Devil's Dance Floor


Over the fields and across the moor
I ran in the house and slammed the door.
What the hell's that over there?
A putrefying corpse sitting in that chair
Where no one ever wants to go

-Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go by The Pogues-


"We're in a--" Eva immediately jumped up from the wet and cold ground when she realized the truth of the matter. Her bones were already shaking from the chill, but it worsened as she stood off in a corner, trying not to turn back around to the scene.

Jack was too curious though; too foolish an explorer for his own good. He crawled from the ground and slowly walked down into the darker bend of the stone vault. There were two broad and unlit torches to either side of the hazy arch leading below, and he grabbed at one. Eva turned her eyes back just enough to see him hunting the straw covered ground for something to light it with. It was she though, that noticed a ancient piece of flint under her boot, and wearily carried it to him.

"H-here." She chattered as he stood tall again and smiled at the stone in her hand.

Jack worked to scrape it along the stone wall for a few moments as Eva remained idly nearby, her eyes wide and ready for something bad to happen, for a ghost to react to their visit. He smirked as he watched her from the corner of his eye and managed to faintly light the weeded torch in his hand.

"Going down with me, darlin'?"

She carefully turned to him, struck with fear and shook her head no.

"Sure?"

"As s-sure as ever. I have n-no intention of w-waking the d-dead."

Jack smiled and tore his coat off to drape it around her trembling body. He left a warm kiss on her forehead before turning away with the flame lighting his path downward.

"B-be careful, J-Jack…"

Her voice echoed through the tunneled passage and resonated something deep in him, something he was still trying to hide from himself. He was too afraid to turn and find her blue eyes in the dark, so he kept walking and waved over his head.

Eva on the other hand, stood in place, watching the orange glow fade further and further from her, leaving her alone in the grey cold. There was no sound but her own boots crunching on the straw ground and her heart beating wildly as her eyes shifted around the space. Everything stilled when the flame was half out of sight and she breathed deep, trying to calm herself. And it was almost working, until she heard a whining cry behind her and turned. The second she did, a screeching black object flew directly at her face and swiped across her dark curls in a flash.

She screamed and it echoed, making Jack halt in the passage. He was ready to spin on his heels and run back to her, and he would have, if Eva hadn't beaten him to the punch and start barreling through the stone tunnel herself.

"Jack…" she cried, finding the torchlight and running directly into his back, her arms wrapped around him tight.

He laughed a little and glanced back down the space to see a tiny bat perched with swollen red eyes in the high mineralized corner. With his free hand from the torch he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

"She can slay a crew o' Navy officers, but she can't tolerate a curious bat in a tomb," Jack teased in her ear. "Miss Marley, it seems I've finally found th' Achilles heel I was so sure you had in ye."

"I don't like dead, eerie things."

Jack laughed and wrapped his arm firmly about her waist as he walked her down the lit passageway. Eva kept her face buried in his chest though, not looking up and not wanting to see what might arrive the further they disappeared below the ground.

"I'll keep you safe from th' ghosts love."

"Don't say that." She squeezed him tighter as they strolled. "Don't give them a reason to come about."

"Not even yer dear Gracie?"

"Especially her. We'll never see daylight again."

His laugh continued darkly as the inner walls of the crypt went on the same, freezing into their bones the lower they got. Even when they came to a thick wooden doorway at the end of the tunnel, Eva clung to Jack and never let her eyes drift higher than his neckline. He pushed back the door and carried her down a dozen stone steps within. Somehow impossibly, they could both hear the ocean and smell its rainy mist when they made it to another dirty, ground level cave.

Jack set Eva back down on her boots and looked at her with an odd twist of his brow and lip as they examined the new space. There were stony sectors across the walls and beds of straw covering them each. And it was Jack alone who first noticed in the dim light what resided in the straw patchwork, a skeleton. He pulled Eva away from it though, before she could see or faint.

"How can the water be so close this far below ground?"

Jack didn't have an answer for her, not until he stepped across open space to where a faint blue light came in from between the cracks of piled rocks. He moved a couple, then a few more, until the light grew brighter and filled the tomb. And when he looked through the holed window he had created, he could not only hear the ocean as if he was swimming in it, but he could very nearly touch it. The cold black waves of the bay came right up to the pit of the crypt. He smiled at the sight, at how magnificent a thing it was and a way to be buried for all of time. Before he could fully relish in it though, he heard Eva gasp from behind and turned back.

"Wot' is it?"

"Look, up there…" she pointed to a higher rift in the stone wall where a cobalt gleam had arrived with the reflection of the daylight from between the rocks. "What is that glow?"

"Don' know." He replied meekly with a narrowed, thinking gaze upward. There was no way to reach it on his own legs, nor was there anything to stand upon. But he quickly realized he needed neither device, when he devilishly smiled down at Eva.

"What?"

He said nothing and instead came around her from behind and snatched her into his arms. She screeched in shock and struggled against his hold as he held her high up and moved toward the glowing ceiling again.

"Put me down!"

"Relax, you're fine. Reach for whate'er it is."

"Jack…" she argued and grasped two jutting stones in the wall to hold her balance in his arms. She could barely see over the high cleft, but pulled herself up to catch the sparkle that matched her eyes. Her jaw dropped at the sight of a massive, hidden sapphire awaiting her capture.

