It smarted like a slap in the face, going up the river back to see her. He and Gibbs rowed the longboat through the lazy current, the buzzing and clicking of the insects providing the only sound. Usually, the bayou roared with life, but on such a muggy day like this, most everyone probably decided to stay inside.
"All this haze's as thick as pea soup!" Gibbs observed, taking a deep inhale. "You're sure she'll want to see you?"
"If anyone has a better idea as to how to locate Captain Falkenburg, Tia Dalma will." Jack clucked his tongue at the mentioning of her name. Bad enough he'd had to fill Gibbs in on his last meeting with her, but he broke a promise to himself about not seeing her ever again after she decided for no reason it would be most sporting to knife fight him. His head dropped to focus on his rowing, his hands more callused than the last time he visited.
They tied the boat off and clamored up to her shack, still looming over the misty river. He held his compass to his chest, hand shaking at the thought of giving up such a tool. "Keep your distance from her," he warned Gibbs, and turned the rusted handle.
"Tia?" he sang out, a sickening feeling creeping up his windpipe. "Where ye hiding, my dear?"
"Jack!" She swaggered over to him, throwing her arms around him and sniffing the brim of his hat. "Ya been far away in yer travels."
"Yes, that I have. Tia Dalma, this is me first mate Joshamee Gibbs, and we're both here to see you about a matter of interest…"
Tia Dalma stroked Gibbs' cheek, smiling wide enough to expose her teeth and turned back to Jack.
"Always most int'restin' to see da future in da present."
"Speaking of which, I was wondering if during that little peek into my life all those years ago if ye happened to pick up on the whereabouts of…"
"How old are ya now, Jack?" As before, Tia Dalma showed no sign of aging in these last ten years, her hair still a tangled heap of the blackest hue and her hands so smooth they resembled finely sculpted china with cocoa spilled over it. She glided back to her table in the center of the room, even more cluttered than it was before, now with strands of coral and goat haunches suspended from her ceiling on gut-stained fish hooks.
"Thirty-five."
"A long time ya been gone," she said. "Hope what ya brought to me wort da trouble."
"I've come to return this to you in exchange for some information." His hand trembled as it held out the compass to her. Maybe one day he would get it back. If Falkenburg gave him the drawing of the key on that hide, he could pick up some trinket somewhere and barter it back. Giving up the compass felt like handing her the Black Pearl on a slab and demanding Tia Dalma reduce her to ashes.
"Ya don't want dis no more?"
"Uh…I'm in a bit of a spot, Tia. It's not that I don't want such a useful thing that just so happens to fit in my pocket just right, but…" He wrung his hands. "I'm sort of destined to serve on the Flying Dutchman next year unless you or some other higher power sees fit to smile on me."
At the mention of the Flying Dutchman, Tia Dalma's smile withered. Her jaw fell ajar. "Ya saw Davy Jones?"
"In the flesh…or scales, or is it something in between?" It was just the reaction he wanted to see from her. Evidence piled up in favor of his theory he worked on over the years, not that he could really do anything with the information, except recall a certain tale his father told him back when they could be on the same ship, nigh, the same country, without trading punches. "I'm going after the dead man's chest."
"Den ya be wantin' yer compass." She tapped his hand that still held onto the compass and plopped down to her table. "What have ya done, foolish Jack?"
"Now, now. I have a plan to get out of it. I just need something from you, and if you won't take my compass, you must make me a bargain. Anything you want, I'll happily go and get it if you help me this one last time."
"One last time? Ha! Der be no end in sight wid da help I give ya, Jack. You come back again and again, always promisin' yourself it be da last time. Hear my wisdom, witty Jack. Da promises of men don't mean nothin' to no one." She gathered the crab parts on the table and set them off to the side in a pile. "What ya want?"
"Tell me how to find Captain Falkenburg," he said.
"Mr. Gibbs."
"Aye, my lady?" Gibbs leaned forward, and Jack had to hand it to his old friend. Most everyone else he knew would shrink away from the mysterious witch, but if Gibbs feared any part of her, he concealed it quite well, taking her hand and kissing it like he was meeting some princess.
"What tink ya of all dis?"
"Anything the Captain thinks is a good idea is a good idea," he said. "I've been with him too long to think otherwise. See, we figure we'll get our hands on this chest and…"
"What bout da Pearl?" she interrupted, a cat-like smile coming back to her face.
