The pirate with the wooden eye, Rigetti, and the bearded pirate called Pintel, approach me. Pintel holds a large, violet mass in his arms.
"You'll be dinin' with the captain," Pintel says. "And he requests you wear 'dis." He glances down at the purple bundle. Out of nowhere, anger boils up inside me.
"Well, you may tell the captain that I am disinclined to acquiesce his request."
Pintel looks at Rigetti with a chuckle
"He said you'd say that. He also said if that be the case, you'll be dinin' with the crew—and you'll be naked," Pintel smiles evilly at me and Rigetti laughs breathily.
I snatch the dress out of Pintel's arms. His smile disappears. I raise my eyebrows slightly out of smugness.
"Fine," he growls. They leave me alone to dress, but I don't trust the pirates. Not even a little. I slip off my nightgown in a corner away from view of the door. I take care that hardly any skin is revealed as I change. The dress I was given is deep violet. The collar is trimmed with black lace and gold thread, along with its enormous sleeves. As I lift it over my head, a stench of dust reaches my nostrils. I wonder for a brief second about its previous owner. I have sudden urge to rip the dress off of me and throw it overboard. Although I despise it with everything I am, wearing it is significantly better than its alternative.
As I'm pulling one of the sleeves over my shoulder, I hear soft noise from behind me. A chuckle. I stop. I knew I couldn't trust pirates.
I walk slowly towards the source of the noise, which sounds like it came from a wall near the door. I hear whispers as I creep closer, and more chuckling. It's coming from a wall . . . with a hole. I bend down to look in the hole and there I see a wooden eye, swirling in its socket. I hide to the right of the hole.
"I can't see nothing," Rigetti's voice says. I clench my jaw. Just then, I look down to find a fire poker resting beside my feet. I pick it up and thrust it through the hole.
"Me eye!" I hear Rigetti shout. I walk away from the hole after covering it with a blanket. Filthy pirates.
After I finish lacing up my dress I fold up my nightgown and dressing gown and set them in a corner. I'm hesitant to leave them, knowing that I will probably never see them again. They are my last reminders of the life I was taken from. Oh how I miss Port Royal, with its busy streets and sense of security. No more baths. No more dinners with Father or carriage rides. No more ceremonies or trips to the market. No more walks with the commodore or visits to friends. No more passing Will's blacksmith shop on the way to town.
My stomach squeezes a little.
That was the life that was taken from me. The life I may never return to.
I take one last look at my night clothes before opening the door. Pintel and Rigetti are standing outside, still looking slightly put off. Rigetti's wooden eye is back in place. I have a sudden urge to smirk, but I force myself to refrain. I must show regality. I must demand respect. I must not show fear in front of these pirates. Now that I think about it, I have felt more anger than fear since I boarded this hell-bound vessel.
"This way, Poppet," Pintel says grudgingly. The two pirates lead me down the hallway, where they open a pair of glass doors to a large room. Windows line the walls. A long, dark table spans the length of the room. On it lies plates of a large assortment of food. Potatoes, beets, salad, fish and roasted pork. Baskets of apples, plates of biscuits, and bottle of wine. Candles light each end of the table.
I would like nothing better than to return to the cabin I was being held in, but my stomach grumbles loudly, giving me away. Pintel and Rigetti close the doors behind me as I walk towards the table. I see movement in the corner of my eye. Startled, I turn to see Barbossa looking me over.
"Maid or not, it suits you," he says slowly, referring to the dress.
"Dare I ask if it did its previous owner," I reply icily.
"Oh, now none of that," Barbossa says, walking closer. He holds his hand out at a seat at the long table. "Please."
I take the seat he offers me. I sit with my back straight and my feet together. On the plate before me is a leg of roasted pork and fish and potatoes. Barbossa leans down beside me.
"Dig in." I a silver fork and knife from either side of my plate and carefully slice a piece of pork off the leg. I chew it slowly.
Barbossa scoffs.
"There's no need to stand on ceremony, nor call to impress anyone. You must be hungry."
My commitment to regality dissipates at his words. I snatch the leg of pork and rip the meat off with my teeth, hardly chewing before I swallow it. I grab a biscuit from a platter and stuff it in my mouth, tasting the grease from the pork on the bread.
"Try the wine." Barbossa holds out a bronze cup full of violet liquid. I take the goblet from him and swig the wine down before going back to my biscuit.
"And the apples, one of those next," Barbossa offers, holding out a bright apple. It gleams unbelievably green in the candlelight. I lower my biscuit slowly and glance at Barbossa's pet monkey, swinging on its perch that hangs from the ceiling. Its eyes bore into mine with obvious anticipation. I look back at the apple.
"It's poisoned," I accuse. Barbossa laughs.
"There would be no sense to be killin' ya, Miss Turner," he says.
"Then release me. You have your trinket; I'm of no further value to you," I retort. Barbossa reaches into his jacket and pulls out the gold medallion.
"You don't know what this is . . . do you?"
"It's a pirate medallion," I respond smartly.
"This is Aztec gold—one of 882 identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortés himself," Barbossa replies. "Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortés was insatiable. So the heathen gods placed upon the gold . . . a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity."
I look at the golden skull, which looks ghostly in the flickering shadows. I look back up at Barbossa. His story reminds me of the tales of Davy Jones and other ruthless pirates I read about when I was young. Their stories used to scare me to sleep, but the more I've seen of the world, the less I've believed in tales of sea people and everlasting life.
"I hardly believe in ghost stories anymore, Captain Barbossa," I say incredulously.
"Aye," he agrees, standing up and walking behind my chair. "That's exactly what I thought when we were first told the tale. Buried on an Island of Dead that cannot be found except for those who know where it is." He kneels down beside me.
