Norrington and Tia Dalma
Title: Truth and Voodoo
Author: tenacitydrader
Beta: linaerys
Characters: Norrington, Tia Dalma, Elizabeth, Tia Dalma’s OC relatives (minor)
Rating: mostly PG-13, one tiny little possibly R-rated part for minor Norribeth sex (although pr0n is not the point, at least not this time ; ) ), and drug references
Disclaimer: characters, setting, not mine but Disney/Bruckheimer
Word count: approx. 10,000
Setting: Between movies SPOILERS FOR DMC SPOILERS FOR DMC SPOILERS FOR DMC
Summary: Tia Dalma’s and Norrington’s paths cross and she shows him the truth in his past, present, and future
I should have died by the sword, Norrington thought as he lay sprawled on the unknown beach, too weak and battered to move. The sun beat down on his upturned face, now bristly with a couple of days of unshaven beard. His throat burned with thirst, and his innards cramped with the slightest movement. A raging fever roasted him from the inside just as the sun roasted him from the outside, and the fever ensured that he constantly alternated between sweating and shivering.
He had taken a nasty wound in his left arm during the storm, but he had no inclination to look upon it. Even though he had seen and endured wounds before, it was still not something he relished seeing when there was nothing he could do about it. All he knew was that it already hurt terribly and looking at it would make it hurt worse. Already, the blood from it had soaked through his jacket and stained the sand around it crimson. Now he made morbid wagers with himself over whether heat, starvation, dehydration, or infection would ultimately claim his life.
He drew a breath of searing air into his lungs and let it out in a sigh. Then he closed his eyes and listened to the sea lap gently at the shore, as he prayed for the end to come swiftly. Still, a thought nagged at him. Why didn’t he die in the storm? Why, of all the souls on the ship, had he been spared? He listened intently, as if the very ocean could give him an answer. Suddenly he heard a sound over the repetition of the waves. It was faint, but unmistakable: the steadier sound of a river.
****
On another part of the same island, drowsy green light filtered through hundred-year old cypress trees to land in bright patches on the murky brown water of the bayou. Tia Dalma sat on her rickety porch, rocking in a woven rocking chair. Curled in one hand was a long-stemmed opium pipe. She drew in a drag of smoke and watched the light play on the water. She knew that if she opened her mind just a tiny bit, she could see every scale on the fish that swam beneath the slow-moving waters.
Although she dealt in death and darker magic most of the time, she loved the abundant life and light of the island. Trillium grew in the muddy earth surrounding the bayou, as well as orchids and tiger lilies. Life here was aggressive and passionate, not unlike herself. She chuckled and inhaled more of the potent drug. Closing her bloodshot eyes, she let her mind wander farther down the river. As she probed out more and more, she sensed an increasing feeling of death. A good heart, but a broken one, was slowing down with each beat. A soul was relinquishing its tenuous grip on a battered body. Yet it was not a soul of any of her folk, but a stranger.
“Wheah ah you?” she asked, drawing each word out as smoke curled lazily from her mouth. Her awareness moved quickly through the bayou and out into the brackish delta, where the bayou met the ocean. Then her vision moved up the shore, towards the strongest point from which she sensed life ebbing with the restless tide. A figure lay supine on the beach, a sailor in ragged navy blue. His image was hazy to her and she realized that it was her very curiosity that was distracting her. She cleared her mind and opened her eyes once more. She was back on the veranda of her stilted house, rocking forward and back in her chair.
She stood as she realized she needed to move quickly. Although she was not beholden to the dying sailor on the beach (nor was she was beholden to any man), she saw no benefit in letting him die like a land-locked fish. She climbed down the ladder of her house and onto the spongy ground behind it. Muttering to herself, and with her mind still reeling from the narcotic, she sprung over the spongy moss in her bare feet with her skirt lifted.
Two of her nephews lived in the cabin closest to hers. They were twins, Abasi and Bakari. She knew they would be taking a nap in the heat of the day, before they would go to the ocean to fish. Well, she would wake them up. This was important. She climbed up their ladder and walked around the porch to the front of the house. Abasi was sitting and mending a net and Bakari was dozing in a chair next to him with his chin on his chest. Abasi looked up from his work with curiosity.
“I need you to do something for me,” Tia Dalma said in their mixed tongue. Their language was a stew of African dialects, French, and some indigenous languages. Abasi lazily reached out and nudged at Bakari until he woke.
They were both used to their strange and powerful aunt getting notions that seemed extreme, but they would do what she asked because besides being family, she was a renowned priestess and healer. She told them to bring her the navy sailor from the beach. The twins exchanged a glance. They had seen no one but other fishermen on the beach in the morning, during their first trip out, but ultimately believed her. Without a word, headed to their boat and pushed off into the waters of the bayou minutes later.
****
Down on the beach, Norrington drifted in and out of consciousness. Although he had lain on the beach for less than a day, it seemed like several days, weeks, or even months, almost as if the sun didn’t move. Now he heard faint voices that seemed to come from the sea. On top of everything else, now I’m delirious, he thought gloomily. But he couldn’t help but wonder if there were really people there or if it was his fevered imagination playing a cruel trick on him. A strange feeling that had left him weeks ago returned and kindled a tiny spark: hope. Perhaps he was not yet ready to die.
He turned his head toward the voices and opened his eyes. The sun made his vision blur and his eyes water, but he saw a small boat bearing two men. “Help,” he cried, but it came out in the barest of whispers. Sparks and stars danced in front of his eyes and everything within his view sank from gray to black.
When he came to again and opened his eyes, something was blocking the sun. It was a dark silhouette with a hat. “Come to finish the job then, Jack Sparrow?” Norrington asked the figure. The figure said something that Norrington didn’t understand, but the voice was not that of Sparrow, it was lower and in the language of an island native. Norrington looked up in the other direction at another silhouette. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Nevah mine dat, syailah,” said the low voice.
Then the man said something else to his companion that Norrington didn’t understand and the other man went to his feet and spread them apart slightly, then stood between them with his back to Norrington. The man at his head counted to three and they lifted him up and carried him back out toward the sea. Although they were careful, every movement sent an agonizing jolt of pain through Norrington’s left arm.
They laid him carefully down in the boat and got in themselves. Norrington closed his eyes once more and dozed off, rocked gently by the waves. He felt the pain receding as sleep took hold of him. When he awoke again, the sun was not so bright. The light was a gentle green, rather than a harsh yellow-white. He heard the sounds of insects and frogs and wondered where he was, but lacked the energy to sit up and look around.
He drifted in and out of sleep, not marking the passage of time. Sometimes when he woke up, he was in his hammock on the Interceptor, or the Dauntless, or countless other navy ships. Places that were, to him, safe.
****
When her nephews came back with the sailor, Tia Dalma had them put him in one of her back rooms. She thanked them, and they excused themselves to go back to the beach to fish. Then she went to the back room to see what the sea had given her. She dragged a three-legged wooden stool with her and placed it next to the bed, where she sat with her chin in her hand, looking at Norrington. She wondered if he was a deserter, but somehow doubted it. Either way, she would find out just who he was.
Norrington’s breathing pattern was ragged and quick, and although his eyes were closed, they moved in restless patterns. Dreaming, Tia Dalma thought, but about what? It must not have been anything good, because he muttered in his sleep and a fine sheen of sweat shone on his brow. Tia Dalma reached out and ran a finger over his brow, frowning at how warm it was and her finger came back wet. She licked her finger, tasting Norrington’s sweat. She knew that she had to tend his arm and his heat sickness, but how much good could she do without understanding his spirit as well?
She closed her eyes momentarily. His sweat was salty, of course, but had an undercurrent of desperation and deep sorrow turning bitter. She opened her eyes and then leaned over Norrington. She muttered an incantation, carefully pulled open one of his eyelids and leveled herself with his hazel eye and looked deep in it. She felt herself falling into the blackness of his pupil and into his dream. He was dreaming of a woman, Elizabeth, his psyche told her. She was kissing another man, and this had broken Norrington’s heart.
She pulled out of his mind and leaned back from the bed. He had already lost this woman. That would make his healing difficult, but there was nothing for her to do but try. She stood and went to the main room of her house and rummaged through drawers, pushing aside herbs, dried bones, and other sundry household items, talking to herself all the while. She finally found what she was looking for, a pair of long dressmaker’s shears.
She took them back into the bedroom and sat on the stool. Norrington’s wounded arm hung over the side of the bed closest to her and she leaned over it with the scissors. Suddenly, Norrington opened his eyes, sat up slightly and fixed her with a murderous stare. She froze, scissors in hand.
“Isn’t it enough, Elizabeth, that you’ve cut my heart out?” he said, his eyes darting to the scissors. His look was one of wounded anger. “What will you take next?” His voice was refined and held an edge like a fine blade; it was a voice accustomed to commanding. This man was no deserter, nor was he an ordinary sailor.
Regardless, Tia Dalma had always been one to fight fire with fire. She glared at him. “I be not ‘Lizabet,” she said fiercely, “I be Tia Dalma. Now syit steel.” She pointed at the bed, her mouth set in a line and her eyes sparking.
After a beat, Norrington lay back warily, closed his eyes and dozed off again. Tia Dalma lifted the cuff of his ragged jacket and shirt and cut from the wrist to the middle of his upper arm, then spread the raw edges of both garments, exposing the wound. She drew in a sharp breath.
Although the bleeding had stopped, the wound looked and smelled terrible. It ran almost from his wrist to his elbow. She would have to work rapidly, as this was certainly what was killing him the most quickly. He had been lucky not to break any bones. And with further luck, he would be able to keep his arm. She could cut it off if she had to, but sincerely hoped she would not have to resort to such extreme measures. She walked quickly from the bedroom and out into the house to look for the other necessary items.
She took a jar full of moldy bread down from the ceiling. She then grabbed some clean rags, a bottle of rum, and a bowl of fresh water and carried these items into the bedroom. She mixed the moldy bread with some rum to make a paste, and then spread it over the wound, binding it with wet, and then dry rags. She then refilled the bowl with fresh water and got a spoon. She woke Norrington up gently and made him drink some water. And so he started to heal, at least in body.
****
Norrington dreamed. Most of the dreams were nightmares, and most of these nightmares were about Elizabeth. In one of them, he stood on the parapet in Port Royal, the very same one upon which he had “almost caught” Jack Sparrow. Elizabeth lolled in William Turner’s arms, kissing him as the entire garrison looked on. But this time, she broke from Turner and came to Norrington, and Norrington’s heart leapt as he imagined she had changed her mind.
She walked slowly. The light breeze tossed her curls about her shoulders. She had a small smile on her face as she stepped close and pressed her body to his. He didn’t want to breathe, lest he break the spell. She slid her hands over his shoulders and slowly moved in to kiss him. He was about to kiss her back, but then she slid her left hand down to his dagger and drew it out with a familiar metallic scrape, while pulling away from him. Suddenly she stabbed him in the chest, deeply, and drew the blade sideways with a feral grin.
She then dropped the dagger to clatter on the flagstones. She reached up with her other hand, and grabbed his heart and pulled hard, then held it up to his face. It was glass, clear glass dripping blood on the ground. With a smirk and a shrug she dropped it. He watched it fall slowly through the air, catching the late afternoon sunlight as it did. It shattered on the stones, throwing droplets of blood and slivers of light all directions. Then she walked away from him and back to Will, who, along with the entire garrison, laughed at him. As Elizabeth walked, she stepped on the larger pieces of glass, crushing them to dust under her satin heels.
That particular dream occurred often, although sometimes she had scissors and his heart was paper, which she would light on fire from the nearest candle. He could never seem to wake up, and even when he thought he did, he was in such a strange place, he thought he must still be dreaming. The smell of opium permeated both sleep and the strange half-sleep that served him as wakefulness.
