- Chapter 3: Unfamiliar Bedfellows -
"Moving on is a simple thing,
what it leaves behind is hard.
You know the sleeping feel no more pain
and the living are scarred."
- Megadeth, A Tout Le Monde -
-//-
"C'mon, Jonathan, hurry up!"
"Jack. For the last time, Timothy, call me Jack."
"Then yeh call me Petlock like the crew does! Now, hurry!"
Timothy Petlock was the bastard son of the Misty Lady's highest ranking carpenter and, like Jack, was a motherless whelp doing the best he could to make his own way by becoming a skilled and valuable member of the crew. With only a handful of years older than Jack, the two easily adopted each other as a brother and friend. Typically busy with their duties, the boys found only short moments to indulge in playtime. Their occasionally adolescent antics were a source of minor headaches for the crew. It was no coincidence that the boys' hands were kept occupied.
The two boys bounded along the companion way and below deck, weaving around working crewmembers to end their reckless descent in the darkest corner of the crew's sleeping quarters.
"Lookee'ere, Jonathan," Petlock said, throwing open the footlocker that Jack recognized as belonging to Bahr, the ship's Bosun, and shifting through its contents before lifting a bundle wrapped in burlap.
"We shouldn't be meddlin' in here," Jack whispered, then snapped, "Timothy."
Jack looked to what Petlock had removed from the burlap wrapping and his eyes went wide.
"He won it during the raid on that French ship a few weeks ago," Petlock said. "R'member that raid?"
Jack nodded, staring at the pistol, sharing the same awe and admiration as the older boy. The pistol was one of the more grand weapons either boy had ever seen; yet it was obvious that practicality didn't extend beyond ceremony. The trigger and hammer were fashioned in the likeness of a sea serpent and highly detailed scrolling was carved into the stock and along the barrel. It was without question that, if Bahr were to fence the item, he would surely see a hefty profit
Petlock continued. "He was the one who spotted the sails first, so he got to pick somethin' fer heself from the ship's holds," he held the weapon a little higher, "and this be what he picked."
Petlock elbowed Jack and asked, "Want to hold it?"
Jack lifted his arms to take the pistol, but his attention was grabbed by the sound of an eerie wind that whistled down through the narrow quarters and rustled the hammocks hanging from their pegs. The wind breathed upon his neck and Jack felt the fine hairs there stand on end. He turned hesitantly to look behind him. It may have been the dim lighting playing a trick on him, but swaying hammocks seemed to transform into dancing ghosts before his eyes. He knew that what he believed he was seeing was generated by his own puerile imagination, but he couldn't finger the source of a heavy dread nauseating him.
"Maybe we should be goin'," Jack said nervously while looking over his shoulder.
Petlock nodded and tossed the burlap over the pistol. "Be right behind ya."
--
It was hot and humid that afternoon. The idea of spending tedious hours securing lines under a relentless sun was not desirable to most his age, but Jack did without complaint knowing that as his skill increased, so did his standing with the crew. With a few more years of experience under his belt, he hoped to become an officer, one step closer to obtaining his own ship and becoming the best captain to ever sail the seven seas.
"Boy," came a growl from Jack's left. He turned to find Bahr, standing with his arms crossed, eyeing his work.
"Aye, sir?"
Bahr took a slow step forward making Jack feel cornered between the larger man and the gunwale.
"What say yeh 'bout the condition of this tack line?" Bahr asked in a low throaty rumble.
Jack looked down at the line and then back to Bahr. "It appears proper to my eyes, sir."
Bahr grunted his disapproval before tearing the line from Jack's hand and re-tying it himself.
"See how it be done?" Bahr said giving Jack a push.
"Aye, sir." Jack ran his hands down his shirtfront acting as if brushing off the contact made by Bahr's hands. The line had been tied off in the same manner as when Jack had done it himself. He was annoyed but did his best to stay respectful to the higher-ranking pirate.
Bahr gave him another push, harder than the first. "Yeh best start realizin' how things be 'board this ship," he snarled.
"I believe I've a fair handle on it, sir," Jack said, loosing patience and confused to why Bahr was being confrontational.
"Do yeh?" Bahr snapped. He pushed Jack again, but the younger had readied for the blow and was not moved.
Bahr's face turned red as he grabbed Jack by the shirtfront and roughly shoved him against the gunwale. "Yeh theivin' lil' rat! Return me pistol!"
"I never touched yer pistol!"
"Think 'cause ye be the cap'n's bastard ye can steal from me!"
Realizing the source of Bahr's anger and fearing that the man was about to run a blade through his middle did nothing to calm Jack's own temper. Incensed by the accusation and the insult of his mother's honor, Jack answered Bahr's question by bashing his forehead into the man's nose. The larger pirate, startled and in pain, stumbled back a step and dropped the boy before clutching his smarting nose. Jack scrambled to his feet, bracing himself as he fully expected to be pummeled senseless by the enraged Bahr, but the commotion had attracted the curiosity of the rest of the crew who had begun to gather around the arguing pair and sparing Jack of furthing beating.
"Stop!" the first mate shouted, grabbing Bahr's arm as he drew back to take a swing.
"Be there a problem on my ship?" Teague asked, irritation clearly evident in his words as he and Snodgrass, the ship's quartermaster, pushed their way through the crowd seeking the cause of the disturbance.
"Appears a fight 'tween these two, Captain sir," the first mate answered.
Bahr ripped his arm free and turned towards his captain. "Sir," he started, trying to keep his tone controlled despite his anger, "there be a thief 'board this ship..." He paused and pointed a menacing finger in Jack's direction. "And it be the boy!" he growled.
"Theft be a serious allegation to be makin', Master Bahr," Snodgrass said, stepping between Bahr and Jack.
"Aye, that it be," Teague said calmly, yet his gaze cast an imposing threat, aimed equally at both Bahr and Jack, for disrupting work on his ship.
Without changing his stare or tone, Teague addressed Snodgrass. "Gather three men neutral to the account. This matter shall be settled by the Code."
The minutes it took Snodgrass to round up a few slightly reluctant men to act as a jury gave Jack time to prepare himself. If he had to lend a guess at who had taken Bahr's property, it would have been Petlock. He had no proof and it would be his word against his friend's. He wasn't a rat and pointing a finger at another would set him as a coward in the opinion of the crew. He would tell the truth to the best of his ability without implicating Petlock and hope that it would be enough.
Per standard, being the accuser, the imposing bosun spoke first with telling of stumbling upon his hard-won pistol in the fold of Jack's hammock. Bahr than stood with his arms crossed as Jack told him he didn't take the weapon and was unsure on how it ended up amongst his belongings. Jack's voice never once cracked or alluded any speck of guilt. He felt confident that what amount of truth he presented would vindicate him.
When both sides finished stating their peace, Snodgrass turned to the tri-pirate jury.
"Be the boy innocent?" he asked flatly.
The three spoke quietly between themselves for a minute before turning to Teague and Snodgrass shaking their heads.
Jack felt himself grow cold and risked a fast glance at Timothy Petlock. The other boy's face exposed his guilt and was expressing the apology his voice and actions would not.
"Master Snodgrass, biding by the blessed ship's articles, what be the appropriate penalty for the offense of stealin' from another member of the crew?" his father addressed the quartermaster with a strained voice, his eyes never leaving his son standing before him.
The quartermaster looked down at the boy and said solemnly, "six lashes on the bare back... and maroonin'."
Jack bit his teeth into his bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from quivering as the magnitude of what had just happened began to sink in. He'd told the truth and it seemed the truth had failed him.
"You need to take responsibility for your actions, Jackie." His father's deep voice was stern, but from where he was standing, Jack could see the sympathetic look in the man's shadowed eyes.
Snodgrass unfurled the cat and addressed the frightened boy quiet enough that only he could hear. "The brave thing is to be a man and walk to yonder canon on ye own. Don' be dragged kickin' and screamin'."
