Jack Turner couldn't contain his excitement. Not only had he just loosed a boat and rowed it to shore for the first time, but he had beached it himself as well. Dragging it through the sand was a bit of a struggle. Maybe, he thought, it was just that it always looked easier done than was. But by the amused look on Bootstrap Bill's face, Jack knew he must have had a hard time of it.
"Like to see you do that," he told the man, "with only nine years to your name!"
The corner of Bootstrap's mouth lifted. He made no move to speak. Stared at Jack for a time, Bootstrap did, and then his dark eyes went blank. Jack, who'd made a line for his grandfather to stand before him, followed the man's empty gaze over his shoulder out to sea. Finding nothing in particular to be looking at, he frowned and stood aside.
"Shouldn't be here, son."
Jack folded his arms as he'd seen Samson do. For some reason it made him feel just a bit safer—but that was silly to think one needed to feel safe around one's own grandfather! "I know."
Bootstrap Bill Turner frowned, but he did not say anything. In fact, he busied himself searching for something within the folded top of his boot. From it he took a pouch and a pipe and a small tinderbox. It was as if Jack was not even there…
Finding this frustrating—for why it seemed that his grandfather did not wish to speak to him he could not begin to guess—and feeling rather cold despite the clement weather, Jack hugged his sides. He watched Bootstrap puff on the pipe, saw the smoke furl around them, and smelled something not unlike Uncle Jack's rum. It was a pleasant smell, much more pleasant than should have persuaded his stomach to pitch like it did.
"Can you blow rings?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Bootstrap looked at him. He did not answer but his chest rose as it filled with smoke. When he took the pipe away, quick bursts of ghostly grey escaped his mouth in rapid succession till there wavered a line of smoke rings before him.
"Amazing," Jack breathed. "Have you any other tricks?" Eager to see more, he knelt in the cool, silver sand before his grandfather. "Faust's shown me some o' his but I bet he'd choke on smoke!"
Bootstrap's mouth turned up in a smile. He ran a thumb around the ivory bowl of his pipe, put the bit to his mouth, and inhaled. Smoldering herbs glowed, lighting up his dark eyes to show their depths. Jack met his gaze. He cursed himself for it but turned away feeling shy. When he turned back he saw smoke shooting from Bootstrap's flared nostrils while it streamed from both corners of his mostly closed mouth. He looked like—
"A dragon!"
"Not just any dragon," his grandfather said with a chuckle. "An angry dragon." He put the pipe back up to his mouth and puffed on it. When he took it away again, his eyes narrowed just a bit. "Faust a pirate?"
A tad bit of excitement wriggled in Jack's belly. Whether it was because the man had finally asked him something or because he'd finally asked him something he'd been itching to talk about he did not know. Either was fine by him.
"No," he said, leaning forward so his whisper wouldn't be lost on the man, "I heard it told that Isaac Faust has come back from England a redcoat! But no one's s'posed to know it, 'specially Uncle Jack. Savvy?"
Bootstrap sat back with a crack of laughter. He nodded at Jack. "Understood." A set of straight, white teeth flashed and then he whistled. "Oh if I could hear Sparrow when he finds out..."
"Are you mad?" Jack leaned back, eyeing the man. "It'll be Armageddon!"
"Read the Bible do you?"
"Course," Jack scoffed. "Missus Topp's favorite book's the Good Book so I've got to read it. 'Sides, even if I didn't, Mister Gibbs talks about it all the time. I'm not sure if he thinks anyone's listening, but I hear him just the same. Jesus, Mary, and all the Saints. I think he's worried they won't take him."
Bootstrap raised his brows.
"'Fore I went on to Missus Topp's, Da taught me reading. But he's not as good as Mum is—" Jack stopped, feeling a hot blush spread over his cheeks. He looked up at his grandfather through the fringe of his eyelashes. "I'm not supposed to know that."
"Well if you're not supposed to," asked Bootstrap, "how is it that you do?"
Jack looked at the sand, feeling for some reason like a traitor. "Mum was tellin Uncle Jack how proud she was that Da was tryin so hard to teach me… I overheard."
"Sounds as if ye hear lots of things ye shouldn't."
Jack shrugged. "Hiding's my specialty."
Bootstrap nodded sagely. "Mine too, son, mine too."
Jack Sparrow had never looked more threatening. A wild tangle of mess was his hair and his eyes blazed with such heat that even the fires of hell could probably not compare. Pirate captain by all accounts was this man, the man storming about his captain's quarters in a thundering rage. It had come on out of nowhere, like a bolt from the blue. Quick as lightning's strike had the accusations shouted from Jack, and Will wondered momentarily if Ahku Khar's Zeus had anything on the tempestuous man before him.
Tumult he'd wreaked upon his own sanctuary. With a thousand curses he'd even tipped over the spare cupboard of rum. The stuff stank. Will saw it sinking into and staining the Oriental rug that was littered with the things Jack's furious arm had swept off his desk. One of the strange instruments, which Will did not pretend to know the significance of, the pirate had hurled with all his might at the elaborate glass cabinet in the corner. It had shattered one pane and glinted at Will from within. There it laid upon the shelf amidst the things always there: an old and unused but all too familiar pistol, several odd canisters, a sheaf of parchment bound with a leather strap, and a single dagger Will had not laid eyes on before. It was small and simple, its tarnished blade stained dark…
A sickening crack of glass brought him sharply around. Lurching to his feet, Will looked round frantically for something to defend himself with if the mad pirate charged him. When he realized that the clamor of rage had been reduced to whimpers, his frenetic gaze searched instead for Jack. It found him sagging against the mirror through which he'd stuck a fist. Forehead to it, Will could not see his face, but he did see the blood on Jack's knuckles.
"Curse him," came the pirate's choked voice, "the coward." He stepped back away from the mirror and Will was relived to see that he'd not cut himself deeply, although he was certain by the look on Jack's face that he'd been cut deeply by someone else—namely the coward who was his father. "Hiding from us—like a dog with his tail tucked 'tween his legs… on no account—"
"No," said Will quietly, "he doesn't seem to have any answers, does he?"
Jack, startled by the sudden question, looked back at Will as though he had forgotten he was there. A strange look twisted his face and he scrubbed at it with his uninjured hand. Eyes cast down, he could not note the appearance of Sam Samson in the doorway and Will, unsure if he'd go on if he knew the man was there, did not see fit to inform him of the matter.
"Never answered to anyone, your father."
"Except Neris."
"Never answered to her either," said Jack with a frown, "but then no one needed to answer to Neris for Neris to know the answers." He looked at Will. "Unless," he said, "someone did not want her to know." Against the mast he leaned, closing his eyes. "Your father did her as much wrong as he did us, Will. Don't blame her for his mistakes."
"So easy for you to say," shot Will, pointing a finger at the pirate. "You, part and parcel to what kept him from his family, were not there to witness the wasted tears my mother cried for that man!"
Jack looked as though he'd been struck. He turned away and his face was hidden in shadow. When he spoke, his voice was but a quiet rumble. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?"
Samson took that moment to step in. He hesitated in the midst of Jack's mess. Framed in the draperies of the doorway with his bulky arms folded awkwardly over his massive chest, he looked as if only a painting of a pirate.
"That's right you don't," he said, making Jack jump. The Scot frowned at him and then turned green eyes on Will. "And by nae fault o' your own. Would if you'd been told—tis time to tell the truth!" As Jack moved to protest he growled, raising a fist. "Nae, Jacky—Sainthood's not for the living and Bootstrap's very much alive!"
"Are you going to come back with us?"
The boy's question cut through the companionable silence that had fallen between the two of them. William paused with the pipe to his mouth and stared down the long length of it at the boy—his grandson, think of it—staring just as startled back at him. There was, however, hope in the boy's expression that William did not himself have any hold of—nor, after all these years of silence, dare to wish for.
"To Port Royal, I mean," said the boy, having mistaken his quiet for confusion. He knelt up with an eager grace so common to boys excited to explore a new horizon, an enthusiasm so lost on the men who had already gone before them. "It's not big as some ports, but I know all the places—oh!" A smile lit up his face. "You'll want to go to the cove of course." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "It's out from under the eye of most the town. You can do whatever you like without anyone there to see you—Mum does most of her swordplay practice there."
William raised his brows.
"She's got real good at it, can disarm Uncle Jack even. Da taught her that strategy special just to see the look on Uncle Jack's face." The boy leaned back, effort of thought twisting his entire face. "There's the harbor, where it's good to spot the ships come in, and Mister Gladley's pastures—he's got fifteen horses—and the fort—oh but you won't want to go there on count of the redcoats—but I expect you'll like the wharf. You fish?"
"Used to."
"It's good for that." He gave the nod of one with utmost knowledge. "Loads of fishes in there."
William hid a smile behind his pipe. "Ye don't say…"
"Loads of 'em, I tell you—caught myself a really big one last time—"
"How big?"
It seemed the right question to ask, for the boy's grin seemed to stretch as far as his hands did. William eyed this supposed length of fish with suspicion. To his eye—which was still good up close far as he could tell—it was a length much too long to have been reeled in by the scrawny arms describing it.
"Did ye eat it?"
"'Course not!" The boy scoffed. "A fish that big? We'd have been eating it for days!"
"Ah," said William, trying very hard not to betray his disbelief, "what'd ye do with it then?"
But his grandson had lapsed back to the grand scheme of his, concentration hard on his face again. Though William took a really long drag on his pipe, he sighed inwardly. There was little point, he thought, hearing so much of a place where he wagered he would not be welcome.
"…and Mum tries to bake—but she's not really all that good at the art of the kitchen—so the baker, Mister Sweetser, stops by on the Lord's Day with a basket of breads and pies…"
That had been some bit of why he never sought the boy's father in the first place, hadn't it? It had seemed foolish to assume that a boy neglected by his father in childhood would want to know him as an adult. Too little too late, Jack might say…
"…and Captain Groves gives me sailship lessons…"
Mostly, though, he had known he was a danger to his son in one way or another. When Barbossa and his crew of rabble tossed him to the depths promising to find that cursed coin he'd thought for a time that he had lost—that they knew right where it was and would spill his unsuspecting son's blood before he was even able to shake free of the shackles they'd strapped to him. The thought of the wide-eyed boy lighting up as he unknowingly lifted a cursed gold coin out of the package William had sent—only the second package William had ever sent—kept him from freeing himself for a time. When after an eternity of darkness he still hadn't drawn a single breath of water, hope flared that his plan had gone off as expected and in a frenzy he'd worked out a way—he winced thinking on it—to free himself…
"…Lucy hates the water, but she's been fairly well-behaved this trip. I think it's just Uncle Jack though, anyone else keeping that little chit onboard a ship would have a time of it… she does have a fascination with sand though…"
Going on some wild sense of direction, perhaps an Intuit gift, William had made for that godforsaken island they'd left Jack to die on. Some semblance of a mad plan was forming in his head as he made his way slovenly through the heavy water. By the time he vaulted up off his feet to swim to the surface he had a fairly good idea that if anyone would go into a mad dash with him it would be Jack Sparrow—if his captain was still alive that was. When finally his feet had hit land he'd cast a sharp eye about—the island being small—and held hope that Jack had done his best not to perish. It was a fool's notion that the man might survive so long on such a small, sparse island but… hadn't William always been a fool? As the hours passed, however, with no sign of Jack Sparrow having ever been there… And then his heart, if it even beat anymore, had stopped.
In the sand something shone at him. He'd picked it up and rolled the silver bead between his fingers. It had been the one favorite in Jack Sparrow's mane—a gift he, William, had given the man. It was a silver charm in the shape of a soaring bird and it had winked up at him in the sunlight with as much mischief as William remembered Jack's eyes to have always held.
So, he'd thought, Jack had been there—but where was he? Well there was no telling. There had been no sign of him dead or alive. And so William had pocketed the bead and waded out into the shallows. Out past them he'd gone, into deeper water, and with a glance over his shoulder he'd dove headfirst to the dark depths with a mind to make for the closest inhabited island…
"…he's getting up in years but he'll likely ask you to join him for a game of croquet. Da seems to like it but it doesn't look all that fun to me—too many rules, and that Gilette fellow from the fort raises a fuss if even one is flapped…"
It had been a difficult thing to explain his appearance without a ship or boat in harbor, especially owing to the fact that he knew only a bit of their native language(and most unsuitable for use in civilized conversation), but it had been ever more painful making certain never to be in anyone's line of sight when would come the moon's light to reveal his cursed bones. Several close calls he'd endured waiting for a ship to come in, but there was no horror equal to his when that ship was the Black Pearl with her guns blazing.
