She passed him by clearing her throat, and it was enough to make him close his hand and look up, obviously caught.
"James …"
"Yeah?" Like a little fox perking up its ears he patiently waited for her to continue. So she did.
"What are you doing? Again?"
"I … don't know?"
She paused right in front of him while he gave her his most innocent smile – and it inevitably reminded her of someone …
Sighing, she put down her basket, bent to him and made sure no one else in old Aunt Hazel's shop noticed – or even heard – either of them.
"Put it back."
She could literally see the gears rattling in his wayward little head.
"Put what back?" he then saintly asked. He could stall like no other, but Tara wasn't even playing along.
"You know what." Again she lowered her voice. "What did we talk about, little sparrow?"
"Did we discuss anything?"
"Oh," she softly moaned, "stop asking all the counter questions, will you?"
"He who asks, leads," he retorted. "Teague says that a lot …"
"Teague always says a lot." She could no longer stifle a crooked smile. "And he likes to distract from the subject just as much as you do, doesn't he?"
"What subject?"
"James," she firmly repeated, "Exodus, 20th chapter, 15th verse."
He was well aware of what she was getting at, yet he kept acting coy.
"What does it say?" she urged. "You know it. Tell me."
Barely audible, he mumbled, "Thou shalt not steal …"
Tara nodded. "Exactly. That's what my Papá taught me, and I'll certainly teach it to you. So put the pearls back – you shall not steal!"
"But I'm not actually stealing them," he informed her, probably even believing it himself. Noticing her tired look, he eyed the pearl necklace in his hand thoughtfully, then he whispered with conviction, "I'm just borrowing them – I'll return them soon."
Her eyes narrowed. "You put them back right now, you little magpie!"
"Magpie?" His giggles made her heart glow, yet he immediately complained, "A moment ago you were still calling me a sparrow!"
"Well, but as you keep stealing everything that sparkles from Hazel," she whispered, "you're apparently not a sparrow but a thieving magpie. You're not a little child anymore, are you?"
"No," he hastily agreed. "I'm already six!"
"Yes, and by then you actually know that you don't take what belongs to others."
In quite a bit of frustration, he pressed his fingers against the pearls in his palm, then he nodded with a heavy heart and held out the necklace to her.
"Oh, no," she chuckled, "I have nothing to do with this, Jay, you'll need to smuggle it back to where it came from yourself."
He gulped, furtively glancing around to Aunt Hazel at these words.
The woman everyone in the Cove had only known as Grandmama – Teague and Hazel's mother – lived on in Hazel, as rumour had it.
Evil never sleeps, as they said, but Grandmama was nevertheless grudgingly forced to retire one day …
She had already been eighty-two years old when her grandson Jack – far from being a captain of a ship, but probably already as pretentious as ever – left the family in the dead of night.
Many people agreed that Grandmama had a cruel nature, even Teague, but according to him, every hot glow on skin and every slap in the face was simply a well-intentioned expression of exuberant love.
And she had loved her grandson Jack more than anything …
He broke her heart when he left Shipwreck Cove without a Goodbye, and afterwards the grim reaper didn't take too long. But even Teague had always admitted, though in a relativising way, that the old lady with her treacherous affinity for blunt blades had almost killed her grandson on more than one occasion …
What was the truth and what but a myth, no one exactly knew – it seemed to be a family tradition to embellish factual reports as flowery as necessary, as vague as possible.
Aunt Hazel, however, with her always scowling look and stern hand on the trigger, seemed to be at least one last walking indication of certain truthfulness regarding the character flaws of her mother, the former matriarch.
And so Hazel was only too happy to scare the hell out of James – in stark contrast to Tara and her daughter. The girls she adored – only any representative of the opposite sex was generally a thorn in Hazel's side. Good-for-nothing and lying, she used to say about men …
"I borrowed it from her counter," James confessed to his mother, appropriately meek. "She was by the back door earlier and didn't see me, but now –"
"But now she could." Tara nodded. "I know, sweetie. But you're clever. You'll think of something."
"Mamá, can't you give it back to –"
"No, but mucha suerte – good luck!" she interrupted him before he put his hands on his hips in whiny annoyance.
"Exodus," he whispered, "20th chapter, 16th verse, what about that?"
His skeptical eyes never left her face as she murmured, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. What are you getting at?"
"You lie to Tia and me all the time!" He nodded, visibly offended. "Why are you allowed to bear false witness when I'm not allowed to steal anything?"
"Oh, I thought you were just borrowing the necklace …"
He shrugged indecisively, then he pressed his lips together. It didn't seem as though he wanted to comment on that any further, rather he kept over-dramatically waiting for an answer.
