CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Money Pit
The storm blew itself out that night but a new one soon whipped itself into a frenzy in the early hours. Katie and Jack managed to return to their room between storms, noting the general devastation that had hit the island as they went. Nobody slept that night given how worried every pirate was for their ship, and so they found themselves again hunched over volumes and pages of books, their eyes itching from tiredness despite their nap. Jack glanced over at Katie, who was sat at the desk, every now and then. None of this should even have been her problem, he thought, but he knew she would never renounce her choice.
"This is doin' me 'ead in." Jack announced. Although it was impossible to tell from the cloudy sky outside, it must've been around daybreak at that point. "This book tells me everything from how to raise a sail to how to breed a kraken but not a dickie bird about binding goddesses!"
"These papers are almost impossible to decipher. Half the pages seem to have had blood spilt on them." Katie responded grimly, showing him the stains. "How much more does the library really have to offer us?"
"Search me. I 'aven't been down there since I was a kid and I don't plan on looking now, either." Katie raised her eyebrows. "It was always dark and murky down there- and Dad was always forcing me to spend me days in there to learn when I 'ad better things to do." It was one of only a few times Jack had even referenced having a childhood, let alone one where Teague was present. Katie watched as a vague smile crossed his face. "S'pose I should be grateful now, eh? Most other boys who grew up 'ere never learnt to read a single letter, an' being able to do that comes in handy."
"I practically had to beg to be taught how to read." Katie said thoughtfully, "And then I was told that I was to keep my ability to myself or I would surely never get married to any self-respecting man." Jack smiled at her, getting up off the bed and crossing to where she was sat.
"You were a rebel right from youth then." She laughed at this as his hand grazed the top of her head on the way to the small cabinet that held his rum. The door opened then and a bleary-eyed Elizabeth walked in.
"Oh good, you're both awake!" She said.
"Lizzie, have you never heard of knocking?" Jack wanted to know. She gave him a dirty look in response, "Well, I'm alone with me wife, you never know what yer gonna walk into." Katie flushed a little at this inference and the love-bite on her neck seemed to throb suddenly. She quickly swept her hair over it to conceal it from Elizabeth's keen eyes.
"At six o'clock in the morning?" Elizabeth raised an eyebrow before cringing: "Actually, don't answer that."
"We were just saying that we haven't found anything amongst these." Katie said, indicating the books as Jack opened his mouth obviously to make another inappropriate comment.
"Well, Barbossa just chose to mention something to me that could be very useful," Elizabeth announced, "That's what I've come to tell you."
"What?" Jack and Katie asked at the same time.
"The minutes of the first meeting that we have are scraps of a bad transcription made from memory by a pirate called Ramsay. The real notes were much more explicit and were taken somewhere else to be kept safe." Elizabeth informed them. Katie's eyes were suddenly wide and alert. Jack was staring at Elizabeth, his rum bottle swinging from his hand.
"Where are they?" He demanded.
"Well," Elizabeth sighed, "Have you heard of The Money Pit?" Katie frowned but Jack's mouth dropped open for a moment.
"Oak Island?"
"The very same. Apparently, Ramsay took the real notes there so that the instructions on how to bind Calypso wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. He was instructed to rewrite the minutes saying what they did but now they did it, which is what we have here." She pointed to the pages referring to the first Brethren Court.
"And why has Barbossa only just decided to tell us this?" Katie wanted to know.
"Because he enjoys making life difficult for other people." Jack responded bitterly, starting to pace.
"How would he even know about it if nobody else did- not even Teague?" Elizabeth questioned.
"Because nobody would've known unless she told them where to find them," Jack said, then added: "Tia Dalma."
"When she brought him back to free her…" Elizabeth realised. Jack nodded. Katie watched as he walked round and round the room, the cogs of his mind almost visibly turning, while Elizabeth by contrast stood stock still, also lost in thought. After a few minutes, Katie spoke up:
"So, when do we set off?" Both of them looked at her as if they'd only just noticed she was there.
"We can't go any time soon, not with this weather." Elizabeth answered, looking towards the window. The wind was rattling against the pane and the sky was still ominously dark. It would be a few weeks, at least, before the weather calmed down enough to even think about sailing. "Jack, can we take the Pearl? She's fastest, we'll be able to get there and back with the least trouble."
"Naturally." He grunted. "Katie, it'll probably be best if you stay here for that, you're still weak-"
"Don't even think about it." Katie interjected stubbornly- not that Jack had even for a second thought that she'd agree to being left behind. His eyes travelled across her face and he knew that even his cleverest trick wouldn't wash with her. Sighing, he looked back to Elizabeth.