On the fourth day, Norrington finally woke completely to the smell of water and things growing. He could hear multitudes of birds and insects outside the window, which was pouring light across the bed. The last thing he could remember was floating on his makeshift raft, drifting aimlessly as his body deteriorated. Then a rogue wave tossed him from his refuge and as the sea took him, he thought the end was nigh. But then he washed up on the beach, coughed up a lungful of brine and collapsed. Beyond that, he could recall nothing but dreams.
One thing was clear, someone had rescued him, and what was more, someone had tried to mend his arm, which was still bandaged, but hurt much less than before. Whoever had rescued him had removed his jacket and shirt, and had hung them carefully on a peg by the bed. Norrington looked down at his torso and groaned as he noticed massive bruising, now faded to a jaundiced-looking yellow. Well, he was a man of the navy. Bruises and injuries were simply part of the job. It seemed that he would live to fight another day. He sat up in the bed.
He heard a noise and looked around quickly. A wild-looking woman stood framed in the doorway, grinning at him with black-stained teeth. But her smile was friendly, and Norrington imagined this was most likely his rescuer.
“Jameh, you be ‘wake,” she said, her smile broadening.
“So it would seem,” Norrington responded, half-smiling in return. Inwardly, he reflected that re-introducing himself as “Commodore” would be churlish given the circumstances. The woman approached the bed. She wore a gold brocade gown with most of the hem cut off to allow her freedom of movement. Her feet were bare and very dirty. In place of fine jewelry, she wore necklaces of bones, beads and shells. Chicken feathers adorned her dark hair.
“How be you fyeelin’?” she asked.
“Much better, thank you, Miss…” Norrington trailed off, waiting for her to supply her name.
The wild woman threw her head back and laughed long and deep.
“So sorry, is it Mrs., then?”
She just laughed harder.
“Oh, yo’ ma raise a p’lite chile, she dyid,” she said, wiping her red eyes, “I be Tia Dalma.” She poured him a mug of water from a pitcher next to the bed, handed it to him and sat on a rocking chair next to him, crossing one ankle over the other at the foot of the bed. She pointed a long-nailed finger at him. “Slow now, Jameh,” she warned, “You bring t’up, you clean t’up.”
With some embarrassment, he realized he had probably done just that during the time he’d been in her house. And although he was parched, he sipped it like an appertif, all the while studying her warily out of the corner of his eye and wondering who she could be. She stared back at him as if she could see through him.
“She hur’ you bad, din’ she?” Tia Dalma said.
Norrington started. He set the water aside, lest he spill it. He must’ve talked in his sleep. Or else she was speculating. “I beg your pardon?”
“’Lizabet.” One word. One little name was like being cut fresh and he wanted nothing more than to forget about her. But Elizabeth wouldn’t let him go, or vice versa. Now all Norrington could do was put his head in his hand.
“I’d prefer not to talk about it, if it’s all the same to you,” he muttered, although he wondered how much Tia Dalma already knew.
Tia Dalma shrugged and crossed her legs the other way on the foot of his bed. “That be fine,” she said casually, “I save yo’ life. Y’owe me nah-ting, nah t’even a n’explanation.” She examined her long fingernails.
Norrington winced. She definitely had him there.
“Very well,” he sighed. Tia Dalma’s eyes lit up. She sat up and leaned toward him with interest. Over the next hour, he told her the entire story, from meeting Elizabeth as a child on the crossing from England, all the way up to her rejection of him. Although it was difficult to talk about, he somehow felt lighter by the end. And although Tia Dalma absorbed it all, she didn’t look surprised. Perhaps she just wanted to hear his version of it.
“An’ how did you hurt y’arm?” she asked him at the end, as she moved to unwrap it to see how it was healing.
“I’m afraid I can’t remember,” he said. “I imagine it probably happened during the storm.”
She finished unwrapping it and then examined it, tracing a long fingernail over the newly healed flesh. “Would you like t’know?” she asked, looking back at Norrington with a look of concern in her dark eyes.
Norrington did not want to know, but he was curious about what she had in mind and how she could possibly tell him. “How? Do you know?” he asked.
“Nevah mine dat,” she waved his question away. Norrington looked at the wound, which although large, now showed healthy red tissue. It would scar badly, but would not kill him.
“Is it going to hurt terribly?” he asked, more curious than afraid.
Tia Dalma grinned at him. “De trut’ always do,” she answered, and then squeezed his arm until the crust on the wound broke a little and a drop of blood welled up. Norrington gritted his teeth, but the pain was transient and faded as soon as she released his arm. She wiped the drop of blood up with a finger and muttering under her breath, put her finger on her tongue, and then threw her head back as if quaffing a draught of rum. When she brought it back up, her eyes were unfocused and her pupils swung lazily from left to right.
When she spoke, it was not her usual broken English, but the deeper and more refined tones of a member of the British Navy. “We can’t last in this weather sir…she’ll come apart…” She swayed to and fro, and her voice increased in urgency. “What are you trying to prove, Commodore?” she suddenly yelled, “Sparrow is gone. Gone! Don’t you realize that? He bested you and the rest of us! Damn you, Norrington, you’ve killed us all!” And she drew an imaginary sword and brought it down in front of Norrington. Instinctively, he threw up his left arm to ward off the blow, and suddenly it all came back to him.
The cut was not an accident, he now remembered with new horror. His first mate Gillette had turned on him, although Gillette had no doubt voiced what everyone else had been thinking. He had damned Norrington and his pride, his relentless pursuit and bad judgment. Then he had struck, and Norrington had been so stunned he hadn’t even drawn his own blade. Then a monstrous wave had washed Gillette overboard, and all manner of hell had broken loose.
On the other hand, Norrington had been lucky. If he hadn’t brought his arm up, the blade would have taken out an eye at the very least. He was also lucky not to have become bait for the sharks after the storm, as he had no doubt been bleeding profusely. It must have happened relatively close to whatever island he was now on. He looked at Tia Dalma once more. She blinked and shook her head as if she had water in her ear. Then she fixed him with an intense stare.
“So now y’know,” she said.
“Now I know,” he agreed in a hollow voice. He drew his arm away from her and shivered despite the heat of the day. What can’t she see? he wondered uneasily.
Although Norrington was reluctant to let Tia Dalma touch him once more, he allowed her to re-wrap his arm in a fresh dressing. “You res’ now,” she ordered him when she finished, and then she stood and turned to leave.
“Wait, please,” Norrington said. Tia Dalma stopped and looked at him. “Thank you. I mean for saving my life.”
She smiled at him sadly and reached down, pushing his dark hair from his face. The tenderness in the gesture tore at his heart. “You be hurtin,’ Jameh,” she said, “but destanye, she spare’ you dis time.” Her smile widened a fraction. “An’ maybe we fine’ out why dat is, by an’ by.” And with that, she turned and walked out, closing the door softly behind her. On the other side, she leaned against it.
It was not the first time she had helped a stranded sailor, but it was the first time it had not been a pirate. She liked pirates, particularly wicked Jack Sparrow, but did not trust them, which was just as well, because the feeling was mutual. Also, this was the first person she had helped who truly had a good heart. To Tia Dalma, that alone made him worth saving. A powerful destiny clung to him, as if his path was linked somehow to hers and Jack Sparrow’s.
On the other side of the door, Norrington lay back in the bed once more and rubbed his arm thoughtfully. More of the voyage came back to him now. Tia Dalma had opened a floodgate in his memory with her little voodoo trick. Norrington recalled the sense of unease with which he had commenced the campaign. Even at the outset, he had been kicking himself for not going after Sparrow immediately.
The crew had been nervous. As he walked the decks of the Dauntless, he had heard them whisper to one another. One incident in particular stuck out in his mind. One sailor had been bantering with another, heedless that Norrington had walked up behind him. The sailor had said, “If we do happen upon Sparrow, the Commodore’d better grab his ankles.” Norrington had been furious and had ordered the man flogged, but the man was merely a symptom of the ever-growing problem.
Norrington had slipped when he had let Sparrow go, and the crew had been starting to realize that. Now, he questioned why he had ever given Sparrow a head start. Perhaps he thought that killing Sparrow would lose him any chance with Elizabeth. The rational part of his mind realized how ridiculous that was-he had lost her long ago, if he had ever had her in the first place. His love for the Navy should have been worth more to him than her.
Norrington looked up and outside the window. The sun, filtered down through the canopy of the forest. For the first time, he felt uncertainty about his own place within the Navy. He wondered what would happen to him now. He had lost two ships since he had become Commodore, and countless lives of men under his command. And for what?
“Don’t sail with Norrington,” he muttered, “He’ll surely get you killed.” He shook his head bitterly, and pondered for the thousandth time why he had lived when so many better men had fallen. Uneasily, he drifted back to sleep.
****
When he woke, it was dark. Dimly, he could hear the sound of a music box coming from the next room. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Dizziness overtook him for a moment and he sat still until his head cleared. Once it did, he stood carefully. He grabbed his shirt off the peg and put it on. One of the sleeves was ripped most of the way up, so he rolled both of them. He still felt weak, so using the wall and the furniture, he walked slowly to the door and opened it.
Tia Dalma’s room was fascinating and strange, filled with her voodoo components and curiosities from all over the globe. Tia Dalma herself sat in a woven chair, repairing his coat and listening to the tinkling music coming from a heart-shaped music box on one of the tables. She hummed along with it as she pulled the thread taut.
“Let me do that,” Norrington said, breaking her reverie, “you’ve done enough.” Tia Dalma shrugged and handed him the work and gestured to the chair opposite her. He sat and continued to sew the seam where she had stopped. The music tinkled on. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Her work had been small and neat, and the seam would barely show from the outside. The jacket had been ruined, but at least with the big rents mended, it would be wearable when he finally left.
Tia Dalma put her chin in one hand and watched him work. “I known men like you,” she said.
“Indeed?” Norrington pulled the needle through the fabric.
“N’I wondah abou’ what you see in ‘Lizabet.”
Norrington said nothing, just pulled the thread taut.
“You c’n have any womahn,” Tia Dalma said, “As long as she have chile-bearin’ hips n’a refine’ nature.”
Norrington smiled slightly as he realized that Elizabeth had neither. “Perhaps,” he answered. He sighed and made another stitch. From outside the house came the sound of rain on wet leaves.
“Steel, it would nevah have worked,” Tia Dalma said, waving her hand casually.
Norrington looked at her sharply and stopped sewing.
“You don’ believe me.” It wasn’t a question. “You don’ wan t’a believe me.”
Norrington ignored her and bent back over his work. Actually, it had never occurred to him what kind of a husband he would make, particularly for someone as spirited as Elizabeth. She wasn’t one of those women who could happily keep his house and raise his children for him. Women like that were pale flowers indeed when put next to Elizabeth. She’d make a man a better mistress than a wife, he thought wickedly.
Still, he wondered what marriage to Elizabeth would have been like. At the time he had proposed to her, all he knew was that he loved her, and he wanted her. He hadn’t really thought farther ahead than the wedding and indeed, the wedding night.
“You don’ have t’a believe me,” Tia Dalma said, “You cahn see fo’ yo’self.”
“No thank you,” Norrington said flatly, although now that she has suggested it, he was desperately curious. He also knew that with her skills, she probably could show him. She was offering him a rare gift, a glimpse of what could have been. He tried to go back to the seam, but now the idea was like a sore in his mouth that he couldn’t stop worrying. She fell silent and ceased her rocking. The music box, the insects outside, the gentle rain, and the distant thunder were now the only sounds in the room.
He glanced at Tia Dalma out of the corner of his eye, who looked at him in the same way that a cat looks at a mouse.