"Find it, we did. There be the chest. Inside be the gold. And we took 'em all! We spent 'em and traded 'em and frittered 'em away on drink and food and pleasurable company," he says, standing up again and circling back to the other side of my chair. "The more we gave 'em away, the more we came to realize . . . the drink would not satisfy, food turned to ash in our mouths, and all the pleasurable company in the world could not slake our lust. We are cursed men, Miss Turner. Compelled by greed, we were, but now we are consumed by it."
The monkey on its perch shrieks and jumps up and down.
Barbossa's mad. He's mad!
Barbossa turns to pet the monkey and I watch him carefully, slipping my dinner knife beneath the napkin on my lap.
Fear is enveloping me and I know the moment is coming quicker than I can prepare for it.
"There is one way we can end our curse," Barbossa's voice sounds misty and distant as he hands the gold medallion to the monkey, which jumps on his shoulder. "All the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be restored and the blood repaid." The monkey jumps down and runs out the door. "Thanks to ye, we have the final piece."
My eyes widen.
"And the . . blood to be repaid?" Oh . . . no . . .
"That's why there's no sense to be killin' ya. Yet," Barbossa smiles. My blood seems to chill within my veins. "Apple?"
My fright and anger finally meet.
I whack the apple out of his hands and brandish my dinner knife. Barbossa laughs.
Do it, Elizabeth, I think, but I can't bring myself. I yell and dart for the door instead, but Barbossa heads me off. I run around a shelf near the door, but Barbossa grabs my arm and I scream, whirling around and thrusting the knife through his body. It plunges through his heart with a sickly, fleshy sound. I gasp and step back at the sight of my knife sticking out of his torso.
Barbossa looks down at the silver. Now he's pulling it out of his chest, the knife dripping with scarlet blood.
"I'm curious—after killin' me what was it that you plannin' on doin' next?"
My jaw drops in horror. I stumble backward and out the door. My only thought is to escape. I walk backwards onto the deck, walking into the moonlight. I turn to run and stop dead in my tracks. My scream never makes it to my throat.
The crew is no longer human. Their skin seems to have decayed away and only skeletons remain, rags covering their bones, grey, black, and filthy. The skeletons scrub the deck of the ship and set the sails, growling and cackling, their brown and silver teeth chattering and their eyeballs wiggling around in their sockets, revealed from beneath wiry, tangled hair.
A scream finally reaches my lips as I'm pulled into a circle of skeletons who are winding around a wooden mast. I shriek and force myself out of their circle. One of my slippers catches a plank of wood and I feel myself airborne. I'm falling. Several feet later I land on a giant piece of cloth, which can only be a sail. I'm thrown up into the air by pirate skeletons who hold the edges of the sail. I can't breathe, I can't think. I can only feel the cold air on my face and then a falling sensation as I drop back onto the sail. Before I know it I'm thrown into the air again, screaming, my arms flailing.
Something snatches me from the air and I'm swung across the ship on a rope. Beside me I see a disgusting, ghostly skeleton, holding me with one bony hand around my waist. I give an ear-splitting scream and we hit the deck. I run, but the skeleton is right on my heels. I flee to the helm of the ship, but the skeleton blocks my escape from the other side of the ship's wheel. He tries to reach across the wheel towards me but I spin it towards myself and his head flings, a cracking noise breaking out into the night. With a snap he replaces his head and turns back to look at me with a growl.
I can't make a single audible noise, so frozen I am with terror. I barrel down the stairs and fling myself behind them, coming to rest in the shadows beneath the helm. I'm finally free from the ghostly pirates. I feel as though my heart has left my chest and is circling through me, heartbeats felt in every inch of my body. My breathing is uncontrollable.
Something moves in the corner of my eye. I jump. Barbossa's monkey hangs from the stairs beside me, bony and skinless. It dangles the medallion from its spindly hand and bares its fangs. I let out another scream and run for the cabin I was held in. I run straight into Barbossa. He grabs me and yanks me around.
"Look!" He orders, forcing me to see the full moon, uncovered by the silver clouds overhead. "The moonlight shows us for what we really are. We are not among the living and so we cannot die, but neither are we dead." The crew stops and assembles before me. Barbossa whips me around to face him.
"For too long I've been parched with thirst and unable to quench it. Too long I've been starving to death and haven't died." He begins to walk towards me and with his every step I match it with a step back.
"I feel nothing—not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea, nor the warmth of a woman's flesh." His hand reaches out to touch my face but I step just out of reach. His hand reaches the light of the moon and his skin seems to crawl away, leaving nothing but fleshless bone.
"Ya best start believin' in ghost stories, Miss Turner," Barbossa says as the moonlight envelopes the rest of his body, revealing crusty, cracked bones and teeth and two horrific eyeballs. "You're in one." He grabs a bottle of rum, bites off its cork with his filthy teeth, and spits it out. He swallows the rum and the red liquid drips down his spine, staining his ribs like blood.
No more, I think, eyes swimming. I make a break for the cabin and throw myself inside. I hear Barbossa smash his bottle of rum and slam the doors behind me. He cackles and the crew joins in unearthly glee.
I flee to a corner of the cabin and curl up, shivering and hugging my legs to my chest. I'm dripping with perspiration and my hair sticks to my face. I can't seem to catch my breath. Moonlight flows into the room and I pull in my feet to avoid it. I feel like things that are watching me. I can't seem to escape the feeling of the skeleton pirate's boney hand clasping my waist as we soared through the air, nor the image of Barbossa's ribs spattered crimson by rum as it flowed down torso. My heart refuses to stop beating at an outrageous speed and I shudder into the shadows.
Skeletons. The curse. The medallion.
It was all true.
And for the first time in two days, my eyes close without command and I sink into a terrified sleep.