"Well, as you say, we can't leave right now anyway. We'll need the best sailors for the journey if we wanna do it quickly and then reconvene with the other Pirate Lords."
"Quickly would be best." Elizabeth agreed. Although it seemed unlikely anybody else would know about Ramsay's mission, both she and Jack had seen far stranger things happen and more meticulous plans thwarted by enemies. Katie seemed to have an inkling of the same feeling, because she got to her feet.
"Well, if these books are all useless I suppose that means we can get some sleep now." She said, and both Jack and Elizabeth agreed, the latter departing the room. After Jack and Katie got into bed, he turned over on his side to face her.
"I'm still mainly glad I don't 'ave to visit that library."
"But you're showing me around soon!" Katie giggled.
"Oh am I?" He raised an eyebrow and she laughed again at the expression.
"Oh yes. You owe me a tour of this place, Jack." Her eyes sparkled with mirth and he spontaneously leant over to her, kissing her quickly on the lips.
"Goodnight – morning – whatever it is." He said, turning over onto his other side. Still chuckling, Katie closed her eyes and soon fell asleep once more.
After discussing the matter with Teague, it was agreed that only certain pirates should know of the voyage that was planned. Jack and Katie knew, of course, as did Elizabeth and Gibbs. Barbossa declined to accompany them if he wasn't going to have Captain's quarters, which Jack gleefully refused, getting rolled eyes as an answer. The rest of the pirates who'd be joining them would have no idea what they were really planning to do.
Katie finally persuaded Jack to show her the pirates' library around a week following Barbossa's disclosure of information. The room was deep beneath the fortress and just as he had described it- dark and dank, with the same sort of air a haunted building might have. Elizabeth had been basically impervious to it, having been focused on what she was looking for, but Katie admittedly felt a shiver up her spine as she entered the cavernous rooms by the light of the lantern Jack was holding aloft just behind her, which also illuminated her breath which hung in the air before her due to the freezing temperature of the place.
The books were not arranged by shelf but set in rough piles, apparently organised by subject but by no means in an orderly fashion.
"How do you know where anything is?" Katie found herself whispering for some reason.
"Well, the most important stuff is piled at the front and the less important stuff to the back." Jack told her, pointing to a huge stack of books which was also littered with parchment and pages; that pile pertained to every meeting of the Brethren Court and was right beside the entrance. Katie walked further into the room, looking curiously at the titles embossed on dusty volumes. One enormous pile shoved into a corner seemed to be many copies of various works of Shakespeare, though Katie could sense the room stretched even further back out of her sight. Once again she had an eerie, pricking feeling as if some creature was running down her spine, and she span around suddenly to find herself nose to nose with Jack.
"Told ya this place'd give you the collywobbles." He murmured, grinning.
"It is a little scary." She admitted, her heart racing as he loomed over her. He reached up slowly with his free hand and brushed her hair out of the way to place his fingers where he had bitten her before. The mark was gone now but it almost felt as if it was throbbing again when he touched her there. In return, she tentatively reached up and trailed her hand from his throat down to his abdomen, which jumped at the contact.
"Yer not makin' it easy for me to wait for my dessert, are you?" He asked her in a very low voice. She merely peered up at him with a coy, knowing look in her eye that could drive a man insane. "You used to be a bundle of nerves if we were alone together an' now yer seducing me. You're coming along nicely, love."
"I'm not doing anything to seduce you." Katie pointed out.
"Ye don't have to." They were now so close that their noses were touching, and both were fighting the urge not to close the distance. Both of them were breathing very fast and shallow. "Not here," Jack said after a long pause, "It wouldn't be very romantic."
"I suppose last time was?" She recalled the bruising pressure of his furious lips on hers the last time they had kissed. The tension between them was palpable though and she supposed nothing good could come of it. And so she stepped back.
"Let's go." She announced, leading the way past him and out of the library again. She did not see Jack's arm shake as he held the lantern.
Several weeks later the worst of storm season blew over their heads and The Black Pearl was ready to deport. Katie stood at the bow, looking out at the sea as it unfolded before them as the ship began to make way. She had missed the sea and now that she was recovered from the stabbing she was excited to be able to do something proactive again. Jack was up at the helm, though his eyes flickered towards her every few minutes, almost as if he couldn't help himself. He had tried again to make her stay behind, knowing that although she was no longer in constant pain she was weak and hadn't been quite well since the attack. Katie wouldn't have it though, and honestly he couldn't imagine having her around even for what should be a short time.
Gibbs approached his Captain, the same thoughts in his mind. Katie was thinner than the last time they'd sailed. "The cold ain't gonna do 'er any good, Jack."
"What can I do?" Jack growled.
"Yer her husband, ye could've made 'er stay behind!" Gibbs argued.