The minutes ticked by, and the seam began to close under Norrington’s fingers. Tia Dalma never moved, but just fixed him with her uncanny stare. Norrington tied off the thread, the seam now closed. He rubbed his eyes, which were sore from doing fine work by candlelight. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth, “You win. Show me.”
“Ah,” said Tia Dalma, grinning widely, “Da needle, if you please,” she said, holding out her hand. Norrington bit the thread and handed her the needle. “Now, do you have a t’ing of ‘Lizabet’s?”
Norrington thought for a moment, and then checked the pockets of the jacket. His fingers closed around a single hair. It had caught on his jacket during the fateful day of Sparrow’s hanging, and rather than toss it aside, he had pocketed it. He drew it forth now, where it caught the candlelight. While he did this, Tia Dalma found a bright silver mirror and took it over to the table nearest him. Then she got out a brazier and some of her precious opium stash. She closed the curtains and the door.
She put a sticky piece of opium on the brazier and lit it using a candle. Smoke came off the brazier and drifted over to Norrington. As he breathed it in, the room became warmer and the light of the candles swam before his eyes. “It help wi’ da sight,” she said; her voice sounded far away. She brought the brazier back to the table and set it next to the mirror. She drew up her own chair and straddled it backwards, her legs to either side. Norrington supposed he should be shocked, but the narcotic effect of the drug was making him care less and less.
She leaned over the chair and held out one of her hands to Norrington. She still had the needle in the other. “’Lizabet’s pretty hair,” she said. He held it out to her, and she took it, mumbled something unintelligible and then dropped it on the mirror. As it fell, it created a ripple on the mirror, as if disturbing still water. “An’ now, yo’ hand,” Tia Dalma said. Slowly, Norrington held it out to her.
She took his thumb with her left hand and squeezed the tip, then drew the needle down quickly, puncturing his skin. The pain registered remotely; the opium had dulled most sensation. She turned his hand in hers and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the surface of the mirror. They splashed into tiny droplets when they hit the surface and swirled through the silver, a deep red spreading from the center to the outside.
“Clear yo’ mine, an’ don’ you let yo’ desires cloud da mirror,” she told him. Norrington let his mind go blank. “Now, look,” Tia Dalma said.
Norrington leaned forward, and stared deep into the swirling silver-red of the mirror. Tia Dalma started to chant in a guttural voice and the surface began to clear. Now the mirror showed a wedding, his wedding. Elizabeth was resplendent in her brocade gown, and he was handsome in his best uniform. He looked pleased, but Elizabeth had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were somewhere else. She said her vows, but it was as if she was speaking to someone beyond him.
Norrington looked in the mirror and saw that she was staring not at William Turner, nor Jack Sparrow, nor any other man, as he had expected, but at the ocean that served as a backdrop. The mirror rippled and then stilled. Now it was night in the mirror world, and it showed the interior of a bedroom, most likely Elizabeth’s. There were no candles lit, and the moon provided the only light. Elizabeth stood in profile in front of the window with her hair cascading down her back and over the swell of her breasts. The moonlight illuminated every curve on her body. Norrington found himself becoming aroused as he came to her side. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Elizabeth reached for him. “James,” she whispered, “make love to me.”
In the real world, Tia Dalma slapped the table hard with the flat of her hand, startling him. “No!” she said. She reached across the table and took his face in her hands, bringing his head up. She stared into his eyes. “You mus’ let what will happen, happen. ‘Member whah t’I say, ‘bout the trut’. Eh t’will hurt. But you mus’ see. ‘Else she nevah let you go.” She dropped her hands. “Now look ‘gain.”
She moved the brazier closer to him and he breathed in deep and let his mind go blank once more. He would bear what he must. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the opium dull all of his senses. When he opened his eyes once more, he was in the bedroom with Elizabeth. Now he was a participant, rather than an observer, as if he were dreaming yet actually there.
This time, she still stood beside the window, but as he came to her, her eyes widened. This stopped him in his tracks. “We don’t have to do this tonight,” he heard himself say, although every part of him wanted her. She shook her head.
“No, James, it should be tonight,” she said with resolve.
“Very well,” he answered, and took her in his arms, but then felt her stiffen. He let her go and backed off.
“No, really, I’m fine,” she said with false cheer. She went over to the bed and lay down on her back. Norrington saw her swallow nervously. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he did want her, although it was beginning to dawn on him that maybe she didn’t want him back. She was not the first woman he had deflowered, and he knew that if she didn’t relax, he would hurt her. If that was what she was afraid of, her standoffishness was not personal.
He approached her and climbed on the bed with her. He gently caressed her face with the back of his hand, and then slid his hand down her neck and over the tops of her breasts. She was so lovely, he thought, as he bent to her and kissed her neck and breathed in the clean scent of her hair. He could feel her start to relax, although she made no move to reciprocate. His hands traveled down her body, tracing its contours. She slowly spread her legs. He got between them and pushed her shift up her thighs, his pulse racing.
He lay between her legs and unbuttoned his breeches with one hand. Then he slowly pushed into her with a deep groan of pleasure. He had wanted her for a long time, and so he took her quickly, then rolled off and buttoned his breeches again. Elizabeth just stared at the ceiling, not moving. Norrington caught his breath and then rolled onto his side, facing her, and propped himself up on an elbow. Elizabeth looked at him.
“I trust, then, you are sated,” she said, somewhat coldly.
He stopped breathing for a second as the chill in her words touched him, then sighed and rolled onto his back again. “Yes,” he answered.
The scene shimmered as if underwater and came back on what looked like another night. And on this night, he took her again, in much the same manner, and again she asked the question. And again on the next night. And the next. Each night, he attempted to reach out to her, but she shrugged him off. Eventually, he stopped trying.
Then on one morning, everything changed. Norrington walked past the bedroom and caught a glimpse of Elizabeth, heedless of his presence, pulling on her chemise, but before she pulled it down, Norrington noticed deep scratches on her back. His heart plummeted. The marks were unmistakably those of a zealous lover. The scene shimmered once more and it was night again. Now he waited for Elizabeth in the dark. He sat in a chair by the window, and watched the moonlight creep slowly cross the floor. Elizabeth had gone to a “friend’s house,” to give someone else what she wouldn’t give him.
Time passed slowly until finally Elizabeth came in, obviously trying to be quiet so as not to wake him. She closed the door with her back to him. Norrington’s voice cut through the silence and startled her. “I trust, then, you are sated,” he said. Elizabeth jumped, looking guiltily around at him.
“I…I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, quickly regaining her composure.
“Indeed.” Norrington was out of the chair in a flash and at her side. He took her roughly by the arm. “Who is he?” he asked her.
“James, what-?”
Norrington had no patience for her. “Strip,” he ordered, releasing her and stepping back with his arms folded.
“No,” she said defiantly.
“Strip,” he said again, “or I’ll do it for you. But if you have nothing to hide, you’ll do it yourself.”
“I have nothing to hide, I just refuse to be degraded,” she answered.
“Don’t get high and mighty with me, Elizabeth. You’ll let yourself be degraded by another man quickly enough it would seem. It shames me that you would let another man see you naked, but not your own husband. I’ll not ask you again.”
“Well, that’s good, because I’d just say no.” She looked at him haughtily, but there was fear in her eyes that said not only was she in the wrong, but also that she was pushing him way too far. A tense silence, like the calm before a hurricane, hung between them. Elizabeth sensed that one way or another she was going to lose the battle. “Very well,” she finally said, “this gown laces from behind so I’ll need your help anyway.”
“My pleasure,” he shot back.
Elizabeth swung her long hair over her shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. Norrington stepped behind her and untied the lace of her gown, then slipped the lace out two eyelets at a time, making them snap with each tug of his wrist. When he was done, he pushed the gown off her shoulders. She stepped out of it and stood beside it in chemise and corset.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked him.
“Not quite, darling.”
She sighed. “You really do have a suspicious mind, James,” she said.
“With good reason, I suspect.” He unlaced her corset quickly and tossed it aside. She undid the front of her chemise herself and let it fall down her shoulders, exposing her lacerated back. Suddenly the fight went out of him. What was the use? She didn’t want him; she had already made that much abundantly clear. “Would you care to explain this?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. At this point, he just wondered what she would say. Would she cry and apologize, or would she be defiant, or would she just lie like she’d been lying this whole time?
But before she could answer, he heard a voice in the back of his mind, pulling him back to a reality he had forgotten about. “Jameh…” The scene shimmered once more and everything went dark. “Jameh…” came the voice again. With difficulty, he opened his eyes and was once more in the smoke-filled interior of Tia Dalma’s house. Thoroughly disoriented, he blinked once or twice as his stomach roiled.
“Excuse me,” he said. He stumbled out onto the porch, where he leaned over the rail and quietly threw up into the bayou. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. Disgusted, he wiped it off. His head was still fuzzy from the opium, but it was starting to clear, and with the clarity came a deep sense of sorrow and humiliation. Rain poured down, splashing in the water. Over the sound of the rain, he heard the door open behind him and knew that Tia Dalma had joined him. He didn’t turn around, but just gripped the rail hard.
“I suppose that you saw all of that,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“The worst part is that none of it makes a difference.”
“Wha’ d’you mean?” Her voice was gentle.
“I’m sure that what you showed me was true. That if she had held up her end of the bargain, and we had married, that we would have ended up like that.” Norrington turned and looked at Tia Dalma. “But part of me still loves her despite all of it. And the other part of me wants…” He trailed off. What he didn’t say was that he’d like to use her like she’d used him. The other part wanted revenge.
“She gone, Jameh,” Tia Dalma said, although she was fairly certain that Norrington and Elizabeth’s paths would cross again. Destiny had linked them even if it hadn’t meant them to be together. But Tia Dalma saw no use in telling Norrington that just yet.
“I know,” he answered quietly. Neither one spoke for a while, they just stood and watched the rain. “Do you suppose she’ll be happy with William Turner?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Tia Dalma shrugged. “Who know?”
Norrington smirked. “Perhaps she’d be happier with Jack Sparrow.”
“Ah, Jack.” Tia Dalma smiled fondly. “He only make a womahn happy fo’ five minutes at a time.”
Norrington stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me that you know Sparrow?”
Tia Dalma put her hands on her hips and glared at Norrington. “I don’ need t’explain anyt’ing to you, Jameh, ‘specially in mah owen house.”
“Perhaps not, but it would have helped me to trust you. You’ve seen that Jack Sparrow is my enemy.” Norrington looked at the uneven boards at his feet. “I just feel as if there’s no one I can trust.” He looked back up at her. “And I’d like to trust you.”
Tia Dalma leaned her body into his, which made him recoil slightly. She grinned up at him with her blackened teeth. “Don’ you worry, Jameh” she said, “F’I was loy’ahl to wicked Jack, I d’a let you die on dat beach. Or else…” she reached up and drew a long nail slowly across Norrington’s throat. Then she laughed.
Norrington smiled in spite of himself. “I’m relieved, I’m sure,” he said dryly.
Tia Dalma withdrew her hand and leaned back. “De trut’ is, I behlong to no mahn. Dat’s why I help you.” She smiled at him. “I like you. You are a good mahn, Jameh. But I like Jack, so when he cohme back to me, I help him too. Can you see dat?”
Norrington nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
The rain fell around them. “You res’ again, Jameh,” Tia Dalma finally said.
Norrington felt drained. “Yes, that would be best,” he agreed. “I just pray I don’t dream.”
Tia Dalma smiled at him. “May de dre-ams be good,” she said.
“Thank you.” He bowed slightly to her. “Good night, Tia Dalma.”
“Good night Jameh.”
