Book One - Chapter Three: The Trouble with Mermaids

Barbossa's time with Captain Jack Sparrow and the East India Trading Company led to many long adventures, but at the end of each one, Barbossa longed for nothing more than to see his daughter again. He would return home and spend hours turning his voyages into wonderful stories for little Amelia. She loved those stories more than anything. Barbossa's wife, however, was of another opinion. As he spoke of epic adventures, Victoria only heard of the countless ways in which he could have been killed. Who was to support her and her child if he wouldn't be able to? How were they to live? These were the debates that Victoria ran through each and every time. After so many years of knowing the demands her husband faced as a ship merchant for the Company, she knew to expect very little change in their circumstances. While so far Barbossa had managed to return unharmed each time and at each homecoming he brought back his well earned pay, it was becoming harder and harder to say which of the two Victoria was most pleased with.

There was one night after his homecoming that Barbossa would never forget for as long as he lived.

"Papa," said the sleepy little girl Barbossa was tucking into bed. "Did you see the mermaids this time?"

"No, pet," he replied gently, "'fraid they were scarce in the waters this time."

Amelia held back her disappointment as best as she could, not wanting to let her father think that she was saddened by it.

"But," Barbossa continued in a softer voice, "some of the men did report hearin' 'em. Sang like angels they said."

"Really?" Amelia asked with shining bright eyes.

"Aye, only in the dead of night. I was asleep myself, but those on duty swore by it."

"Mama said that there were no mermaids," the girl confessed. "I didn't believe her. I didn't tell Mama, but I knew they were there."

"Mama's a lady, and ladies don't ever see mermaids. They get scared away by the gentle folk 'cuz they rarely sail the seas. The sea creatures see 'em as strangers and hide from 'em if they can help it. But we, we've got the sea in our veins, you and me."

"Just like the mermaids," the girl boasted.

"Aye, just like 'em."

Barbossa heard a squeak from the door and knew that his wife was listening on the other side. He quickly finished up his good nights and kissed his darling daughter on her forehead as she nestled tightly into her blankets. Silently he left her room and closed the door behind him. As he assumed, his wife was standing across the way, staring at him with unkind eyes.

"You can't keep telling her those stories," she said very directly.

Barbossa tried to hush her so as not to let Amelia hear the conversation. This only angered her further.

"No, let her hear it, Hector. These foolish fantasiful stories are only going to confuse her. She's having a hard enough time getting on with the Bennett children as it is."

"Who are the Bennetts?" Barbossa asked in his continuous whisper.

"Decent people," Victoria replied, "who could really have a positive impact on our daughter's life. Their eldest has a private tutor, Parisian, teaching her French like a native speaker. If Amelia could get on with them it would be no time at all before they'd be asking Amelia to join them as a companion in their education. Think of those opportunities. She could be conversing and dancing with all sorts of important ambassadors in the near future with the likes of the Bennetts, or even the Williamses."

"Victoria, love" Barbossa said shaking his head, "Amelia is but a child, what's the use in making her learn Persian?"

"Parisian!" Victoria corrected.

"Point is she's got no reason to be conversin' with ambassadors. She's a happy girl."

"Only because she doesn't know any better, and you're not helping! You're here for a few days, all hugs and kisses and then leave for weeks or months on end while I'm here trying to raise the little her into a proper woman, and then you come back telling her about mermaids. For God's sake, Hector, have you no brain at all? Or maybe is it I who am to blame? Perhaps it was me who was daft enough to think that some common fisherman could be a good enough father to his only child."

"Victoria, love," he said as calmly as he could, "I know that y'aren't meanin' all that."

He tried to embrace her but she turned away from him in her usual huff and marched off. There was no use in going after her. Behind him, Barbossa heard that familiar squeak of the door and turned to see the little girl standing in the doorway. Barbossa knelt down to her. She came to him with open arms which she didn't hesitate to wrap tightly around his neck.

"You are a good father, Papa," she whispered to him as though it was the most precious secret in the world.

Barbossa picked her up and rocked her slowly for a few moments before putting her back to bed. When little Amelia awoke in the morning, her father had left home again. "Called back to the Company," her mother told her. Amelia instinctively knew that it was all her own doing. Had she listened to her mother properly, her father would not have to have left. That day little Amelia made a promise to herself to try harder for her mother. If she made her mother happy then her father would be happy too. She would start with the Bennett children, even though they were cruel to her. She was determined now.