James scoured the brush, shouting out Governor Swann's name. Unsheathing his sword, he swiped at a few low-hanging branches, hurrying back out onto the beach. Already night time, an array of stars was all that greeted him, no sign of Swann or anyone else. Lowering his head, he kicked at a mound of sand, the white grains clinging to his boot. The hem of his long royal blue coat rustled from a slight breeze. Well, he thought, best start a fire. Maybe wherever Governor Swann had gone off to, he would see the smoke. Backtracking to snap off one of the flimsier branches, he carried it to a flat area and started undoing his bootlace.
Whittling a second stick's end to a sharp point, one question kept occupying his mind—were they alone on this island in this strange middle of nowhere? The mere fact it existed implied that others were here, others that had just paid a visit to Sao Feng for the charts.
What a desperate woman Elizabeth had turned out to be, he thought, trying to picture her in one of Sao Feng's bathhouses and failing miserably. The citizens of Port Royal would surely turn on her if they learned half of her story, he thought, snorting at the shallow memories of the two of them like fish out of water at banquets, proceedings, festivals. He remembered the first ball he had needed to go to, asking permission to take Elizabeth just for his own security. On his arm, she had literally pulled him into society, never shying away from a debate or a dance. The men ignored her occasional breaches of etiquette because she was so beautiful and women ignored them because they found her charming. True, her sense of politics was skewed, but it nevertheless made her a knowledgeable conversation partner.
It was now time to cause friction. He closed his eyes, praying for a spark of fire. After a few tries, a small but formidable fire pattered against the breeze. James nodded at it. The flames curled higher into the air, a haze of black smoke contorting around it. Swann would have to see that, wherever he had gone.
Scooting closer to the fire, James held out his palms and warmed his dry hands, filled with deep scratches now. But they already had blood on them, had to have, after taking that heart from everyone and dropping it down in front of Beckett's face. Maybe he and Elizabeth both had become desperate people.
"James."
He glanced behind him, expecting to see a shadow running up to the fire, but no one walked up the beach and no one emerged from the woods.
"Hello?"
"James." His name blew with the draft, whistling past his ears and out to the horizon.
"Governor Swann?"
He shivered in spite of his face reddening from the heat of the fire. The wind brushed past him once more, and then the night fell silent.
"That ain't how you play Mancala!" Pintel shoved Ragetti with enough force to drive him to the ground. "Tell him, Jack."
"Mr. Pintel wishes to inform you, Mr. Ragetti, that even in a modified version of Mancala, it is considered most abhorrent to go twice in a row."
"I just thought seein' as how I dug the little dips," he stuttered, gesturing to the two rows of three divots, a larger divot on each side, representing a Mancala board. "I might be entitled to some benefits."
Elizabeth shook her head while it rested on her knees. Their fire behind them, they had gathered seashells at Ragetti's suggestion they play Mancala to pass the time. It was a good suggestion, she had to admit, until he gave in to the temptation to go a second time and incur Pintel's wrath. It was like playing with children, but she ignored his argument and resumed the game with her turn, gathering up the seashells out of one of the divots.
"Where exactly are we?" Pintel asked, putting his weight on his hands behind him, stretching his legs out in front of him. "If it ain't the Locker…"
"It's the Locker," Jack said in much brasher voice than Elizabeth expected out of him.
"Well how come we got night and day here then, and water, and food? It ain't the Locker of the stories."
"I don't expect too many have been to the Locker to bring back stories about it," Ragetti whispered, taking out his eye to polish it with his shirt.
"Well," Jack said, standing, "Not that has not been a most enlightening diversion, but I must forfeit my shells and see to the fire." She watched his lengthened stride bound up the beach to pull off a few twigs and toss them into their fire. She exhaled, grateful he hadn't chosen to stay in the woods again. Yawning, she had to heave backwards to lift her head off her knees. Her back and neck still throbbed from being thrown from the Pearl. Shuffling to her feet, she sprang for the woods, scolding herself for not having conjured her idea sooner.
A few palm trees formed the border of the woods, before the olive grove, and their trunks bent easily from wind. Her muscles remembered how to climb up one from the last time she was marooned, allowing her to reach up to the tree next to the one she was in and shake a few coconuts down to the ground. It was more of a challenge to get down than it had been last year, her feet knocking into the trunk more this time, but she jumped down unscathed and collected the coconuts in her arms.