Up a tree he'd gone before the chaos reigned. He had heard all around him the crack of gunfire and the subsequent confusion of the poor people who had thought such weapons couldn't fail. They could not understand why the cursed pirates were not dying when hit. He had heard their terror as the moonlight revealed the unnatural nature of the men, and he had closed his eyes so as not to see his own cursed bones and listened for any trace of his coin or Jack in the pirates' shouts to one another.
As luck had it, though William was not of the mind at the time, Barbossa himself stopped below the tree William had perched in and was soon joined by the big, brutal Bo'sun and the traitor Twigg. The three of them had had the starved look about them even then as they hurried to speak away from the other men. What they'd discussed hadn't been Jack Sparrow, nor had it been that cursed coin…
"They's searchin."
Barbossa uttered a sound of contempt but offered no reply to Bo'sun. His feathered hat tipped and his golden ring glinted up at William in the darkness as Twigg—that traitor—ducked under the foliage, dirty skin instantly forming over skeletal rot. Not much improved, William thought savagely.
"They ain't gonna find 'im," he sneered. "Bootstrap's smarter 'an them."
"Is he now?" Barbossa sounded amused—as William had come to find, the man's amusement was never anything to laugh at. "Still carry a torch for your old friends, Mister Twigg?"
Twigg snorted. "Not even a stick o' tinder."
William, somehow, resisted the urge to crack his knuckles. He looked away from Twigg's sneer and focused instead on Barbossa. The mutinous first mate, now captain of the Black Pearl, was standing still—but his foot was tapping with irritation.
"I felt 'im," he spat. When Twigg and Bo'sun exchanged dubious glances, Barbossa snarled. "All of ye felt 'im, and don't dare tell me any different Mister Twigg." He straightened his hat in a huff. "In that water he was, Bill Turner. So cursed are we all that all we feel is the trouble of each other and we all felt the weight of water on Bootstrap's shoulders. Heavy on our bones it dragged us to it. Here. To this island!" The wretched monkey dancing on his shoulder gave a gutteral cry and Barbossa paused to pet his little head. He grumbled and the monkey scurried across his back to the other shoulder. "That ingrate's on this island."
"Mighta been," said Twigg, "but who's to say he stayed put? Never stayed put for longer than he had to, Bootstrap didn't—"
"Perhaps not," griped Barbossa, "but you forget, Mister Twigg, that had he gone back into the sea we'd have felt that water bear down on us till we bore down on the cursed brigand and fished him from it! And you heard the harborman!"
Twigg scowled. "I don't speak no Spanish."
Barbossa snorted. "No boats to go out and ours the only ship's sailed in for weeks."
"He had nowhere else to go," growled Bo'sun. "No way off this land!"
Twigg looked between the two more imposing men of the three of them and bit back on whatever else he might have had to say. Silent though he was, William longed to punch him in his twisted mouth. He held back, his head heavy with all the thoughts in it. Would Barbossa stay ashore, slaying innocents, till he found who he'd come hunting? Would he lose patience and leave only to return time and time again to wreak havoc on the poor people who'd done no wrong? If William turned himself over—
"Cap'n Barbossa!"
"…and Ella Groves and Sarah Norrington will call on us all the time…"
William bit back a groan of impatience—the same one Barbossa did nothing to hide as the lanky skeleton of Ragetti loped into view. Flesh formed around his off-kilter grin as behind him came the sounds of a struggle. Garbled curses followed spirited spittings of Spanish.
"Oi, poppet! Watch where you're spouting!"
A woman was shoved unceremoniously through the fronds of the palm, stout Pintel wiping his skeletal face as he followed. In the other hand was aimed a pistol for the woman's heart. William held his breath, staring down at the one who'd been the first to see him. He remembered her black eyes—the ones so much like those of Neris and Lauralee—widening on sight of him, an Englishman standing ashore with no way to have gotten there. As strange as he imagined the sight had been, his dripping with salty sea, he did not remember the fear that he now saw in her eyes.
"Cap'n," said Ragetti, "she's the one saw Bootstrap first!"
"That she be," said Pintel proudly. "Thought ye'd like to have a chat wiv her." He winced, one fleshy hand still rubbing at the spot where his skin had covered the spit on his skull. "Mind ye keep watch though—she's got dead aim wiv that filthy spithole o' hers!"
Barbossa paid the portly pirate no heed, stepping forward to fix the woman with a lecherous look that ended him up with a gob of spit sparkling between his eyes. They narrowed and his hands shot out to grab her by the shoulders. Air hissed through his nose as he shook her and then he launched into a storm of Spanish words that burned even William's ears. The woman matched him word for word until Barbossa threw her off snarling.
Ragetti caught her around the ribs, staggering under her weight. Skin and bones he fell into his stout friend, whose foul mouth filled the air with the stench of expletives, and cried out as her heel struck his shin. Ragetti released her but Bo'sun had already stormed forward. With one hand he took her by the throat and smiled wide as her eyes went round with terror.
William's fist curled around a coconut as he stared down at the scene below remembering the same look on Jack Sparrow's face the last time he'd been as helpless. Cursing himself, and then remembering he was cursed, Bootstrap Bill Turner looked across the tops of the trees to gauge the distance. If he made himself known to distract them and leapt from one to the other…
A glance down found Bo'sun releasing the woman. She staggered back gasping for breath. Leering at her, Twigg snatched Pintel's pistol and with it cracked her across the back of the head. Barbossa cackled with laughter as she fell to her knees. With one finger he tipped up her chin.
"Entrega, musaraña." A breeze rustled the palm fronds and moonlight filtered through them. Seemingly unaware of his own flesh shrinking away, Barbossa studied her frightened face. "Odiaría tener que…destruir una cara tan bonita."
The woman gasped and reached up to fight him off but the bones of Barbossa's hand were faster than hers. He caught her wrist without so much as a glance. They stared at each other for a matter of moments, the undead monkey dancing impatiently on Barbossa's shoulder. A distracted glance up over his bony head she spared the monkey, but William held his breath as without warning her gaze met his. Quickly she looked to Barbossa who had only reason to believe she'd been staring at the monkey.