Jack took an unsteady breath and without meeting any of the looks being cast his way, did as Snodgrass instructed.
The first mate bound his hands across the canon's barrel. He then knelt and placed his hand on Jack's shoulder.
"Brace yeself, lad. This is gonna hurt."
-//-
Jack jolted upright having been shaken awake by the vivid nightmare. Short of breath and drenched in a cold sweat, he cradled his spinning head in his hands. It had been over a decade since he last thought of his first marooning and he had no doubt that he was only doing so now after the incident had been brought up during the meeting with Samuel Augustine.
When his breathing returned to normal, Jack fell back onto the pillow, his fingers massaging his damp forehead with hope to snuff the dream away in order to fall back asleep.
Restful sleep proved a difficult novelty to reach for Jack since his stay in the Locker when endless light of an endless day which was filled with endless nothing, made it impossible to distinguish any measure of time. Even after his retrieval from the Locker, it seemed his body never regained its sense of knowing when to sleep.
When he heard about his father's murder, sleep had become yet harder to attain. The only remedy he had to counter the predicament was rum. He had growing concerns that the remedy's long-term effects may be more harmful than beneficial as it took a higher quantity of drink to render himself numb to the world and the toils of his own restless mind.
With that notion being currently reinforced by the throbbing in his head, he found himself briefly remembering his second term as governor of Rum Runners Island when he spent an entire inebriated night singing and dancing around a bon fire with a certain vivacious young woman. It had been one of the last completely carefree moments of his adult life and was always one of his most cherished memories.
"And really bad eggs," he sang quietly and grinned to himself.
But the smile quickly faded as Jack lay awake, staring at the ceiling, and listening to the somber sounds of the twenty-eight gun galleon. It seemed that in the loneliness of night, the Misty Lady was wishing she had gone down with her beloved, crying out with each agonizing creek of her timbers as she mourned the death of her previous captain.
Jack released a slow sigh as he lowered his eyelids. He rolled on to his right, then tossed to his left, and finally returned to his back with a flop. He laced his fingers behind his head and crossed his bare feet.
Several long minutes passed and he was still awake.
"Bugger."
He took a deep breath. It was stuffy in the cabin, the still air harboring the lingering scents of stale tobacco and cinnamon. True, he had to admit the scents were not completely unpleasant, he himself had smelled worse. He turned his head just enough to give a pit a sniff. Not so bad, actually.
He shook his head trying to quiet his overactive mind and concentrate on returning to sleep.
"Damn." He was awake still.
Submitting to the fact that he would not be able to fall asleep again any time soon, he climbed out of the bed with a frustrated groan, nearly tripping on the cluster of empty rum bottles that littered the floor, causing another groan that was louder than the first.
At the rear of the cabin, he threw open a window. The brisk Mid-Atlantic air was refreshing. The earliest rays of the sun were warming the eastern horizon and lighting the underbellies of rumbling storm clouds with deep hues of red. As Jack stood staring out the great windows, watching the rudder churning up foam through the mist of his breath in the salty night air, he couldn't help but think how he had already ran away from this ship once.
He had been born in this room and quite possibly conceived in the very bed he now slept in. That particular thought caused him to shudder and note that new linens were in immediate order.
His life had started on the Misty Lady, but she was not his ship, she was not his blessed Black Pearl.
She was not freedom...
Even though he had captained the ship for more than a year, he still felt she still belonged to her previous owner; even the crew of blackhearts seemed to hold true to that sentiment as they still met his command with leeriness. He didn't blame the crew for he held them in the same regard. They were allies seeking the same goal and would tolerate each other for the duration.
He had earned the Black Pearl through his own blood and sweat. Jack knew every inch of line on the Pearl. She was as familiar to him as a woman's silken skin under a devoted lover's hand. As far the crew... well, a crew is a necessity but can be replaced on an 'as needed' basis.
Mutinous maroonin' buggers...
