I'd like to express my renewed admiration for Stephen. I spent time looking up Catalan for this chapter and I was flabbergasted. It's very, very strange, and not at all as easy as regular Spanish. Of course, this is coming from a student who chose to take German and who looks on all Spanish as a little weird, but I'd just like to state it for the world to know. Look it up on wikipedia if you'd like to see a very odd blend of Spanish and French (and possibly Latin). I apologize for any inaccuracies, as they are entirely my fault.
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Chapter Nine
The Lodestone
in which a siren's call is heard and answered
When Cora began to the long climb back up the path up the slanting cliffside it wasn't nearly so hard as when she'd come down just after dawn. Jonas couldn't manage the way down to the hidden beach at the foot of the cliff with his wooden leg, and everyone else on the island respected its sanctity too much to intrude. Respecting its sanctity, of course, meant letting all the scrub and seaside grasses consume the once well-worn path. There was an older sanctity about it now- she'd learned from Dominic the sacredness of wild things.
So when she left the warmth of Stephen's bed she'd gone down to pull out all the wild things that had taken her place since she went away, afraid that by the time she was able to return again she would be unable to get down to the beach at all. If she ever did get back.
She was sweating under her clothes before she got halfway down and her arms were cut in a dozen places from the bushes, mingling with the bruises on her arms from where Stephen had clutched to her the night before. She'd have to wear long sleeves so no one would see. It was already time to start pretending they weren't lovers anymore.
The beach at the end of her sojourn wasn't terribly large. The deep-throated roar of the surf covered all of it in sound, obliterating the other senses. It was enclosed by rock- the cliffs behind her and the jetty that projected out onto the sea. The waters there were deep, and it was there that the Lone Star Running and her sister ships used to moor when they stopped for just a night.
Once she and Ashli slept on the beach rather than making the arduous climb back up to the house. Ashli couldn't have been more than ten- Cora remembered that she was thirteen at the time, and that when Ashli rolled over in her sleep to press against her sister her sleeping hand had landed on the first curve of breast beneath her shirt. Cora was terribly conscious of the subtle differences between herself and her sister then, but only for Ashli's sake. She recoiled from them. But that night there was a lazy sort of peace in the connection, and she drifted away without fear, wrapped in the sound and scent of the sea and the love of her closest friend and confidante.
She'd drifted off into a sort of half-consciousness when she got down to the beach that morning, lying on the cool sand. She dreamt that she'd brought Stephen down to the beach with her; she dreamt that it was his warmth that stirred her from sleep. She was confused to open her eyes and find the sun hovering above her and not his face. She was even more confused to hear a voice above the roar of the surf.
"Didn't get enough sleep last night, did ye lass?"
"Where have you been these past four days, Finn?" Cora asked, standing as quickly as she could. "And you don't look much better yourself, if you don't mind my saying."
"The Limerick took a right nasty knocking during that storm. I had some tricky repairs to oversee."
"Does your Molly have a new breast yet?"
"Actually, I told the carpenter to leave it be. I rather like your idea about her being an Amazon."
Cora smiled and looked back out to the sea. It was still fairly dark on the beach. The sun hadn't climbed high enough to touch them yet.
"You know... don't you, Finn?"
"About you and the sawbones?"
"...aye."
"I knew the first night ye went to him. The night of the party."
"I'm sorry, Finn. I am."
"No ye're not. Ye have no reason to be. I always knew ye weren't mine, lass. I never stopped hoping," His laugh was achingly close to bitter. "But I always knew in my gut ye couldn't love me. I just want to see ye happy."
"I don't know if I can be happy."
"Cora Turner-"
"I don't mean it the way I meant it when I was young. I thought it was impossible to be happy then. Now I know I could be happy but the chance is being taken from me." She felt herself start shaking like her body wasn't her own. "The money is gone, Finn. All of it. I have nothing. I have to go all the way back to where I started. And the worst is that I have to drag Dom with me too. He's so in love with this place. He can't stop talking about how much he loves the house and all the new friends he's made. I can't take him away from that. But what will happen to him if I just let Anamaria raise him, as my mother did me? Either he loses his home or his mother!"
Finn drew Cora close against him as she started to cry. The last time she remembered letting go so totally was when she stood before her grandparents late one night in 1805 and told them she was pregnant. She'd collapsed into Will Turner's arms just as completely as she did in Finn's now. She didn't pay attention to the Irishman's soft endearments until her tears faded away.
"Thank you." She whispered, drawing away.
"I'll always stand beside ye, Cora. I'd offer my help if I thought ye'd take it, but it tisn't really my place. If this doctor of yours is any kind of a decent man- and he must be, for ye didn't fall for a scoundrel like me -he'll do the right thing and force ye to accept his help."
"Don't say anything to him Finn. You can't. Swear to me."
"Why, lass?"
"If he wants to- if he and I- it can't be because of this. If I wanted a marriage for the sake of support I would've written him the moment I knew Dominic was in my belly."
Finn sighed and dragged a hand through his shaggy hair, but said nothing.
"Aye, I swear. But I'm still here for ye, lass, if ye need."
Cora smiled faintly and put one hand on his cheek, drawing him down to her so she could leave a kiss there. Then she left him standing alone on the beach, watching the endless repetition of the waves.
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Stephen woke alone for the first time in a week and felt his stomach clench at the sensation. She was already gone. The next three days didn't matter. She had as good as left him.
He got up much faster than he would've normally. He dressed with just a little too much force and managed to pop off one of the buttons on his vest. He was on his knees searching underneath the bed for it when Jack came in.
"What on earth are you at, Stephen?"
"My button, Jack, my button has deserted me."
"My word. Shall we enter it on the books?"
"This is no time for your infernal puns. I refuse to spend all day walking around with my vest half buttoned like some damn fool French libertine."
"Soul, could you not wear a different vest?"
"I'm not going through my sea chest again. We don't have the time to be packing it and unpacking it as much as we please. We have to leave today. The sea waits for no one."
"Shall I help you to look for it, then...?"
Stephen forced a deep breath through his body and stood. He could almost smile at the idea of Jack attempting to crawl underneath the bed in search of a lost button.
"It is only a button. I can still do up the rest. I beg you to forgive me, Jack. I am in an uncommon bad mood today."
Jack nodded and took a breath, preparing to speak, then let the moment pass and walked away. They met again downstairs with their sea chests ready. Dominic had his miniature one too and sat uneasily on it, frowning off into the distance.
"Mr. Turner, has your morning been as terrible to you as Doctor Maturin's has been to him? Have you lost a vital button as well?"
"I don't want you to leave. I want to go with you. Momma says I must stay here and go to school."
"We shall miss you sorely too, Mr. Turner. Perhaps when you have learned to write you may send us letters in England."
"Will you write to me in Catalan, Doctor?" Dominic asked.
"I fear you would not understand it." He had to strain not to call him by his Christian name. They'd begun to do that when they had their lessons. Esteban, he'd stumbled out. Never Papà or Pare.
"Maybe someone in the town speaks it." He sighed.
Cora arrived at last, dressed in the same clothes she'd worn the day they left Port Royal, down to the beaten old tricorne hat. Gibbs, Jonas and Finn weren't far behind her.
"I take it we are all ready to leave? Good. The tide is just going out."
She didn't leave anyone time to respond to her, already hefting her chest into her arms and walking out the door.
"Say good-bye to the house, Dom." She called as they walked down the hill.
"Won't we be back soon?"
"...never forget to say good-bye, Dom, whenever you leave a place. Your Momma left this place once without saying good-bye."
"Adéu," Dominic said after a hesitation, trying to enunciate each part carefully. They'd waited until just yesterday to learn that word.
They were nearly a quarter of the way down when they saw the figure running up towards them. They walked just a little farther before they stopped and waited for him to come to them. It was a sailor from the Deliverance, a letter in hand.
"A ship just came in. The message is for you, Captain. They said it was of the utmost urgency."
Cora set her chest down on the road; the sailor rushed to keep it from sliding. She accepted the parchment and stiffened when she turned it over to look at the seal.
"That's your family's seal," Gibbs, who was closest to her, cried out. "The seal on Arlen's ring."
"She wasn't wearing it when she died." Cora said breathlessly. "I would've seen it on her hand. Who did she give it to?"
She didn't wait for the answer. She tore open the parchment with shaking hands, as if she expected her mother to be keeping a correspondence across the grave. Jack and Stephen shared a glance, remembering the last time she read a letter aloud to them. This time she read it through herself before daring speak to the words aloud. Her whole frame tensed as she did.
1 July, 1812 at sea
"Only yesterday..."
Cora,
It's been seven years, sister, since I've spoken to you. Do you know we never even said good-bye? Uncle James took you onto the other ship and I never saw you again, except when they led us to the prison in Port Royal. Did you ever look for me in the chains? Did you ever think of us before you sent us to die?
I haven't written this letter to accuse you. I could've written that letter a dozen times over for every year we've been apart. I write it now because I've realized at last that I don't know the half of what happened to you aboard that ship. I feel as if I've barely known you, Cora- as if I barely knew our mother. I'm not a child anymore. I need to understand- and I need you to help me. Please, if you still have mercy in your heart for your baby sister, come and meet me at the Isla de Tesoro the day after you receive this letter. I will wait for you there in the ship Rising Star until the 5th of this month. After that... I will assume we are to remain enemies until they end of our days.
All my love,
Ashli Turner
When the last trembling word faded from her lips and Cora crumpled the parchment in her hands, all that was left was the sound of the sea sobbing on the shore far below them. No one knew what to say at first. Dominic looked the most lost- almost as if he'd cry from the confusion.
"I have to go to her." Cora whispered at last.
"I can't be as sure as you are, lass," Finn said. "Why is she writing now?"
"How can you doubt her like that? Ashli doesn't have a cunning bone in her body. She's as capable of a plan like you're thinking of as our grandfather Caylyn was."
"It rings false in my old bones, Cora," Gibbs added. "You saw what Black Wolf and Jack's deaths did to Lone Star. Who knows what Lone Star's death did to Ashli?"
Cora drew her breath in rapidly, ready to shout, then let it out in a massive sigh.
"We can't know. But I have to go to her, Gibbs. She's my baby sister. I can't let her down. She doesn't even know she has a nephew."
"The Isla de Tesoro!" Jonas cried suddenly. "Miss Turner, that's where it was hidden! I reread Caylyn's note last night- it didn't say hidden in a safe, it said hidden s.w. safe. In all his logs s.w. stood for somewhere!"
"The name makes sense, considering that Tesoro means treasure. But what I fail to understand is the significance of this discovery." Stephen said. "Why do you need treasure? You assured us that this was where your family kept the bulk of its wealth."
"Yes, well... There isn't time now. Ask me again later." Cora bent swiftly to kneel before Dominic. "Darling, you must stay here with Jonas. I'll be back in a few days. I just need to settle some things."
"I want to come with you! I want to say good-bye to-"
"Dominic, this could be dangerous. Do you remember when the we were attacked last year by those Spanish ships?"
His hot anger melted suddenly. He tried to put up a brave front instead. "I wasn't scared."
"I don't want to put you in danger like that again, Dom. I believe what your Aunt Ashli wrote to me, but..." She sighed in frustration this time. "I just need you to stay here. Where you're safe."
Overwhelmed, Dominic began to cry. Cora pulled her onto his lap and hushed him as best as she could. He didn't cry for long, lacking either the strength or the motivation. It wasn't the first time he'd been left behind.
"Go and say good-bye to Doctor Maturin and Captain Aubrey now." She whispered, giving him a kiss and wiping the last of his tears away.
He walked to them slowly, his head bowed. "Always stand tall, lad." Jack admonished gently. Dominic put his thin little shoulders back and lifted his chin to look them in the eye.
"I will miss you." He said.
"And I you, lad. Maybe someday, God willing, we will serve together. Until then," His hand engulfed Dominic's smaller one. "The best of everything to you and your mother."
"Godspeed." He murmured, having heard many departures before. Then he turned to Stephen. "How do you say I will miss you, Esteban?"
"Jo hauré enyorat tu," He said quietly, knowing it would be too hard for him to say. He tried to stumble out the words anyway.
Then there was nothing left to say, nothing left to do. Stephen didn't dare reach for his hand as Jack had done. The only time he'd ever touched Dominic was when he nearly fell from the mainmast, and then once when they were climbing the hill, and Stephen rested his hand lightly on the boy's back to keep him from sliding back.
"Jo hauré enyorat tu," He repeated. "Adéu."
Dominic went back to his mother then and she held him once more.
"I'll be back soon. And I love you, no matter what happens."
"Jo estimo tu," Dominic said. The unspoken translation lingered in the air: I love you.
Cora couldn't resist the urge to look up into Stephen's eyes. Dominic had just learned the phrase yesterday. When Stephen woke that morning to Cora's kiss he'd whispered it without thinking. She'd smiled and asked him what it meant. He wouldn't say. But now they both knew that she knew. He'd said the one thing they'd always feared.
Jonas stepped forward when Cora backed away and took Dominic's hand and led him back to the house, his other arm around the sea chest. Dominic looked over his shoulder only once.
"We have to leave now. Finn, the Limerick doesn't need to follow if you and your men don't want to. Your masts are still in a sad way after that storm. In fact, I'd feel better if you stayed here and looked after things."
"Have ye forgotten about our French friend, the Fraternité? She's still out there, Cora. You gave her the slip once- she'll want blood now. The Limerick may not be ready, but my men are. With mine added to yours, we could crew all of the Deliverance's guns and then some."
Cora chewed her lip as she walked, then stumbled and cursed when her chest slid from her arms.
"Are your men all on the Limerick?"
"They've got leave. We could find them quickly- we wouldn't miss the tide."
Cora nodded. "Gibbs, send someone up here to get our things. The more of us searching the faster we'll find them."
They left their things in the middle of the road and dispersed into the town below them. This time, no one looked back.
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They caught the very tail-end of their tide and left the town with cheers and well wishes echoing in their ears. The ship was in an uproar as Anamaria and Cora struggled to assimilate the Deliverances and the Limericks, reorganizing watches and praying for time to practice with the guns; theirs were far heavier than anything the Limerick carried. There was no time to reorganize the stores immediately with the addition of the new ones, and the Deliverance hung heavier aft than they would've wished as they headed out of the harbor. With all these various preparations, Stephen had no opportunity to speak to Cora until that night.
He found her in her cabin, writing in her log. To his great surprise, a certain small boy was sitting on the hammock behind her looking rather sullen.
"Mr. Turner, what on earth are you doing here?"
"Momma says I'm not to speak to anyone."
"You're doing it right now, Dominic. I will explain to Doctor Maturin exactly what you did." She turned irritated grey-blue eyes onto Stephen. "He threw all the apples out of a barrel in the Limerick's hold and crawled in. Then the barrel was brought over here and he was discovered when we went to stow them."
"I only wanted to-"
"Dominic Jack Turner, what did I tell you about speaking? You've put yourself in danger by coming with us and I'm still very angry with you!"
Dominic hung his head. Stephen felt a surge of pity for him that he quelled.
"I take it that now is not a good time to bring up the question you told me to remember this morning." The end hung uncertainly between question and statement.
Cora's quill froze on the page and for a moment she was a tableau in the candlelight- she'd taken off her hat and her coat and the light showed through her white sleeves, revealing the delicacy of one wrist and highlighting her throat. Stephen fought not to remember the kisses and whispered words he'd left there.
"Dominic, you're allowed to speak now. I want you to go and speak to Captain Aubrey about what it's like to spend the night at the masthead and ask him if he recommends it as a suitable punishment for a stowaway."
"Yes, Momma."
A look of the pity Stephen had felt in himself flashed across Cora's face as Dominic trudged out the door, but she too restrained it. When they were alone, she turned her chair around and offered him one.
"Would you care for something to drink?"
"No, thank you."
She rummaged around in the cabinet nearby her desk as she spoke. "So, what question is it exactly you wish to have answered?"
"Why is this Isla de Tesoro so important?"
She waited until she found the bottle she was looking for and took a drink before she started. Then she told him everything- the expenses of the town, the dwindling commerce, the mercenaries they'd hired, and the £10,000 that was supposed to be waiting for her when the reached Alameade. Everything made sense now- her disappearances in the afternoons, the mess she'd made in her mother's room looking for things, the anxious look that stole over her countenance sometimes when she thought no one was looking.
"That's what is on the Isla de Tesoro," She concluded with another drink. "It's a spit of land from what I recall- it's not on most charts. My grandfather used it as a stopping point when he had a large treasure that he didn't want to take back to Alameade just yet- or one that he wanted to save." She took another drink. "My God, I hope the money is there. I can't bear to go back to the life I was living when you found me in Port Royal."
"If you hated it so much than why did you deliberately hide this from me for a week, the same way you hid Dominic from me for seven years?" His voice began to rise in anger.
"I didn't hide it from you, I just didn't tell-"
"An omission is still a lie. The only conclusion I can draw from this rather disturbing habit of yours is that you want me to have no part in the most important aspects of your life or our son's."
She began to feel helpless in the face of his mounting rage. Her eyes went soft with worry and she reached out as if she could placate him. Even seeing her distress he knew he couldn't stop.
"That's not what I want- I just- I didn't want you to-"
"Did you tell Finn? Did you let him help you when no one else was there?"
"Yes, but that's-"
"Then why was it me in your bed for this last week? Why not him?"
"I've told you-"
"Maybe I find it hard to believe."
"Stop it-"
"I'm just trying to understand you, Cora. What is it that you want from me?"
"I don't know!" Her voice matched his in volume at last. "You frighten me sometimes! I've never needed someone so much before! I don't know how to ask for help or make you love me the way I want you to!"
Stephen stood stiffly from his chair, his delicate hands clenched at his sides.
"If it is still a concern of yours, you were doing a fine job of it until now."
"I'm sorry," She whispered. "I'm so sorry."
He had to choke down the white-hot fury a second time before he could answer it; his voice cracked when he did. His throat was uncommon dry.
"So am I."
Stephen didn't realize until much later that night when he sat in the sick-bay writing a letter to Diana that those were the self same words they'd spoken seven years before on the night they parted- only in reverse. Then it was Stephen begging forgiveness.
My dear,
With God's grace, when this letter finds you I will be on my way home to you. I have reached a decision on the proposition you made the last time we met, if you can recall-
No, the tone wasn't right at all. His rage with Cora was leaking through his pen onto the paper. And reminding Diana that she thought of herself now as little more than a trumped up whore with the word 'proposition' was hardly the thing to do. He didn't seem to have the necessary skills required to propose to a woman. How Jack managed to do it with such success remained a deep mystery to him.
"How could I even begin to ask you to share your life?" He murmured to himself, denying that the words were for Cora in all but the deepest parts of his being.
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Cora dismissed Finn from the watch at two that morning. She left Dominic sleeping in her cabin- he came to her on his knees the night before with a curiously contrived apology on his lips, begging her to spare him punishment for what he'd done. She found out later that Jack had given him a stern talking to about the dangers of disobedience (and its misbegotten child, mutiny), along with some hair-raising tales of the masthead. The truth was that when she thought of the incident it was with a smile. It was exactly the sort of thing she would've done.
By all rights Stephen should've been the one to reprimand him- Dom just wasn't ready to say good-bye.
She dismissed the thought before it could cut into the vulnerable place inside of her. She would be lucky if she could convince him to speak to her again before he left. She knew well from Finn an Irishman's sense of honor, and she'd betrayed that when she lied to him. She saw now, with the perfect vision of hindsight, how foolish her actions had been.
"Starboard bow ahoy!"
The shout was faint from where she stood on the quarterdeck, but it made Cora's heart beat a little faster as she moved to the bow nonetheless. They couldn't be far from the Isla de Tesoro, if her memory served. Any ship they saw was likely Ashli's.
The sailor pointed to the sails in the distance. She ordered a greater press of sail when she saw the dot just beyond them that was the Isla de Tesoro. Her heart quickened again when the ship's stern was visible and she glimpsed the name Rising Star. It was dawn when they were close enough to make out the rest of the ship and the large shoulder of rock that concealed the rest of the Isla de Tesoro from sight.
The Star fired two guns from her starboard bow, then began to turn towards the island.
"She probably wants to drop anchor in the cove there. Gibbs, follow her course."
Jack Aubrey was awake and on deck in time to watch the Star disappear behind the rocks. He joined Cora amidships, drumming his fingers on the rail. It wasn't much past dawn, but the entire ship was awake and moving about restlessly- with the notable exception of a certain surgeon.
"Something don't feel right," Jack murmured. "She's going to have a prodigious amount of time alone in that cove, Captain."
"Ashli is not that patient. I think even if you held a gun to her forehead she couldn't lure someone into a trap like that. She'd have to be able to come out fighting, right out in open water." She smiled briefly. "She's rather like your Nelson in that respect, I'm afraid. Never mind the maneuvers, just go straight at 'em."
It was difficult to maneuver the Deliverance towards the cove at all. The tide was working back towards them and the wind's position didn't help much either. After running through every possible scenario and seeing every one of Gibbs' most hopeless looks, Cora sighed and asked for a speaking trumpet. They had dropped anchor and lay just off the side of the rocky ridge that separated them from the cove, their bow perpendicular to the entrance. They were close enough that she should be able to hear them through the trumpet.
Cora's mouth went suddenly dry when Finn returned with the speaking trumpet. For the first time in years, she would be able to speak with her sister, her closest friend and confidante until they lives went so wildly askew. It didn't help that Stephen had followed Finn up and was now perched on the ladder leading down to the sick-bay, half part of her world and half in darkness, watching her.
She wet her lips and spoke into the trumpet as clearly as she could.
"Ashli, it's Cora. I can't get the Deliverance into the cove, not with this tide. You'll have to come out here and drop anchor to speak with me. Please."
Silence, and then an answering gun. It sounded much louder than they would've expected- the Star was a small sloop, and most of the sailors were betting she didn't have anything much heavier than twelve-pounders on her. They chalked it up to echoes bouncing off the rocky walls of the cove.
They felt the first tremor of wrongness when they saw the sails appear above the line of rock. The Star's masts had not been that tall.
"By God," Jack uttered, looking to the mainmast. "That is a French pennant."
The Star had carried no pennant, French or otherwise.
Then the ship swung out, gliding smoothly on the tide, the tricolour flying proudly from her stern.
Before the stunned crew of the Deliverance could react, the pirate hunter Fraternité opened fire.
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A/N-- Dun da daaa! How are they going to get out of this one? And if they do, will Stephen forgive Cora? And where is this treasure that they seek? Find out soon!
Yes, silverwolf, I'm sure you're falling over laughing at the idea of an island named after our school. I can't help it if the Spanish word for treasure is Tesoro. Breathe, if you please. I'll not have you dead in front of the computer.
Thanks to Oriana8 for the review (whining and all!).
