Part 2
The maid struggled to pin Elizabeth's hair in place as the young lady desperately craned her neck so she could see the main drive leading up to the house. Will should have been here by now and she wondered what was keeping him. He was usually so punctual. She wasn't exactly worried about him as such, having seen from experience that he was more than capable of taking care of himself, she was just curious.
When she finally saw his unmistakable form hurrying towards the house with a box tucked under his arm, a broad smile split her face. The usual feeling of joy she got from the mere sight of him welled up instantly. She really was luckier than any woman ever deserved to be.
Escaping the maid and her pins, she fled out of the door and down the main staircase with as much decorum as she could muster. At the bottom she could see her father and his guest inspecting the blade that Will had brought with favouring eyes. The recipient gave Will what were obviously words of praise. The young sword maker usually took great pleasure and pride in his work, praise being more welcome to him than nearly anything else. Yet he seemed a little disheartened today. Perhaps he was not entirely satisfied with the blade he had produced. The necessity for a few last minute adjustments could possibly explain his lateness.
She greeted her father and his guest quickly as she passed them, heading straight for her fiancé who stood a few feet away.
"You're late, Will," she said brightly, "I had almost abandoned hope of you visiting me at all today."
"Forgive me," he said in a soft, distracted tone, hardly looking at her.
At once, she knew something was amiss. His speech, his manner, the paleness of his usually bright features - all spoke of some burden on his shoulders which made him think to the point of utter distraction.
"What on earth's the matter?" she asked with concern, lowering her voice so that they could not be overheard.
"It's nothing really," he responded too quickly with a most unconvincing shake of his head.
Elizabeth gave him a sharp look. "I thought that you of all people would know that I am neither an idiot, nor am I blind. Do you intend upon keeping such secrets from me when we are married?"
It was a low blow, she knew that. But if it would get him to share what was troubling him then it was a tactic that she was more than willing to employ.
He glanced around for a moment, almost as though he was looking for an escape, before he let out a soft sigh. "Is there some place we may talk quietly?" he asked, resigned to the fact that there would be no arguing with her.
A few minutes later they were sitting on a secluded bench in the garden of the Governor's mansion. Will pulled out the now rather crumpled letter from his pocket and wordlessly handed it to a perplexed Elizabeth. She read it once hurriedly and then again more slowly, trying to take in every meaning and nuance of the words, to make sure that she had really read what she thought she had.
"But your father's dead," she reasoned, at once giving the biggest objection to the letter's validity, "Barbossa said that-"
"We can't be sure of anything," he interrupted, clearly troubled by the idea as he paced in front of her, "Barbossa's men said that he had him tied to a cannon and thrown him overboard, but by that time they were already cursed and incapable of dying. What if my father managed to escape? What if all this time he's been trapped, victim of whatever terrible fate this refers to?"
Elizabeth shook her head uncertainly. She could understand Will's feelings. If it were her own father she would want to believe this letter more than anything in the world. But something about this whole thing made her uneasy and she felt that in this instance she had to be the voice of reason, warding him against doing anything rash.
"It seems strange don't you think that whoever this is chose to write now," she delicately pointed out, "Your father would have been trapped wherever he is for near ten years."
He looked a little surprised at her for a moment, as though he had expected her to automatically agree with all he said and had not expected such an inquest. "Perhaps they did not know who or where I was before," he reasoned, obviously already having thought up solutions to the many questions the letter posed, "Our adventures with Jack may have brought us to his attention. After all, the Black Pearl is well known. The fate of her crew probably is too."
"Perhaps," she agreed cautiously, not wanting to be seen to be actively extinguishing his hope, "But if this man wished you to help your father as this note implies, why would he give you such poor instructions? Why such cryptic clues?"
"He's likely concerned that the note may fall into unwanted hands," Will explained firmly, a little frustration starting to show in his tone, "He may be vulnerable. He may be scared that whatever fate has befallen my father might befall him too should it be known that he is trying to help."
"Very well," Elizabeth replied, following his well thought out chain of reasoning to the next logical step, "Then who exactly was this mystery man that left the note under your door?"
"I don't know," he admitted sharply, her constant questioning a clear irritation to him, "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does," she snapped back at once, unable to completely hold her tone in the face of his, "You don't know what their purpose is. You'd be a fool to just run off to the rescue. What if this is some kind of trick?"
