I regained consciousness to a heavy banging on my chest. I coughed and my mouth filled with fluid. The sharp pains digging into my lungs between my ribcage reminded me that they were full of water and that I should probably do something about that. I opened my eyes and turned over onto my side. The coughing was relentless. It was difficult and painful to get enough air back into my lungs to have any kind of productive cough. All the discomfort didn't bother me as much as it probably should have… it wasn't exactly the first time that I had been in that position. I smiled as I remembered that the first time this had happened was, in fact, the first time I had met the man I love. And since that day I have been unwater an unnatural number of times. It was probably borderline unhealthy.

I emptied my water-filled lungs onto the deck. When I felt the familiar ache of exhaustion in my limbs that let me know that I was done coughing up water for one evening I leant back, still smiling, and looked up at the stern face of my brother. He didn't smile back at me. I felt my own smile begin to falter and fade away.

"Oh," I said after an uncomfortable silence.

I knew that was exactly what he had been waiting for before his anger exploded and ripped through me like a bullet. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?!" he asked me furiously. I could have predicted that question while I was still unconscious. I sighed and sat up.

"James," I said wearily. I loved that he cared enough to worry about me, but once… just once… it would have been nice if he'd trusted my judgement. Especially given that I had actually turned out to be right about many things. Chiefly, the piracy issue. I should have said 'I told you so' when I had the chance. I was regretting it now. "You know what I was thinking." He couldn't really argue with that, I had made my intentions perfectly clear. "I'm sure that any sane person would have done what I did."

"What, drown themselves?" he chose to argue over the case of my sanity. I gave him a withering look.

"No, James," I said shortly. He was just being pedantic. "I mean done something to save someone they love."

One of his eyebrows rose slightly and his lips got a little thinner in the way that they do when he is disapproving of something I've said or done. Which happens most of the time. Even though most of the time I happened to be right. People do reckless things for love, that's half the fun of it. "Under normal circumstances, Izzy, this does not involve throwing oneself off the edge of a ghost ship and drowning in a dead sea."

He was trying to remain stern, but he accidently made me smile without meaning to. "Under normal circumstances there wouldn't be a ghost ship or a dead sea," I countered.

He still looked a little bit annoyed, but all of his argument left him in one swift roll of his eyes and he helped me to my feet. I enjoyed the way that death had mellowed his temper… and mine come to think of it. I think the time that we had spent missing each other had made us far less likely to continue an argument. "Did it work?" he asked, a little apprehensively. I nodded and he looked relieved.

"It did. It's fine. He's fine. He knew I was there." I couldn't stop smiling at the memory of it. The feeling of looking at my husband and having him know where I was… it was just incredible. James was astounded beyond belief.

"What… how…how?"

"His Compass," I said by way of explanation. I couldn't manage anything more useful. He looked confused for a moment until he remembered the details of the compass I was referring to. I took Rebecca from him and smiled down at my beautiful daughter. She seemed happier and more relaxed than she had before. Perhaps she had sensed that everything was well now… or it could just have been my imagination, or my own mood affecting the way that I perceived hers. Either way, the two of us were quite contented now. After a moment she waved her arms around and stretched them up, as if reaching out for something far above us. I looked up to see what had caught her attention. Something above me sparked and then a small object came floating down towards us. I waited until it was about eyelevel before I held out my hand. It fell neatly into my palm. It was a small piece of parchment, which looked as if it had been pulled from a fire. The edges of it were blackened, smouldering and curling slightly as I held it. The words on the parchment looked as if they too had been burned there. They read;

Graves are not as silent as they say
And there are seven standing in the way
Between you and the path home that you seek,
First you must listen to these seven speak.
Not all of them will mean you well,
So beware of falling under their spell.
What these seven have in common is you
Never forget that dead men can tell tales too.

No sooner had I finished reading it than the parchment turned to ash in my hands. I closed my fingers over it and the ashes poured through the gaps between them and scattered onto the deck. I'd been so caught up in saving Jack and making sure that he was alright that I'd forgotten that my journey home was far from over. I looked to James, who had been reading over my shoulder. I thought that he might be able to shed some light on the matter, but he looked even more clueless than I felt.

"Did that make sense to you?" he asked me. I frowned, trying to run the words through my head again and again so that I wouldn't forget them. In my experience, cryptic messages delivered by an unknown source were always important.

"I'm not sure…" I said, running them through my mind one last time before I decided to voice the theory that seemed the most likely. "Seven graves… I think… I think there are seven people here that I need to talk to. Seven people I know who've already died…"

James nodded in agreement, but we were both still blatantly unsure about everything that was going on. He glanced around at the dark, empty sea and the dark, starry sky. "So… where are they? Do you have to find them… or will they come to you?"

Before I could answer him the Pearl turned sharply in the still waters. Thick sea mists descended from nowhere and began rolling towards us. Soon we were completely engulfed by it. For a few seconds it was all I could see. I heard a bell tolling from somewhere within it. It rang out, deep and clear. It was then that I noticed something incredibly odd about the fog. It smelt… it smelt… familiar.

At that instant it cleared slightly and withdrew to the density of an ordinary sea mist, so that I could actually see my surroundings and see the rails of the Pearl once more. "Smells like… London smog…" I said, stepping forwards to peer into the mists as the last reverberations of the bell faded into nothing. The words had hardly passed my lips before the docks of London rose out of the calm waters. The sight of them startled me and I looked back to James for comfort, but he was gone. I looked down at Rebecca and my heart immediately leapt into my mouth when I saw that she was beginning to fade from my arms, dissolving into the mists. "No!" I said, calling for her, but all she did was smile and leave me. I called out for her again and again when she was gone. I listened for the sound of her crying. I tried to call for James too, but there was no reply. Everything around me was silence.

I prayed that wherever James and Rebecca were, they were together and they were safe.

The Pearl glided to a stop at the docks. I was reluctant to move, so I stood frozen to the spot, still searching for my brother and daughter, even though I knew that it was hopeless. Then, from the mist I heard a voice call my name. It wasn't James's, it was a woman. She sounded so beautifully familiar that I almost couldn't believe it.

"Isabelle!" I heard her again and I had to cling to the rail to stop myself from falling over in astonishment right there and then. I tried to call back to her, but I couldn't make a sound. A massive lump in my throat was blocking any noise I tried to make. I searched for her in the fog, finally finding the strength to pull myself along to the gangplank, using the rail as support. I blinked back tears that were beginning to form in my eyes and stumbled down the gangplank onto the docks. Where was she? Where had her voice come from? "Isabelle," she called again. I turned around and saw her in the distance. I began running towards her and didn't stop until I fell into her arms. "My darling," she murmured as I enveloped myself in her smell.

I buried my face into her shoulder and finally managed to choke out a word. One word. Something that I hadn't called anyone in a long time, "Mother…" I started to sob and she tried to soothe me in the way that she always had.

When my crying had subsided a little bit she held me at arm's length and smiled. "You've grown," she noted and I couldn't help but laugh. The last time we'd been this close to each other I had been ten years old. Of course I'd grown. It wasn't a funny situation, but the mix of emotions that were stirring inside me made me borderline hysterical. I was so, so happy to see my mother again. But it also reopened the grief and loss that I had felt when she died. This whole situation was so ridiculous that I half-laughed and half-cried for longer than anyone ever should.

"Darling," she said softly. "You've been so brave, so strong to take on all of this."

"James… Rebecca… I… we were…. And now…. " I began babbling uncontrollably.

"They're fine," my mother assured me. "They're safe." I nodded as relief flooded me. "But we need to focus on you. You've got seven tales to hear. And this is mine…"

Thanks for reading :) Please review.

LVxx