"You'd be mad if ye think I'd forgotten about her," Jack said. "But in order to enjoy sailing on said vessel, I have to be sure I'm in charge of my future, savvy? Now come on, Tia. Just you consider tellin' old Jack what you want and he'll go out and get it for you. I used to do that all the time, go out and find what people want, and I know better than to make an offer of me one-sy, remembering how bad a time you had keeping up with me last time."
"Keepin' up wid?" she laughed, but then stared up at Gibbs. "All right. I help ya."
"My dear, you are a goddess," Jack said, sneering at her suspicious expression. Oh yes, I know all about you, he thought. Calypso. Even bound in human bones like the song says you still can't control all those immortal urges. "Where do I find the good Captain Falkenburg?"
"Far far away. Constantinople."
"So he's alive still? Where in Constantinople?"
Tia Dalma paused, staring straight at Jack, and then at Gibbs. Tossing a few of her longer locks behind her shoulder, she asked, "Innit somebody missin' from yer group, or was dat da future I saw?"
"Don't rub it in me face that I don't remember one bloody thing I told you." Jack stood, his arms bracing both sides of the table. Oh, he'd never struck a woman before, but he relished the thought of striking a goddess down a peg or two. "If you're going to help me, then help me, but don't sit there and pretend to be beating around the bush with it, Calypso. Give me an answer."
"No."
"What Jack means, my lady," Gibbs interjected, taking Jack's elbows and setting him back down, "is that we're a far cry from what you'd call intelligent by human standards, so when we're in the presence of one such as you, we have a hard time understanding everything you say. Now, we're willing to go get anything you may need or want if you would just tell us the whereabouts of the legendary Captain Falkenburg in a manner in which we can understand."
Tia Dalma laughed, clapping her hands together in sheer delight.
"No, not yet. Ya have to wait just a little longer to find dat captain. But help ya I will." The back of her hand held her chin and she gave off a seductive smile, her other hand shuffling her crab pile back to the center of the table. She stacked the parts up as high as they would go before toppling over and falling back onto the table surface, a crunch accompanying a few of the unlucky ones. "Port Royal."
"Port Royal?" Gibbs blurted. "Miss, I said we was just simple humans. Simple pirate humans. Ye can't expect us to go to Port Royal, not now that Norrington's been there a good eight years."
"Why there?" Jack asked.
"Cuz of da pretty Pearl."
Jack sat completely still, searching her eyes for some motive, some lie.
"The Pearl's just over in Port Royal, is it?" he breathed, his leg jiggling under the table.
"No." Before either of them could ask what she meant, she said, "Not yet."
"When?" Jack whispered.
"Two days time," Tia Dalma said. "You go der now, Jack Sparrow, and see what wonderful tings come yo way. It be yer future." She stood when he failed to respond. "What's da point in savin' yer soul if der be nothin' to save it for? Your precious ship lie not far from here. Take dat fast ship and sail it to your missing captain. Den, and only den, will ever-ting I saw come true!"
"What, what do you want in exchange?" Jack asked, catching his breath and remembering to whom he was talking.
"Nothing."
"Come on, Tia. What do you want? You wouldn't tell me all this for free."
"Ya go and get da pretty Pearl, Jack, and if ya do ever-ting I saw ya do, it be enough for me," she said, stroking his cheek. "Dis be da best way."
"Gibbs, take the longboat and go back to the ship." He'd failed to name that boat they had taken from Anamaria in hopes they would not need it for long. "Go back to Tortuga and wait for me. See if you can find out any more information about Barbossa, where he's been, the blood situation, as it were. If I'm not there within the week, send for Gabriel or Anamaria. Tell them the only way we'll compensate them for our thievery is if one of them comes and picks me up. Norrington's too smart to miss me, so it will be one of the most narrow escapes in my whole career. Are you listening?"
"Aye, Jack. But are you sure…"
"It's the Pearl, Gibbs, the Pearl! È troppo buono da passare in su! Oh, per per vedere lo sguardo sul suo fronte. Go on to Tortuga."
"It's just that we've tried to find Falkenburg for so long. He may be old and then we ain't got a lot of time left. And what becomes of the hide if he dies?"