"¿Para qué desea, esqueleto?"
"Sabe lo que deseo," Barbossa hissed. "¡Era primer para verlo!"
"Ay dios, esqueleto¿era el primer para ver quién!"
"¿Quién?" Barbossa shifted from one foot to the other, apparently having gone as impatient as his pet. "El hombre sin un barco—¡lo vio¡De sus ojos lo vio!" He snarled, showing his teeth. "¡Dígame donde está o no tendrá ojos a ver!"
"¿Qué?"
Barbossa nodded up at Ragetti, who blinked stupidly back. His wooden eye rolled in its socket, eliciting from the woman a gasp that put a grin on Hector Barbossa's face. "¡Ahora dígame donde está!"
"¡No se!"
"¿Qué¿No sabe?"
Again they regarded each other, the woman gazing wide-eyed up into the gnarled face of the cursed captain. Moonlight passed over his face, taking with it the crinkling flesh of his brow. Beneath exposed bone gleamed Barbossa's narrow yellow eyes.
"Lo vi en la arboleda," she said after a time. "Él construía un barco." Her pulse throbbed in her throat as her gaze fell from Barbossa's. "Volví a mi aldea y no lo vi otra vez."
William didn't know what she'd said but he'd spotted the lie and waited on baited breath to see if Barbossa had. If so, well, he could not sit idly by yet again—he would have to—
"What's she sayin?"
Barbossa glared at Twigg but nodded and stepped back from the woman. He turned to follow his disappointed men but stopped and cast a sharp eye over his shoulder as she rose shakily to her feet. "Si él vuelve, le veremos otra vez musaraña."
"No puedo esperar," she spat at his retreating back. When it became apparent from the abation of noise from the village that the cursed men were not returning, she spun on her heel and marched to the trunk of the tree. William had scarce a moment before she'd climbed up to glare at him. "El tesoro de Cortez," she spat. "You took it."
William raised his brows at her. "How do you know that?"
"It is mito, leyendo… an old story among my people." She looked him up and down, frowning at his fleshly form that was not maladied by the moonlight. "You are maldecido. A cursed man, like them."
"I am not," he said, "like them."
"¿Quiénes son? What is your name?" Her dark eyes narrowed. "They call you Bootstraps."
"Aye," he said. "They call me Bootstrap Bill."
"They call you… it is then not your name?"
"If you tell me your name," he said, resting his weary head upon a bunch of coconuts. He closed his eyes. "I shall tell you mine."
"An accord with a pirate," she spat. "I'm to trust you, you who is maldecido with the maldición de los dioses Aztecas?"
"Ye don't have to trust me." By the way his head jerked aside, William guessed he'd been slapped. He opened his eyes, thinking sadly that it was at least one part of the curse Jack Sparrow could have done with, and glared at the fuming woman before him. "That was both uncalled for and useless. I feel nothing."
"You feel your heart or you would be cruel like them."
"Thought I was like them?"
The woman huffed and looked up to the moon. It was big and bright in her eyes even though its light did not touch the either of them. William glanced down at the pipe tucked in his pocket and lamented that lighting it would do him no good.
"You are not like them so much, Bootstraps."
He sighed. "It's William."
"And I am Isobel."
"Well Isobel," he said, "it's been nice meeting you. But it seems the threat has gone and so should you. Back to your village. Before your husband—su esposo—comes looking for you."
Isobel laughed, a deep intoxicating sound that seemed to warm her black eyes. She tilted her head, a dark curtain of glossy hair cloaking her bare shoulder, and smiled slyly at him. "Tengo no esposo. He is dead. Le mató y buena fortuna. He was not so nice to me."
"Just left him to rot, did you?"
"He deserves it," she said darkly. "But what of you? You are rotting under your skin as we speak."
William tensed, thinking of his own wife. He nodded. "And I deserve to rot as well."
Isobel regarded him for a time, a question in her dark eyes that William refused to answer. When he turned away she shrugged. "Well you have done me no harm, William. Venido a mi casa. Come to my house with me. I know you do not need to sleep but you should have a place to…" she trailed off, dark eyes gleaming with mischief, "…rest your bones."
"…but I'm sure Mother would make room for you. Or," the boy said brightly, "you could stay aboard the Swan! It was Da's birthday present—"
"The Swan?" William squinted out at the ship and her darker counterpart. "That her name?"
"Oh aye," said his grandson, nodding. "Took it right from your words. They're hanging up on the wall." His eyes went wide with awe. "We thought you dead."
"You were right." He ignored the boy's incredulous look and took a long drag off the pipe. Out at the Pearl he gazed, thinking of the time he'd spent with Isobel as a cursed man. "I was dead."
"What have you kept from me?"
Frowning, Jack hesitated. True enough it was that the man in question was no longer a memory to honor—sitting ashore alive afterall—but he'd made clear to Sam Samson what he had not wanted Will to hear about his father. The truth, as it were, would in his opinion do more damage than that which was already done and as much as he wished to throttle the man responsible for it, he did not wish to see Will Turner bludgeoned by the blunt end of the sword he'd been handed all his life. It was, Jack thought, one of the reasons why Will was forever making sharp the blade—
"Jack!"
It was one of the reasons why Jack had grit his teeth and bore the pain of revisiting the place where William Turner had stowed his boots. It had seemed the time to show Will rather than tell him what sort of man his father had been—a good man that Jack had held fond despite their differences. Now, however, it seemed yet again that he, Jack, had been the fool. How glad he'd been to see Will Turner glow with pride at the thought of his father—but then William had shown up to shatter whatever fragile progress his boy had made in forgiving him and to ruin what Jack had thought would be, for Will, the treasure of treasures.
"Tell me the truth!"
Will leapt from his chair. It had scarcely crashed to the floor when strong hands clamped onto Jack's shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Samson start forward, but Jack made no move to defend himself as Will's demanding hands shook his shoulders.
"You've kept things from me, things I deserve to know!"
"Will," he said, "no one deserves—"
Jack found himself pushed—shoved—away. He winced as his back cracked Pearl's mast. If Will was anything he was strong—and when the man was angry it seemed that all the force of his fury fed his strength. Spine-tingling pain licked Jack's insides, but it was nothing compared to the dull ache in his gut when he found he was the focus of Will's furious glare. Hurt showed itself suddenly and as Will dropped his head, Jack saw Samson's huge hand reaching for him.
