Completed Fics | Random | Help | Search | Log In | |
    | |
| Pirates of the Caribbean | |
Driftwood by Hereswith [Reviews - 0] [236
hits]  |
|
by Hereswith
Chapter 2
It could not be Leah, caught in the midst of nightmare or memory. The cries did not come from the captain’s cabin, and it was plainly a man’s voice, even though terror had distorted it beyond recognition. Parrot took to the air in a single leap, flinging himself up into the rigging, and Elizabeth, who could not do the same, stood as if she had been frozen.
Then, all of a sudden, a figure burst from below deck, heading for the bow, and another was on his heels, the latter being Jamie, judging by the urgent, “Liam!”
Jarred out of her daze, Elizabeth broke into a run, breathless with apprehension, thinking that Liam was going to jump overboard. When she reached the bow, she found that he had not, but that did not make the situation any less serious, for he was at the railing, holding a pistol to his own temple, and he was weeping.
Several others of the crew had been alerted by the tumult and were arriving even as she did. Jack was among them and he swept briskly past, halting where Jamie had, a few paces away from the boy. “Liam,” he snapped. “What’s this foolery, eh?”
The boy’s lips moved soundlessly, then he croaked, as if he did not really believe it, “Capt’n?”
“Aye, ‘tis me,” said Jack, inching closer with great caution. “Now, lower that pistol and give it over, there’s a good lad.”
“No!” Liam swivelled the pistol so that the muzzle of it pointed at Jack, who stilled, immediately, holding his hands up, palms outward. “Ye can’t help me, Capt’n,” the boy went on, gulping a sob. “There’s none who can.”
“For the love o’ God, Liam,” Jaime interjected, visibly restraining himself from dashing forward. “Don’t do it.”
Liam cocked the pistol, mumbling something incoherent, and Elizabeth, powerless to act, clutched at the locket in frustration, her stomach plummeting.
Jack, however, the damned, daft pirate, scarcely seemed perturbed by the turn of events. “Put it down,” he said, evenly, as if his life was not at stake, or the boy’s. “Captain’s orders, Liam.”
But the boy did not listen, his eyes had glazed over and his expression dissolved, it went stark and ashen grey. He whimpered, backing up further, and the unkind moonlight revealed the damp spot that was spreading across the front of his breeches. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,“ he moaned, ragged and shorn of hope, “pray for us sinners.”
He lifted the pistol to his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Jaime yelled out a futile protest at the shattering shot, and as Liam crashed to the deck, the pistol falling from his grasp, a stunned murmur rumbled through the assembly of men. Elizabeth gasped, nausea and bitter bile rising in her throat, but she could not tear her gaze from the sight: that ruin of a head and the growing pool of blood.
“He was sleepin’, is all,” Jaime said, abruptly, his tone brittle and pained. “Then he up an’ screams like he’s bein’ murdered. Couldn’t get a clear word out o’ him, Capt’n, till ye came.”
“Steady, now.” Jack went to Jaime and gripped the younger man’s shoulder. “Breathe.”
“He wouldn’t kill himself,” Jaime persisted, wiping his face in the crook of his elbow. “He wouldn’t!” At the last, he twisted and blindly fled, thundering down the companionway steps.
“Gibbs,” Jack requested, grimly, and motioned for his First to follow Jaime, then looked at Elizabeth. “Lizzie. Go see to the girl, aye?”
She was fully aware why he told her to, and for once she did not protest such dismissal, she merely nodded, grateful to have been given a reason, though thinly veiled, to depart. She got as far as abreast the main mast before her body rebelled and she had to bend over the railing, heaving violently, the image of the boy branded on the inside of her eyelids.
After having recovered to some degree, she continued to the Great Cabin, where Leah was ensconced and slumbering, the shape of her a small mound beneath the blankets. Too tense to even make an attempt to go to bed, Elizabeth sat by the table. She laid the locket aside, wincing slightly at the marks from where the edges of it had dug into her skin. There was a bottle of rum nearby and she uncorked it, downing some of the liquor and welcoming the heat of it, if not entirely the taste.
She could not long stay idly seated, though. She struggled for calm, and failed, and finally went out on deck again, relishing the rush of wind that snatched at her hair and clothes. Jack, she noted, was making his way abaft, so apparently Liam’s remains—she swallowed—had been cared for.
She waited for him, and when he was nearer, she said his name, only that, and he drew her into his arms. It was enough.
*
They surrendered Liam to the sea, in the early quiet of dawn. The crew was uniformly bleak and subdued, both in demeanour and comportment, and Elizabeth did not doubt that proper rest, for most of them, had been as impossible to obtain as it had been for her, after she and Jack had parted, some hours ago.
Jaime, haggard and hollow-eyed, stared at the frothing waves as if they were transparent, or as if he wished them to be, and he remained by the railing, even after the Pearl had glided a considerable distance from the site.
“Ye’ve better things to do,” Gibbs barked, upon passing. “Get to work, lad.”
Jaime jerked like he had been slapped and slunk away, head hanging, and Elizabeth frowned. “Surely that was uncalled for, Mr. Gibbs?”
Gibbs snorted, derisively. “Ain’t yer business how I’m treatin’ the crew, Mrs. Turner.”
Before Elizabeth could respond, he had stalked off, muttering irritably. Though it was disconcerting, she supposed she ought not to let his brusque remarks sting her. The circumstances were such that they would make anyone out of sorts. She pushed it from her thoughts, with a sigh, and resolved to fetch some food for Leah.