"And what if it isn't?" he challenged.
There was little she could say to that.
Will huffed irritably, kicking a stone across the floor, clearly trying to take his frustration out on the scenery rather than her. "I don't pretend to understand this letter," he admitted, "I don't understand this talk of the Sea King's Daughter, whoever that may be. I don't know what I am expected to do. I can't 'run off to the rescue', Elizabeth. I wouldn't know where to start."
He sighed deeply, sweeping his hands back through his hair, looking pained and angry at his apparent helplessness.
Elizabeth hesitated momentarily, wondering whether she really should tell him, but quickly decided that she would never be able to sleep peacefully again if she knowingly withheld something so important from him.
"Come along," she said softly, standing up and taking his hand, "I have something to show you."
Will frowned in confusion, but an insistent tug of her hand was enough to make him willingly follow her back into the house. He only hesitated when they reached the threshold of her room.
"Elizabeth," he said in rather hushed, suddenly nervous tone, "I cannot enter your bedroom with you."
She smiled playfully, clearly amused by his reaction. "Don't worry," she teased, "I promise to behave myself." With a forceful tug she ignored any forthcoming protests and pulled him inside. "Sit," she instructed, indicating the small table and chairs by the open window overlooking the harbour. Will glanced around uneasily as he crossed over there, as though he half expected someone to jump out and start making accusations at him at any moment. Elizabeth barely managed to keep herself from laughing.
Once he was sat, she crossed to her bookcase. A few moments' search found the item she was looking for; a small, rather battered and dog-eared, leather bound book. Crossing over, she sat opposite a curious Will, taking a moment to search for the appropriate page.
"Here," she said, turning it around so that he could look at it. The title of the page clearly proclaimed 'The Sea King's Daughter'.
"I don't understand," Will said, his frown deepening in confusion as he studied the book a little closer.
"It's a legend, an old story," Elizabeth explained, not needing to look at the book to remember the content, "The Sea King's daughter supposedly fell in love with a man, so much so that she intended to leave her family and her way of life behind forever, foregoing her immortality for the chance to be with him. Her father found out about this and he was so angry – thinking she had humiliated him and had betrayed their people - that he sought to punish her. He sent the sea to flood her lover's house, claiming it for the ocean, killing everyone inside. Then he banished his daughter there, to live on the cusp of two worlds, neither fully land nor sea, condemning her to any eternity alone. He stripped her of all her fantastic abilities bar one – the power to grant wishes. The tale says that should you manage to catch her she must give you the one thing that your heart desires most."
There was a long silence.
"Where did you get this?" Will asked eventually, eyes fixed on the watery illustrations in the book.
"Mr Gibbs," Elizabeth admitted, "On the journey over from England. He said it was an old tale that pirates used to tell."
Will glanced up and they shared a long, knowing look.
"What do you intend to do?" she asked in soft, apprehensive tones. She had a feeling that she would not like the answer.
"Whatever I can, of course," he stated with steady determination, closing the book and glancing out at the harbour below.
She nodded, a sense of inevitability hitting her. To be honest, she had expected nothing less from him. His fierce loyalty, care and devotion were some of the traits that made her love him. And they had once saved her life. She could hardly expect him to abandon those traits now.
"And how do you expect to go about this?" she questioned, part of her resigned to the fact that he would and part of her desperate for any means of stopping him, "You have no clue as to what these words really mean. It's just a story after all."
"The same way curses are just fairy tales?" he asked in a slightly scornful tone that took her by surprise, "We all know how that worked out."
Her face hardened and she looked out of the window, feeling scolded and a little patronized by his words. On a base level she understood and respected his feelings and why they meant that he had to do the right thing. But it also meant him having to leave and a small, selfish part of her felt the resentment of being abandoned. She balked at the ignominy of being the little woman, forced to wait at home whilst he faced who knows what.
"If there's any chance that I can help my father, I have to try," he stated resolutely, as if trying to make it clear that no protest she could give would steer him from that fact.
"You have no idea where to start," she said, in a tight tone, trying not to get angry with him, knowing how unfair that would really be, even if it was how she felt.
"No," he admitted, "But I'd wager that I know a man who would."
It took Elizabeth just a few moments to realise who he meant.
