"Well…" Jack breathed out, slowly. I struggled to remember a time when he wasn't looking at me. My stomach tightened. I had opened up more to this stranger- this pirate- in the past ten minutes than I had to my own brother in the past ten months. There is a thrill that comes with trusting someone new, but it's mixed with the agonising anticipation of waiting to see whether or not they're going to let you down. It's a lot of trust to place in the reaction of a stranger. I felt as if my sanity was in his hands. "You're not mad. Or rather, if you are mad you're mad in a very specific way."

I felt relieved, although I still wasn't sure exactly what this meant. His eyes had hardly left my face the whole time I was talking and I found comfort in them. I took a deep breath. "So, am I right?"

"William Turner…" he mused over the name. "That's a good, strong name. I knew a William Turner once, except everyone just called him Bill… or Bootstrap Bill. Good man. Good pirate."

I could feel my hands shaking. "Will's a pirate… that explains why they've hidden him from me."

"No," he frowned and shook his head. "Seems a little old to be the William Turner you're talking about, love, and I heard that Captain Barbossa sent him down to the bottom of the ocean before they learned that they needed his blood to lift the curse."

"Oh," I said and my heart fell down to my stomach.

"But I also heard that he'd had a son, which could be the very William Turner you're talking about. Probably would have named the lad after himself," he paused for thought. "You know, for all we pirates are clevercloggs we are an unimaginative bunch when it comes to naming things."

I decided not to debate with him over whether or not pirates could be called "clevercloggs", but in the back of my mind I could hear my brother laughing at the idea. "Could they have used his son's blood to lift the curse?" I asked, filled with hope again. "Would that have worked?"

Jack glanced around at the courtyard full of corpses. "Well it seems as if it already has." I nodded and for a moment neither of us said anything. I had answers, but I still didn't feel satisfied. They weren't the ones I had been looking for. He looked back at me. "You alright, love?"

"Who lifted it?" I asked.

"What?"

"The curse. Who lifted it?" I expected him to shrug and brush it off like James would have done, but he continued to listen to me. It took me a little by surprise, so I hesitated. He waited. "Was it Barbossa and his crew? Or was it William Turner himself? Or someone else?"

Jack shrugged, "I don't have the answers for you, love." There was a silence. He looked at his feet. I thought that maybe he would make an excuse to leave now. I wanted to say something to make him stay, but I couldn't think of a single reason that he would want to. Why did I want him to? After sneaking out of my house to hang around some dead pirates I couldn't imagine that hanging around a live one would make my situation any better if I were caught. All I knew was that the thought of him getting up and leaving me now filled me with an incredible amount of anxiety. I watched him swing his feet and felt helpless. "But…" he looked back up at me. "I know who would have the answers… probably."

"Who?"

"William Turner."

He smiled at me as if his idea was brilliant. "I had thought of that," I said, trying my best not to be rude. His cheeky grin put me at ease and assured me that even if I was being rude, he didn't mind. "But I have no idea where he is. Nobody will tell me. Nobody will even admit that he exists."

"Well…" Jack said. "If he did exist… where would you expect to find him?"

I thought about it for a moment and the answer came to me much more quickly than I expected it to. "Mr Brown's."

"Who?" he frowned.

"The blacksmith's," I replied. "I thought that was where he worked, but..." I trailed off, remembering the boy from the blacksmiths who wasn't Will that had dropped off my brother's sword before his promotion ceremony.

"Right," Jack stood up. Was he leaving now? "That's where we'll start looking for him then."

"What?" I stood up too, feeling myself filling with hope that I tried to ignore in case it was too good to be true. "Are you… are you coming with me?"

"Got no other plans," he shrugged and then hesitated. "Unless… unless you don't want me to-"

"No! No!" I said quickly and became a little self-conscious that the relief flooding me was becoming apparent on my face. "That would… I mean… Please, if it's not too much trouble. I'd appreciate it."

"No trouble at all, love." He smiled and started to walk, I followed. I desperately wanted to ask him things, but had no idea what those things would be. What do you say to a pirate? What do they even talk about? We left the courtyard and he glanced at me. "You're going to have to lead the way. I have no idea where I'm going in this ridiculous town."

"Of course," I nodded. I really should have thought about that. "Are you ready to run if you're spotted here?"