Norrington went into his room and closed the door, then walked to the bed and lay down. He listened to the rain patter on the roof until he finally fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
When he awoke the next morning and opened the door to his room, Tia Dalma was gone and a man was sitting at the table, whittling a small piece of wood into a tiny boat. He looked up as Norrington approached him.
“She gone, syailah,” the man said. When he spoke, Norrington realized that he was one of the men who had rescued him. “A womahn las’ night great wid’ a chile; she start t’have her chile, an’ she need help. So Tia Dalma, she go.”
“I see,” said Norrington.
“But she sen’ me up to check on you.” The man studied Norrington. “But yo’ bettah den you were.”
“Yes, thank you. And thank you for bringing me in from the beach.”
The man smiled. “Ah. But it is she who seen you firs’.”
Norrington smiled in return. He should have known. “Nonetheless, I thank you.”
The man held out his hand. “I be Abasi, her sistah’s son.”
“James Norrington.” They shook, and then Abasi continued whittling his little boat. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” Norrington said, “I don’t want to stay in the house all day.”
Abasi grinned at him. “Den you fish wid’ me.”
“Gladly.” Norrington had a great longing to go back to sea in anything that would float, whether he was in the mightiest ship in the Navy or in something as simple as a fishing skiff.
Abasi sheathed his knife, pocketed the little boat and stood, stretching his back. “Let’s go.” He put a ragged straw hat on his head and headed out the door. Norrington followed him down the ladder to the waiting boat. “I’ll row us out of the bayou, if you wish,” Norrington volunteered.
Abasi waved him away. “Don’ worry ‘bout it. Da bayou, she carry us to da sea.” He settled lazily into the stern, half reclining. He whittled once more. “F’you wan’ something to do, make shuh’ we don’ hit anyt’ing,” he said lazily. It dawned on Norrington that there was absolutely no reason for haste. The boat slowly floated down the bayou, and Norrington did little but enjoy the scenery.
As the boat neared the delta, the trees cleared and Norrington faintly heard the lap of the sea against the shore. Soon they emerged from the canopy of the trees and the sea appeared before them. A light breeze ruffled Norrington’s hair. He breathed deep of the salty air and felt more alive than he’d felt since the storm.
When the boat reached the sea, both Norrington and Abasi took an oar and rowed out to deeper water, where Abasi cast his lines. They fished all day and by the time the sun had set, they had caught several snapper, and a couple of grouper. Norrington was as good as his word as they made their way back to the delta. He took the oars and rowed the skiff up the bayou as Abasi cleaned and the fish and threw the guts over the side.
By the time they reached Tia Dalma’s house once more, dusk had settled. Norrington’s back and shoulders throbbed, but it was the best sort of pain. Norrington bade Abasi farewell at the ladder, and then accepted two snapper as his day’s wage.
He fished with Abasi for the next three days and in that time, his arm healed to the long pink seam that would remain with him for the rest of his life. Norrington enjoyed deep dreamless sleep until the fourth night. That night, he dreamed that he was swimming in the turquoise Caribbean water. All around him, Navy vessels passed him, all of them ships upon which he had once served. He called to them at the top of his voice, but none threw him a line. He awoke the next morning troubled; he didn’t need Tia Dalma’s voodoo to figure out what the dream meant.
He went out with Abasi that day, but he was distracted. When he returned that night, Tia Dalma cooked the snapper as she had the previous nights. After dinner, Norrington asked her if he had overstayed his welcome. Tia Dalma smiled at him as they sat at the table together.
“No, Jameh, but I wondah if maybe you wan’ to escape yo’ destanye.”
He picked at a splinter that stuck out of the table. “I don’t even know what it is.”
Tia Dalma chuckled. “No wahn do.”
Norrington looked at her. “You know my past and my present, but not my future?”
She sighed. “Da future is wily. I can’t show you da future clear like da pass’ an’ da presen’.” She stood and went to a cupboard. She mumbled to herself as she rifled its many drawers, until she found fabric-wrapped bundle. She brought it over to the table and set it down. The fabric wrapped around it was covered in dubious stains and Norrington looked at it warily. Tia Dalma undid the bundle, her lips ever moving. When she wrangled the knots out of the fabric and unwrapped it, Norrington saw that it was a dirty and faded deck of playing cards.
She lifted it out reverentially and handed it to Norrington, who took it with trepidation. “Mix de cards,” she ordered him. With a practiced hand, Norrington shuffled the cards while Tia Dalma closed her eyes and chanted. After a moment, Norrington’s hands and fingertips started tingling where they touched the deck.
“D’ats enough,” Tia Dalma finally said and opened her eyes once more. Norrington cut the deck. Tia Dalma sat opposite him once more and reached across the table. She took the cards and flipped the first one up. It was the King of Hearts. “D’ats you, Jameh,” she told him.
“I hardly think I’m the king of anyone’s heart,” he said.
“Shhh,” she said, glowering at him. “De heart, yo’ heart, it is in de water; it is water. De king of de heart, he de king of water, an’ he a good mahn. Dat’s you.”
She drew the next card from the deck and laid it across the first. It was the nine of spades. “Bad t’ings, Jameh,” she said. She drew the next and laid it by the fist two. It was the ace of spades. Tia Dalma frowned. “Deat,” she said. “But fo’ you, it is not de deat’ of de body.”
“What makes you so sure?” Norrington asked.
Tia Dalma smiled. “Jameh, destanye save’ you from de storm. If she wanted you to die…” she trailed off.
“I know,” Norrington said as he slowly drew his finger across his throat.
Tia Dalma looked at the cards once more. “Fo’ you, it is deat’ in order to live again. To live, you mus’ firs’ die.”
The next card she drew was the King of Spades. “Jack Sparra.” She drew another card from the deck. It was the seven of hearts. “Dis is ‘Lizabet. She too is water. But she change wid de tide.”
Norrington smiled. “Indeed she does.”
The next card was the King of Clubs. “A mahn…” Tia Dalma shook her head. “’Lizabet’s mahn, maybe. See how she between da two? You will see all tree of dem again. An’ den…” She drew another card, the four of clubs and laid it atop of the previous three, Sparrow, Elizabeth and Turner’s cards. “Betray-ahl,” she said.
Norrington raised an eyebrow. “From those three? Imagine my surprise.”
Tia Dalma looked at him sharply. “No, Jameh, from you. Dese ah yo’ cards.” The next card was the five of clubs. “An’ last, an ahgreement ‘tween you an’ someone new.”
“So, what does it all mean?” Norrington asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Tia Dalma looked up at him from the cards with pity in her eyes. She pointed at the nine of spades. “T’ings goin’ ta get worse ‘fore dey get bettah.” Then she pointed at the ace of spades. “Dis deat,’ it may be deat’ of everyt’ing dat you know. An’ maybe you wan’ ta die before it ovah.” She swept her hand over the trinity of Jack, Elizabeth and Will. “Den you meet bahck wid dese tree. Dats when yo’ life, it change. Firs’ you will see Jack, den ‘Lizabet’, and den dis othah wahn. Aftah dat…” She pointed to the five of clubs. “T’ings dey gyet bettah.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I must say. I’m going to be miserable enough to want to die, but I won’t die. Then I’ll meet up with my worst enemy, my ex-fiancee and her new fiancé, and then betray them. But things get better.”
“Yes, dat dey do.” Tia Dalma pointed at the ace of spades one last time. “But t’ings nevah goin’ to be da same. Dese cards…” She swept her hand across the spread. “Dey all ‘bout deat and rebirt.”
Something on the floor next to the door caught Norrington’s attention. A small turtle was bravely making its way across the threshold and onto the worn floorboards of the room.
“It would seem that you have a visitor,” Norrington said, pointing at the turtle.
Tia Dalma looked and then smiled broadly. She got up and crossed the room to the turtle. Then she stooped and picked it gently up. She carried the turtle back over to the table and set it next to the cards, where it retreated fearfully into its shell. “Dis be a sign, Jameh,” she said.
“A sign?”
“Tortuga. D’ats wheah dis all happen.”
“Tortuga.”
Tia Dalma nodded.
“That’s a pirate port, and in fact a pirate island.”
“Dis I know, Jameh. But dat’s wheah yo’ destanye happen.”
“I’ll not be welcome there. If I go there, destiny or not, I will certainly be killed.”
“So don’ go as yo’self. But styill, you mus’ go. Stop fighten it.”
There was another pause. “Then I’ll go,” Norrington finally said.
“Yes, Jameh, but not tonight,” she replied.
“No, not tonight,” he agreed. “Where are we, exactly? What island is this?” he asked suddenly, changing the subject.
“I cahn show you,” Tia Dalma said. She collected the cards together in a neat pile and re-wrapped them in the fabric, then stood and rummaged in a drawer. She pulled out a chart and laid it on the table, using the turtle to weigh down one of the curling edges. Then she pointed out her island. As soon as she did, Norrington recovered his bearings and knew exactly where he was. It was a large island, and had a decent-sized harbor, but no naval outpost.
He and Tia Dalma decided it would be best for him to go with one of the fishing boats to the closest island with a naval base. Once there, he could easily get back to Port Royal. Tia Dalma rolled up the chart and put it away. Although it was late, Norrington wasn’t tired. So he sat up and mended the other tear in his jacket, and then repaired his shirt as well. For now, he wouldn’t be the sharp-dressed Commodore he used to be, but at least his uniform wouldn’t be falling off of him. If only his spirit could be mended so easily.
Although he tried to stay awake, eventually he dozed off in the chair. Tia Dalma got up and blew out all the candles, but not before she took a moment to stand over the sleeping Commodore and watch his face. The worry had finally left it and he seemed at peace. Once more, she pushed his dark hair off his face. “Sleep well, Jameh,” she said, and blew out the last candle, then retired herself.
In the morning, if he had dreamed, he could not remember it. He woke at dawn and watched the fog lift over the bayou as the red sun rose. “Red sun at morning, sailors take warning,” he said to himself. Bad omens or not, today he would meet his fate off this island, whatever it might be. Tia Dalma rose soon after, gathered eggs and made them both breakfast. Norrington found himself famished. After breakfast, Tia Dalma went next door to beg a ride for him from Abasi.
When she left, it dawned on Norrington just how much he owed her. Although he saw his life as a complete wreck, she had saved it, and what was more, she had showed him and told him the truth, which was much more than he could say of Elizabeth. Tia Dalma didn’t know him from Adam and she had been straight as an arrow and had saved his life. Elizabeth had known him for almost a decade and had done nothing but lie to him, use him, and nearly get him killed.
Norrington swore he would pay Tia Dalma back somehow, some day. She came back a little while later. “It all ‘ranged,” she told him, “Abasi, he take you to da nex’ island. From der, yo’ on y’own.”
“Thank you, again,” Norrington said. He shrugged into his coat, feeling a little more like himself.
Tia Dalma grinned, showing her blackened teeth. “Y’owe me nah-‘ting, Jameh,” she said once more, coming to him and looking up into his face, “’xept maybe a kyiss.”
He looked down at her. She was wild, frightening, and a voodoo priestess. But kiss her he would. He stroked her hair and then bent down and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed him back, gently, and then pulled away. Just then, Abasi pulled up to the house in his boat. “Good-bye, Tia Dalma,” Norrington said, as he climbed down the ladder and into the waiting boat.