"Midnight snack," she whispered to Pintel and Ragetti, letting two of the fruits tumble out of her hold and roll to them. She took the rest over to the fire and set them down without saying a word. She watched Jack feed the fire from the corner of her eyes, frozen at the sight of his lips moving just a fraction, as if he wanted to say something to her. Blinking herself back to life, Elizabeth busied herself by lining the coconuts into a row.
"Leave it to Ragetti to build a weak fire," Jack said, taking a seat.
"At least he managed one," she said without looking at him, still not able to meet his eyes for long. She chose her words to avoid bringing up their rather intimate encounter earlier. "I'm afraid I still don't know how to make one." Besides survival, all that had been on her mind all day was that she had woken up with his arms around her.
"You mean to tell me after all this time you don't know the first thing about making a fire?" Any other time, before I'm-not-sorry, before I-always-knew-you-were-a-good-man, she would think nothing of matching his incredulous tone with some sort of statement that would make them even, but now nothing came. Not even a one-word answer came, forcing her to shake her head in reply. "Come here."
"We already have one going," she said, finding herself walking over and sitting next to him. You know better than anyone I can't be trusted to be this close to you, Jack. She could feel the sweat dripping down the back of her neck.
"We don't have to feed the one you start, just see to it that we get you making one."
"Me?"
"Now," he ignored her disbelief and handed her a bow-like strip of wood with a string attached to both ends of it. "This is your bow." He held up a sharp piece of wood. "This is your drill." He took one of the spare pieces of wood in the pile and drove a notch into it. "Drill goes in there."
She set the drill into the notch, holding onto the now-standing piece of wood with a pointy end.
"Now rub the bow against it."
Mimicking a violinist, she rubbed the bow against the drill in short, swift bursts, focused solely on creating a spark.
"It needs to turn faster than that or you won't get anywhere. Not so fast you break the string now." She blocked out the criticism and continued, putting more of her weight into it, swaying back and forth into her nonexistent fire. So caught up in it, she jumped at his touch. He had crossed behind her, his arms on top of hers, his hands enveloping her own.
"Like this now." She let him guide the motions, her body too stunned to do anything else. She leaned into him, the back of her head falling back against his jaw. "Like that, love."
Elizabeth could barely breathe, just hearing him call her that again made her heart pound so loudly she was shocked no one else could hear it. He had whispered it, the tip of his nose and lips in her hair. All she could hear was the sound of her own shallow breaths. One of his hands slipped up and off her arm, palming her hipbone. Not sure if the moan she heard out of him was real or not, she inclined her neck, every pore on it dying for his lips.
They started to rock back and forth with a little more force, and she could feel his ragged breathing matching her own. Too afraid to turn all the way around and kiss him, she wallowed in the moment, her arm cramping from fighting the need to hold his head where it was to keep him from backing away. A sharp crackle forced her eyes open. A tiny spark danced at the base of the drill and the flat piece of wood. Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of it.
Elizabeth swiveled only a little, needing to move to accommodate the scalding undulations coming from her abdomen. She didn't think she'd ever felt such physical pain before when he let go of her and stood.
"So…fire," Jack said, gesturing at the dwindling spark. With an uncomfortable expression, he returned to Pintel and Ragetti, leaving her to stare into the black ocean and contemplate plunging into it. The soft whishing of the current was torture. She brought her hand up to her forehead, confirming what she already knew. She was burning up and the only way to cool off on this abhorrent, loathsome hellhole was to wade in the unfeeling waters that cast her here in the first place.
Will could only stare into the tent cover, sleep refusing to come to him. It was little wonder, Gibbs and Barbossa both snoring in total syncopation. The pillow conformed to his entire upper body, wide enough to let him snuggle up to a corner of it if he wished, but sleep would not come no matter what his position. Could be worse, he mused. There was not a mosquito around, nor a pack of ferocious wolves or a sailor defecating off the side of a ship. He closed his eyes, the soft sleeves of his wine-colored shirt brushing against the sides of his face. If he could just empty his mind…
He popped his eyes open at the sensation of a hand caressing his forehead.
"Hello."
Crawling backwards to the edge of the tent, Will's eyes widened at the ghostly sight. A woman so pale and shapeless she reminded Will of the torn flag that topped the Black Pearl floated above him, her almond-shaped eyes drinking in the sight of him.
"Who are you?"
"Where're me manners? Mary Read, sir, a pleasure." Her black hair wafted over her like a corona, but everything about her petite little body was muted somehow, reducing what had probably been at one time a sharp-featured young girl into a specter.