The Black Pearl had always been a touchy topic between he and his father, rooting back to when the ship was the Wicked Wench. Even after Jack had deserted the crew, Teague was proud that his son was blossoming into an independent and skillful sailor, but the idea that a Pirate Lord's son sailed under the flag of the East India Trading Company was a slap in his face. It mattered not if Jack had intentionally or unintentionally set out to affront his father, the consequential argument resulted in their estrangement that lasted for years.
It wasn't until a chance meeting after Jack's involuntary birth into piracy that the two spoke again, although not without tension. Jack had the Wicked Wench back and had christened her the Black Pearl after her new scorched exterior. He chose to be obscure on just how the now black-sheeted ship was again in his possession. Deals with Davy Jones tended to scare off potential crewmembers and business accomplices; therefore, he figured that inimical detail could simply be withheld, even from the esteemed Keeper of the Code.
"A need to know matter," he had said quietly to himself following a snort, "and neither he or anyone else needs to know." He'd had thirteen years to figure out how to negotiate his way out of the bargain. Plenty of time.
Jack turned and leaned against the sill, letting his back bathe in the spindrift. That was behind him now. Jones was gone and a man could not be indebted to the dead.
He huffed to himself as he scanned the cabin realizing he could not be so wrong. Here he was on the Misty Lady, the ship he'd turned his rudder to in his youth, and even though it wasn't Davy Jones, he was in fact indebted to a dead man, but at least this time it was, to some degree, by choice.
The first time he had stepped foot inside this cabin after inheriting the Misty Lady's captaincy, he'd hoped to find something valuable amongst its contents, preferably information. Of material items, other than a chest of Bermuease rubies, which by his own hands was now half empty, the cabin was cluttered with trinkets and junk that's value was only of sentiment by the evident packrat who previously inhabited the space. Even imperative nautical tools were appallingly worthless, including inaccurate tide tables, an astrolabe seized in its joints, and a traverse board barren of its pegs. Jack distinctly remembered cursing the preceding captain for such irresponsible recklessness upon seeing that the navigational maps were practically antiques. Even with being a skilled cartographer, it had taken Jack nearly a month of painstaking diligence to update them to his satisfaction. He never took notice that the penmanship of the old and new notations was comparably familiar.
Perhaps more puzzling, the last entries in the log books and journals had dated nearly eighteen months prior to Teague's death. Captain Edward Teague did not lack his own vices and faults, but when it came to matters of his ship, he was never negligent. None of these aberrancies added up and increased the mystery behind the man's murder.
Jack closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of sea air. It seemed to calm the throbbing in his head, but not the whirlwind of railing thoughts still pulsing through it. He craved stillness enough that even the concept of an overnighter in the Locker sounded appealing.
On deck, the bell tolled and the crewman ending his night watch called, "All Clear!"
Morning had been officially announced. Jack grunted and opened his darkened lids.
He found himself caught in a familiar gaze from across the cabin. The painting of his late mother, mounted in an impressive mahogany frame was staring back at him with her dark eyes continuing their silent plea for him to gain resolution.
Jack dropped his eyes to his shuffling feet. In the beginning of his captaincy on the Misty Lady, he could only look at the painting with timorous sideways glances. His mother had been a strong, regal woman even in her last days as sickness drained her of life. He remembered sitting on the edge of her deathbed, holding her frail hand in his own, when she said her last words on this earth to him, "Son, I am so proud of you."
He took those words to heart and from that moment on had promised himself to never do something that would shame her. It was with great affliction that he removed the painting from its original placement on the largest wall of the cabin and set it gently on the floor leaning against the wall. He'd re-hang her portrait when her grieving stopped. When his own stopped.
The weight of her staring down at him with such tribulation was emotionally taxing. He could never bring it upon himself to turn the painting around; he was a respectful son and felt that the action would befoul her memory. Someone unknowing of their bond may see his actions as far from obeisant, Jack felt that she would understand and perhaps even approve. During some of his perennial restless nights, in the solitude of the main cabin, he'd swear it was her voice he heard in the darkness and not the creakings of the ship, as if she mourned her husband with an ethereal nocturne.
