CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Pantano River
"You still have your sword." Henry said to Katie.
"I hardly know how to use it." She replied, folding her arms across her chest and looking at him. She wasn't completely sure what she was going to achieve by speaking alone with the young man, but she did know that people tended to respond better in one-on-one situations than when interrogated by a group; even Angelica had proven herself subject to that rule. "Henry, how old are you?" Katie asked him in a gentler voice than she'd used before, though she was still keeping all emotion out of her tone.
"Of what significance is that?" She hadn't heard another upper-class accent in quite some time and it felt almost foreign to her ears now.
"You seem young and you may be involved in something you do not fully understand." Katie explained, however cryptically.
"I understand everything." Henry insisted, "You killed my brother so he would not share your secret."
"Yes, I killed your brother, but not for that reason." Katie informed him with conviction: she had, after all, fired without really knowing what she was doing or why. All she had known was the pain of being stabbed with Angelica's dagger and the need to defend herself. Moss had just been caught in the crossfire. He had been about to betray her, certainly, but Katie knew well enough that that particular betrayal had not merited death; she had given the matter more than enough thought since the night it'd happened. Henry licked his lips a little nervously.
"I'm seventeen." He answered her previous question.
"Little more than a boy." Katie murmured.
"I am a man." He spat through the bars of his cell. Apparently she'd hit a nerve, but his response only reinforced her summary.
"Did Angelica ever explain to you why she was so keen to hurt Jack?" Katie chose her next question carefully.
"He left her on an island to die," Henry replied quickly, "She wanted revenge."
"It was because she loved him. She loved him and he abandoned her." Katie watched his facial expression; it hardly changed, only to one of non-comprehension. He obviously could not see how the two facts were connected. "Henry, why did you and Moss agree to help aid her?"
"Moss was shipwrecked and Angelica rescued him," Henry began, and Katie remembered Moss telling her that Teague had rescued him. "In gratitude, he agreed to help her, but she had neither ship nor crew. So, she-" He stopped, looking suddenly worried.
"Go on." Katie urged him.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this. I won't tell you anymore." He decided.
"You stand to lose more by your silence." Katie warned him. He looked at her closely, his expression calculating beneath his dark curls. He clamped his mouth shut stubbornly and glared. "Henry, you can either do this the easy way and tell me now or the hard way. It's your choice." After a long pause, he spoke again:
"She told him to find passage to Shipwreck Island and keep an ear out for the name Jack Sparrow. He wrote to me and told me that he had heard Teague was looking for Sparrow too, and I'd heard from my comrades in the Navy that Teague was likely to find him. Moss decided to get into his crew, and so faked another shipwreck. Teague pulled him on-board and he became a chef… he was to find out as much about Jack Sparrow as possible." Katie frowned. There was a part of this story that made no sense to her at all.
"Why would he sign up for a life of piracy just for Angelica? Why get so involved in all of this?" Moss had been intelligent enough, after all.
"At first I think he agreed as a favour to try to find out where Sparrow was… but then, he got a letter to me in Tortuga, through a ship passing through the same base I was stationed at with the Navy. He kept talking about this Katie," He spat her name malevolently, "And he was going along with anything to spend more time with you." Katie thought about this in silence; Moss had known that her and Jack's marriage was fake. As real as their relationship was now, back then it had all been a construct. If he had really cared for her, surely he wouldn't have still wanted to betray her to Angelica, no matter how grateful he was to her for his life?
"She must have threatened him…" Katie breathed.
"What?" Henry demanded.
"Nothing." Moss must have seen that by the time they had met up at Shipwreck Island that her and Jack's relationship was changing, and he had been jealous. Meeting up with Angelica had probably been enough to convince himself that telling Angelica the truth was the best way to get himself out of danger and possibly bring Katie with him… whilst hurting Jack. It all made sense now. He hadn't known Angelica would be so incensed with the belief that Katie had married Jack that she would attack her.
"Henry, thank you for telling me this." Katie said, and Henry's mouth opened a little in surprise.
"I- I didn't tell you to help you! You still killed my brother!" He had not meant to say as much as he had- that much was obvious.
"I did." Katie agreed, "But it wasn't intentional."
"Saying you didn't mean it won't bring him back!" Henry snapped.
"And neither will your fury with me." Henry hesitated. She could see his young mind ticking over, trying to conclude where they now stood. She had managed to make him spill the whole story without raising a single finger- all done with a quiet but hard-edged touch that he didn't even realise had worked until it was too late. This was characteristic of Katie, of course, but Henry didn't know that. He was, like most men, astonished to find out that a woman had a brain.
"I suppose now you are done with me you are going to let the scoundrel's cut me to shreds?" He said, to cover his confusion.
"There'll be no shredding here." Katie could only see Henry's youth and his grief at losing the brother he had looked up to, to circumstances he couldn't understand not least because he only knew half the story. Katie could never enlighten him, but she could at least be merciful.
She left him in the brig and went up the steps to find Jack waiting impatiently. She relayed what Moss had said and when she was finished, Jack pouted.
"No shredding?" He repeated with disappointment.
"He hasn't really done anything wrong, Jack." Katie pointed out flatly. Jack sighed, knowing she was right.
"Yer amazing, ye know that?" He asked her as she made her way back towards the cabin. She flashed him a smile over her shoulder.
"I know." Jack closed the door behind them and pulled her to him, his hands sliding down her body. His eyes were dark and adoring.
"I mean really amazing." Her eyes fluttered shut as he kissed her. She swayed a little and he gripped her tightly round the waist as their lips parted once more. He looked wonderingly down at her. "Ye're very forgiving."
"Only when people deserve it." Katie replied. He smiled and kissed her again before leading her by the hand over to the table where his charts were laid out, sitting down and pulling her so that she was perched on his lap. "Where does Tia Dalma live?" Katie asked him.
"In a shack on the Pantano River." Katie frowned, trying to recall her scant Geography lessons; she still had much to learn about where exactly everything was in the world. "Cuba," Jack said, when he saw her expression, "'Orrible place it is too, in the middle of a forest…"
"That the Voodoo Woman's place?" Both Jack and Katie jumped at Teague's voice. They hadn't heard him enter.
"Ye could've knocked!" Jack snapped. Teague chuckled.
"You did well with the lad." Teague told Katie, who nodded. "Dunno what we're gonna do with him now, though."
"Drop 'im off on some island." Jack shrugged carelessly, "She won't let me shred 'im."
"I spoke to him." Teague informed his son, "I think she's right not to 'urt him. He's harmless, just a boy."
"We could have him serve." Both men looked blankly at Katie when she said this. Jack shook his head.
"Overkill, love. Ye saved 'is life, that's enough." He said decisively after a pause.
"He'd be better off trying to re-enlist." Teague added. Katie sighed in defeat, knowing they were right: Henry was young and his life would be much easier the less that he was tangled up with pirates. She sometimes felt that way herself, though it never crossed her mind to try to go back to her old life. It was far too late for that and she would never want to. Teague walked over to the charts and peered down at them. "We'll be at the Pantano River in three days if the weather stays fair." He said, before departing, leaving Katie and Jack still sat at the desk.
They were lucky with the weather over the next few days. The skies remained clear and the days had some warmth to them at last after what felt like an eternity of cold. The nights were cool but the sea remained calm. The mood amongst the crew was much improved, right up until dusk on the third day of sailing. As predicted by Teague, the Black Pearl came upon Cuba. It was a land of debauchery of a lower depth than even Tortuga, as it was unhappily under Spanish rule. Some of the crew looked eagerly towards the towns, knowing that prostitution and smuggling was rife. Their reluctance to venture into their intended destination, the Cypress Forest, was also very much to do with the discomfort Tia Dalma caused everybody. Every pirate there had witnessed her wrath as Calypso in the Sea of Flames and most of them had also witnessed the maelstrom not too long ago which she had created when released from her bindings. Even without that, she was quite an unsettling person to be around. Katie wasn't much more enthusiastic than most of the more superstitious crew members, but she was resigned. They had to know why Angelica had kept appearing and disappearing by her hand, and not to mention get some idea of how to rid her from their lives.
They had to paddle down the still-watered river in dinghies. As Katie stepped into one with Jack, Teague and Gibbs, she noticed for the first time that Jack seemed to be sharing her nerves- or perhaps it was more, perhaps it was fear? He sat beside her, facing forwards as Gibbs rowed, glancing around at the tree's. The river seemed to have a constant mist upon its surface that played tricks on the eyes, and Katie thought she was seeing faces peering out of the forest in her periphery vision, though she was too tense to look. Instead, she reached across to Jack and gripped his hand. He returned her grip with welcome, as if it was a lifeline. She looked across at him questioningly and he leant close to murmur to her:
"Last time I was 'ere… I was runnin' from the kraken."
"You're safe now." Katie whispered back, slightly startled as ever by the rare glimpse she had into Jack's deepest fear, and how damaged he had been by his run-ins with Davy Jones.
She didn't feel very safe though; all of them had the prickling feeling at the back of their necks as if they were being watched. The rest of the crew were following behind and there was fear in their faces too, but hardly anybody breathed a word. Katie kept glancing up, trying to see the darkening sky through the trees. It was almost completely black in the forest before dim lanterns began to appear among the trees and plants. They were sparse but were dotted more and more frequently the longer they rowed. Gibbs, for once, was relishing in the work of rowing rather than having to pay much mind to his surroundings and Katie wished she had volunteered to row for a moment. The journey seemed never-ending.
Finally they came to a sort of miniature makeshift dock, with what appeared to be bare branches hammered tightly into the soft earth beside the river. As they came up beside it and stopped, Katie looked at her boat-mates. All three of the men had their eyes fixed slightly above at what appeared to be a house somewhere between a hut and a tree-house, rickety but huge, a short distance in from the river. More silvery lanterns gave some illumination to their surroundings. Realising nobody else was going to, Katie took the lead; she climbed out of the dinghy and tied it up using the rope to a post sticking out of the ground. Her movements seemed to bring Jack, Teague and Gibbs to their senses and they climbed out after her. Teague went ahead now, his face unreadable, and Gibbs followed. Katie looked at Jack and could see he was still in the throes of some sort of turmoil, and took his hand once more, pulling him after her towards Tia Dalma's shack.
A/N: I realise this is a little shorter than normal but I think trying to push it any further would've killed it. This also took a little longer to upload because freakin' Word erased like everything but the first two paragraphs of this chapter when I was almost done with it so I had to rewrite it all! Grr. Anyway, please let me know what you thought of this chapter, thanks so much to everyone who has read this far! Thanks especially to Maddz2, daydreamer987, Patree77, Pirate Gyrl and Aim1107 for your lovely reviews!