"You led us here to the tent," he swallowed, his fingers running along his belt, unsure if reaching for a weapon would be the best course of action. He could see right through her to the empty plates stacked up in the corner.
"Aye, that I did. I thought it best to wait until ye all were nice and full before introducin' myself. I already know ye, Will Turner. I see ye know how to take the wine down the hatch."
His mouth smiled, surprising his terrified eyes.
"Do…do you live here?"
"I go wherever Calypso has need of me, and if that be here in this strange place, then here I be. Fine thinkin' on her part, too, seein' as you're here and need looking after. Are you sure you and your men won't be goin' back to your ship any time soon? Everyone's alive and well."
"It…it…it's not my ship," was all he could blubber out, straightening his back to be able to speak to the creature. "Did you have something to do with everyone being alive and well?"
"I should, seein' as how I was the one what started the tempest."
"What?"
"It was to bring the lot of ye here!" She cowered, her form lowering to the ground in spite of the fact Will had not moved an inch. "Calypso was a might worried about ye, that ye'd kill each other when she needs you alive!"
"Alive for what?"
"That be for her to be telling you. I didn't mean any harm to anyone, Mr. Turner, least of all you. You were the one she wanted me to protect the most, and I did it as best as I knew how, warmin' up the island for ye, setting a dinner before ye. Don't be angry with me, Mr. Turner. I will help you round everyone up, even Mr. Norrington and Mr. Swann."
"What? What did you say? Norrington and Governor Swann are here?" His eyes immediately shifted to the entrance of the tent, expecting them to walk in like it was a normal day for everyone and take the spare pillows. He needed to stop fooling himself, he decided. This unfortunately is a normal day anymore. "Are they all right? Do they know we're here? Does that mean they've died?"
"I know nothing of the two of them but for their names. Calypso told me."
"That must be the others she saw before she left us," he said, remembering his initial shock when he learned Tia Dalma's identity. "What does she want with all of us?"
"The sea calls to all men, Mr. Turner, and even some women. Me and Annie knew that well as anyone else. What she wants with ye I don't know, but it be for something grand. I know that. It needs to belong to her again, not to men. She needs all of ye alive to stop Davy Jones from his carnage, the carnage I must pick up after. I got three more years of service before I'm free and I don't intend to disappoint her. You look disappointed, yourself, Mr. Turner. Don't tell me you owe the goddess somethin' too."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, I don't owe her anything that I know of…yet. Mary, you need to help us leave this place. We know how, but we all need to be together to do it. I won't leave anyone here."
"No one expects you to, least of all me. But ye have to spend the night, sir. It's a big day for everyone tomorrow. I liked when ye called me Mary just now."
"What happens tomorrow?" Will slowly returned to his pillow and lied down on it, not taking his eyes off of her. Vague memories of holding his mother's hand in England while they shuffled through the market filled his head. Running along to keep up with her, a man had stopped them and asked if they heard the news that two women pirates had been captured and found guilty, only to "plead their bellies" and thus rotted away in prison rather than hang. Such a scandal never bothered Alice Turner's ears, but she did cover those of her son, just not well enough.
"Don't rightly know, but I know it promises to be exciting," she said, clasping her hands together. Her smile was contagious, and he found a tired smile breaking out on his own face. "Ye should be getting' rest, Mr. Turner."
"Will."
"Will. I won't stay if it bothers ye."
He raised an eyebrow at the statement. It reminded him of being pulled off of the driftwood that day, that day he met Elizabeth and she stroked his soaked hair and whispered she was watching over him before he fainted.
"Our anchor we'll weigh/and our sails we will set/Goodbye, fare thee well/Goodbye, fare thee well/The friends we are leaving/we leave with regret/Hurrah, my boys, we're homeward bound," she sang in a hushed voice next to him. It was a slow, flowing song that was the last thing he heard that night, and he couldn't be sure if he truly heard, or merely dreamed, the rest.
"We're homeward bound/Oh joyful sound/Goodbye, fare thee well/Goodbye, fare thee well/Come rally the capstan/And run quick around/Hurrah, my boys, we're homeward bound."
A/N: The song Mary sings is called "Homeward Bound" and is an old sea shanty. If you just google, "sea shanty," you'll see most of the ones I use in my fics. I had considered making it the chapter title. "Fire That Would Ascend the Brightest Heaven of Invention" is from The Life of King Henry the Fifth.