"Out!" Green eyes wide with surprise met his and Jack glared into them. "Done enough tonight, haven't you?"
Samson frowned as though deeply offended but dropped his hand nonetheless and with the other gave Will what was for him a gentle pat on the shoulder. Jack ignored the pained look Samson spared him. The Scotsman walked heavily away and when the doors slammed shut Jack sighed.
"He didn't deserve that."
"Right," said Jack, feeling more than slightly irritated, "then he's in good company, isn't he?" He pried Will's fingers from his person and held the man at arm's length, trying with some difficulty to find the gaze refusing to meet his whilst supporting the man whose knees seemed to be giving out. "Will—" he broke off as Will sagged against him and grumbled when he heard sniffles being snuffled into his shirt. "Oh, alright. Tween you and your beloved, lad, I may not have to launder a shirt again. The both of you could weep my wardrobe clean, you know."
Jack's weak attempt at humor failed, Will weeping more openly on one of the shoulders he'd more than likely bruised. Jack winced but his discomfort was not due the undue injury. Considering saying something was, unfortunately, out of the question—much as he hated to admit it, if he were to take that approach he would more than likely end up saying something… stupid. Out of options, and again cursing William Turner, Jack brought an arm up around Will and held the man steady. If it had been the right thing to do Jack couldn't tell, not really sure if Will's clinging to him as if his life depended on it was a bad thing or good. Either way, he hadn't much choice in the matter and so he bit his cheek, lifted his gaze to the blackened beams of the ceiling, and waited for Will's tears to subside.
They didn't but the man did regain his strength, tensing in Jack's embrace. The pirate shared his panic and let go. Will staggered back. A hand went up to pinch his brow as he turned away. Jack hesitated, unsure if he should assure the man that all men sometimes suffered the indignity of tears or if he should quietly allow him his shame. In the end he held his tongue but clearing his throat was no choice of his own—it had gone painfully tight watching Will Turner's suffering.
"Did we not do this before?"
Will sniffed and swiped at his reddened face with a fist. "You didn't deserve that either." He hesitated swiping at his nose. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"Sorry?" Jack fished a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it. A moment later it was handed back to him soaked and he wrinkled his nose and tossed it hurriedly aside. "Well that makes no sense lad, for you see—a sorry man usually has something to be sorry for and if either of us men is to be the sorriest I would think it should be me." He frowned at his own blundering words and worked them out in his head so that he could clarify if need be. "Who is sorry." When Will looked at him, face swollen with his weeping, he winced. "Though you do look to be in a sorrier state."
Will tried to scowl, but gave up at some point to settle for a frown. "Are you sorry?"
Jack scoffed. "I did say should be," he said, "but I'm not." He held up a hand to quell any complaints. "I'm not sorry for doing what I thought was right by you, Will—for doing my best to make up for the worst."
"It was not your place."
"Pardon me, dear Will, but it most certainly was my place. There were few men who knew your father, fewer men who knew him well as I, and I the only one you knew. If not mine then whose place was it to give you the father you never had?"
"Pardon me, Captain," shot Will, "but as I recall I did all but offer you that place—and you refused to take it!"
Accusatory words they were, and Jack staggered under their weight as he and Will glared at each other. It was not a new argument by any means but one he'd thought they'd resolved. Of course he'd thought a lot of things, hadn't he? He'd thought Ahku Khar great great and Bootstrap dead…
"Do you ever listen to me?"
Will scowled. "Have I ever a been given the choice of another option?"
"No," said Jack, eyes narrowing at the impudence, "but you seem accomplished in the making of your own outs whether or not they've been offered to you. Very well, then—have it your way: listen to me if you can, but if you can't—I'll say it despite. There were the things I could do—speak well of your father, offer my friendship—and the things I couldn't do. I couldn't take his place because it was not my place to take. Though I daresay I've taken his share of your anger whether or not I deserved it," he mused, frowning as Will's scowl turned inward. "Unimportant—the point is, Will, that I couldn't be your father because you already had one—but I could give him to you—"
"You needn't have bothered, Jack," Will cut in. "He'd already given of himself—silence, and absence. Afterall, those are the things he is best at."
"Can't deny that," Jack said, "but in his silence and in his absence, William did little to show you anything else of himself. A shame if ever there was, but he didn't see it that way—"
"Shocked," Will said coolly.
Jack couldn't help it—he had reached out and knocked Will across the back of his head before he had otherwise thought it through. When Will's glare snapped at him, though, he found that he'd at last done something the right way. "Wasn't much to my liking either but it was the way it was! Your father in his honesty knew more of himself than I think he would have liked to know—men don't like to admit to their faults but William—honest William—hadn't a choice in the matter. As it happens he was far more skilled than you at giving himself an out. Most of his misery he wrote—"
"Didn't seem all that downtrodden in his journal."
"No," said Jack, "and he wouldn't have. Worst was burnt soon as he wrote it. It was not uncommon to see your father sitting just as he is now—alone on a beach beside a fire. If he had a piece of parchment he'd be burning it. More oft than not pages at a time went up sparking in the flames—and he watched, always, until the last fell to ash."
"Why, then, don't there seem to be pages missing? None have been taken from the tome."
Jack gripped his own arms to draw on strength he hadn't and took a deep breath for good measure. "Because," he said warily, "what he knew he'd burn—and he always did—was unbound. Free of binding, the pages could do no damage to the book because he'd never have to tear them from it." He hated the way Will's gaze darkened, but had no choice but to go on. "Something free from the tethers of attachment surely couldn't be harmed if what was never part of it was taken, savvy?"
"That is," seethed Will, "the stupidest thing I've ever heard! A book cannot know if pages belonging to it were never put there, but I knew always what was missing!" He looked away. "And there was harm done."
"Aye and that's what I tried to tell your father—too often for his liking." Jack tried not to notice the wounded look on Will's face but the attempt was in vain. He winced. "I tried to tell you that no one deserves to hear this—least not you—but you'd have none of it so here it is: your father did not want his place in your life."
It was perhaps the cruelest thing Jack had ever said to someone, and he loathed seeing it cut as deep as he knew it would. He despised the man sitting out on the island for the way Will's brow wavered and crunched against the tears that brightened his eyes, for the way those eyes full of tears blinked and went blank, and for the way all of it came about in the first place. Mostly though, he felt miserable for Will.
