Jack's hand found mine. Or maybe mine found his. Or maybe they found each other. I couldn't remember and it didn't really matter, I was just grateful to have something to hold on to. The world outside of the room we were in drained away and paled to nothing. Even the room we were standing in dimmed around Will's body. The silence was heavy. I could feel it pressing on my ribs and crushing my lungs, making it exceptionally difficult to breathe in the weighty, stagnant air. I wanted to look away from the corpse, but something kept drawing my eye back to it. His face was exactly as it had been in my dreams, but real this was real. And he was real. And he was dead. I felt a crushing sadness and disappointment- not just that he was dead, but a feeling that I had let him down. I had been too late. If we had found this sooner… maybe we could have saved him.

"He looks just like his father," Jack said sombrely.

"He… he was real," I whispered. Jack turned his face to look at me and I thought I felt him give my hand a comforting squeeze. "Why does nobody remember him?"

My question hung in the air above the lifeless corpse of a semi-forgotten friend.

"I don't think we should stay here, love," Jack said after a moment. He shifted uncomfortably, sounding uneasy. I managed to look at him. I was so glad that he was here, but he must have felt so out of his depth now. He must have regretted letting a complete stranger drag him in to this mess. I didn't know what to say to him, I didn't know how to begin apologising to him for this. I just stared at him, wondering why on earth he was still standing by my side. Before I could find the words to adequately apologise he spoke again. "Where do you reckon we are?"

It was impossible to tell where we had gone. That long and dark tunnel had been incredibly disorientating. "I have no idea." I shrugged, feeling helpless and lost in more ways than one. "We could be anywhere in Port Royal."

The thought was unsettling. I had assumed that I knew this town- and its people- so well. He glanced over my shoulder and let go of my hand. It took a little while for the world around me to come back into focus enough for me to realise that he had spotted a door. "We should go," he said quietly. "I don't think this is somewhere we want to be caught." I knew that he was concerned about someone coming in that door, but I was immediately afraid of leaving. Since I had seen Will's grotesque corpse I had wanted to run away from it, but there was also a part of me that didn't want to leave him. It felt wrong for him to lie here alone. I glanced back down at that dark trapdoor. It was such a long way back to the Blacksmith's and who knows if someone had discovered the disturbed entrance to that tunnel by now? With the rug out of place it would be obvious that someone had come down here. Would they follow? Or just wait for us to re-emerge?

"Go if you want to," I told him and turned my attention back to the door. "But I need to know who did this and why it is being kept from me."

I started towards the door. He caught my arm. My skin prickled and every hair on my arm stood to attention. I looked up at his wide, intense eyes. I braced myself for a fight. "Are you sure you want to be confronting the kind of people who have done something like this, love?"

I studied him for a moment. Why do you look so familiar? I searched his eyes for any sign that he recognised me in the same way, but found none. "I don't need to confront them just yet," I told him. "I just need to know who they are."

He nodded and let go of my arm, stepping past me to make the first move towards the door. There was a latch to unlock it from the inside and thankfully it didn't take much force for the door to swing open. Jack opened it slowly, quietly, as if expecting an ambush at any moment. Realising that everything appeared safe, he stepped through and I followed. The room beyond was small and dark. Through gaps in the curtains on either side I could see the dark streets of Port Royal. They looked like streets I knew well. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom black shapes in the room came in to focus- a large desk, a handful of chairs, a bookcase, maps and portraits hanging on the walls. This horror and butchery was being hidden by the mundane. What kind of monster could live among us and do this kind of thing? Did anyone else know? Why had everyone kept this from me? What were they protecting- me or themselves? They could not really have forgotten William Turner… Unless there was something much darker at play. I shivered, although the room was not cold.

I made eye contact with one of the portraits directly in front of me and gasped. Things began to click in to place and I knew exactly why the streets outside looked so familiar. Jack glanced at me. "You know this place." It wasn't a question.

"This is the Navy base," I said and my stomach turned over at how close to my own house this horror was. The portrait opposite me looked stern, there was a plaque underneath that I couldn't read in the gloom but I knew what it would say- Lawrence Norrington. My father. I couldn't look at it anymore, so I looked at Jack. His eyes were wide, scanning the immediate area around us- for danger? For an escape? I felt sick and wanted to run. My blood ran cold. "Did my brother do this?"

His lack of any sign of shock or surprise at this idea served as a jarring reminder that he was a pirate and he probably thought my brother capable of all kinds of cruelties that I could not. What would my father say if he could really see me now? What would he think about his little girl braking in to a Navy base with a known pirate and criminal? I watched Jack study the horror on my face. "It is possible," he said eventually and I knew he was trying to treat this delicately. "Do you think he would?"

My gut reaction was to say no, but I held back and tried to think like my brother would. "If he knew there was a curse," I reasoned aloud. "And if he knew that Will's blood was needed to lift it…"

I stopped myself from finishing the sentence. I couldn't. Jack nodded slowly. "They needn't have spilt it all," he said. "A drop would have done the trick."

Poor Will.

"What do I do?" I whispered frantically, throwing the question not just at Jack and myself but anyone in the entire universe who might be able to help. "What do I do?"

"Tell nobody," was Jack's reply. It made sense but somehow it felt like exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear. "Whether or not it is your brother who did this, or something that has gone on behind his back, it must be someone close to you. Keep yourself safe and tell nobody. Not until you know more about what is going on."

"You're right." I nodded. I was frustrated that I had found what I had been looking for but come away with more questions than answers.

"We should go back now," he said, although he didn't sound certain. "Are we close to your house?"

"Yes," I nodded and he immediately crossed over to one of the windows to open it from the inside. He took a quick but careful peak into the street outside. "You should go now. Before someone realizes that you've gone."

I didn't want to. But it made sense. I crossed over to him and sat on the windowsill. "What about you?" I asked him. "Where will you go?"

He gestured back to the door we had just emerged from. "I'll go back to the blacksmith's and cover our tracks. Whoever killed William Turner does not need to be alerted to the fact that someone is on to him."

"Okay," I said and swung my legs out in to the night. I paused.

"Will you be alright?" we asked each other in unison. He seemed as surprised as I did. There was a moment where neither of us answered, waiting for the other to speak first.

"Yes," I said eventually. "I doubt anyone will have noticed that I'm gone just yet. But what about you? Where will you sleep?"

"I'll be alright, love," he smiled. "It's not my first night without a bed to call my own."

I found myself wishing that I could offer him a place to stay for the night. But the house of a Commodore was probably even less safe for him than the streets of Port Royal. It occurred to me that I couldn't even be sure that I would be safe in that house. Perhaps we would both be better off on the streets. I did my best to smile back at him. "Thank you, Captain Sparrow."

He took hold of my hand and bent to kiss it, as if he were a gentleman and we had just danced at one of my brother's formal balls, rather than a pirate standing in the office of someone who would shoot him on sight. "Take care of yourself, Miss Norrington," he said as he straightened up and it sounded as if he genuinely meant it. I cleared my throat.

"You too," I told him and then I dropped down on to the street below. I heard him shut the window behind me and lock it again. I fought the urge to look back at him as I started to make the short journey home. I suddenly felt very lonely. He was the only person who knew the terrible secret that I had just uncovered and now he was gone. I wanted to run back and bang on the window until he let me back in, terrified it would transpire that the only person I could trust was a pirate who would probably have fled this town by morning. Would he get back okay? Would something horrible be waiting for him at the end of the treacherous journey back to Mr Brown's Blacksmiths? I was so concerned about him that it wasn't until I was prizing open the back gate of my own house that I wondered if I should be concerned that I had just left a pirate inside the headquarters of the Port Royal Navy base. Perhaps it hadn't been wise of me to just trust him to keep to his word of leaving as he said he would.

I looked up at my house and started to feel sick again. Would I have been better off not knowing this? Should I stop digging for information now before I got myself into any more trouble? Could it be possible that my own brother was behind this... and if he was, what lengths would he go to in order to protect this horrible secret? I didn't want to step inside. I hovered for a moment before a shout in the darkness made me leap towards the safety of the back entrance. Someone called my brother's name.

"George?" I heard my brother call back. "What the devil are you doing out here at this time of night?"

I started to slowly turn the handle. I knew that the door would creak horribly if I tried to open it too fast. The fear of getting caught made my hands shake and I had to fight to stay in control. "I've just come to check on Isabelle," I heard him reply. "I've brought her something. It's a herbal remedy my mother uses to calm her nerves."

The door was now open wide enough for me to slip in sideways.

"Oh, George, how kind of you," James replied. "I've been told that she has retired for the night, but please, do come in."

I got the back door shut behind me and had time to lock it before I started panicking about how on Earth I was going to make it back to my bedroom from here when George and my brother would be standing in the entrance hall. I crept towards it, listening intently for the sound of their voices. Even running up the way the servants used would mean risking them seeing me. I would have to make something up, some excuse as to why I was out of bed and fully clothed despite having "gone to bed" hours ago. My brain was exhausted from everything I had seen today. I wasn't sure how able I would be to think on my feet. The quiet rumble of their voices grew louder as I drew nearer.

"Rebecca!" I heard James exclaim just as I was about to sneak a look around the corner to where they were standing. "What are you doing out of bed, little one?"

I heard her start to speak and chanced my luck at glancing round to where they stood. Both James and George had their backs to me, focusing on where little Rebecca stood in front of them. If she saw me, she gave no flicker of recognition. I slipped past them all and ran up the servant's stairs, along the dark corridors and in to my room. I shut the door as swiftly as possible, wincing at the slight bang it made. I threw on the first nightgown I could find and hurriedly threw today's clothes under my bed in case anyone came in. I had just flung myself in to bed when there was a soft knock on my door. James called quietly for me. I decided to ignore him, hoping that if he thought I was asleep he would leave me alone. He did not.

I rose to answer the door and did my best to look tired, although I was still horribly out of breath from all the running and panicking I had just been doing. "James?" I said, yawning as I opened the door. I feigned surprise at seeing George standing by his side. "George?! Is everything alright?"

"Yes, Izzy. It's you we're worried about," George said kindly.

My brother frowned at me. I tried to look as innocent as possible. He raised a hand to my forehead. "You're very flushed, are you still feeling ill?"

"A little," I played along so he didn't expect that I was flushed because I had just run through our entre house at top speed. "But I'm sure I'll feel much better once I've had a good night's sleep."

"I've brought you something that might help," George held out a small wooden box. "Just mix it through hot water like tea. It's a herbal thing. My mother says it does wonders for her."

I was touched and momentarily felt bad that I was lying to both of them. "Thank you," I took it from him. "I'll have some tomorrow."

"Might be good to have some tonight, Izzy," James suggested. "It'll help you sleep. I've asked Ellie to bring you up some hot water."

"Thank you," I nodded. "And thank your mother for me, George."

"I will," he smiled. "I'll call back tomorrow to see if it's helped you."

I heard the rattle of china on china at the end of the corridor as Ellie emerged with my cup of hot water. I smiled at them both. "Goodnight."

They bid me goodnight and walked away as Ellie approached. She handed me the hot water. A teaspoon balanced on the saucer beneath it. "Do you need me to help with that, Miss?"

"No thank you," I replied. "I can manage. Get some sleep now, Ellie."

She smiled gratefully and scuttled away back down the corridor. Letting my door shut behind me, I set the hot water and the box from George down on my dressing table. I opened up the box. After the events of today I was actually very glad to have something warm and comforting to look forward to and help me sleep. I would need my strength and energy to solve whatever was going on in this place.

Did James know what had happened to Will? Did Governor Swann? Was it someone else within the ranks of the Navy?

I took the spoon and heaped some of the box's powdery, shimmering contents in to my cup. I watched it turn the water slightly pink in colour. It smelled sweet, I was glad.

Elizabeth. Was Elizabeth in on it? Was George? It seemed as if I was the only one who remembered him. The whole town couldn't possibly be privy to the murder of Will or there would be no need to keep it a secret. So, how was it that everyone had forgotten him so easily? Were they lying? Or had something happened to the collective memory of the town? Had the same thing happened to mine? All of my memories of Will were in dreams. They were faint and hard to get hold off- as if he too had been a dream. Why had someone tried not just to wipe out his life, but to wipe out any trace of his entire existence? And more importantly… how had they done it?

I sat down on the edge of my bed and waited for George's herbal tea to finish brewing.