“’Bye, Jameh,” she called down to him. He looked back up to the veranda, where she stood watching him pull away. When the boat was out of sight, Tia Dalma went back into her house, and into the room that had been his. On his pillow was left one long dark hair. She deftly plucked it up. “’Tank you, Jameh,” she said. She carried it out into the other room and found a tiny jar with a stopper, and carefully placed the hair in it, then closed it up. She rolled it around in the palm of her hand. “Destanye,” she said, “Destanye…”
Author: tenacitydrader
Beta: linaerys
Characters: Norrington, Tia Dalma, Elizabeth, Tia Dalma’s OC relatives (minor)
Rating: mostly PG-13, one tiny little possibly R-rated part for minor Norribeth sex (although pr0n is not the point, at least not this time ; ) ), and drug references
Disclaimer: characters, setting, not mine but Disney/Bruckheimer
Word count: approx. 10,000
Setting: Between movies SPOILERS FOR DMC SPOILERS FOR DMC SPOILERS FOR DMC
Summary: Tia Dalma’s and Norrington’s paths cross and she shows him the truth in his past, present, and future
I should have died by the sword, Norrington thought as he lay sprawled on the unknown beach, too weak and battered to move. The sun beat down on his upturned face, now bristly with a couple of days of unshaven beard. His throat burned with thirst, and his innards cramped with the slightest movement. A raging fever roasted him from the inside just as the sun roasted him from the outside, and the fever ensured that he constantly alternated between sweating and shivering.
He had taken a nasty wound in his left arm during the storm, but he had no inclination to look upon it. Even though he had seen and endured wounds before, it was still not something he relished seeing when there was nothing he could do about it. All he knew was that it already hurt terribly and looking at it would make it hurt worse. Already, the blood from it had soaked through his jacket and stained the sand around it crimson. Now he made morbid wagers with himself over whether heat, starvation, dehydration, or infection would ultimately claim his life.
He drew a breath of searing air into his lungs and let it out in a sigh. Then he closed his eyes and listened to the sea lap gently at the shore, as he prayed for the end to come swiftly. Still, a thought nagged at him. Why didn’t he die in the storm? Why, of all the souls on the ship, had he been spared? He listened intently, as if the very ocean could give him an answer. Suddenly he heard a sound over the repetition of the waves. It was faint, but unmistakable: the steadier sound of a river.
****
On another part of the same island, drowsy green light filtered through hundred-year old cypress trees to land in bright patches on the murky brown water of the bayou. Tia Dalma sat on her rickety porch, rocking in a woven rocking chair. Curled in one hand was a long-stemmed opium pipe. She drew in a drag of smoke and watched the light play on the water. She knew that if she opened her mind just a tiny bit, she could see every scale on the fish that swam beneath the slow-moving waters.
Although she dealt in death and darker magic most of the time, she loved the abundant life and light of the island. Trillium grew in the muddy earth surrounding the bayou, as well as orchids and tiger lilies. Life here was aggressive and passionate, not unlike herself. She chuckled and inhaled more of the potent drug. Closing her bloodshot eyes, she let her mind wander farther down the river. As she probed out more and more, she sensed an increasing feeling of death. A good heart, but a broken one, was slowing down with each beat. A soul was relinquishing its tenuous grip on a battered body. Yet it was not a soul of any of her folk, but a stranger.
“Wheah ah you?” she asked, drawing each word out as smoke curled lazily from her mouth. Her awareness moved quickly through the bayou and out into the brackish delta, where the bayou met the ocean. Then her vision moved up the shore, towards the strongest point from which she sensed life ebbing with the restless tide. A figure lay supine on the beach, a sailor in ragged navy blue. His image was hazy to her and she realized that it was her very curiosity that was distracting her. She cleared her mind and opened her eyes once more. She was back on the veranda of her stilted house, rocking forward and back in her chair.
She stood as she realized she needed to move quickly. Although she was not beholden to the dying sailor on the beach (nor was she was beholden to any man), she saw no benefit in letting him die like a land-locked fish. She climbed down the ladder of her house and onto the spongy ground behind it. Muttering to herself, and with her mind still reeling from the narcotic, she sprung over the spongy moss in her bare feet with her skirt lifted.
Two of her nephews lived in the cabin closest to hers. They were twins, Abasi and Bakari. She knew they would be taking a nap in the heat of the day, before they would go to the ocean to fish. Well, she would wake them up. This was important. She climbed up their ladder and walked around the porch to the front of the house. Abasi was sitting and mending a net and Bakari was dozing in a chair next to him with his chin on his chest. Abasi looked up from his work with curiosity.
“I need you to do something for me,” Tia Dalma said in their mixed tongue. Their language was a stew of African dialects, French, and some indigenous languages. Abasi lazily reached out and nudged at Bakari until he woke.
They were both used to their strange and powerful aunt getting notions that seemed extreme, but they would do what she asked because besides being family, she was a renowned priestess and healer. She told them to bring her the navy sailor from the beach. The twins exchanged a glance. They had seen no one but other fishermen on the beach in the morning, during their first trip out, but ultimately believed her. Without a word, headed to their boat and pushed off into the waters of the bayou minutes later.
****
Down on the beach, Norrington drifted in and out of consciousness. Although he had lain on the beach for less than a day, it seemed like several days, weeks, or even months, almost as if the sun didn’t move. Now he heard faint voices that seemed to come from the sea. On top of everything else, now I’m delirious, he thought gloomily. But he couldn’t help but wonder if there were really people there or if it was his fevered imagination playing a cruel trick on him. A strange feeling that had left him weeks ago returned and kindled a tiny spark: hope. Perhaps he was not yet ready to die.
He turned his head toward the voices and opened his eyes. The sun made his vision blur and his eyes water, but he saw a small boat bearing two men. “Help,” he cried, but it came out in the barest of whispers. Sparks and stars danced in front of his eyes and everything within his view sank from gray to black.
When he came to again and opened his eyes, something was blocking the sun. It was a dark silhouette with a hat. “Come to finish the job then, Jack Sparrow?” Norrington asked the figure. The figure said something that Norrington didn’t understand, but the voice was not that of Sparrow, it was lower and in the language of an island native. Norrington looked up in the other direction at another silhouette. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Nevah mine dat, syailah,” said the low voice.
Then the man said something else to his companion that Norrington didn’t understand and the other man went to his feet and spread them apart slightly, then stood between them with his back to Norrington. The man at his head counted to three and they lifted him up and carried him back out toward the sea. Although they were careful, every movement sent an agonizing jolt of pain through Norrington’s left arm.
They laid him carefully down in the boat and got in themselves. Norrington closed his eyes once more and dozed off, rocked gently by the waves. He felt the pain receding as sleep took hold of him. When he awoke again, the sun was not so bright. The light was a gentle green, rather than a harsh yellow-white. He heard the sounds of insects and frogs and wondered where he was, but lacked the energy to sit up and look around.
He drifted in and out of sleep, not marking the passage of time. Sometimes when he woke up, he was in his hammock on the Interceptor, or the Dauntless, or countless other navy ships. Places that were, to him, safe.
****
When her nephews came back with the sailor, Tia Dalma had them put him in one of her back rooms. She thanked them, and they excused themselves to go back to the beach to fish. Then she went to the back room to see what the sea had given her. She dragged a three-legged wooden stool with her and placed it next to the bed, where she sat with her chin in her hand, looking at Norrington. She wondered if he was a deserter, but somehow doubted it. Either way, she would find out just who he was.
Norrington’s breathing pattern was ragged and quick, and although his eyes were closed, they moved in restless patterns. Dreaming, Tia Dalma thought, but about what? It must not have been anything good, because he muttered in his sleep and a fine sheen of sweat shone on his brow. Tia Dalma reached out and ran a finger over his brow, frowning at how warm it was and her finger came back wet. She licked her finger, tasting Norrington’s sweat. She knew that she had to tend his arm and his heat sickness, but how much good could she do without understanding his spirit as well?
She closed her eyes momentarily. His sweat was salty, of course, but had an undercurrent of desperation and deep sorrow turning bitter. She opened her eyes and then leaned over Norrington. She muttered an incantation, carefully pulled open one of his eyelids and leveled herself with his hazel eye and looked deep in it. She felt herself falling into the blackness of his pupil and into his dream. He was dreaming of a woman, Elizabeth, his psyche told her. She was kissing another man, and this had broken Norrington’s heart.
She pulled out of his mind and leaned back from the bed. He had already lost this woman. That would make his healing difficult, but there was nothing for her to do but try. She stood and went to the main room of her house and rummaged through drawers, pushing aside herbs, dried bones, and other sundry household items, talking to herself all the while. She finally found what she was looking for, a pair of long dressmaker’s shears.
She took them back into the bedroom and sat on the stool. Norrington’s wounded arm hung over the side of the bed closest to her and she leaned over it with the scissors. Suddenly, Norrington opened his eyes, sat up slightly and fixed her with a murderous stare. She froze, scissors in hand.
“Isn’t it enough, Elizabeth, that you’ve cut my heart out?” he said, his eyes darting to the scissors. His look was one of wounded anger. “What will you take next?” His voice was refined and held an edge like a fine blade; it was a voice accustomed to commanding. This man was no deserter, nor was he an ordinary sailor.
Regardless, Tia Dalma had always been one to fight fire with fire. She glared at him. “I be not ‘Lizabet,” she said fiercely, “I be Tia Dalma. Now syit steel.” She pointed at the bed, her mouth set in a line and her eyes sparking.
After a beat, Norrington lay back warily, closed his eyes and dozed off again. Tia Dalma lifted the cuff of his ragged jacket and shirt and cut from the wrist to the middle of his upper arm, then spread the raw edges of both garments, exposing the wound. She drew in a sharp breath.
Although the bleeding had stopped, the wound looked and smelled terrible. It ran almost from his wrist to his elbow. She would have to work rapidly, as this was certainly what was killing him the most quickly. He had been lucky not to break any bones. And with further luck, he would be able to keep his arm. She could cut it off if she had to, but sincerely hoped she would not have to resort to such extreme measures. She walked quickly from the bedroom and out into the house to look for the other necessary items.
She took a jar full of moldy bread down from the ceiling. She then grabbed some clean rags, a bottle of rum, and a bowl of fresh water and carried these items into the bedroom. She mixed the moldy bread with some rum to make a paste, and then spread it over the wound, binding it with wet, and then dry rags. She then refilled the bowl with fresh water and got a spoon. She woke Norrington up gently and made him drink some water. And so he started to heal, at least in body.
****
Norrington dreamed. Most of the dreams were nightmares, and most of these nightmares were about Elizabeth. In one of them, he stood on the parapet in Port Royal, the very same one upon which he had “almost caught” Jack Sparrow. Elizabeth lolled in William Turner’s arms, kissing him as the entire garrison looked on. But this time, she broke from Turner and came to Norrington, and Norrington’s heart leapt as he imagined she had changed her mind.
She walked slowly. The light breeze tossed her curls about her shoulders. She had a small smile on her face as she stepped close and pressed her body to his. He didn’t want to breathe, lest he break the spell. She slid her hands over his shoulders and slowly moved in to kiss him. He was about to kiss her back, but then she slid her left hand down to his dagger and drew it out with a familiar metallic scrape, while pulling away from him. Suddenly she stabbed him in the chest, deeply, and drew the blade sideways with a feral grin.
She then dropped the dagger to clatter on the flagstones. She reached up with her other hand, and grabbed his heart and pulled hard, then held it up to his face. It was glass, clear glass dripping blood on the ground. With a smirk and a shrug she dropped it. He watched it fall slowly through the air, catching the late afternoon sunlight as it did. It shattered on the stones, throwing droplets of blood and slivers of light all directions. Then she walked away from him and back to Will, who, along with the entire garrison, laughed at him. As Elizabeth walked, she stepped on the larger pieces of glass, crushing them to dust under her satin heels.
That particular dream occurred often, although sometimes she had scissors and his heart was paper, which she would light on fire from the nearest candle. He could never seem to wake up, and even when he thought he did, he was in such a strange place, he thought he must still be dreaming. The smell of opium permeated both sleep and the strange half-sleep that served him as wakefulness.