Other than the scores of invaluable advise, the most prized gift his father ever passed onto him was his mother's shrunken head. The head made wenches squeamish, or the more disturbing reaction, morbidly fascinated. Either option proved a benefit in his pursuits of wooing strumpets, of which he'd exercised with self-taught mastery. All of the venereal transactions ended in his satisfaction and without consequence except for one such green-eyed Bayou wench who had been so enthralled with the air of mystique that he had woven around the head, that she stole it and attempted to sell it at the local black market. It was by luck and luck alone that he found her before she completed the sale.
Once, Hector had snatched the head from his belt and run off with it in his mouth.
"I shall keelhaul... then hang... then quarter that slimy, mangy, flea-bitten, maggotous cur..." Jack had fumed the dog's death sentence aloud fearing what he considered the worst possible indignation had fallen upon his beloved mother: chewed.
Jack knew where Hector would be, the crew's sleeping quarters curled up on his favorite blanket, and stormed up to the dog's location with his pistol primed and ready. Instead of what he had feared, he found Hector wrapped around the head like a mother dog around newly whelped pups. Jack reined in his rage and his pistol. Hector whined but didn't resist when he took the head back. The grieving dog had meant no harm. He had only taken it because the head still bore his old master's comforting scent.
Even though no damage had come to his mother's shrunken head, by woman or mongrel, Jack decided it would be best to find a more suitable place to hold her instead of his belt and reverently put her away in his personal foot locker. Safely out of sight, but never out of mind.
Figuring, that if he was going to be awake, he might as well do something useful. Leaving the window open, Jack pushed himself off the sill and paced purposely over to the table at the cabin's center. After lighting several candles, he sat in his customary seat and unfurled the Atlantic Ocean's chart. Using the ship's compass, he verified that the Misty Lady's current heading was correct, Southwest for Puerto Rico. With experienced reckoning, he determined that they were midway across.
With the Misty Lady's coordinates recorded in the logbook, Jack wondered where his Pearl was. He removed the black, octagonal compass from his belt and flipped it open. The needle made only a single revolution before settling on direct west placing the ship near the vicinity of the Chesapeake that concurred with the last account sent to him by his informant. At least he and the Pearl would be in the same quadrant of the world when he returned to the Caribbean.
Jack swept his fingers across his tired brow, inadvertently catching up the small silver crucifix that was woven into a lock near his temple. He twisted the crucifix between his thumb and forefinger before gripping it in his palm.
A phantom ache tinged across his back triggering the dream to be suddenly freshened in his memory. Peculiar, he thought to himself, and far from the first time, how such an act alone would have been reason enough for some to wash their hands of the man altogether, yet abandoning this quarry was never present in his mind. Augustine's voiced impression of the situation, that Jack had to lower himself to hunt for Teague's killer, was inaccurate. It was his right as the man's son. Jack felt reinforced that Augustine's opinion of the matter and of him had changed when they parted.
All physical trace of the flogging was gone other than a few shallow depressions and even those had been covered up by the ink spanning his back. The punishment may have seemed a harsh to deliver to a smooth-faced lad but, in hindsight, his father was delivering a lesson on the rigors of pirate discipline along.
'Quite harsh, especially the marooning,' Jack's brow quirked at the thought. Fortunately for current pirates, marooning as punishment for theft was only used as a last resort for repeat offenders.
His father, the revered Keeper of the Code and eminent pirate captain, was foremost a teacher, even if many of his lessons were delivered indirectly. Of course that lesson would have been easier to swallow if he'd in fact been the guilty party. Nonetheless, it had made a lasting impression on him. After the ship came back for him, a long three days later, after Timothy Petlock's guilt drove him to confess, it was in the very next port that Jack left the Misty Lady to seek his own adventures and not long after that, signed up with the East India Trading Company with aspirations of becoming a lawful and respectable sailor. If he'd known how that interlude would have played out in the end, Jack would not have been so disgruntled over the punishment handed down upon him on the pirate ship, realizing the hard way that the Company's trial-less sentencing proved immensely less principled. Simply put, when it came to the Company, it was all'just good business'.
Jack tightened his grip on the cross. The Black Pearl was out there. She was patient and so was he. With a flick of his wrist, the compass closed, effectively snapping him away from the black-hulled ship.
With a sigh, Jack tossed the compass onto the table and reclined. Rolling his head on the chair's cool, wooden back, he looked over to his mother's portrait and gave her a nod.
"Good mor-" he stopped mid-word when a glint of light caught his attention from behind a quartet of African drums piled under the end of the table. It didn't move, meaning it wasn't a ship rat's eyes. He rocked sideways in his chair and slid the drums aside. The glint he had seen was the candlelight reflecting off the tuning keys of his guitar.
Jack fell nostalgic. If he wished anything to have been buried with his father, it would have been this. If not in the Buccaneer's Heart, Teague's soul would have come to rest within the guitar's seasoned wood.
"Let us see what ye have to say."
He reached for the guitar and found his hand hesitating briefly before grasping it. He'd not touched the instrument since he had been a lad and that had been done under the supervision of the guitar's owner. Obviously, considering his current status, the owner would not be able to object at the present.
Jack carefully lifted the Spanish guitar sending flecks of dust into the air and tilted it from side to side trying to reacquaint with its foreign weight and shape before positioning it in his lap. Plucking random chords, Jack could feel the oils from the man's fingers still permeated into the strings. After a moment, a familiar tune found its way to Jack's fingers, one that he remembered hearing him play when Jack was still a boy. He didn't play as well as Teague had, the notes not as fluid, but it didn't take more then a few frames for him to realized why his father played the guitar as much as he had. It seemed that the stick that was constantly stirring up mud in the ocean of his thoughts slowed and he could feel his mind calm.
Slouching further in the chair, he padded the strings tenderly, softening the song to a soothing tone. Hoping to escape into happy thoughts more suitable to correlate with the pleasant melody, he conjured up the image of a long-legged beauty, with her skirt hiked high about her thighs, wading through the curling tide on a palm covered beach. It wasn't until the woman kicked playfully at an incoming wave, exposing yet more of her thigh, did Jack realized he was picturing Laura Allister.
He flinched, startled.
Not that the sight of Laura baring her legs was unsightly, in fact it was quite erotic, but Jack knew that the Widow would not... appreciate being thought of in this carnal manner, and his imagined woman on the beach dropped her skirt and stomped a prudish foot as the image faded and disappeared completely.
"Tease," he quipped smirking. Jack chuckled briefly to himself with a wince as he pondered on the possible things she'd do to him if he ever crossed that line with her, and considering the look in her eyes from their meeting, he determined he'd not care for it.
He recognized that look. It was mirrored back to him from every reflective surface and found in the haunting eyes of his mother's painting. It was of hunger for substance that was not means of food. She wanted resolve for the death of her husband. If Jack so unscrupulously found it in him to judge her for wanting revenge he'd only prove himself a hypocrite. He was still concerned whether or not Laura will follow through with the mission he hired her for after she reaped whatever vengeance she found fitting on Leocadio.
Reap she shall, he was certain of that.
Another issue bothering Jack was that Johannes never mentioned Godenot in his letter to Samuel Augustine. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, as it had been well known through out the pirate realm that someone had been trailing the Codex and perhaps Johannes assumed his associate already knew. It was a subject he'd broach when he'd meet with Johannes back in the Caribbean, as there was no point dwelling in speculation.
Even Scraggly-beard had sent word regarding Godenot to Jack by way of Jocard. As appreciative as Jack was for his backing, he couldn't help but be put off when Barbossa didn't fail at poking his typical gibes by strategically signing his letters: 'Captain of the Black Pearl.' Underlined. Twice.
"Tis but temporary."
Oddly, Jack thought, that at the last Brethren Court Teague never mentioned a single word on Barbossa's betrayal or asked about Jack's death and time in hell. He paused in his playing for a moment.
No. It's not odd, he concluded with a twitch of his nose. No father would want to think about his child dying before him, let alone discuss the matter in detail. When it came to the mutiny, as the Keeper of the Code, Teague had to remain neutral in the swabble-some workings of intra-pirate relations, even those that included his own kin. Barbossa had followed the Code to the letter and left him to die in a gentlemanly fashion... if there was such a thing.
"Water under the bridge, mate..." Jack hissed, lowering the pitch of the song and playing at a faster tempo.
It was by long odds that Jack had made it off Rum Runners Island, twice, and come back from the Locker, but his father was long dead and buried. His soul was not sentenced to an eternity of withering in perdition. No accords could be reached with tentacled devils and there were no goddesses to barter him back into existence. Not even the most transcendental sea turtle could rescue Edward Teague from whatever resting place held him.
"Bloody worthless turtles," Jack sputtered as the note he played fell flat.
He'd been told once that passing on was dead certain. The probability of imperishable captains and life extending fountains were iffy at best in comparison to that statement. Only time would tell.
Jack didn't have time to dwell on it longer as he became aware of a stirring out on deck followed by a collection of muffled voices. A second later, there was a hurried knock at the door.
"Enter," Jack ordered stagnantly, not falling out of rhythm.
Denning, an ornery, lanky old salt and the Misty Lady's long-standing first mate, stepped inside.
"Captain sir, there be..." Denning's voice trailed off. For the first time in years, the cabin was filled with the old guitar's melodic voice. He cleared his throat and resumed,"...a merchant vessel spotted port. Low draft and few guns. Request orders, Captain sir?"
Jack's eyes and fingers never strayed from the fingerboard. "Ready all hands," he answered flatly.
"Aye, Captain sir." Denning ducked back out on deck and within moments a flurry of activity could be heard.
The Lady lurched starboard and Jack could hear the muffled commotion of the Lady's crew preparing to board the merchant ship; excited vaporing, shuffling eager feet, the banging of hatchets on the gunwales, and the priming of flintlocks. His fingers began weaving an accompanying song to match their excited crescendo, fast and determined.
As the Misty Lady fired her warning shot across the rival's bow, a string snapped and curled over the guitar's head. A mix of stubbornness and determination carried him forward and with a knitted brow, Jack continued to strum the song in defiance of the missing cord. He dug his fingers down harder along the frets, demanding each note to sing, and they screamed as if they'd been bitten. No matter how fervidly he strummed, without the broken string, the song sounded incomplete... like his father's life story. Still, it wasn't until a mist of red spittle sprayed from the guitar did he finally surrender and set the instrument gently onto his lap.
Puzzled, Jack held up his hand to find beads of blood on two of his fingertips. Shifting in the chair, Jack turned his hand to examine the small wounds better in the candle light, surprised that the strings had cut through his callused skin. The beads crowned and then two thin, red lines streamed down the fingers, joined midway across his palm, and ended at his cuff, staining the fabric.
Past the cabin doors, the targeted merchant vessel, apparently deciding not to be taken without a stand, returned fire and the Misty Lady moaned in pain as the shot hit its mark. No stranger to the sound of canon fire, Jack barely flinched, but the force of the impact caused his mother's portrait to fall sideways with a clatter. In his blurred peripheral vision, just beyond his hand, she stared up at him from the floor.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, half amused and half angry. From where he sat, one branch of the blood trail pointed toward the painting of his mother, the other to his compass on the table like an emblematic fork in the road saying 'stay on course or run to freedom.'
"It's not just about living forever, Jackie. The trick is, living with yourself, forever" came his father's words.
This was another test and lesson conceived and set forth from the teacher in the spiritual realm. Both he'd never be able to thank him for.
Jack looked back to his mother's sideways face. He wouldn't run from this. It was a responsibility he could not forsake. Not for his father or himself. He'd see this through for her.
The battle on deck had just begun. The battle in his heart was far from over.
Standing and taking a few aggressive steps, Jack took the guitar by its neck in both hands and swung it into the wall until it was nothing but splinters and strings.