"I'm always ready to run," he replied, glancing around at my home as if he didn't even trust the bricks that built it not to come to life and start chasing him. "But I will be especially ready right now because if I'm seen wandering the streets with you they will assume I'm kidnapping you." He glanced at me. "I mean, it would be the strangest and least forceful kidnapping in history, but still… I'm sure that's the ridiculous conclusion they would jump to."

He was right. If James saw us, Jack would be hung. Maybe even shot on the spot if James thought I was in immediate danger. Which was, as Jack had said, ridiculous. How would one lone pirate with no crew and no ship manage to kidnap anyone? I knew he was armed, but he hadn't once threatened me. In fact, I felt rather safe walking beside him. He was probably in more danger walking next to me than I was with him. I led him away from the courtyard and to the blacksmiths using a route that I thought fewer people would see us. It took a little longer, but it was safer for him.

When we reached the door of the blacksmiths I raised my hand to knock, but Jack caught it before I could hit the wood. "What are you doing?" he whispered, glancing around us. "You don't knock on the door to a place that you're about to break in to!"

I started at him. "Break in to?" I repeated. "I don't remember committing a crime being part of the plan."

"Firstly," he hissed back. "We didn't actually have a plan. And secondly there has never been a successful plan that didn't involve committing a crime in the whole of history and that is a fact."

I didn't even know how to begin arguing with him, so instead I said, "How is breaking in going to help us?"

"Right now we don't know whether or not William Turner is going to be in here and a large part of that is because we do not know whether or not he even exists. Someone may be hiding him from you and if they are, knocking before you go in only gives people a chance to hide anything that they don't want you to see. If they don't know you're in there, they can't hide anything from you." I was confused, but not by what he has said. I knew what he was saying was fundamentally wrong and extremely morally objectionable, but… it kind of made sense. I couldn't find the flaw in his logic and that was what confused me. He waited.

"Okay…" I said eventually. "So how do we do this? Should we try and prize open a window? Or go round to the back and see if we can enter the cellar from there? Or do we need to go on to the roof and find a way to...?" Catching the look in his eye, I stopped. He was amused. "What?"

"Not that those aren't all wonderful ideas," he said. "But before we start to climb anything we could maybe try and use the door."

He put his hands on the door and pushed. It opened as easily as if he had been expected. My whole body tensed, waiting for someone inside the blacksmith to say something, but the shout never came. He took a step in to a room that was mostly darkness and I nervously followed him in. Silence was still the only thing that greeted us. Where was Mr Brown?

Jack let the door shut quietly behind us. The click as it shut hung in the dark silence around us. There was a sudden scuffle in the corner and I nearly jumped out of my skin, expecting to see James come charging out of the shadows with a noose for Jack and plan to lock me away for the rest of my life. It was just a small donkey in the far corner of the shop that we had disturbed. He looked wary of us, but didn't make a fuss. The slowly dying embers of a fire were glowing in the hearth and I waited for my eyes to get used to the gloom. I looked around, unsure of what I was looking for. A small part of me had both hoped and expected that William Turner would have been standing at the workbench, tools in hand and a big grin on his face that told me he had asked everyone to pretend he didn't exist as a huge practical joke. I would have murdered him. Needless to say, he wasn't there and practical jokes didn't really feel like something he would be a fan of... if he was real.

I crossed the stone floor to the cluttered workbench. So what was I looking for? Clues? The workbench was such a mess that it was impossible to tell if anything was out of place. I had no knowledge of what it was to be a blacksmith, so how would I know if anything had been taken? This was a stupid idea. I glanced up a Jack. He was admiring something shiny hanging on the wall, which didn't come as much of a surprise. I wondered if he would steal it. In this mess, would Mr Brown even notice? Probably not. Frustrated, but unwilling to leave I also turned my attention to things that were hanging on the walls around us. I hadn't realised how much hope I had been pinning on this visit until we had got in here and seen nothing obvious.

There was one wall on which primarily hung different swords. A threadbare carpet stretched out underneath them. It was the only place where the floor was covered, probably for the comfort of those who had come here to choose their swords and not get their boots dirty from the rest of the blacksmith's work. The swords here were similar to, but not as fancy as, the one my brother had been given by Mr Brown. I was tempted to pick one up and stab something with it to release some of my frustrations, but decided against it. Instead I ran my fingers along the wall underneath them. I stopped when something creaked. "Jack!" I whispered, not daring to move again. He looked over his shoulder at me. "Are you thinking the same thing I am?"

"Yes," he nodded, his eyes still fixed on the swords surrounding us. "Who makes all these?"