"You heard the goddess. Everything will work out." Jack did listen to himself, in spite of what anyone else might have thought, and if one were to ask him about that day, he would honestly say that he didn't care that none of it made sense. It was an opportune moment, and for better or worse, he had to take it.
XXX
Rigging up the little ship by himself proved more difficult than he thought it would be, but even the hardest parts seemed more like labors of love than menial tasks. There would be a lot of people to see once he took the helm of the Pearl and commanded a veritable posse of a crew on it. Not Barbossa, of course, because he'd be dead, but there were so many other people. He'd grown so tired of carrying two pistols with him, one never even being used. Ah well, he thought, and emptied the bullets out of his pistol and tossed it overboard. There would be no room for excess now. Who else would he take special care to see? Teague, especially Teague. He growled at the name and recalled their last get-together last year.
"Well, well, isn't this a sight for sore eyes?" Jack chuckled, stopping at one particular cell in the French jail.
Teague, face more wrinkled and pocked than ever, stretched his head and rolled his eyes at Jack. "Come to mock me, boy, or did ye come all the way to France for the crepes?"
"Both, actually. I just couldn't resist coming and seeing you when I heard the marvelous, magnificent Captain Teague had been caught."
"Don't get used to it, Jackie. You know I won't be in here for long."
"Be that as it may, its fleeting nature makes it all that much more pleasurable."
Teague stood, still a head taller than Jack, and loomed over him in spite of the bars between them. Taking a step back, Jack sighed at such his own childish reaction and stepped back to his original spot, making sure his Piece of Eight glistened in the single ray of light shining from the slit of a window in the cell.
"So now you look the part of a pirate lord at least," Teague sighed. "Might want to be thinkin' of a successor now. It's funny. Had you waited long enough, I would have given that to you of me own free will." He shook his head, tapping the bars with his fingers. "But you never were one that could just listen to what other people wanted to do, always had to take the lead, come hell or high water."
"How's Mum?" Jack asked with hard eyes, not caring if the blow injured himself as well.
He jumped back from Teague's arm, stretched through the bars, swiping at him. Older than they were when he was a child, those arms still had the strength of a mother bear prowling the woods, itching to maul an intruder.
"Found her, no thanks to you. Why don't you quit taunting me and go back to your pirating?"
"Aw, that hurts, Teague. I thought you'd want to catch up. Might I inquire as to how you were caught, or would it injure your pride? I'd hate to hurt the last thing you have left."
He dodged another swipe.
"Listen to me, Jackie. I know you and me ain't the closest, but you got to listen to me when it comes to that Piece of Eight. You got to! What your mum wanted for you is over. You're a pirate now, just like me and you fail to see just how much mine you really are. Don't scoff at me, boy. That tongue you curse me with? That's mine. Even those eyes you're judging me with are mine, blacker than any eyes I ever saw, even as a baby. Your mum and me thought we had some magic kid in our midst. Well, being a pirate lord is as close to magic as can be hoped for. You guard that Piece of Eight, you hear me? Do your mum and me a favor."
"And what is that?"
"Settle down! Not completely, but a little bit. Get married, find an heir for that thing."
"I'm reminded of a man I used to sail with," Jack said, his breathing growing shallow, his nostrils flaring. "He had a wife and a family and you know what happened? He went off to Davy Jones and no one even knew where in England his family was to tell them what happened to him. Sorry lot, the Turner family, never seein' one another. That kid must hate his father. And you want me to go and do the same thing?"
"I'm reminded of a story myself," Teague snapped. "Sailor went out all the time, years passed. Well, he came back home one day and found his lover and their babes slaughtered by pirates. So overcome by guilt that he didn't marry the wench and make her respectable, he cut off her head and carried around in a chest with him until the end of his days."
"You never married Mum."
"And she's dead now, isn't she? Listen to me on this one, Jackie. Find a wife, have a kid or two, and pirate on the side. Be as sly about it as can be. That Piece of Eight's got to go to somebody if the redcoats get hold of ye."
"Give Mum me love," Jack said and marched out of the jail.
Jack woke from his memories at the sensation of water rubbing his trousers. Looking down, he sprang up and climbed up the mast to escape the rising water in the shoddy excuse for a ship.
A/N: Things will start to seem a little more familiar now. Thank you, everyone that has left reviews, but I really must demand more. They are the sweet dessert of and willo has quite the sweet tooth. Oh, and I do not own POTC.