On the fourth day, Norrington finally woke completely to the smell of water and things growing. He could hear multitudes of birds and insects outside the window, which was pouring light across the bed. The last thing he could remember was floating on his makeshift raft, drifting aimlessly as his body deteriorated. Then a rogue wave tossed him from his refuge and as the sea took him, he thought the end was nigh. But then he washed up on the beach, coughed up a lungful of brine and collapsed. Beyond that, he could recall nothing but dreams.
One thing was clear, someone had rescued him, and what was more, someone had tried to mend his arm, which was still bandaged, but hurt much less than before. Whoever had rescued him had removed his jacket and shirt, and had hung them carefully on a peg by the bed. Norrington looked down at his torso and groaned as he noticed massive bruising, now faded to a jaundiced-looking yellow. Well, he was a man of the navy. Bruises and injuries were simply part of the job. It seemed that he would live to fight another day. He sat up in the bed.
He heard a noise and looked around quickly. A wild-looking woman stood framed in the doorway, grinning at him with black-stained teeth. But her smile was friendly, and Norrington imagined this was most likely his rescuer.
“Jameh, you be ‘wake,” she said, her smile broadening.
“So it would seem,” Norrington responded, half-smiling in return. Inwardly, he reflected that re-introducing himself as “Commodore” would be churlish given the circumstances. The woman approached the bed. She wore a gold brocade gown with most of the hem cut off to allow her freedom of movement. Her feet were bare and very dirty. In place of fine jewelry, she wore necklaces of bones, beads and shells. Chicken feathers adorned her dark hair.
“How be you fyeelin’?” she asked.
“Much better, thank you, Miss…” Norrington trailed off, waiting for her to supply her name.
The wild woman threw her head back and laughed long and deep.
“So sorry, is it Mrs., then?”
She just laughed harder.
“Oh, yo’ ma raise a p’lite chile, she dyid,” she said, wiping her red eyes, “I be Tia Dalma.” She poured him a mug of water from a pitcher next to the bed, handed it to him and sat on a rocking chair next to him, crossing one ankle over the other at the foot of the bed. She pointed a long-nailed finger at him. “Slow now, Jameh,” she warned, “You bring t’up, you clean t’up.”
With some embarrassment, he realized he had probably done just that during the time he’d been in her house. And although he was parched, he sipped it like an appertif, all the while studying her warily out of the corner of his eye and wondering who she could be. She stared back at him as if she could see through him.
“She hur’ you bad, din’ she?” Tia Dalma said.
Norrington started. He set the water aside, lest he spill it. He must’ve talked in his sleep. Or else she was speculating. “I beg your pardon?”
“’Lizabet.” One word. One little name was like being cut fresh and he wanted nothing more than to forget about her. But Elizabeth wouldn’t let him go, or vice versa. Now all Norrington could do was put his head in his hand.
“I’d prefer not to talk about it, if it’s all the same to you,” he muttered, although he wondered how much Tia Dalma already knew.
Tia Dalma shrugged and crossed her legs the other way on the foot of his bed. “That be fine,” she said casually, “I save yo’ life. Y’owe me nah-ting, nah t’even a n’explanation.” She examined her long fingernails.
Norrington winced. She definitely had him there.
“Very well,” he sighed. Tia Dalma’s eyes lit up. She sat up and leaned toward him with interest. Over the next hour, he told her the entire story, from meeting Elizabeth as a child on the crossing from England, all the way up to her rejection of him. Although it was difficult to talk about, he somehow felt lighter by the end. And although Tia Dalma absorbed it all, she didn’t look surprised. Perhaps she just wanted to hear his version of it.
“An’ how did you hurt y’arm?” she asked him at the end, as she moved to unwrap it to see how it was healing.
“I’m afraid I can’t remember,” he said. “I imagine it probably happened during the storm.”
She finished unwrapping it and then examined it, tracing a long fingernail over the newly healed flesh. “Would you like t’know?” she asked, looking back at Norrington with a look of concern in her dark eyes.
Norrington did not want to know, but he was curious about what she had in mind and how she could possibly tell him. “How? Do you know?” he asked.
“Nevah mine dat,” she waved his question away. Norrington looked at the wound, which although large, now showed healthy red tissue. It would scar badly, but would not kill him.
“Is it going to hurt terribly?” he asked, more curious than afraid.
Tia Dalma grinned at him. “De trut’ always do,” she answered, and then squeezed his arm until the crust on the wound broke a little and a drop of blood welled up. Norrington gritted his teeth, but the pain was transient and faded as soon as she released his arm. She wiped the drop of blood up with a finger and muttering under her breath, put her finger on her tongue, and then threw her head back as if quaffing a draught of rum. When she brought it back up, her eyes were unfocused and her pupils swung lazily from left to right.
When she spoke, it was not her usual broken English, but the deeper and more refined tones of a member of the British Navy. “We can’t last in this weather sir…she’ll come apart…” She swayed to and fro, and her voice increased in urgency. “What are you trying to prove, Commodore?” she suddenly yelled, “Sparrow is gone. Gone! Don’t you realize that? He bested you and the rest of us! Damn you, Norrington, you’ve killed us all!” And she drew an imaginary sword and brought it down in front of Norrington. Instinctively, he threw up his left arm to ward off the blow, and suddenly it all came back to him.
The cut was not an accident, he now remembered with new horror. His first mate Gillette had turned on him, although Gillette had no doubt voiced what everyone else had been thinking. He had damned Norrington and his pride, his relentless pursuit and bad judgment. Then he had struck, and Norrington had been so stunned he hadn’t even drawn his own blade. Then a monstrous wave had washed Gillette overboard, and all manner of hell had broken loose.
On the other hand, Norrington had been lucky. If he hadn’t brought his arm up, the blade would have taken out an eye at the very least. He was also lucky not to have become bait for the sharks after the storm, as he had no doubt been bleeding profusely. It must have happened relatively close to whatever island he was now on. He looked at Tia Dalma once more. She blinked and shook her head as if she had water in her ear. Then she fixed him with an intense stare.
“So now y’know,” she said.
“Now I know,” he agreed in a hollow voice. He drew his arm away from her and shivered despite the heat of the day. What can’t she see? he wondered uneasily.
Although Norrington was reluctant to let Tia Dalma touch him once more, he allowed her to re-wrap his arm in a fresh dressing. “You res’ now,” she ordered him when she finished, and then she stood and turned to leave.
“Wait, please,” Norrington said. Tia Dalma stopped and looked at him. “Thank you. I mean for saving my life.”
She smiled at him sadly and reached down, pushing his dark hair from his face. The tenderness in the gesture tore at his heart. “You be hurtin,’ Jameh,” she said, “but destanye, she spare’ you dis time.” Her smile widened a fraction. “An’ maybe we fine’ out why dat is, by an’ by.” And with that, she turned and walked out, closing the door softly behind her. On the other side, she leaned against it.
It was not the first time she had helped a stranded sailor, but it was the first time it had not been a pirate. She liked pirates, particularly wicked Jack Sparrow, but did not trust them, which was just as well, because the feeling was mutual. Also, this was the first person she had helped who truly had a good heart. To Tia Dalma, that alone made him worth saving. A powerful destiny clung to him, as if his path was linked somehow to hers and Jack Sparrow’s.
On the other side of the door, Norrington lay back in the bed once more and rubbed his arm thoughtfully. More of the voyage came back to him now. Tia Dalma had opened a floodgate in his memory with her little voodoo trick. Norrington recalled the sense of unease with which he had commenced the campaign. Even at the outset, he had been kicking himself for not going after Sparrow immediately.
The crew had been nervous. As he walked the decks of the Dauntless, he had heard them whisper to one another. One incident in particular stuck out in his mind. One sailor had been bantering with another, heedless that Norrington had walked up behind him. The sailor had said, “If we do happen upon Sparrow, the Commodore’d better grab his ankles.” Norrington had been furious and had ordered the man flogged, but the man was merely a symptom of the ever-growing problem.
Norrington had slipped when he had let Sparrow go, and the crew had been starting to realize that. Now, he questioned why he had ever given Sparrow a head start. Perhaps he thought that killing Sparrow would lose him any chance with Elizabeth. The rational part of his mind realized how ridiculous that was-he had lost her long ago, if he had ever had her in the first place. His love for the Navy should have been worth more to him than her.
Norrington looked up and outside the window. The sun, filtered down through the canopy of the forest. For the first time, he felt uncertainty about his own place within the Navy. He wondered what would happen to him now. He had lost two ships since he had become Commodore, and countless lives of men under his command. And for what?
“Don’t sail with Norrington,” he muttered, “He’ll surely get you killed.” He shook his head bitterly, and pondered for the thousandth time why he had lived when so many better men had fallen. Uneasily, he drifted back to sleep.
****
When he woke, it was dark. Dimly, he could hear the sound of a music box coming from the next room. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Dizziness overtook him for a moment and he sat still until his head cleared. Once it did, he stood carefully. He grabbed his shirt off the peg and put it on. One of the sleeves was ripped most of the way up, so he rolled both of them. He still felt weak, so using the wall and the furniture, he walked slowly to the door and opened it.
Tia Dalma’s room was fascinating and strange, filled with her voodoo components and curiosities from all over the globe. Tia Dalma herself sat in a woven chair, repairing his coat and listening to the tinkling music coming from a heart-shaped music box on one of the tables. She hummed along with it as she pulled the thread taut.
“Let me do that,” Norrington said, breaking her reverie, “you’ve done enough.” Tia Dalma shrugged and handed him the work and gestured to the chair opposite her. He sat and continued to sew the seam where she had stopped. The music tinkled on. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Her work had been small and neat, and the seam would barely show from the outside. The jacket had been ruined, but at least with the big rents mended, it would be wearable when he finally left.
Tia Dalma put her chin in one hand and watched him work. “I known men like you,” she said.
“Indeed?” Norrington pulled the needle through the fabric.
“N’I wondah abou’ what you see in ‘Lizabet.”
Norrington said nothing, just pulled the thread taut.
“You c’n have any womahn,” Tia Dalma said, “As long as she have chile-bearin’ hips n’a refine’ nature.”
Norrington smiled slightly as he realized that Elizabeth had neither. “Perhaps,” he answered. He sighed and made another stitch. From outside the house came the sound of rain on wet leaves.
“Steel, it would nevah have worked,” Tia Dalma said, waving her hand casually.
Norrington looked at her sharply and stopped sewing.
“You don’ believe me.” It wasn’t a question. “You don’ wan t’a believe me.”
Norrington ignored her and bent back over his work. Actually, it had never occurred to him what kind of a husband he would make, particularly for someone as spirited as Elizabeth. She wasn’t one of those women who could happily keep his house and raise his children for him. Women like that were pale flowers indeed when put next to Elizabeth. She’d make a man a better mistress than a wife, he thought wickedly.
Still, he wondered what marriage to Elizabeth would have been like. At the time he had proposed to her, all he knew was that he loved her, and he wanted her. He hadn’t really thought farther ahead than the wedding and indeed, the wedding night.
“You don’ have t’a believe me,” Tia Dalma said, “You cahn see fo’ yo’self.”
“No thank you,” Norrington said flatly, although now that she has suggested it, he was desperately curious. He also knew that with her skills, she probably could show him. She was offering him a rare gift, a glimpse of what could have been. He tried to go back to the seam, but now the idea was like a sore in his mouth that he couldn’t stop worrying. She fell silent and ceased her rocking. The music box, the insects outside, the gentle rain, and the distant thunder were now the only sounds in the room.
He glanced at Tia Dalma out of the corner of his eye, who looked at him in the same way that a cat looks at a mouse.
The minutes ticked by, and the seam began to close under Norrington’s fingers. Tia Dalma never moved, but just fixed him with her uncanny stare. Norrington tied off the thread, the seam now closed. He rubbed his eyes, which were sore from doing fine work by candlelight. “Fine,” he said through clenched teeth, “You win. Show me.”
“Ah,” said Tia Dalma, grinning widely, “Da needle, if you please,” she said, holding out her hand. Norrington bit the thread and handed her the needle. “Now, do you have a t’ing of ‘Lizabet’s?”
Norrington thought for a moment, and then checked the pockets of the jacket. His fingers closed around a single hair. It had caught on his jacket during the fateful day of Sparrow’s hanging, and rather than toss it aside, he had pocketed it. He drew it forth now, where it caught the candlelight. While he did this, Tia Dalma found a bright silver mirror and took it over to the table nearest him. Then she got out a brazier and some of her precious opium stash. She closed the curtains and the door.
She put a sticky piece of opium on the brazier and lit it using a candle. Smoke came off the brazier and drifted over to Norrington. As he breathed it in, the room became warmer and the light of the candles swam before his eyes. “It help wi’ da sight,” she said; her voice sounded far away. She brought the brazier back to the table and set it next to the mirror. She drew up her own chair and straddled it backwards, her legs to either side. Norrington supposed he should be shocked, but the narcotic effect of the drug was making him care less and less.
She leaned over the chair and held out one of her hands to Norrington. She still had the needle in the other. “’Lizabet’s pretty hair,” she said. He held it out to her, and she took it, mumbled something unintelligible and then dropped it on the mirror. As it fell, it created a ripple on the mirror, as if disturbing still water. “An’ now, yo’ hand,” Tia Dalma said. Slowly, Norrington held it out to her.
She took his thumb with her left hand and squeezed the tip, then drew the needle down quickly, puncturing his skin. The pain registered remotely; the opium had dulled most sensation. She turned his hand in hers and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the surface of the mirror. They splashed into tiny droplets when they hit the surface and swirled through the silver, a deep red spreading from the center to the outside.
“Clear yo’ mine, an’ don’ you let yo’ desires cloud da mirror,” she told him. Norrington let his mind go blank. “Now, look,” Tia Dalma said.
Norrington leaned forward, and stared deep into the swirling silver-red of the mirror. Tia Dalma started to chant in a guttural voice and the surface began to clear. Now the mirror showed a wedding, his wedding. Elizabeth was resplendent in her brocade gown, and he was handsome in his best uniform. He looked pleased, but Elizabeth had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were somewhere else. She said her vows, but it was as if she was speaking to someone beyond him.
Norrington looked in the mirror and saw that she was staring not at William Turner, nor Jack Sparrow, nor any other man, as he had expected, but at the ocean that served as a backdrop. The mirror rippled and then stilled. Now it was night in the mirror world, and it showed the interior of a bedroom, most likely Elizabeth’s. There were no candles lit, and the moon provided the only light. Elizabeth stood in profile in front of the window with her hair cascading down her back and over the swell of her breasts. The moonlight illuminated every curve on her body. Norrington found himself becoming aroused as he came to her side. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
Elizabeth reached for him. “James,” she whispered, “make love to me.”
In the real world, Tia Dalma slapped the table hard with the flat of her hand, startling him. “No!” she said. She reached across the table and took his face in her hands, bringing his head up. She stared into his eyes. “You mus’ let what will happen, happen. ‘Member whah t’I say, ‘bout the trut’. Eh t’will hurt. But you mus’ see. ‘Else she nevah let you go.” She dropped her hands. “Now look ‘gain.”
She moved the brazier closer to him and he breathed in deep and let his mind go blank once more. He would bear what he must. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the opium dull all of his senses. When he opened his eyes once more, he was in the bedroom with Elizabeth. Now he was a participant, rather than an observer, as if he were dreaming yet actually there.
This time, she still stood beside the window, but as he came to her, her eyes widened. This stopped him in his tracks. “We don’t have to do this tonight,” he heard himself say, although every part of him wanted her. She shook her head.
“No, James, it should be tonight,” she said with resolve.
“Very well,” he answered, and took her in his arms, but then felt her stiffen. He let her go and backed off.
“No, really, I’m fine,” she said with false cheer. She went over to the bed and lay down on her back. Norrington saw her swallow nervously. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he did want her, although it was beginning to dawn on him that maybe she didn’t want him back. She was not the first woman he had deflowered, and he knew that if she didn’t relax, he would hurt her. If that was what she was afraid of, her standoffishness was not personal.
He approached her and climbed on the bed with her. He gently caressed her face with the back of his hand, and then slid his hand down her neck and over the tops of her breasts. She was so lovely, he thought, as he bent to her and kissed her neck and breathed in the clean scent of her hair. He could feel her start to relax, although she made no move to reciprocate. His hands traveled down her body, tracing its contours. She slowly spread her legs. He got between them and pushed her shift up her thighs, his pulse racing.
He lay between her legs and unbuttoned his breeches with one hand. Then he slowly pushed into her with a deep groan of pleasure. He had wanted her for a long time, and so he took her quickly, then rolled off and buttoned his breeches again. Elizabeth just stared at the ceiling, not moving. Norrington caught his breath and then rolled onto his side, facing her, and propped himself up on an elbow. Elizabeth looked at him.
“I trust, then, you are sated,” she said, somewhat coldly.
He stopped breathing for a second as the chill in her words touched him, then sighed and rolled onto his back again. “Yes,” he answered.
The scene shimmered as if underwater and came back on what looked like another night. And on this night, he took her again, in much the same manner, and again she asked the question. And again on the next night. And the next. Each night, he attempted to reach out to her, but she shrugged him off. Eventually, he stopped trying.
Then on one morning, everything changed. Norrington walked past the bedroom and caught a glimpse of Elizabeth, heedless of his presence, pulling on her chemise, but before she pulled it down, Norrington noticed deep scratches on her back. His heart plummeted. The marks were unmistakably those of a zealous lover. The scene shimmered once more and it was night again. Now he waited for Elizabeth in the dark. He sat in a chair by the window, and watched the moonlight creep slowly cross the floor. Elizabeth had gone to a “friend’s house,” to give someone else what she wouldn’t give him.
Time passed slowly until finally Elizabeth came in, obviously trying to be quiet so as not to wake him. She closed the door with her back to him. Norrington’s voice cut through the silence and startled her. “I trust, then, you are sated,” he said. Elizabeth jumped, looking guiltily around at him.
“I…I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, quickly regaining her composure.
“Indeed.” Norrington was out of the chair in a flash and at her side. He took her roughly by the arm. “Who is he?” he asked her.
“James, what-?”
Norrington had no patience for her. “Strip,” he ordered, releasing her and stepping back with his arms folded.
“No,” she said defiantly.
“Strip,” he said again, “or I’ll do it for you. But if you have nothing to hide, you’ll do it yourself.”
“I have nothing to hide, I just refuse to be degraded,” she answered.
“Don’t get high and mighty with me, Elizabeth. You’ll let yourself be degraded by another man quickly enough it would seem. It shames me that you would let another man see you naked, but not your own husband. I’ll not ask you again.”
“Well, that’s good, because I’d just say no.” She looked at him haughtily, but there was fear in her eyes that said not only was she in the wrong, but also that she was pushing him way too far. A tense silence, like the calm before a hurricane, hung between them. Elizabeth sensed that one way or another she was going to lose the battle. “Very well,” she finally said, “this gown laces from behind so I’ll need your help anyway.”
“My pleasure,” he shot back.
Elizabeth swung her long hair over her shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. Norrington stepped behind her and untied the lace of her gown, then slipped the lace out two eyelets at a time, making them snap with each tug of his wrist. When he was done, he pushed the gown off her shoulders. She stepped out of it and stood beside it in chemise and corset.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked him.
“Not quite, darling.”
She sighed. “You really do have a suspicious mind, James,” she said.
“With good reason, I suspect.” He unlaced her corset quickly and tossed it aside. She undid the front of her chemise herself and let it fall down her shoulders, exposing her lacerated back. Suddenly the fight went out of him. What was the use? She didn’t want him; she had already made that much abundantly clear. “Would you care to explain this?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. At this point, he just wondered what she would say. Would she cry and apologize, or would she be defiant, or would she just lie like she’d been lying this whole time?
But before she could answer, he heard a voice in the back of his mind, pulling him back to a reality he had forgotten about. “Jameh…” The scene shimmered once more and everything went dark. “Jameh…” came the voice again. With difficulty, he opened his eyes and was once more in the smoke-filled interior of Tia Dalma’s house. Thoroughly disoriented, he blinked once or twice as his stomach roiled.
“Excuse me,” he said. He stumbled out onto the porch, where he leaned over the rail and quietly threw up into the bayou. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. Disgusted, he wiped it off. His head was still fuzzy from the opium, but it was starting to clear, and with the clarity came a deep sense of sorrow and humiliation. Rain poured down, splashing in the water. Over the sound of the rain, he heard the door open behind him and knew that Tia Dalma had joined him. He didn’t turn around, but just gripped the rail hard.
“I suppose that you saw all of that,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“The worst part is that none of it makes a difference.”
“Wha’ d’you mean?” Her voice was gentle.
“I’m sure that what you showed me was true. That if she had held up her end of the bargain, and we had married, that we would have ended up like that.” Norrington turned and looked at Tia Dalma. “But part of me still loves her despite all of it. And the other part of me wants…” He trailed off. What he didn’t say was that he’d like to use her like she’d used him. The other part wanted revenge.
“She gone, Jameh,” Tia Dalma said, although she was fairly certain that Norrington and Elizabeth’s paths would cross again. Destiny had linked them even if it hadn’t meant them to be together. But Tia Dalma saw no use in telling Norrington that just yet.
“I know,” he answered quietly. Neither one spoke for a while, they just stood and watched the rain. “Do you suppose she’ll be happy with William Turner?” he couldn’t help but ask.
Tia Dalma shrugged. “Who know?”
Norrington smirked. “Perhaps she’d be happier with Jack Sparrow.”
“Ah, Jack.” Tia Dalma smiled fondly. “He only make a womahn happy fo’ five minutes at a time.”
Norrington stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me that you know Sparrow?”
Tia Dalma put her hands on her hips and glared at Norrington. “I don’ need t’explain anyt’ing to you, Jameh, ‘specially in mah owen house.”
“Perhaps not, but it would have helped me to trust you. You’ve seen that Jack Sparrow is my enemy.” Norrington looked at the uneven boards at his feet. “I just feel as if there’s no one I can trust.” He looked back up at her. “And I’d like to trust you.”
Tia Dalma leaned her body into his, which made him recoil slightly. She grinned up at him with her blackened teeth. “Don’ you worry, Jameh” she said, “F’I was loy’ahl to wicked Jack, I d’a let you die on dat beach. Or else…” she reached up and drew a long nail slowly across Norrington’s throat. Then she laughed.
Norrington smiled in spite of himself. “I’m relieved, I’m sure,” he said dryly.
Tia Dalma withdrew her hand and leaned back. “De trut’ is, I behlong to no mahn. Dat’s why I help you.” She smiled at him. “I like you. You are a good mahn, Jameh. But I like Jack, so when he cohme back to me, I help him too. Can you see dat?”
Norrington nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
The rain fell around them. “You res’ again, Jameh,” Tia Dalma finally said.
Norrington felt drained. “Yes, that would be best,” he agreed. “I just pray I don’t dream.”
Tia Dalma smiled at him. “May de dre-ams be good,” she said.
“Thank you.” He bowed slightly to her. “Good night, Tia Dalma.”
“Good night Jameh.”