"Jay," Tara finally moaned, "listen, I'm not lying to you, I –"
"Then what kind of journey is he on exactly?"
"On what kind of … what?" She shook her head. "Your Papá?"
He promptly nodded, his black eyes holding a glint of treacherous hope.
Tara truly couldn't blame him for asking. Of course he wanted to know more about his father … Even when she silently cursed Sparrow for having to respond ever so euphemistically for him.
"James, you keep asking, but you see – if I knew, I'd tell you. All I can say is that he's always traveling. All over the world. You know?"
He frowned. "No."
Sure, he couldn't make much of it, he was becoming too intelligent to be satisfied with such little bits and pieces. The questions about their father got more demanding by each passing year, but what could Tara say?
"He might be on the other end of the world right now." She tried to stay as truthful as reality allowed, taking James by the shoulders to give him a warm smile. "But no matter where he is – we still have each other … And Teague. And Jean and Kate. Yes?"
"I want to meet him."
His sad little face got to her every time. He was missing what he didn't have.
Yet he and his sister were all she had.
"You're my heart, you know that," she whispered, tapping James on the tip of his nose as he nodded. "But your father's likely very far away."
"Why don't we just talk to Mistress Ching, she could ask around and –"
"Do not ever ask Mistress Ching for a favour, James."
His mouth snapped shut, but not for long. "Why not?"
"She never does anything for free," Tara said under her breath as though she were telling him a ghost story. "And anyone who doesn't do something for her in return has to suffer cruel consequences."
"But you keep an eye on her Cove collection funds, surely you do enough for her already!"
"That's what she pays me for, but favours are not included. And now you'd better make sure you put your stolen goods back unseen because Aunt Hazel's revenge might be cruel, too, otherwise. Savvy?"
"Savvy," he sighed in response, though reluctantly.
"That's a good boy," she said, giving his dark hair a twirl before moving on with her basket to get the groceries.
The lesson of not borrowing was simply one he wasn't quite learning, no matter how hard Tara tried. She could hardly bring James to value the principle of the eighth commandment.
And she, on the contrary, hardly wanted to understand that the children still missed their father, despite her doing everything she could to avoid just that.
She tried to push this sentimentality out of her thoughts while already rummaging through Hazel's various fruit boxes.
And yet again it went through her head that James was too happy to take what he could and, if possible, gave nothing back.
Something he didn't get from her …
"Mangy dog out there," someone grumbled, suddenly pressing up against the fruit stand next to Tara. The faded clothes were commonplace with Brannigan, as were the dirty hands, yet he'd might as well have washed them given his obvious intentions to dig through the entire mango box. He probably even shooed away the occasional tarantula squeezed between the fruits … "Of course you brought that mongrel with you again," he babbled. Tara knew he was talking to her, yet he hadn't even looked her in the face. "That pup has to be chained up. Probably need to say that a hundred more times …"
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Tara all but replied, explicitly choosing the very fruit he hadn't yet examined. "Has anyone ever told you, Ace?" She gave him a cheerful smile, but still he was preoccupied with the box. "Nobody starts casual conversation just like you."
"At least I talk to you," he murmured into the fruit, "which is more than can be said for the father of your children."
Ace Brannigan was an old, grumpy man – and he, like so many other old, grumpy people in the Cove, belonged to the distant family.
"You're ever so charming again. And quick-witted!" Nodding, she poked him in the side. "Thank you for consistently rubbing this fact in my face."
"It's true, isn't it?"
"Well, maybe I'm not talking to him," Tara retorted, almost amused when out of sheer surprise he glanced at her for the first time. "Yeah, maybe I'm just living here where all his horrible relatives, including, but not limited to you, are, because he will forever avoid you."
"Here you'll be waiting in vain, that's for sure. He was fifteen last time I saw him and he's owed me money ever since …"
"That's exactly what I mean." She pushed him aside to reach the dried spices. "Shipwreck Cove's the very last spot on earth he'd ever show up. Thanks to you, Brannigan. And certainly thanks to your incomparable charm …"
"Ace, hello!" Tia hurried towards him, closely followed by the afore mentioned mongrel pup that was, according to his words at least, bothering him beyond measure. "Is the organ meat outside yours?" Tia asked. "Really for Poochie?"
Tara gave Brannigan as winning a smirk as her daughter. "So you do like him after all, you old scallywag …"
"Oh," he sighed with an effortless ill-temper, "was just left over and almost rotting anyway."
"Yes, sure." Tara winked at her daughter. "Of course it was."
