Chapter 08: 1740 - Time's up, Jack!


The crossing back to the Caribbean had been calm and uneventful. That uneventful that Jack almost wished they would have gotten engaged in a sea-fight. But not even the weather had presented him with greater challenges, for the sea had been calm and a constant breeze had kept the sails tacked.

Such favourable conditions would have been convenient for him at any other time - just not here and now.

No matter if he was standing at the helm, dozing in his berth, or burying himself in his books and charts - he always had far too many occasions to think!

Ever since they'd left Madagascar, since he'd successfully broken in and out of the dungeon on the Turkish coast, and since they'd set course back to the Caribbean, it seemed like thoughts were racing in his head.

Everything he had heard from Prudence Stevens, from van Dijk, and from that stranger in the dungeon, would have been enough to keep him busy for at least two lifetimes - and yet everything he had heard and seen over the past few weeks seemed somehow connected.

And this already seemed to have been the case when Patrick and Bill fished him out of the sea after escaping Shipwreck Island, and maybe even that night aboard Captain Teague's ship, when a creature of the sea supposedly gave birth to him...

'This is maddening,' he thought: 'Why does anyone I come across always talk in riddles...?'

With a sigh he dropped the dividers and protractor, grabbed the bottle of rum that was on the table next to him and gave himself up to his thoughts once more.

Prue's disclosure, that Jeffrey, Jeremy and Rosalind had not only called at Shipwreck Island occasionally, but had regularly visited the fortress, and that Jeremy had also been one of the nine pirate lords, had surprised him far more than he had wanted to admit to her.

Could it be possible that his and Caithleen's paths in life had been connected long before they met in front of a little cottage high on the cliffs of a small, nameless island?

How else was it possible that so many years after her death he still longed for her so much?

Or was van Dijk right in his suspicion that Davy Jones was deliberately hiding something from him?

And then there was this stranger who claimed he wouldn't know what he wanted! Of course he knew what he wanted...

He put the rum bottle back on the table and impatiently reached for his compass. The lid snapped open, he took a look - and the needle rotated in all directions, stopping for a moment, only to immediately start moving in the opposite direction again.

It was frustrating!

Ever since receiving this unusual and intriguing gem from Tia Dalma, it had not once denied him his service. Why now, when he was so close to settling all his open scores?

A gentle touch seemed to make his fingers close the compass, then something, or someone, seemed to touch his brow and cheeks - and he closed his eyes...

Her hands caressed his cheeks, her brow was rested against his, and her lips brushed gently against his as she whispered: "There is only one way that will lead you to your aim, but it is so branched and so intricate, that every step you take will lead you there by a different detour. But never forget this, Jack Sparrow: Not everything is as it may appear to you at first sight..."

Her kiss was gentle, like a light breeze on a summer's day, but when he tried to wrap his arms around her to hold her tight...

She was gone, as she did so many times before, and instead of a gentle touch from her hand, an unpleasant pain now emanated from the scar left by the branding iron. It hurt and burned like it hadn't in a long time and for a moment he covered it with his other hand.

Once more he reached for the bottle, but it was empty, and not a single drop was left. Not even in any of the other bottles standing and lying on the floor next to him - and with a silent curse on his lips he wondered if this day could get any worse: "Why is the rum always gone?"

The rum was gone, the compass was broken, and the memories of his beloved girl didn't make things any better either.

No, it couldn't be helped. He had to head for the hold!

Down there, he would surely be able to find another bottle for him somewhere to get through this night, but as he got up to reach for his tricorn and coat, he quickly realised that not the "Pearl" was rolling, but he: "Oh! That's why."


It was quiet on board as he slipped out of his cabin unnoticed and staggered towards the cargo hold. And it seemed he really had a bottle or two too many throughout the day, for it couldn't be the ship, since that night the "Pearl" sailed towards the horizon, and a heading they didn't have under van Dijk's skilled hands...

In the crew quarters, too, everything was quiet. The men slept in their hammocks and apart from loud snores and the occasional satisfied smack, nothing else could be heard.