"No," I sighed. "Not that. Listen." I moved my feet again. The floor creaked. "Do you hear that?"

"It's a creak, love," he shrugged. "Sometimes wooden floors do that. Or do you and your brother not have that problem in the Commodore's Palace or wherever it is that you live?"

I rolled my eyes. "I know wooden floors creak, Jack, but the rest of this floor is made of stone. There's something wooden under here."

"Oh," he turned to give me his full attention now. His eyes lit up. "That's interesting. That's very interesting." He walked over to the place where the threadbare carpet stopped and started to peel it back. I sprang off it as he lifted it up. He soon came to a hole in the stone floor that had been covered by a wide and uneven plank of wood. I would describe it as a 'trapdoor', but that word seems far too sophisticated to describe the crude slab of roughly cut wood that lay across it. There was no hinge and no handle, someone had made it in a hurry. Perhaps it was a shoddy repair job… but what kind of stone floor just falls through? Jack wrinkled his nose, "The bloody hell is this?"

We both stared down at what we'd found for a moment or two. Half of me wanted to rip up the plank of wood and see what, if anything, was underneath and the other half wanted to turn and run and never set another foot inside this blacksmiths ever again. A quick glance at Jack told me that he felt very similar. I made the decision for us and bent down to lift up the flat, wooden square. He helped me hold it up and we started down at a makeshift ladder that descended into the darkness. "Where do you think that goes?"

"Only one way to find out," he said stretched his foot down to the first rung of the ladder. He stopped and looked at me, one foot in the hole and one foot out of it. "I know the polite thing to do is say 'ladies first', but…"

"No, no," I said hastily. "After you."

"That's what I thought," he nodded and swung his other leg down on to the ladder. I watched him disappear. His head had only been out of sight for a few seconds before he called up, "Okay you can come down now, love, it's not too far!"

I stepped in, still holding on to the wooden slat and lowering it down after me. When it shut above my head I felt a little sealed in. I tried not to panic about it. In the dark I reached out a hand to locate Jack, only to find that he was reaching for me too. Our hands met mid-air, fingers clumsily bashing in to one another. I waited for him to drop his hand, but instead he took mine in his and held on to it tightly. I gripped his and hoped I wasn't gripping too tight. There was only one thing that caused me slight discomfort and it took me a moment to realise what it was. As he lead down a dark tunnel by the hand I realised that it didn't feel odd for him to be doing so. His hand felt warm and familiar. Holding his hand was no different to holding James's and that unnerved me. Perhaps the pressure of situation I was in meant that I was just happy to have any hand to hold… but it felt like more than that. His was a hand I recognised. I felt goosebumps ripple up my arm from my fingertips.

We made our way down a corridor slowly. It was one that seemed to stretch on for miles, but there was absolutely no way of knowing. After a while I wanted to turn back, but stopped myself from even suggesting it. The darkness made it impossible to see how far we had left to go, but imagine if we gave up only a few inches from the end and never knew? I tried not to worry about the way we had left the entrance to this tunnel exposed so that anyone who came in to the blacksmith would see the carpet pulled back and know that someone was down here.

Eventually Jack stopped. I waited behind him, listening to him fumbling in the dark. "There's another ladder here," he whispered. We hesitated. I dropped his hand.

"Are you going to go up?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. He continued to hesitate for a moment and then I heard him start to move. After a few seconds there was a creak and some light shone down on us. I watched his shadow grow as he climbed up. I didn't wait for him to be completely out of the other side before I started to follow him. He put a hand out to help me up the last few steps. Looking at me sombrely he said, "Love, you might not want to see this."

My heartbeat quickened. I hardly dared to look away from his face. "See what?" I whispered. Jack nodded to the corner of the dimly lit room we had arrived in. A dark shape lay in the corner. It looked like a body. I approached it slowly, as if it might just be sleeping. Jack lowered the trapdoor and then crossed over to join my slow progression. There were little, dark glass jars arranged around the body as if they were guarding it. It was definitely male. His face was pale, twisted unnaturally away from his torso. His limbs were stretched out across the floor and as we got closer I could see deep, gaping wounds on every single one of them. There was no blood on the floor. All of his blood had been collected in the jars surrounding him. My hand flew to my mouth to stop myself from screaming or vomiting or both.

"Is it him?" Jack asked quietly. I could only nod.

Governor Swann was right- William Turner was dead. But he hadn't drowned on the crossing from England.