Norrington went into his room and closed the door, then walked to the bed and lay down. He listened to the rain patter on the roof until he finally fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
When he awoke the next morning and opened the door to his room, Tia Dalma was gone and a man was sitting at the table, whittling a small piece of wood into a tiny boat. He looked up as Norrington approached him.
“She gone, syailah,” the man said. When he spoke, Norrington realized that he was one of the men who had rescued him. “A womahn las’ night great wid’ a chile; she start t’have her chile, an’ she need help. So Tia Dalma, she go.”
“I see,” said Norrington.
“But she sen’ me up to check on you.” The man studied Norrington. “But yo’ bettah den you were.”
“Yes, thank you. And thank you for bringing me in from the beach.”
The man smiled. “Ah. But it is she who seen you firs’.”
Norrington smiled in return. He should have known. “Nonetheless, I thank you.”
The man held out his hand. “I be Abasi, her sistah’s son.”
“James Norrington.” They shook, and then Abasi continued whittling his little boat. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” Norrington said, “I don’t want to stay in the house all day.”
Abasi grinned at him. “Den you fish wid’ me.”
“Gladly.” Norrington had a great longing to go back to sea in anything that would float, whether he was in the mightiest ship in the Navy or in something as simple as a fishing skiff.
Abasi sheathed his knife, pocketed the little boat and stood, stretching his back. “Let’s go.” He put a ragged straw hat on his head and headed out the door. Norrington followed him down the ladder to the waiting boat. “I’ll row us out of the bayou, if you wish,” Norrington volunteered.
Abasi waved him away. “Don’ worry ‘bout it. Da bayou, she carry us to da sea.” He settled lazily into the stern, half reclining. He whittled once more. “F’you wan’ something to do, make shuh’ we don’ hit anyt’ing,” he said lazily. It dawned on Norrington that there was absolutely no reason for haste. The boat slowly floated down the bayou, and Norrington did little but enjoy the scenery.
As the boat neared the delta, the trees cleared and Norrington faintly heard the lap of the sea against the shore. Soon they emerged from the canopy of the trees and the sea appeared before them. A light breeze ruffled Norrington’s hair. He breathed deep of the salty air and felt more alive than he’d felt since the storm.
When the boat reached the sea, both Norrington and Abasi took an oar and rowed out to deeper water, where Abasi cast his lines. They fished all day and by the time the sun had set, they had caught several snapper, and a couple of grouper. Norrington was as good as his word as they made their way back to the delta. He took the oars and rowed the skiff up the bayou as Abasi cleaned and the fish and threw the guts over the side.
By the time they reached Tia Dalma’s house once more, dusk had settled. Norrington’s back and shoulders throbbed, but it was the best sort of pain. Norrington bade Abasi farewell at the ladder, and then accepted two snapper as his day’s wage.
He fished with Abasi for the next three days and in that time, his arm healed to the long pink seam that would remain with him for the rest of his life. Norrington enjoyed deep dreamless sleep until the fourth night. That night, he dreamed that he was swimming in the turquoise Caribbean water. All around him, Navy vessels passed him, all of them ships upon which he had once served. He called to them at the top of his voice, but none threw him a line. He awoke the next morning troubled; he didn’t need Tia Dalma’s voodoo to figure out what the dream meant.
He went out with Abasi that day, but he was distracted. When he returned that night, Tia Dalma cooked the snapper as she had the previous nights. After dinner, Norrington asked her if he had overstayed his welcome. Tia Dalma smiled at him as they sat at the table together.
“No, Jameh, but I wondah if maybe you wan’ to escape yo’ destanye.”
He picked at a splinter that stuck out of the table. “I don’t even know what it is.”
Tia Dalma chuckled. “No wahn do.”
Norrington looked at her. “You know my past and my present, but not my future?”
She sighed. “Da future is wily. I can’t show you da future clear like da pass’ an’ da presen’.” She stood and went to a cupboard. She mumbled to herself as she rifled its many drawers, until she found fabric-wrapped bundle. She brought it over to the table and set it down. The fabric wrapped around it was covered in dubious stains and Norrington looked at it warily. Tia Dalma undid the bundle, her lips ever moving. When she wrangled the knots out of the fabric and unwrapped it, Norrington saw that it was a dirty and faded deck of playing cards.
She lifted it out reverentially and handed it to Norrington, who took it with trepidation. “Mix de cards,” she ordered him. With a practiced hand, Norrington shuffled the cards while Tia Dalma closed her eyes and chanted. After a moment, Norrington’s hands and fingertips started tingling where they touched the deck.
“D’ats enough,” Tia Dalma finally said and opened her eyes once more. Norrington cut the deck. Tia Dalma sat opposite him once more and reached across the table. She took the cards and flipped the first one up. It was the King of Hearts. “D’ats you, Jameh,” she told him.
“I hardly think I’m the king of anyone’s heart,” he said.
“Shhh,” she said, glowering at him. “De heart, yo’ heart, it is in de water; it is water. De king of de heart, he de king of water, an’ he a good mahn. Dat’s you.”
She drew the next card from the deck and laid it across the first. It was the nine of spades. “Bad t’ings, Jameh,” she said. She drew the next and laid it by the fist two. It was the ace of spades. Tia Dalma frowned. “Deat,” she said. “But fo’ you, it is not de deat’ of de body.”
“What makes you so sure?” Norrington asked.
Tia Dalma smiled. “Jameh, destanye save’ you from de storm. If she wanted you to die…” she trailed off.
“I know,” Norrington said as he slowly drew his finger across his throat.
Tia Dalma looked at the cards once more. “Fo’ you, it is deat’ in order to live again. To live, you mus’ firs’ die.”
The next card she drew was the King of Spades. “Jack Sparra.” She drew another card from the deck. It was the seven of hearts. “Dis is ‘Lizabet. She too is water. But she change wid de tide.”
Norrington smiled. “Indeed she does.”
The next card was the King of Clubs. “A mahn…” Tia Dalma shook her head. “’Lizabet’s mahn, maybe. See how she between da two? You will see all tree of dem again. An’ den…” She drew another card, the four of clubs and laid it atop of the previous three, Sparrow, Elizabeth and Turner’s cards. “Betray-ahl,” she said.
Norrington raised an eyebrow. “From those three? Imagine my surprise.”
Tia Dalma looked at him sharply. “No, Jameh, from you. Dese ah yo’ cards.” The next card was the five of clubs. “An’ last, an ahgreement ‘tween you an’ someone new.”
“So, what does it all mean?” Norrington asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Tia Dalma looked up at him from the cards with pity in her eyes. She pointed at the nine of spades. “T’ings goin’ ta get worse ‘fore dey get bettah.” Then she pointed at the ace of spades. “Dis deat,’ it may be deat’ of everyt’ing dat you know. An’ maybe you wan’ ta die before it ovah.” She swept her hand over the trinity of Jack, Elizabeth and Will. “Den you meet bahck wid dese tree. Dats when yo’ life, it change. Firs’ you will see Jack, den ‘Lizabet’, and den dis othah wahn. Aftah dat…” She pointed to the five of clubs. “T’ings dey gyet bettah.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I must say. I’m going to be miserable enough to want to die, but I won’t die. Then I’ll meet up with my worst enemy, my ex-fiancee and her new fiancé, and then betray them. But things get better.”
“Yes, dat dey do.” Tia Dalma pointed at the ace of spades one last time. “But t’ings nevah goin’ to be da same. Dese cards…” She swept her hand across the spread. “Dey all ‘bout deat and rebirt.”
Something on the floor next to the door caught Norrington’s attention. A small turtle was bravely making its way across the threshold and onto the worn floorboards of the room.
“It would seem that you have a visitor,” Norrington said, pointing at the turtle.
Tia Dalma looked and then smiled broadly. She got up and crossed the room to the turtle. Then she stooped and picked it gently up. She carried the turtle back over to the table and set it next to the cards, where it retreated fearfully into its shell. “Dis be a sign, Jameh,” she said.
“A sign?”
“Tortuga. D’ats wheah dis all happen.”
“Tortuga.”
Tia Dalma nodded.
“That’s a pirate port, and in fact a pirate island.”
“Dis I know, Jameh. But dat’s wheah yo’ destanye happen.”
“I’ll not be welcome there. If I go there, destiny or not, I will certainly be killed.”
“So don’ go as yo’self. But styill, you mus’ go. Stop fighten it.”
There was another pause. “Then I’ll go,” Norrington finally said.
“Yes, Jameh, but not tonight,” she replied.
“No, not tonight,” he agreed. “Where are we, exactly? What island is this?” he asked suddenly, changing the subject.
“I cahn show you,” Tia Dalma said. She collected the cards together in a neat pile and re-wrapped them in the fabric, then stood and rummaged in a drawer. She pulled out a chart and laid it on the table, using the turtle to weigh down one of the curling edges. Then she pointed out her island. As soon as she did, Norrington recovered his bearings and knew exactly where he was. It was a large island, and had a decent-sized harbor, but no naval outpost.
He and Tia Dalma decided it would be best for him to go with one of the fishing boats to the closest island with a naval base. Once there, he could easily get back to Port Royal. Tia Dalma rolled up the chart and put it away. Although it was late, Norrington wasn’t tired. So he sat up and mended the other tear in his jacket, and then repaired his shirt as well. For now, he wouldn’t be the sharp-dressed Commodore he used to be, but at least his uniform wouldn’t be falling off of him. If only his spirit could be mended so easily.
Although he tried to stay awake, eventually he dozed off in the chair. Tia Dalma got up and blew out all the candles, but not before she took a moment to stand over the sleeping Commodore and watch his face. The worry had finally left it and he seemed at peace. Once more, she pushed his dark hair off his face. “Sleep well, Jameh,” she said, and blew out the last candle, then retired herself.
In the morning, if he had dreamed, he could not remember it. He woke at dawn and watched the fog lift over the bayou as the red sun rose. “Red sun at morning, sailors take warning,” he said to himself. Bad omens or not, today he would meet his fate off this island, whatever it might be. Tia Dalma rose soon after, gathered eggs and made them both breakfast. Norrington found himself famished. After breakfast, Tia Dalma went next door to beg a ride for him from Abasi.
When she left, it dawned on Norrington just how much he owed her. Although he saw his life as a complete wreck, she had saved it, and what was more, she had showed him and told him the truth, which was much more than he could say of Elizabeth. Tia Dalma didn’t know him from Adam and she had been straight as an arrow and had saved his life. Elizabeth had known him for almost a decade and had done nothing but lie to him, use him, and nearly get him killed.
Norrington swore he would pay Tia Dalma back somehow, some day. She came back a little while later. “It all ‘ranged,” she told him, “Abasi, he take you to da nex’ island. From der, yo’ on y’own.”
“Thank you, again,” Norrington said. He shrugged into his coat, feeling a little more like himself.
Tia Dalma grinned, showing her blackened teeth. “Y’owe me nah-‘ting, Jameh,” she said once more, coming to him and looking up into his face, “’xept maybe a kyiss.”
He looked down at her. She was wild, frightening, and a voodoo priestess. But kiss her he would. He stroked her hair and then bent down and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed him back, gently, and then pulled away. Just then, Abasi pulled up to the house in his boat. “Good-bye, Tia Dalma,” Norrington said, as he climbed down the ladder and into the waiting boat.
“’Bye, Jameh,” she called down to him. He looked back up to the veranda, where she stood watching him pull away. When the boat was out of sight, Tia Dalma went back into her house, and into the room that had been his. On his pillow was left one long dark hair. She deftly plucked it up. “’Tank you, Jameh,” she said. She carried it out into the other room and found a tiny jar with a stopper, and carefully placed the hair in it, then closed it up. She rolled it around in the palm of her hand. “Destanye,” she said, “Destanye…”