"Jack Sparrow?" she asked, almost incredulously. She sat somewhere between trust and distrust when it came to the pirate and the fact that Will would so willingly put his fate in the man's hands made her very uneasy.
"He was a friend of my father's," Will explained, seeing her uncertainty, "If anyone could decipher this...Besides, this may have some meaning to pirates which eludes you and I. And he is the only pirate I will ever trust."
"But you don't know where he is either," she protested.
"I'll go to Tortuga," Will replied, "As I said, The Black Pearl is a well known ship, and someone is bound to know her whereabouts. I will find him, I will show him this note and I won't come back until I know what happened to my father. I can't."
'And how long will that take?', Elizabeth wondered with a little despair.
"Let me come with you," she asked aloud, almost pleading but with only a small amount of hope that he would agree.
He shook his head, "No."
"But, Will..."
"Absolutely not", he said more firmly this time.
"Then what would you have me do?" she asked with angry frustration, tears beginning to burn her eyes, "Wait here like a good girl? Spend each day looking out to the ocean to see if you are returning? Fill my days with wondering if you are dead or not?"
"I'd have you stay here and be safe," he said in a tone that suggested that he thought she was being unreasonable.
She knew that love was the cause of his refusal and it would be wrong indeed to be angry with him for caring about her safety, but she couldn't help feeling a bitterness towards him. Yes, this was his father they were talking about, but she was his fiancée. Perhaps she had gotten too used to being the most important thing in his life.
"And what if I cannot do that?" she challenged, "What if I cannot wait?"
Will looked mildly alarmed by that, clearly wondering what on earth she meant. Did she really mean to tell him that if he left, she would not be waiting here to marry him when he returned? Any reply he might have made was cut off however when the door opened and Governor Swann entered the room, clearly looking for his daughter. Will stood up too hurriedly, knocking the table clean over so that the vase on it and the book scattered to the floor. His sudden overreaction made him look decidedly guilty.
"Mr Turner!" the Governor exclaimed in shock as he saw him, "What on earth are you doing here?"
"Elizabeth wanted to show me something," he stammered, before realising that that explanation sounded highly suspect, causing him to hurriedly add, "A book. She wanted to show me a book."
"Elizabeth?" the Governor asked, turning to his daughter for a clarification of that, trusting her not to lie to him.
"Will and I were having a disagreement, father," she said tightly, eyes glaring forcibly at Will, "About a matter of fiction. I was telling him that you should not believe everything that you read. It can be quite dangerous and rarely do such tales have a happy ending."
"Be that as it may…" the Governor began, half ignoring her explanation, meaning to give a stark warning to them both.
"My apologies, Governor," Will interrupted, "I didn't mean to offend. I have some business to attend to. If you'll excuse me."
He bowed stiffly to both of them, holding gaze with Elizabeth for just a moment. He seemed to be considering saying something to her but apparently reconsidered at the last moment. He hurriedly turned on his heels, leaving a confused Governor and a half upset, half furious Elizabeth behind.
"Really, Elizabeth," the Governor said a little scolding, "I understand you are soon to be married but a little decorum would not go amiss in the meantime."
But Elizabeth wasn't listening to him. When the table had spilled over, the vase and the book had fallen to the floor and now the water from the former was seeping into the pages of the latter. She bent down carefully, retrieving the sodden book, shaking the water away.
"Did you have an argument?" the Governor pressed, a little more gently this time, noticing her odd mood.
"Yes," she replied automatically, her voice rather hollow and her mind elsewhere. "He needs to go away on a business trip. I'd rather he didn't."
The Governor smiled understandingly. "I'm sure it is for the best," he comforted, "We want Mr Turner's business to go well after all. It'll make things all the easier when you are married. You should be grateful."
She glanced up and glared at her father and he looked momentarily uncomfortable at her sudden fierceness.
"Even the best of couples have their disagreements at times," he reasoned, as he recovered, "I'm sure that when he gets back from his trip and you are planning your wedding, all of this will be forgotten." He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I'll get a maid to come and clean this mess up. And perhaps you can start looking at fabric for your dress – it is a long way if you wish to order from London after all."
She nodded as he left but paid little heed to what he had said. Her attention was entirely held by the sodden book in her hands, the print running and the story blurring from view.
