Is anyone still interested in this story???? Hope so, cause here's the new chapter, a bit on the serious strange side, but a light enough ending. New chapter should be up tonight or tomorrow. Please, read and review!!
Weeks, then months passed. As conversation became nothing more than a time passer, the cordial atmosphere soon turned in to jocularity. Alex found herself more and more in the shadows, wearing nothing but a pair of leather chapped pants and a black corset snug around Jack's shirt. She would wait till midnight, a nightingale, to socialize. Shifts would change in and out through the night, and yet she always took her post at the end of the deck, sitting on a drum barrel, coming her hair out of her eyes every few moments as she hummed. Everyone would watch her. No one had the heart to talk to her. She would sometimes sit and ponder just how much of an omen she had turned into. How other would watch and wait for her to leave before a full moon, and know a storm was coming on. Usually it was just coincidence, but it happened often enough to raise suspicion. She ate alone, walked alone, and as of lately drank alone. Her thirst for rum was less than an average sailor. She preferred absinthe, which Jack prohibited on board.
"That'll do you more harm than good, take me word." But she didn't. Instead, she'd shut her door, and pull out a loose board and draw forth a cup and a bottle that she bartered for on their last port stop. She would lay in the floor for hours, staring at the waves reflecting off her window. These were her days, drunk and in stupor. And so, when it came time to crawl into bed, she'd never make it. Sooner or later Jack or one of the many caretakers he hired for her would come in and see she made it to a mattress.
She was breaking, and there was no excuse. Of course, as any addiction or affliction, there were her good days where a smile would be provoked. And there were the bad days. She'd take sick spells for days at a time, resembling a fever of some sort. The first time they came, she thought she was dying. Her body rejected drink, she'd sweat and wither in and out of sanity. Results from her choice of drink, Jack knew. He'd seen many a man fall for the green liquor. One night, he crept into her room. A candle was burned to the wick, about to lose breath. Assuming she was asleep, he went to blow it out.
"Don't...I'm trying to read." Alex's eyes were burrowed into the hollowness of her ceiling. Jack sat on the edge of her bed, and took her cold fingers into his.
"What are you reading this time?"
"...stars...and letters..."
"Listen, you're barking mad. Take a nap or two tonight, it'll do you some good."
"I read her journal..." Jack's eyes sharpened.
"And?"
"And...it was rubbish. All I learned was her burdens."
"What were they?" Alex laughed and turned on her side.
"Everything from me to you, to the sky was too blue or the ocean too dark. Talk about someone being mad, it was her."
"Did she say she loved you?"
"She never loved anyone, she said. But I knew, I could tell...she loved her own burdens, as I do mine. For why else does a woman run from a lifetime? To only take her own breath away, to fall in love with the imagination of a girl...to love a figure of speech...to love a prince...to love." Jack stood up and wiped off her brow.
"So that's what's got you locked up in here drinking all the time, a journal?"
"No! My past..."
"No, love...a journal. A broken mother who didn't have sense about her. Maybe...maybe she was sick, I don't know, but you can't be sniveling about your room all the time. It's not healthy and it does no good, as I've already said. Now, I'm going for a drink, we've made port close to Nassau tonight so we all need to be careful as to where we go, we may need a swift and steady escape. Can I trust you to stay here and not go strolling about?" Alex laid there staring at him, Jack snorted. "Course I can, where you going to go in that state? Now, here's the deal, the key to my liquor cabinet is in my boot, so you've got nothing there. Want to tell me where your stash is?" Alex rolled over and faced the wall, already bored with the sober attempt. Jack merely stood, arms akimbo and walked over to the window.
"Right then, I'll get it myself." Finding his heel in a small crevice, Jack popped the board out of place and retrieved the remains inside. Taking the bottle, he smelled the burning saltiness and poured it out on the floor. Alex fled over, trying to stop him.
"No! Put it back, please..."
"Only way is to let you sweat it out, love. Now, this is just a spell, right? All a part of the pirating plan. I'm not taking this too seriously, and neither should you. These are the blues, they come and go. Just wait for the cabin fever, that'll tear you a new one." And with that, he left, locking the door behind him. Alex, on her knees, tried to sop up the last bit if her bottle before turning towards the door.
"Bloody pirate."