"Well," Jack grunted, holding onto her legs, "Anything o' interest?"

She giggled under her breath, the fear in her completely diminished by wonderment. "You could say that."

Eva carefully lifted the palm sized gem and tucked it into the inner pocket of Jack's coat for safe keeping. And when she patted the space in the wall again to make sure she wasn't leaving anything of worth behind, she instead found only a scrap of parchment, long since abandoned same as the prize. She grabbed it too and held on as Jack gently replaced her feet to the ground beside him.

"What did ye find up there?"

She grinned wickedly up at him and drew back the side of his coat around her body to allow him access to the pocket. "Look in there."

His brow was twisted in novelty as he held her eyes with his and drove his hand within. It wasn't more than a second later that felt the smooth and solid exterior of what felt like a huge rock. He lifted it out and his jaw dropped in more ways than one, as his eyes darted from the massive gem, to Eva's similarly dark blue eyes and then back again.

"And there was this. A note."

"A note? Wot's it say?"

Eva turned her eyes down to the scratched words of old and began to softly repeat them aloud.

"He who hath entered here is of the brave lot to the world. A Clare sapphire is all that resides in this crypt for the taking. Any further the hunt and one must discover the impudence to risk themselves further…"

She looked up at him with a nervous gleam in her eye and Jack held her cheek in his palm to soothe her as she went on.

"…Grace O' Malley's triumph hides where the clovers do not grow and where only her bones rest. It is where the cold winds of Galway meet the uncommonly warm breezes that arise from the winter Atlantic. There is no marking to ensure your unearthing of this place, and to find it truly, one must be confident in their knowledge of these spell ridden lands. For the hex cannot be broken of the wealth, until the last child of the first blacks has had their say."

They stared at one another for a long time after that, each of them independently searching for clues in their minds. Eva came to no conclusion whatsoever. Jack however found a million hints within his memory. He determined he'd known it all along, the truth, the real reason Eva had been so utterly fascinated with this treasure hoard and its meaning. It was something deep down inside of her, something she couldn't see and he was just beginning to.

He returned the gem back to the coat pocket against her side and took her hand softly in his, leading her out of the bottomless pit and back up the stairwell from whence they came. Lost in his thoughts, he said nothing, not even when she questioned him.

"Jack, what does it all mean? Where do you think it is? And who is this black child?"

He had answers, dozens of them, but didn't know where to begin. So instead he carried her back through the darkened tunnel, this time with only the faint grey light leading them as he'd forgotten the torch in his dash.

"What are you rushing for?!" She demanded nervously as they made their way through the last archway again and toward the cracked stone wall they had first fallen through. "Jack!"

He stopped when he felt safe to from his mind and carefully held her at the wall, watching the way her blue eyes sparkled against a sea of black hair and ivory olive skin. It meant too much and not enough all at once. The evidence filtered throughout his head, everything he could remember from the first moment he'd seen her in that alley.

"We need t' get back to th' boats."

Eva didn't trust the wily, almost frightened expression he had. She held his face in her hands for a moment.

"What is it? What is that look in your eyes for?"

Jack sighed and pressed his forehead to hers, their eyes still matching for control of the situation.

"Tell me what you've thought of. Please."

He wanted to, truly, and knew he would, but he needed reclusiveness with her first. He needed to know that their conversation was safe from the ears of the living and the dead alike.

"Let's get back t' the Pearl for now."

"And then you'll tell me?"

He nodded and she pulled his face down to kiss him quickly, warmly. He felt a little bit more of him die inside when she did too. It would be a good death though; an ever changing, transforming death of one side and the birth of another. It's all he could think about too, as they made their way hand in hand through the drizzling island rain for the boats.

The rocky beach though, when they made it there, was still deserted save for the boats. Jack could see through the clouds that the sun was already well past four, making him and Eva an hour late to meet with the other men.

"Do you think they got lost?"

"Doubt it."

"Do you think they found something?"

He shrugged and walked her toward the boats, but they hadn't made it four steps down the grey shore before they heard a set of guns clicking behind them. Jack squeezed Eva's hand tight as his body stiffened.

"Halt, Sparrow!"

"Don't move!"

Eva's eyes shifted from the sand back over her shoulder at the troupe of red coats leaping at them. One large man grabbed hold of Jack's right arm and ripped his right hand out of hers.

"Jack, no!"

"Eva!"

He struggled against the man and shouted her name the same, but it did nothing.

"Let him go!"

The lead officer came to Eva and wrapped his arm firmly about her waist, never noticing the lump of the sapphire in Jack's coat she wore.

"Come Miss Marley, you're safe now."

"Get your hands off 'er…"

"No…no, let me go! Jack didn't do anything to me!"

They were separated fast and carried down the beach at different rates toward a large Company ship anchored in the black water. Eva caught small glimpses of Jack through the officer's surrounding her, and she shouted out his name, begging for them to let her go free and insisting all the way to their ship that he was innocent. Jack could hear it all, and although he tried his damndest to get free of their hold on him and the irons breaking his wrists when he writhed, none of it matter and her voice only made it a more haunting experience.