down as they began to approach the small group of British officers that stood in the emptied street. James noticed first the body of Lieutenant Ricks who was being rolled face up by some of the officers. He watched one of the men cross himself before he turned towards the other body of Fielding who lay face up on the ground a few feet away. Norrington noticed the blood that had seeped through the white and red of the coat, making a dark stain on the fabric on the man's chest. A soldier closed the dead man's eyes as James turned towards the man beside him.
"Get these men off the street. They need to be buried." He said before turning towards the man standing next to Lieutenant Wheelwright, "Gillette, how is he?"
The men bustled to clean the streets of the two dead men while those caring for Wheelwright stayed. Though Wheelwright's head throbbed with pain, he tried to speak to them.
"It was Morgan!" he cried before incoherently mumbling.
"Lieutenant, we will take you to a doctor. Wheelwright, do you hear me?" James nearly had to shout at the babbling man.
As some of Norrington's men picked him up, James knew that Morgan had been here for certain. He realized he needed to find her before she was out of his grasp again. What he didn't know was that she had settled herself a little offshore from town because of his men.
On the Cicatriz, Morgan listened intently as Jonathan Meade finished his tale. "As I said Morgan, it's an island of dead souls. Your father led them there because they had forced him to bring them to the Isle of De Murte. He brought them to the wrong island. The caves stretched for miles and in each of them, the pirates were lost. Because of this, they have blamed out father – Henry White for their demise. They are the army who cannot die for whosoever frees them, they will be forever bound to them until the last offspring of that blood line has died or they have received their freedom."
She tilted her head back. "And how would you know about such tales, Jonathan?" Morgan asked.
"I met a man who once told me that tale when I was twelve. He also told me my future and that I would meet the one person who would solve this puzzle would be a kin to me," he said, slowly pacing the room before looking towards her. "You're the only kin I have."
Morgan shook her head. "I hold no answers," she whispered silently.
Jonathan continued speaking without ever hearing what she had said. "Our father escaped from that island, along. The map he created I took from him one night. He never asked for it and I believe he knew what his fate would be," he sat down on her desk again. "That is why we must go to them. We must free him from this torment."
Morgan glanced down at the book next to him. She felt uneasy about the whole business. "Why free him now?" she asked curiously.
"When the map arrives tomorrow, you shall understand," Jonathan replied mysteriously before standing up, his hand brushing against the book he had left on the table in front of her. "I have spoke too much of this tonight," he said before nodding and exiting her quarters.
White stared at the door, listening to his footsteps die away before she glanced upon her desk again. She looked towards her father's skull that stared dully back at her. "So?" she asked it angrily. "Is that why?"
It was a question to take on the last seventeen years of her life. She had always wondered why he had become a pirate but had received no real answer from him – even when he was alive. Morgan felt she knew the answer why and it wasn't what she had expected.
Turning the book over on her desk, she read the title silently. It was Hamlet, her father's favorite play. Silently, she stood up and put it back on the shelf before turning to face the skull on her desk. "No casualties, sir," she told it solemnly before exiting the room.