"Well, that's not how our marriage works, mate. I can't command 'er, God knows I try."
"Even if she doesn't catch 'er death, Angelica will be snappin' at 'er ankles the first opportunity!" Gibbs pointed out. They had all agreed, behind Katie's back, that it was not safe to assume that Angelica would be satisfied with simply wounding Katie.
"I know." Jack said monotonously.
"An' she can't use a sword, as skilled as she might be with a pistol-"
"I KNOW!" Jack yelled, and Gibbs abruptly stopped talking.
"Sorry, Captain." He apologised quietly after a moment, as several curious crew members turned back to their tasks, having looked around for the source of the yelling. "So, The Money Pit."
"It's been used to stash all sorts of dangerous treasure for years and is virtually unexplored by civilians thus far. Nobody ever quite knew 'ow the pit came to be, an' few willingly explore it these days. Teague's been there once but 'e never found anythin' you'd wanna take with ye- the pit periodically floods an' excavation is near impossible." Jack recited all he had heard about The Money Pit. "Oak Island, where the pit is located, is off the coast of Nova Scotia."
"So we're headin' into cold." Gibbs summarised.
"'Fraid so." Jack answered. Gibbs grimaced, being the sort of sailor who preferred sticking to warmer waters, before heading to attend to some task. Elizabeth, meanwhile, was once again poring over Ramsay's transcription of the first Brethren Court alongside a chart to Oak Island and a map of the island itself. The Pit was in the south-eastern corner of the island.
Katie entered the cabin, where Elizabeth was working, a few minutes later. She could feel Jack and Gibbs' eyes boring into her and was not in the mood to try to persuade Jack yet again that her being here was a good idea.
"Do you suppose we'll be long at sea?" Katie inquired. As much as she was frustrated at being treated like a child, she was concerned for own health to some degree. She didn't have to dismiss those concerns in front of Elizabeth, however, because she would still have been on this voyage in Katie's position, too.
"If we don't have to make any stops we shouldn't be too long." Elizabeth answered, looking up at her friend. "We have to get some way out to sea to avoid the New World, though." Katie nodded; the British Navy would not be a welcome sight. She sat down and slipped her hand inside her right boot, drawing out the sharp silver dagger she'd been stabbed with. The light bounced off the blade sharply, causing both women to blink. "Are you hoping to use it on her?" Elizabeth asked quietly. Katie met her eyes.
"It would draw a neat circle, wouldn't it?"
"You are very like Jack, you know. He carried around his single shot so that he could use it on Barbossa for almost ten years." Katie had heard the story of Isla de Muerta.
"I would not exact revenge on her, except that what she is angry about has nothing to do with me." Katie sighed.
"I can't imagine what it would be like to be with a man who had another woman like that in his past- I mean to say," Elizabeth added hastily, "A woman just as passionate as you are when it comes to him." Katie thought back to the evening she had met Jack, remembering leaning against the crates, out of sight, tending to his bleeding leg and how he had tried to stop her from using her expensive lace. She had merely seen an escape route that day, not the man she would fall in love with.
"I definitely didn't see any of this coming." Katie agreed, afraid to say more in case she accidentally gave away the truth of her and Jack's relationship.
"My life changed forever the day I met Jack, too. He has a funny way of doing that." Elizabeth said, and Katie laughed. Jack was certainly one of life's catalysts.
"What I can't imagine," Katie said, "Is being in your situation: away from the man you love so much." She saw Elizabeth's cheerful expression waver and placed her hand delicately over hers. "Sorry." She added, but Elizabeth shook her head.
"I don't know," She replied slowly, "But I like to think that even the greatest loves are torn apart in some way or another- at least I can guarantee that something will bring us back together, even if that is only once every decade."
A/N: Thanks for reading if you've made it this far! And thanks to everyone who has reviewed too!
It's probably quite important that I mention here that Oak Island and the so-called Money Pit are a real place, and they are indeed off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. It's a very mysterious place where originally a young man in 1795 reported seeing treasure at the bottom of the pit. Over the years there have been many excavations and some fatalities, but none has ever concluded properly whether there really is treasure. It's one of the unsolved mysteries of the world! But, while this is the true story, this fic is set a few years before that first rumour of treasure began, so I decided to take liberty with history and make it a piratey place. I believe I read somewhere it is rumoured that real-life Blackbeard visited, but who knows?
Anyway, if I am historically inaccurate in terms of the occupation of the island or of Nova Scotia at that time, I'm sorry. I'm actually British and don't know a whole lot about Canadian history, sadly. I just hope you can still enjoy it at face value here and don't take it to heart! I'll shut up with this long author's note now! Oh, and don't forget to review!