Tried not to wake anyone unnecessarily or carelessly, Jack finally grabbed the keys to the hold and opened the door.

It was quiet down here, too but the silence that spread around him as soon as he had closed the door behind him was radically different from that on deck or in the quarters, because it lived up to its name.

At first he didn't notice, but the more empty bottles he pulled off the shelves, the stranger it all seemed to him.

That was why he raised the lantern to eye level to get a better look, but this time, too, he found nothing but empty bottles and equally empty shelves - although they didn't appear to be entirely empty, as he noticed with amazement and a frown.

Of course, the air down here was always moist, but he couldn't remember that it had ever been so moist that mussels, polyps, and sea anemones would thrive among bottles and barrels.

Added to this was the unmistakable smell of seawater and seaweed that filled the room, and Jack began to wonder how much too much rum he had while he sat over his books and maps.

Having no answer to that, he decided that they would definitely give the "Pearl" a thorough overhaul before bringing fresh supplies on board.

Satisfied with this decision, he was about to get back to continuing his quest for a full bottle, when something different caught his attention: In the far corner of the hold, among crates and barrels, a shadow seemed to move.

At first, Jack was tempted to dismiss the movement as a mirage and blame it on his tiredness as it couldn't be completely ruled out that after all his experiences on the Isla de Muerta, with the pirates of Madagascar, and in the hideous dungeon off the Turkish coast, he might be inclined to see things that most likely weren't there. But when the movement repeated itself in the half-shades, he blinked a few times to get a better view of what was going on in the little light from his lantern.

And indeed, on one of the barrels, with his back to him, cowered an obviously entirely soaked figure - and its voice sounded both familiar and oddly alien: "Time's run out, Jack."

Jack blinked again and had to realise that the soaked figure who had appeared so unexpectedly in the hold of his "Pearl" and who was now sitting directly in front of him on one of the barrels, was someone he knew. And that someone seemed to have come to remind him of something he would have preferred never to remember again: "Bill? Bill Turner?"

There was no doubt it was him, and he rose to look at him intently from head to toe: "You look good lad..."

Jack wished he could have said the same thing, but Bill didn't look well at all:

He was indeed soaked through and his almost black hair fell in wet strands down his back, held up only by one of those caps he used to wear for as long as Jack had known him. Shirt, pants and the almost floor-length coat were also soaked, and his knee-high boots seemed to ooze water with every step. His face was deathly pale, his cheeks sunken, and his once lively eyes were ringed with dark circles and seemed sunken in their sockets. Water ran down his pale lips when he spoke...

And yet all this weren't the strangest things about Bill Turner - those were the enormous starfish covering part of his cheek and the innumerable shells and barnacles that seemed to have attached themselves to him.

For a moment Jack was speechless at the sight, then, realising that he couldn't say anything comparably friendly to Bill, he asked: "Is this a dream?"

"No!" Bill looked at him, obviously amazed at this question, and Jack nodded: "I thought not. If it were, there'd be rum."

To his surprise, Turner held out a bottle which, with some effort, he freed from the grip of his mussel-encrusted fingers, and while Jack took a sip from the bottle, Bill looked around: "You got the 'Pearl' back, I see."

"Yes, finally," Jack replied: "The score with Barbossa is settled. And I had some help with it. Your son."

"William?"

"Yes! And believe me, he's a spitting image of you."

"So, he ended up a pirate, after all?"

"The decision was made the moment you sent the coin to London. Even if your son hadn't helped me, he would have ended up as a pirate eventually. Or do you think Barbossa would have given up the hunt for the gold?"

"Probably not. It's still not what I would have wanted for the boy."

"If it comforts you: He's still got an unhealthy streak of honest to him."

"That's something, then," Bill mused: "Though no credit to me."

"Most probably not. It's rather Elianor you'll have to blame for it."

"Elianor!" Something like a spark of life flashed in Bill's eyes for a split second: "The hell of a woman she was. I guess, she knew what she did, when she decided not to raise him to become a pirate." He looked at Jack and asked: "How is she?"

Jack hesitated. He lowered his gaze, cleared his throat, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and then replied in a low voice: "I'm sorry, Bill..."

"So, she too...?"

"Shortly after I last saw her in London."

"What happened?"

"I was lucky! After the mutiny, a band of smugglers rescued me from the island whereon Barbossa marooned me and I was able to hire with a merchant who was on his way to England. Turns out your letter with the gold coin got to Elianor shortly before I did. She was already pretty ill when I saw her, Bill, and she passed away shortly after I left her..." He sighed and then added: "She and Sir Edwin have long fought over the weaving mill and their estates but after her father died Beckett turned her life into hell on earth and gradually she lost everything. The coin, the Aztec gold, she left to Will - a memory of his father..."

"Call a spade a spade, Jack! I should never have left her. She faced all this alone until it consumed her while I went hunting for treasure and gold!"

"She never blamed you for that..."

"She did not, lad, but I did! I blamed myself for everything. After all, I've had my share in all of it, right? I left her and Will and I'm not really proud of the part I played in the mutiny and everything that happened after, either..."

"And I never blamed you for that either..."

"No, but you warned me, Jack, and you were right!"

For a while they kept both silent, each overwhelmed by their own memories, until Jack finally worked up the courage to ask the question to which he actually already knew the answer: "And what does the honour of your presence bring me?"

"Davy Jones, Jack. He sent me."

"Ah, it's you, then. He shanghaied you into service, then?"

Bill shook his head: "I chose it." He lifted his head and looked Jack straight in the eyes: "As you can imagine, Barbossa was not amused when he learned that I had sent one of the coins to England. That was after we found out that the treasure was indeed laden with a curse and we would need all of the coins to break it. Of course, he also remembered that I was reluctant to join the mutiny. So he asked me and I told him we deserved to be cursed and remain cursed. As you can imagine, that wasn't what he and the crew wanted to hear."

"Too lively... But how did you end up like ... that...?"

"They strapped me to a cannon and threw me overboard. Everything went wrong after that. I ended up cursed, doomed to the depths of the ocean, the weight of the water crushing down on me. Unable to move ... unable to die. All I could do was think. And mostly I thought, even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate... I would take it. Trade anything for it."

Jack remembered how that hope had felt: "That is the kind of thinking bound to catch his attention."

"It did. Davy Jones came. Made the offer. I could spend one hundred years before the mast, with the hope that after, I would go on to a peaceful rest."

"Funny what a man'll do to forestall his final judgment."

"You made a deal with him, too, Jack. He raised the 'Pearl' from the depths for you, and thirteen years you've been her Captain. You won't be able to talk your way out of this."

Jack shook his head: "I'll keep trying until he comes for me himself. I have to try, Bill! I have to try to challenge Jones. At any cost. What I have to do to do that, I know. All I need is time!"

"You don't have any!"

"As long as Beckett and Mercer are still alive, I will not give in to Jones! I have to finish this. Not for me, not for you, but for Elianor... and for Caith..."

"Caithleen?"

"Yes, Caithleen! All these years I've been convinced she must be dead, but it seems Davy Jones cheated me out of her. I have to find her, Bill!"

Turner looked at him for a long time, but while he obviously understood what Jack was trying to tell him, there was no other way: "The terms what applied to me apply to you, as well. One soul, bound to crew a lifetime upon his ship. "

Jack remained adamant: "The Flying Dutchman already has a captain, so there's no need for me."

"Then it's the Locker for you. Jones' leviathan will find you and drag the 'Pearl' back to the depths, and you along with it."

"If this is the path I must tread to challenge Jones..." Jack thought for a moment, then asked: "Any idea on when Jones will release said terrible beastie?"

"No! I've not! But," Bill reached for Jack's hand and looked deep into his eyes once more: "It will find you! It will find the man who is marked with the black spot."

When he let go of Jack's hand a black mark appeared on its palm, spreading like a blain.

Jack's eyes filled with horror, as he gazed at it - he knew from now on time would run against him.

When he looked up again, the shadow that once had been Bill Turner, was gone...