*
When Elizabeth entered the cabin, carrying provisions: sea biscuits and fruit from an island foray a few days past, the girl was yet fast asleep, though the morning light had banished most of the shadows, except for those in the farthest corners.
Elizabeth set the edibles on the table and went over to the bed, carefully righting one of the blankets, which was in danger of sliding down on the sole. Leah had turned onto her back and her hair, without a single curl, was a deep, chestnut brown against the pillows. She seemed the veriest princess from a tale, lying there, serene, beautiful and bespelled.
Refraining from waking the girl, Elizabeth withdrew. She took a piece of fruit to munch on, and settled with a book from Jack’s diverse collection. It served as an effective distraction for a while, until the noise of a quarrel, of Parrot screeching, interrupted her reading. She quickly put the book down and hurried outside.
“Blasted bird!” Gibbs shouted, to the distraught Parrot, who circled above him, just out of reach. “I’ll wring yer bloody neck!”
“Mr. Gibbs!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “What on earth are you—“
Gibbs turned on her, with glittering menace, and she had to steel herself not to back away. He balled his right fist so that the veins stood out on the back of his hand, and a muscle ticked erratically in his cheek. “Shut that pretty little mouth of yers, missy, or I’ll shut it fer ye.”
She gaped at the threat, completely blank, but then fury welled up within her, mingled with alarm. “Have you gone mad?”
He would have hit her, she was certain of it, and that was the worst. He would have, had not Jack stepped neatly in between.
“’Tis her fault,” Gibbs scowled. “Shouldn’t’ve meddled.”
“That’s more than enough out of you, Mr. Gibbs,” Jack said, his voice very soft. He was angry, that was unmistakable: it burned dark in him. “You’ll apologise to the lady. Now.”
“Lady?” Gibbs spat on the deck with disgust. “Strumpet, more like. An’ I’ll say what I damn well want to, when I want to.”
“Not while I’m the captain, mate,” Jack replied. “Savvy?”
Gibbs gave a sly, unpleasant smirk. “Then maybe ye shouldn’t be.”
Elizabeth’s heart somersaulted, and Jack, Captain Jack Sparrow, once marooned by a mutinous crew and left to die, narrowed his eyes, all flourished gesture curbed and honed into something lethal.
It was as if the whole ship was suspended in dread anticipation, but Jack did not rage, or resort to weapon; he regarded Gibbs with unflinching acuity, as if taking his measure. “Burke,” he said, addressing one of the onlookers, a sailor with a mottled beard. “Would you be so kind as to escort Mr. Gibbs to the brig. His temper’s in sore need of cooling.”
“Aye, Capt’n,” blurted Burke, and seized Gibbs by the arm.
“Take yer hands off o’ me.” Gibbs rounded, snarling, and dealt him a heavy, crushing blow to the face. “Filthy sons of bitches, the lot of ye’s.”
It took three men, to bring him down. Three men to drag him away, kicking and thrashing and swearing. And Parrot, throughout, still circling, but further aloft and on a wider path, cawed, “Bad luck! Awk! Bad luck!”
*
“He couldn’t have meant it,” Elizabeth said, when Jack returned to her side, after Burke had been looked to, and after Jack had spoken to the crew. She was so shaken she was sick to the core. Joshamee Gibbs, though often gruff, was not a vicious brute. It was immutable truth, something to depend upon, or it should have been. “Any of it.”
“No. It’s as unlike the man as I’ve ever seen, in the years he’s been with me,” Jack answered. He had shrugged off part of his forbidding air, and a guarded weariness had replaced it. “The rub’s not what he said, or did, I reckon, but why. Parrot’s the right of it, perhaps. Devilish odd, what’s come about.”
The bird in question was perched in the shrouds, at the moment. He had landed there, refusing to descend to the level of the deck, but he was not hunched over, at least, he held himself straight. With Liam’s fate weighing on her Elizabeth had almost forgotten what had happened just prior to it, but as she regarded Parrot, it recurred to her mind with overwhelming force. “Jack?” she said. “Last night, before Liam began to scream, Parrot was behaving in a most peculiar manner.”
He glanced at her, puzzled. “How’s that?”
“As if he was unwell. Or scared. I would’ve gone to ask you, but—” She paused, and he raised a brow. “I felt it too, I think. What he did. Like a terrible foreboding.”
Jack did not make light of it. He grew more pensive, instead, tilting his head a little. “I didn’t know aught was amiss, till I heard the lad.”
“It’s absurd,” she admitted, “but it was as real as could be. I’ve not felt anything like it in the past.” Not even, she reflected, on the occasion she could have sworn she had sensed the presence of the Pearl, when Jack had been lost to them both.
“Not saying I distrust you, Lizzie,” he replied, and added, with a frown, counting them down, “Parrot, then. You. Liam. And Gibbs. That’s thrice too many coincidences for me comfort. All since we plucked that girl from out the water.” He turned determinedly towards the Great Cabin. “Might be time to press her on that matter, eh? Is she up?”
“She wasn’t when I was in earlier,” Elizabeth said, trying to keep up with his strides. “Don’t—Go gently, Jack.”
One side of his mouth quirked up, and it was not quite a smile, but close. “I always do, love.”
“No, you don’t,” she countered. “You—“
But she trailed off; she stopped dead in her tracks, for they were through the doors and inside the cabin. The bed was there, in front of her.
And it was empty.
Author's Note: