A Norribeth Ghost Story for Halloween
Title: Norribeth Ghost Story
Paring: James/Elizabeth
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Disney, etc.
“You understand, I never wanted you here, correct?”
Good, straight talk, I like to know where I’m standing.
If there was anywhere else to be standing, I would be there.
It was the most wonderful 24 hours of my life. When Will had returned to us, when he met his son, when we were finally together as a family. It was bliss, and then I sent him off again for another decade. After he left, the pain was so terrible, I doubled over, unable to breathe, watching his ship drift out beyond the horizon.
Back in our cabin by the sea, there was nothing to do but clean up the dinner dishes. I couldn’t reveal to my child just how close I was to dying of a broken heart. “William...” I cleared my throat. “William, honey, will you take the dishes to the sink?”
“Sure, momma”, he said, looking at me strangely. It was fear in his eyes, burning fear that his mother might simply lose her mind. “Momma?”
“I’m fine, William…” I started, but he was holding out his hand to me. “I found this.”
A letter. “Elizabeth” written quickly in Will’s handwriting. I told William to start washing and ran outside. Whatever the news, I wanted to be alone to hear it. Would he be returning? Did he find a way to get out of his duty?
I ripped it open.
My dear Elizabeth,
I can only imagine how hard this has been on you. Being unable to see each other for 10 years at a time and then only having one precious day together. Meeting our ten year old son shook me to my core. I missed his first steps, his first words. And when I return again, he will be a man of 20. Every day, I think of you, everyday it gets harder, and nothing was harder than our one day together, as I counted down the moments until I had to leave you again. This cannot continue for either of our sakes, but particularly for our son’s sake. If you were a widow, you could move on, find another man, and love again, you would no longer be waiting for me, and our child would no longer be waiting for me. When I ferry the next group of those who died at sea to the underworld, I’m staying with them. I cannot bear the pain anymore. It will be a relief to be dead. I couldn’t tell you this. I knew you would try to stop me. But it’s best for everyone. You’re free, my darling.
I’ll always be with you,
Will
First was terror, then rage. He would always be with us? He had made certain he will never be with us again. I screamed and ran to the beach. But however hard I swam, I would never catch his ship. Never beg him not to go. Never convince him otherwise. Will Turner was surely and firmly beyond my reach. I had dedicated my love and my life to this man, living this unspeakable existence simply for the chance to be with him once per decade. He had married me knowing the stakes. And now he had left me and our son behind. I didn’t have the option to simply die because life was hard. He’d left me holding the bag once again.
And the little bit of gold he’d left us was running out. I tried. God knows I tried. I worked as a seamstress, a maid, a cook….but I had never done any of those things for myself much less for anyone else. Were it not for our situation, a dress with a neckline that accidentally went down to the waist would have been hilarious. But as it was, I was fired from one job after the next. The women in the village helped. But finally it was obvious we simply weren’t going to make it. I worked my hands to bleeding and tried to hide from William that I cried myself to sleep every night. We weren’t going to make it. And that’s how I returned to Port Royal.
I didn’t know what to expect. After cleaning my best gown as well as I could, I walked to the Governor’s Mansion with William. Yes, I showed up at the current governor’s door unexpected. And certainly unwanted.
He was kind of to us. He gave us tea. I knew my father’s will would have been read directly after his death, but I was positive he would have left his fortune to me, his only heir. It was with “great regret” that the Governor informed me that when no heir returned to collect my inheritance, my father’s sizable fortune had somehow ended up in the treasury and how “sorry” he was and that perhaps I should have “returned sooner.”
We sat in the receiving room. I sat on that pink needlepoint chair I used to hate. But it was my chair. This was my home. As I looked around, everything was so familiar, it was as though I never left. Except the house “felt” different, as if it couldn’t remember who I was. It felt cold, as if its allegiance had changed to someone else.
“I’m so sorry again, Miss Swan. Mrs. Turner. Terribly sorry. Of course I wish there was something I could do.” He kept looking at the front door. No, this was my chair and I wasn’t getting out of it. “I’m sure you understand”, he added. Again. “But I really must return to business. If it’s a matter of needing a few pounds to take a coach home, I can…wait!”
I looked up at him suddenly. Please let there be something. “Follow me. Let’s go to my study. Please sit down. Hold on a moment now, Mrs. Turner. It was so many years ago of course. I had forgotten. So many deaths around the same time, but few were men of importance.” He dug through his desk. He seemed to be very excited at the prospect of finding something that would get me to leave.
My father’s office, his old desk, his old chair. All of it belonged to the title of Governor, not the man. I had never considered a moment when all of this would not be mine, and I would not find my father sitting right here.
“Aha! Yes, I knew it. I have…” He tapped his forehead.” “Quite a fine memory, Mrs. Turner. While I can do nothing for you in regards to your father’s fortune, I recalled that you were mentioned in another man’s will. Are you familiar with an “Admiral James Norrington”?”
It was like getting smacked in the face with a frigid breeze. Did I ever hear of James Norrington?
“Yes”, I said, “But he didn’t…he didn’t…leave me something?” I asked.
“No, no”, the man said and I swore I would hit him over the head. My child had nothing. This wasn’t a game.
He furiously went through the pages one by one. “Now, hold on a moment, here, now here it is…it is stipulated that if both he and your father passed, if his aunt was still living, she was to offer her home and comfort to you upon request. It’s right here, want to read it?”
I took it from him. “I remember it because it was so odd”, he said, “I’ve never seen that in a will before. Dying a bachelor, his worldly goods were left to His Majesty’s Royal Navy, but it seems he wanted to make sure you were taken care of. A fine man. So it would seem.”
I felt as though the wind had blown right through me. I gasped and held my chest. It felt as if I was slammed into the back of my chair.
“What did you say?” I asked, knowing my voice was shaking.
He was starting to believe I was truly crazy and was staring at the study’s door . “A fine man”, he repeated. “Now, if I may offer you a few pounds to take you and your son home.”
He nearly pulled me out of the chair and guided me down the hall and to the front door. Of my home. Mine. This didn’t help. There was no possible way I was going to show up on this “aunt’s” doorstep, my son and I like street urchins, even if I had the money for a crossing, and I did not. My son and I would only be thrown back into the street. London was not the place to be homeless.
I tried to hide it from William, but a tear slid down my cheek and I tried to get my breath back. This was my fault, my fault my son would become a child of the street.
“Oh for the love of God!” the Governor boomed, and reached into his pocket, “This will buy you both passage to London. My wife will kill me if she finds out. Now go, and please don’t return, Mrs. Turner.”
And that’s how I left Jamaica. I said good-bye to the precious sun as our ship crept into the North Atlantic.
Dismal. Cloudy, cold, and you could smell London for miles out to sea. After all these years in paradise, I couldn’t understand how people could actually live here.
I sent a letter to a “Mrs. Felicity Norrington” at 1508 in Greenwich that my son and I were coming to see her, per her nephew’s request in his will. I was sure she was just going loooove us barging in on her. I hoped she would take us in for at least a while. If not both of us, then at least William. This wasn’t his fault.
The driver of the coach delivered us to the front door of a mansion that put the Governor’s residence in Port Royal to shame. Except that it was left untended. Weeds grew where flowers should be and threatened to take over the entire yard. The walkway, the stairs, had not been swept. There were cobwebs on the railing. I reached up to an enormous knocker and knocked. Here I was, to beg mercy from James’s family. How did this happen?
“Momma, what if she doesn’t like us?” William whispered to me. I was a terrible parent. I had no reassuring words for him, I could not promise she would like us. I could not even promise she wouldn’t toss us to the dogs.
Thankfully the door opened. I didn’t know if she’d gotten the letter, or if she had, what she planned to do. She could not have so closely anticipated our arrival.
But it seemed she had. The door opened and it was not a servant on the other side, but apparently, Mrs. Felicity Norrington herself. She stood above us and we looked up at her nostrils as she spoke. Two impatient green eyes glared down at us as she swept thin blonde hair from her face.
“You understand, I never wanted you here, correct?”
“I’m sorry”, I said. I was crushed. I had hoped for something more. “We’ll go.”
“Stop”, she sighed. “I said I didn’t want you here. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to honor my late nephew’s wishes. We raised him. He was my son.”
Emotion showed in her eyes as she quickly tried to disguise a tear.
“Jonathan, get her things”, she instructed and an old man in house-servant dress appeared and nearly pushed us out of the way to get our bags. “Take the child upstairs to the small bedroom on the third floor, the one at the end of the hall, with the large fireplace.” She raised an all-too-familiar eyebrow. “It appears the child is freezing.”
William squeezed my hand and refused to let go. His eyes were wild with fear.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, go with him”, I said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll be up to see you soon.”
Reluctantly, he let go, and nearly tripped as he looked back at me with desperation.
“And take Mrs. Turner’s things to the Blue Bedroom”, she added, “Mrs., Turner, follow me, I wish to have a discussion with you.”
Paring: James/Elizabeth
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Disney, etc.
“You understand, I never wanted you here, correct?”
Good, straight talk, I like to know where I’m standing.
If there was anywhere else to be standing, I would be there.
It was the most wonderful 24 hours of my life. When Will had returned to us, when he met his son, when we were finally together as a family. It was bliss, and then I sent him off again for another decade. After he left, the pain was so terrible, I doubled over, unable to breathe, watching his ship drift out beyond the horizon.
Back in our cabin by the sea, there was nothing to do but clean up the dinner dishes. I couldn’t reveal to my child just how close I was to dying of a broken heart. “William...” I cleared my throat. “William, honey, will you take the dishes to the sink?”
“Sure, momma”, he said, looking at me strangely. It was fear in his eyes, burning fear that his mother might simply lose her mind. “Momma?”
“I’m fine, William…” I started, but he was holding out his hand to me. “I found this.”
A letter. “Elizabeth” written quickly in Will’s handwriting. I told William to start washing and ran outside. Whatever the news, I wanted to be alone to hear it. Would he be returning? Did he find a way to get out of his duty?
I ripped it open.
My dear Elizabeth,
I can only imagine how hard this has been on you. Being unable to see each other for 10 years at a time and then only having one precious day together. Meeting our ten year old son shook me to my core. I missed his first steps, his first words. And when I return again, he will be a man of 20. Every day, I think of you, everyday it gets harder, and nothing was harder than our one day together, as I counted down the moments until I had to leave you again. This cannot continue for either of our sakes, but particularly for our son’s sake. If you were a widow, you could move on, find another man, and love again, you would no longer be waiting for me, and our child would no longer be waiting for me. When I ferry the next group of those who died at sea to the underworld, I’m staying with them. I cannot bear the pain anymore. It will be a relief to be dead. I couldn’t tell you this. I knew you would try to stop me. But it’s best for everyone. You’re free, my darling.
I’ll always be with you,
Will
First was terror, then rage. He would always be with us? He had made certain he will never be with us again. I screamed and ran to the beach. But however hard I swam, I would never catch his ship. Never beg him not to go. Never convince him otherwise. Will Turner was surely and firmly beyond my reach. I had dedicated my love and my life to this man, living this unspeakable existence simply for the chance to be with him once per decade. He had married me knowing the stakes. And now he had left me and our son behind. I didn’t have the option to simply die because life was hard. He’d left me holding the bag once again.
And the little bit of gold he’d left us was running out. I tried. God knows I tried. I worked as a seamstress, a maid, a cook….but I had never done any of those things for myself much less for anyone else. Were it not for our situation, a dress with a neckline that accidentally went down to the waist would have been hilarious. But as it was, I was fired from one job after the next. The women in the village helped. But finally it was obvious we simply weren’t going to make it. I worked my hands to bleeding and tried to hide from William that I cried myself to sleep every night. We weren’t going to make it. And that’s how I returned to Port Royal.
I didn’t know what to expect. After cleaning my best gown as well as I could, I walked to the Governor’s Mansion with William. Yes, I showed up at the current governor’s door unexpected. And certainly unwanted.
He was kind of to us. He gave us tea. I knew my father’s will would have been read directly after his death, but I was positive he would have left his fortune to me, his only heir. It was with “great regret” that the Governor informed me that when no heir returned to collect my inheritance, my father’s sizable fortune had somehow ended up in the treasury and how “sorry” he was and that perhaps I should have “returned sooner.”
We sat in the receiving room. I sat on that pink needlepoint chair I used to hate. But it was my chair. This was my home. As I looked around, everything was so familiar, it was as though I never left. Except the house “felt” different, as if it couldn’t remember who I was. It felt cold, as if its allegiance had changed to someone else.
“I’m so sorry again, Miss Swan. Mrs. Turner. Terribly sorry. Of course I wish there was something I could do.” He kept looking at the front door. No, this was my chair and I wasn’t getting out of it. “I’m sure you understand”, he added. Again. “But I really must return to business. If it’s a matter of needing a few pounds to take a coach home, I can…wait!”
I looked up at him suddenly. Please let there be something. “Follow me. Let’s go to my study. Please sit down. Hold on a moment now, Mrs. Turner. It was so many years ago of course. I had forgotten. So many deaths around the same time, but few were men of importance.” He dug through his desk. He seemed to be very excited at the prospect of finding something that would get me to leave.
My father’s office, his old desk, his old chair. All of it belonged to the title of Governor, not the man. I had never considered a moment when all of this would not be mine, and I would not find my father sitting right here.
“Aha! Yes, I knew it. I have…” He tapped his forehead.” “Quite a fine memory, Mrs. Turner. While I can do nothing for you in regards to your father’s fortune, I recalled that you were mentioned in another man’s will. Are you familiar with an “Admiral James Norrington”?”
It was like getting smacked in the face with a frigid breeze. Did I ever hear of James Norrington?
“Yes”, I said, “But he didn’t…he didn’t…leave me something?” I asked.
“No, no”, the man said and I swore I would hit him over the head. My child had nothing. This wasn’t a game.
He furiously went through the pages one by one. “Now, hold on a moment, here, now here it is…it is stipulated that if both he and your father passed, if his aunt was still living, she was to offer her home and comfort to you upon request. It’s right here, want to read it?”
I took it from him. “I remember it because it was so odd”, he said, “I’ve never seen that in a will before. Dying a bachelor, his worldly goods were left to His Majesty’s Royal Navy, but it seems he wanted to make sure you were taken care of. A fine man. So it would seem.”
I felt as though the wind had blown right through me. I gasped and held my chest. It felt as if I was slammed into the back of my chair.
“What did you say?” I asked, knowing my voice was shaking.
He was starting to believe I was truly crazy and was staring at the study’s door . “A fine man”, he repeated. “Now, if I may offer you a few pounds to take you and your son home.”
He nearly pulled me out of the chair and guided me down the hall and to the front door. Of my home. Mine. This didn’t help. There was no possible way I was going to show up on this “aunt’s” doorstep, my son and I like street urchins, even if I had the money for a crossing, and I did not. My son and I would only be thrown back into the street. London was not the place to be homeless.
I tried to hide it from William, but a tear slid down my cheek and I tried to get my breath back. This was my fault, my fault my son would become a child of the street.
“Oh for the love of God!” the Governor boomed, and reached into his pocket, “This will buy you both passage to London. My wife will kill me if she finds out. Now go, and please don’t return, Mrs. Turner.”
And that’s how I left Jamaica. I said good-bye to the precious sun as our ship crept into the North Atlantic.
Dismal. Cloudy, cold, and you could smell London for miles out to sea. After all these years in paradise, I couldn’t understand how people could actually live here.
I sent a letter to a “Mrs. Felicity Norrington” at 1508 in Greenwich that my son and I were coming to see her, per her nephew’s request in his will. I was sure she was just going loooove us barging in on her. I hoped she would take us in for at least a while. If not both of us, then at least William. This wasn’t his fault.
The driver of the coach delivered us to the front door of a mansion that put the Governor’s residence in Port Royal to shame. Except that it was left untended. Weeds grew where flowers should be and threatened to take over the entire yard. The walkway, the stairs, had not been swept. There were cobwebs on the railing. I reached up to an enormous knocker and knocked. Here I was, to beg mercy from James’s family. How did this happen?
“Momma, what if she doesn’t like us?” William whispered to me. I was a terrible parent. I had no reassuring words for him, I could not promise she would like us. I could not even promise she wouldn’t toss us to the dogs.
Thankfully the door opened. I didn’t know if she’d gotten the letter, or if she had, what she planned to do. She could not have so closely anticipated our arrival.
But it seemed she had. The door opened and it was not a servant on the other side, but apparently, Mrs. Felicity Norrington herself. She stood above us and we looked up at her nostrils as she spoke. Two impatient green eyes glared down at us as she swept thin blonde hair from her face.
“You understand, I never wanted you here, correct?”
“I’m sorry”, I said. I was crushed. I had hoped for something more. “We’ll go.”
“Stop”, she sighed. “I said I didn’t want you here. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to honor my late nephew’s wishes. We raised him. He was my son.”
Emotion showed in her eyes as she quickly tried to disguise a tear.
“Jonathan, get her things”, she instructed and an old man in house-servant dress appeared and nearly pushed us out of the way to get our bags. “Take the child upstairs to the small bedroom on the third floor, the one at the end of the hall, with the large fireplace.” She raised an all-too-familiar eyebrow. “It appears the child is freezing.”
William squeezed my hand and refused to let go. His eyes were wild with fear.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, go with him”, I said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll be up to see you soon.”
Reluctantly, he let go, and nearly tripped as he looked back at me with desperation.
“And take Mrs. Turner’s things to the Blue Bedroom”, she added, “Mrs., Turner, follow me, I wish to have a discussion with you.”