They were onto Brannigan. Not liking Poochie, however, was hard to accomplish. Port Royal's former prison dog who'd somehow managed to find his way to Teague to guard the keys of the Code was dear to many people.
Sea turtles, Teague once told Tia and James. Poochie had arrived to him on the back of sea turtles …
"Where's your brother, eh?" Brannigan asked, glancing around as bored as ever when he finally rubbed the chosen mango on his dirty chemise as if it would make things any better.
"Valid question," Tara had to agree with him though and also let her gaze wander around the old shop eventually.
Like so many premises in the Cove, it'd been made from the remains of a ship that one day met a grim fate on the cliffs of the Devil's Throat. Dark wood to all sides, but whenever one would peek through the hatches, the uniquely blue Caribbean waters that hugged the Cove were to be seen.
"Lost," Brannigan mumbled, "the boy's lost, Tara."
She concentrated again. James wasn't near the counter, there was Hazel, after all. Nor could he be found behind the shelves of card games like earlier – but where was he ….
"You're not looking after the dog nor your son," Brannigan babbled and took a quick bite of the unpeeled mango, to the amazement of both mother and daughter. "Tia's too smart to get into trouble –"
"Thank you, Ace," she said, watching him eat in irritation.
"But your son, the little lunatic," he continued unperturbed, making another bite, "he takes after his father, that one was also constantly –"
"What was he?"
Cheeky couldn't even begin to describe James as he startled old Brannigan by his sudden presence. With a big grin on his face, he now stood by his sister's side and pointed at the mango. "Do you always eat the skin, Ace?"
"I'm paying for it, ain't I?"
"You didn't pay for anything!" they now heard Aunt Hazel croak – right before she let her flintlock pistol click. "But you will make up for that right now, won't you?"
"Yes … Yes, yes!" Brannigan rolled his eyes before taking another bite to then leisurely make his way towards the counter. "It's all right, you can save yourself the bullet …"
"So, are you a sparrow again, or still a magpie?" Tara quietly asked, lifting James' head to regard him intently.
"You mean whether I put the pearls back?" When Tara nodded, he shrugged confidently. "Kind of?"
"What does ‚kind of' mean?"
Tia didn't understand a word. "What do you two mean by sparrows and magpies?"
"For Heaven's sake!" Hazel's shouting made them all look up. "Ace, stop the dog!"
"What's that mutt got in his teeth?"
Tara immediately gave James a reproachful look. "You haven't –"
"You weren't going to help me," he was quick to claim, as quiet as could be and ever so careful not to be in Hazel's sight. "So I asked Poochie to bring the necklace back."
They all heard the dog growl loud and clear.
"Ace," Hazel screeched, her patience hanging on by a thread, "take my pearls from that lousy beast! Or I'll shoot you both!"
"As if it were that easy!" Brannigan protested. "I'll end up getting bitten by that flea attacked dog!"
"You've already got fleas yourself, get on with it!"
Tara just groaned as Tia and James had long since put their heads together to laugh.
"Are you happy now?" she asked the twins. "Wreaked enough havoc?"
"I'd take the pearls from Poochie," Tia said, beaming at her brother, "but if Ace tries to do so a bit longer, it's much more fun."
"Now he's dropped the mango in his anger –"
"That's not funny," Tara hissed, and immediately afterwards she had to laugh along herself at the sight of the distraught Ace and panicking Hazel. "All right, maybe we'll watch it just for a tiny bit longer …"
"And can we walk home along the cliffs later?" Tia eventually whispered, and her expression was all too expectant. What she was about was as sad as it was pointless.
"Sweetie, you know," Tara began, gently moving her daughter's long hair over her shoulders, "you won't see any black sails on the horizon there. Not today, not tomorrow. Just like you didn't yesterday, or last month, or –"
"Always?" James grumbled, staring at the ground with his arms crossed over his chest. "Tia, you should know …" He looked up to his mother while adding, "He's always traveling, all over the world."
"But every journey comes to an end at some point," Tia said. "Everyone arrives some day!"
"But Mamá doesn't even want him to arrive," James whispered. It wasn't an accusation, just raw disappointment as he kept his eyes on Tara and continued, "Earlier she told Ace that Papá will always avoid the Cove anyway."
Tara wanted to slap herself – of course his little ears would hear everything that was inconvenient.
"James, that …" She blew out her cheeks in frustration. "I was just teasing Ace, I didn't mean it."
He shook his head, unusually serious. "I don't believe you. You said you never lie …"
Thanks a lot for reading and your kind comments, I hope you enjoy the story :)