"What did I do?" He looked up at Jack questioningly. "I must have done something wrong!"
"Was more that you'd done nothing wrong and so your father feared all he'd done wrong would come back to haunt you—and your mother. A good girl she was, Lauralee… too good for him, he thought." Jack swayed in memory, missing the way Will's eyes narrowed on him. "But she didn't think so."
"You knew my mother."
"How could I not? Captain of the ship your father sailed on and if there's any one duty the captain of a ship dreads, it's the answering to the wives his sailors haven't returned to. Even the gales can be reasoned with but women made wives? There's no tack that works." A small smile tugged at Will Turner's mouth and Jack paused for his reluctance to see it disappear. "Better to surrender to their will than fight what can't be fought, eh?"
"To fight an angered wife would be a losing battle," Will agreed, but his smile fell on its own and his eyes went dark with suspicion. "My mother came looking for him?"
"No," Jack said tiredly. "Your mother came looking for me."
"For you?"
"Well why not?" He shrugged. "After Pearl'd been moored a few days all the other wives came calling on the captain to ask why it was they had not seen hyde nor hair of their husbands—why not your mother as well? Aye your mother paid me many a visit but nev—"
"How often did you put into port so close to us?"
"More than coincidence could possibly account for."
"But—why meddle in the life of one man when it sounds as if most of your men were much the same?"
"Because," Jack said, with more patience than he had, "I don't like to watch friends make mistakes and your father, Will, was my dearest friend who made the damnedest mistakes!"
"Spare me, Jack—you'd help your dearest friends escape anything they did not wish to face. Why did you not simply grant my father his wish to not be part of our lives? Why try to help my mother instead?"
"Because your mother never asked why!" Jack had gone on his toes to snarl with all his might and, as Will cowered away, felt foolish for having been brought to such anger. He let his heels drop back to the floor. "Only request she ever had was that I saw to your father's safety." He sighed and laid a hand o'er his heart. "Think I loved her for that."
Will's brows lifted. "Jack—"
"Loved your father, she did," he spoke over Will, "so much that it took what of her heart didn't belong to you. Her lads, she called the both of you. She'd look at you, then—and whether or not your big brown eyes weregazing up at heror closed in sleep, that's when her tears began to spill."
"But—"
"They may have been wasted tears," Jack said, "but I did witness them—contrary to your belief." The gleam of the bottle of wine he'dnot knocked fromhis desk was too much to resist and he went to it. He took a deep drink and examined its label—seeing pieces of it but not taking any in really. "So very small you were, I wouldn't expect you to remember that. In fact I had rather hoped you didn't—"
"I don't."
There was a note of disbelief in Will's voice that begged Jack's attention and he turned to stare at his friend. Sure enough, doubt darkened the stare that met his. He sighed. "Honestly—what reason have I now to be dishonest?" Seeing Will consider that and come up with nothing, he shrugged. "Your father's once again done his best to get the truth from my tongue. Rich, in'nit, that the one living the biggest of lies is the one was always so very insistent that 'the truth shall set us free'?"
"I don't know what bothers me most," Will mused, sitting heavily on the edge of the desk, "that he's alive when he's supposed to be dead—or that it's that which angers me." His gaze wavered on Jack's. "Is it wrong after so long wishing him alive to wish him truly dead?"
Jack opened his mouth to answer but found he did not have one to suit him. He bit his lip and struggled to reconcile the opposing responses in his head so that he could speak one. What he ended up doing, however, was grabbing at his locks and pulling. "This," he growled, "has got to be the longest guilt trip anyone's ever taken!"
After that night William hadn't dared to leave the island—by sea or boat or ship. Oh, he'd considered it on many occasions, least not when a ship would sail in with news of the Black Pearl's most merciless massacres or when he thought of the Intuits—and Neris—suffering at the hands of that cursed crew. Several times he had readied himself to leave, each time only to stare out at the horizon with boat in hand. It had seemed to him that the best way to keep that last coin—and his wife and son—hidden was to hide himself. So it was that he had simply stayed where he was. He'd kept quiet his telltale mind and stunted his Intuition to stay with Isobel. As harsh as she was when he met her, she'd grown soft on him by the time the unthinkable had happened. They had been dancing in the dunes when William felt her fingers twined with his and the cool sand beneath his feet. They had been dancing when William had gone still in the grip of fear—and guilt. Barbossa, he'd thought, had finally found that cursed coin—what horrors had they wrought on his poor Lauralee?—and spilled his son's blood.
It was with some coaxing that Isobel had got him back to her house and there he'd collapsed shivering with all the senses he'd so long forgotten. Terrible as the experience was, though, all he had a mind for was to plot a plan to visit the ill-fortuned Isla de Muerta. It was not so far from where they were if he knew the way he thought he did and so they'd bartered some of Isobel's better ropes and nets and a wealth of weaponry—those of her late husband who, by her stories, William had learned not to mourn—for a fisherman's dory and set off in the direction he'd marked upon the map.
It had taken a few days with the wind not at their backs, and all the while Isobel had asked him to turn around for fear of what they would find waiting for them. But William had for once in his life been determined to do the right thing even if he was too little too late. He'd not done right by the boy in life—the least he could do was give his flesh and blood a proper burial in death. Without impatience he reasoned the point with Isobel each time she begged they return to their village. When finally they'd navigated the difficult pass through the rocks and buried ships, the woman had had no further objections and they had picked their way through the craggy caves toward the cavern in which William knew the chest, and Will, would be.
But as they approached the heap of treasure, holding their breath for the stink of death in the air, it was not William's son they found rotting there. It was Hector Barbossa. Relief had dropped William to his knees beside the dead man and when Isobel reached them she'd leant over the dead man and stared down into his unseeing eyes. Frozen on the man's face was the horror of failure—something William guessed had to do with only having just been brought to life to be put to death.
But who'd actually given the snake what he deserved William couldn't begin to guess. No doubt Barbossa had made more than a few enemies over the years…
He'd got to his feet and left Isobel to search the caverns for any sign of his son. Certain he was that Will had been there, for his blood had to have been spilt for Barbossa to lay dead as the heaps of gold. There was in William's mind no way that the mutinous men would have kept him around once they'd no longer needed him—so where was he? What had they done with him? There had been no sign of the lad to be found anywhere and so he'd stormed back to Barbossa's corpse and kicked it in his frustration.
When the grey coat and fancy vest had fallen aside to reveal Barbossa's bloodstained chest, Isobel had whispered the man's fate. One shot—one momentous shot—had pierced Barbossa's heart. William's own heart had rattled his ribs then, his own face surely showing that same horror of failure. There was, he'd thought, only one man with momentous luck such as that and it was the one man who would not have left his son behind—
Like I did, he'd thought.
Having had no reason for staying any longer, they'd left. William had had a hard time of it convincing Isobel that there was no harm in collecting a few pieces of treasure for themselves. Each time William had plucked something up from the piles of swag she'd eyed the chest of cursed coins and he'd each time clucked his tongue, rolled his eyes, and stuck whatever it was he wanted in the small trunk she rather fancied.
They'd had more disagreements when William had turned the boat in the way of the closest English port. He'd won out in the end, insisting that they seek any whisper of what had happened. It had been a long month in the small settlement of suspicious colonists but his peace had finally come in the form of a merchant having been at Port Royal to witness both the safe return 'of the blacksmith and Miss Swann' and the great escape of 'that bloody bird Sparrow'. On the tide after the merchant arrived to tell his tale, William and Isobel had made their excuses for setting sail and did, he pleased with the outcome and more convinced than ever, after ten years of contemplating horrid possibilities, that it was best for all of them—Will who'd become a blacksmith in the bustling trade city of Port Royal and Jack who'd got his Pearl back—if he stayed among those dead to the two women and two men he'd left behind.
Only twice in the nine years following his decision had the Black Pearl stopped at their island. Both times Isobel had warned him and both times saw William hiding in their house. Both times he'd been lucky that Sparrow and his men had stayed only long enough to unload the various goods that the rich men on the hill bought from him. Both times had Isobel told William when the Pearl had gone, and both times had he run to the docks to stare out at the empty horizon and watch as treasures from the Isle de Muerta were loaded up on carts to be taken to the houses of men who would have no idea that their fancy carpet had once been carried over the rotting shoulder of a cursed man.
Twice had been enough to see and hear from Jack's head—which, William had discovered, was a difficult place to put oneself for an extended amount of time—that which he wished to know. Glimpses of Neris welcoming Jack with open arms had mingled with the hazy sound of a young man's voice telling the pirate, who seemed not to want to hear what the lad was saying, of his reason for making the crossing from England—after his mother had died. Not wishing to begin to guess why Sparrow was thinking of his Neris welcoming him back to the island in the same thread as was stored the memory of his Lauralee—whose pretty dark eyes flashed in on the thoughts and glowed in a way William hadn't liked—William had abandoned his quest for another, seeking out Jack's memory for one look at his son.
It had been a mistake—seeing the man he'd never meant to call his son had in one heartbeat made him wish that he had and in the next that he'd not sought out even a glimpse of Will Turner. He'd left Jack's mind right then but it had been too late—the image of the man none could argue was his son had burned itself into his own memory. For a moment it had put him off his heels—seeing Will gazing up at him with the light of admiration in his eyes. But then William had realized… that it wasn't he Will was looking up to, but Jack Sparrow. And as much as he knew he hadn't a right to be pickled over it… well, the very thought had soured him. Later, after confessing his mind games to the only one he'd had to listen, Isobel had tried to appeal to his sensible side to no avail.
Fine then, he'd thought, the both of you have done so well without me, have each other. He'd had himself a spot of rum and gone off to sleep. On the next morning he'd forced the whole thing—which he'd started to feel guilty about with good reason—to the back of his mind and went about living his life with Isobel.
Worry had crept over him from time to time. Oft it was too vivid to ignore and in those times he abandoned his decision to close his mind and opened it to find himself whirling in the midst of Jack Sparrow's or Will Turner's night horrors. Awful they were, sometimes so much that William had to heave against them with all his might to get the men back to a peaceful state of slumber. It gave him some rest to realize from the sequence of Will's dreams that his son thought him only a dream's imagination. For a time he had believed Jack did not even take notice to his presence, but then the pirate had begun calling out to him. At first he'd resisted Jack's want to speak with him, but in time it seemed that the struggle with the man's torrential nightmares so wore him down that he could not find his way back out. William had no other choice then but to meet him in the dreamscape of his own mind, Jack begging answers to questions William could not, being alive, lay to rest.
So many headaches it had given him. He'd wake with a groan and Isobel had, each time, told him how foolish a game he was playing. Jack, she'd said, was not a fool like most men and would find out sooner or later that William was no more a ghost than he. Jack, she'd said, would react as any man would in such a situation and loathe William for all the trouble he'd caused.
Never had he dreamed, not so long ago from the night he sat on the beach with the boy that was his grandson, that seeing the green beacon out on the horizon would lead him where it had. If he'd had even the slightest inkling Sparrow, who had always scoffed at the tale of the lost island of Antolune and its Ahku Neko Neko Khar, would catch the same wind to the same spot he, William, would not have fought tooth and nail to get to it. Isobel hadn't been accommodating—in fact, she'd not only refused to accompany him, she'd also spirited away the sails of their sloop in an effort to thwart his going alone.
"That's well and good," he growled at her, "but it will only serve to make difficult my journey because it is one I have to take."
"Bueno. Good for you—try to row all that way, Corazón. I shall laugh when you return tired and weary—but only because I do not wish to see you face such troubles as surely wait you."
"Do you not understand the forces of fate, woman?"
"Sí," she whispered, taking his loose plait of hair in her hand, "and I fear them. What if it is the hand of your priestess at play? What if she has learned you live and wishes to see you?"
"Neris?" He glowered. "Were Neris to know I live, she'd only wish to see me long enough to rip each and every strand of hair from my scalp. Is she really what you're worried about?"
"No. What I worry of, mi miedo, is what act of revenge she might wish on you—and that says nothing of the illwill of any of the cursed souls of los esqueletos! What if it is a trick¿Una esquema?"
"And what if it's not?"
"Aiii—row yourself then, Corazón!"
"I want the sails, Isobel."
"You may want them all you like."
