The streets of Port Royal bustled with activity as Molly headed out the front door of her lodgings. The boarding-house was genteel and non-descript, catering mostly to married women traveling to join their husbands in the Caribbean and beyond. It was perfect for a young woman alone and provided an inconspicuous base of operations for Molly.

In fact, everything about Molly was deliberately unremarkable as she set off down the cobbled street. Her gown was plain, gray muslin with minimal trim or furbelows. Her bonnet had a deep brim which served as much to protect her pale skin from the sun as it did to conceal her face. A serviceable market basket swung from her arm. In short, she looked every bit the part of a maid-servant doing the marketing.

It amused Molly to wonder what the people passing by would think if they knew that she wore breeches far more often than skirts. Or that she and her mistress often bathed in the ocean quite unconcerned with clothing of any type. With only themselves to please, Molly and Elizabeth had discarded many social conventions over the years and generally, did not miss them one tiny bit.

It did not amuse Molly at all to speculate on what would happen if they knew the identity of her employer. The name of Elizabeth Swann Turner, while not as common a subject for gossip as it once was, was still quite well known to the inhabitants of Port Royal. At best, the Port Royal gentry regarded her as good woman of breeding who had been led into depravity against her will. At worst, the Royal Navy considered her despicable and immoral whore and the sooner she went to the gallows, the better.

Molly reached the corner where her narrow street intersected with a broader, palm-lined boulevard. She turned left and walked briskly down a slight hill toward a row of shops near the harbor. Consulting a list in her gloved hand, she stopped first at a cloth merchant and then at a dry goods shop. Small purchases were stored in the basket. Larger purchases were sent either to her lodgings or directly to the small schooner anchored on the fringes of the quay. She also placed several orders that would take several days to fulfill. Her most pressing business concluded, she strolled back up the hill and stopped at the booksellers shop.

Pausing on the threshold, as she always did, she took a deep, appreciative sniff. The smell of paper, ink and dust enticed her the way some women might be tempted by the smell of chocolate. Learning to read had taken the better part of an extremely frustrating year but once accomplished, she became a voracious reader. Much of the small stipend Elizabeth provided went to the purchase of new books. The island house now boasted a small but diverse library of instructional treatises, history texts, books on the sciences and the novels that Molly loved beyond all else.

One of her most vivid memories was a rather one-sided conversation she'd had with Captain Norrington the morning after he quite spectacularly spirited her from the brothel. She had awoken that morning in the captain's cabin of the Cygnet, confused and disoriented. Wide-eyed, she listened as the captain explained that he was trying to locate an old friend who he thought would take her on as a maid-servant and companion. Molly had never imagined herself with such fine prospects and said so, adding, "I don't know how I can ever thank ye, Captain."

He had looked at her keenly, warm brown eyes searching her face with such earnest interest that she blushed and looked away. Finally, he spoke. "You can thank me by taking every opportunity to better yourself, Mattie." She never told the captain her given name—before she trusted him enough to do so, she was well on her way to Elizabeth's island. She never forgot his advice or his kindness, and applied herself to her duties and studies with a single-minded intensity.

Her mouth quirked in a wry smile as she reminded herself that his kindness wasn't the only thing she never forgot. Looking back, she suspected that her thirteen-year-old self had fallen a little in love with the man. And what young girl would not, she asked herself, rescued in such a spectacularly romantic fashion? Elizabeth's forbidding expression when his name was mentioned forestalled any discussion of him as a living, breathing human being and over the years, the captain had become near-mythical, heroic figure to Molly.

She browsed the piles of books happily for a quarter-hour, selecting several new novels and a book on weaving. One of the orders she had placed was for a small handloom and a spinning wheel. Before her mother's death, in the vague recesses of her memory, Molly remembered being instructed in the family trade. She dreamed of starting a small shearing flock of her own so that she could weave and dye her own fabric. Aside from reading, Molly's favorite pastime was scouring the hills of the island for new ingredients with which she could create dyes.

She carried her books to the counter and spent a few moments chatting with the elderly proprietor. It seemed safe to her to speak with him since he never seemed to remember her no matter how many times she visited his shop. Bidding him good day, she headed towards the door. The temptation to take a quick peek inside the topmost volume was strong and she was quickly distracted enough to not watch where she was going.

She pushed open the door with her free hand, and walked through without heed to anyone or anything in front of her. Perhaps if the street had been less busy, she would not have met with misfortune. But it was quite crowded and inevitably, she bumped squarely into a person trying to enter the shop as she was exiting. Her books flew from her hands in all directions and she gave a cry of dismay, dropping to her knees to retrieve them. Her attention was so focused on rescuing her treasures that she was quite startled when another hand brushed hers and a deep voice offered assistance.

"How clumsy of me. Pray, let me help you pick those up, Mistress."

Molly looked up into a pair of dark brown eyes. "Thank y…" As her vision expanded to take in the face of the man kneeling beside her, she sat down hard on her bottom. Her stomach churned wildly as her mind connected the eyes, the voice and the calloused sailor's hands with someone she had never expected to encounter again.

Captain James Norrington.