So when she'd gone in silence to bed, he'd gone to their sloop and he'd taken up the oars and…
And now he was sitting on an island he'd found sunk in the sea, thanks to the illwill of one cursed soul as his woman had rightly predicted, with the boy who was his grandson and who was looking at him as if he had a million questions that William had no intention of even attempting to answer. He took a long, heady drag on the pipe and considered his options. It seemed to him… that if he couldn't answer the questions posed to him… the best tack was to be the one asking the questions.
"With so much to say it seems you have forgotten to tell me your name, son. What is it?"
The boy beamed, apparently glad at having been asked so stupendous a question. "My name," he said proudly, "is Jack William Turner."
Jack. Of course it is. What else would it be? "Well Jack William Turner," he said, blowing out a string of smoke rings, "do you not think it wise we part ways for this evening? Afterall I feel it's a sure bet that you of all your nine years did not have your mother's good graces coming to shore all by yer onesies, am I right?"
"Well no, but—"
"Ah ah ah, no buts—think of all the fuss if you're discovered amiss, son." He quirked a brow at the lad who, to his credit, did look like he was thinking on that thought with a certain amount of dread. "Ye wouldn't want that, now would ye?"
"No," said Jack dazedly, "not so much." He snapped out of it, shaking his head. "But—I don't want to go back, I want to stay here with you."
Blast. William grit his teeth as he tapped out the pipe. It wasn't that he didn't want the company of the boy—he'd found he had actually enjoyed it before he'd started thinking of all his mistakes—but he did not want to bring the wrath of a wronged man, or two or three counting Samson, down on his grandson which was like to happen if any of them discovered the two of them together.
"There is always tomorrow."
With quite a sigh, Jack acquiesced to the request he return to the ship. William helped him guide the boat out into the calm waters. He held it steady as the boy hopped in and then glinting eyes met his with a last question.
"Am I to call you Bootstrap?"
William bit the curse on the tip of his tongue and decided it mattered little in the long run what he answered. "If ye like…"
"I'd like to call you Grandpop."
For that William hadn't the need to bite his tongue to stay silent. Incredulity did the trick well enough he found. Staring down at Jack William Turner, into those golden eyes gleaming up at him so hopefully, William also found he hadn't much choice in the matter afterall. He sighed and patted the lad on the head. "Grandpop it is then."
In all Jack's excitement—he'd just spoken to his Grandpop, fancy that—he could not think of much else but Bootstrap. So it was that when his boat tapped the side of the ship he did not notice, nor did he notice immediately the ends of rope that clunked heavily in front of him. When he did, however, he gasped and jerked his head up to see what fate awaited him.
Three like faces, one gaunt, hovered over the rail.
Jack gave a sigh of relief and tied the boat's ends in the way he knew how, glad for the help of the Intuits as he had not considered on leaving just how he was going to get the boat back in place. He sat back and let them hoist him up. The one that was too thin offered him a hand and he took it with an oath of thanks.
"Does he have it?"
Jack frowned up at the priest, none too sure what he'd just been asked. "Have what?"
The priest regarded him closely and Jack thought he heard a murmur of strange words but he couldn't be sure. There was a tickle in his head and he scratched at it, for some reason feeling it was the Intuit's fault. He glared up at him and the itch went away with the murmur gone silent.
"You're going to tattle, aren't you?"
The priest and his brethren exchanged glances. Jack looked between them, dread weighing heavy in his gut at the thought of his father finding out he'd broke their code of conduct. Worse was the thought of his mother's sharp words at such a discovery. Missus Turner's rebuke was always the worser fate and one Jack hoped to avoid at all costs.
"We will not," spoke the three men together.
Jack's heart lifted and he gave them a grin. "Many thanks, mates. Have I sand on my person?" When they answered that he did not, Jack turned to go but decided better he ask at least one more question. "Has mum set up a search for me?"
They shook their heads and so he was off. He found her telling a tale of mermaids and princes to Little Lucy and felt almost guilty when she smiled, so glad to see him. Almost, but not quite, he thought, snuggling into bed and hoping for a good night's sleep that would give him rest enough to sneak off again the next evening for another chat with Bootstrap Bill Turner.
Author's Babble: There's some Spanish in this bit. I know the language but it's possible I've garbled it since it's been quite a time since I've had to use it…
Spanish: "Entrega, musaraña(Surrender, shrew)… Odiaría tener que…destruir una cara tan bonita(I would hate to have to destroy so pretty a face
"¿Para qué desea, esqueleto?(For what do you wish, skeleton
"Sabe lo que deseo,(you know what I want)" Barbossa hissed. "¡Era primer para verlo(you were the first to see him
"Ay dios, esqueleto¿era el primer para ver quién!(I was the first to see who
"¿Quién?(Who?)" Barbossa shifted from one foot to the other, apparently having gone as impatient as his pet. "El hombre sin un barco—¡lo vio¡De sus ojos lo vio!(The man without a boat—you saw him! With your eyes you saw him!)" He snarled, showing his teeth. "¡Dígame donde está o no tendrá ojos a ver!(Tell me where he is or you will not have eyes to see
"¿Qué?(What
"¡Ahora dígame donde está!(Now tell me where he is
"¡No se!(I don't know
"¿Qué¿No sabe?(What? You don't know
"Lo vi en la arboleda(I saw him in the woods)," she said after a time. "Él construía un barco(He built a boat)." Her pulse throbbed in her throat as her gaze fell from Barbossa's. "Volví a mi aldea y no lo vi otra vez(I returned to my village and I did not see him again
"Si él vuelve, le veremos otra vez musaraña(If he does return, we will see you again shrew
"No puedo esperar(I can't wait
With William: El tesoro de Cortez(the treasure of Cortez)… it is mito, leyendo(it is myth, legend)…you are maldecido(you are cursed)… ¿Quiénes son?(who are you?)… you who is maldecido with the maldición de los dioses Aztecas(you who is cursed with the curse of the Aztec gods)… Tengo no esposo(I have no husband)… Le mató y buena fortuna(they killed him and what good fortune)… Venido a mi casa(Come to my house
And later…Bueno(Good)…try to row all that way, Corazón(Heart)…Sí(yes)… What I worry of, mi miedo(my fear)… cursed souls of los esqueletos(the skeletons)…¿Una esquema(a ploy
Phew, tedious.
