Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Despite their torrid argument, Jack was rewarded with a good night’s rest. Encouraged by high spirits, he’d eaten a whole bowl of thick soup Elizabeth had wordlessly handed him before dozing off into an exhausted sleep. He must have slept well into the morning, for when he woke, all was silent, save for the birds who warbled in their full-throated splendour right in front of his open window. He brought a hand to his forehead and opened his eyes halfway, only to realise that Elizabeth had missed to close the curtains. Blinded by the Caribbean sunlight, he felt his most constant companion, his dreaded headache preparing for an unexpected return. Unleashing a plaintive groan, he silently cursed his negligent nurse. Clearly, she was by no means aware of the precarious state he was in. He spent some rather comforting minutes pitying his plight when the memory of yesterday’s heated exchange crushed his mind and once fine spirits to dust. He groaned again, pained more acutely than before but for entirely different reasons. Over night, the satisfying sensation of plundering the final say had disappeared, replaced by the bitter tang of regret. Damn, he couldn’t even pretend he didn’t understand her fury! This time, he agreed with every single one of her accusations-he’d come to the same conclusion only moments before her verbal assault.
He shouldn’t have made the lad part of his schemes, much less part of an arrangement the outcome of which could hardly have been less favourable for young William; reluctantly he owned that he had wronged the boy. If she’d only given him the chance to explain himself, she’d have known that he’d been about to set things right. Their fragile armistice had been ruined for no reason at all - which he regretted. During the past week, her company might not have been what he would term as enjoyable, but there was something for not having to fight tooth and claw for dominance. Though his condition had improved considerably, he was still far from the kind of physical shape that was required in defence against her verbal assaults. Indeed, he considered himself lucky that their sparring had remained verbal at all; she hadn’t lost the tiniest portion of her former clout. If anything, her current way of life had only brought her closer to the saintly image of Joan of Arc at wartime.
He immediately began to picture her in full harness, leading a whole army against his invalid figure. The image scared him so much he made another attempt at opening his eyes; more successful, this time, though he was still blinded by the light. A sideward glance told him that Elizabeth must have visited his room before leaving for her shop. On a chair next to his bedside, he found a fresh white shirt; on his nightstand a mug of water and two mangos gave the wrong impression of a gentle woman taking care of a beloved friend. Mindful of the ironic contradiction, he picked up the mango as he thought. A lesser man might have mistaken the lovingly served breakfast as an apologetic gesture, but he knew Elizabeth; this was expression of an overdeveloped sense of duty. She was the pious martyr with a cross to bear, he the lowly peon, unfit to touch the hem of her garment in his unwashed, sinful state.
Unwilling to add to her virtuous triumph, he ignored his stomach’s grumbling protest and stubbornly placed the fruit back on his nightstand. His shirt felt dirty and smelled, tempting him to put on the fresh one, but contemplating the matter, he decided that dirty and smelling was exactly how he liked his clothing best. He sat up and shoved the chair carrying the unwanted shirt aside, preparing himself to get up. Shakily, he threw back his bed coverlets; he had to double his training if he wanted to leave the house unscathed.
xxx
It still felt awkward to be here, within these very walls that had known him, long before he’d come to know himself. Contrary to what legend said about him, he’d come into this world in a small, but beautiful house overlooking the cliffs of Shipwreck Island. Here, he’d spent six years only devoted to the joy and unconcern of childhood - a freedom he’d never known again. The familiarity of his quarters was both a blessing and a curse-the house hadn’t changed in all the years he’d been away; only the former occupant had altered with the course of time.
On wobbly legs, his hand resting safely on the bedpost, he swayed over to the window. A little out of breath from the exertion of getting up, he leaned against the windowsill to regain his strength. When he felt strong enough to support himself on his own legs, he let go of the sill to tie his mass of hair back and rearrange his scarf. He supposed he might have asked for a mirror, but looking at his own reflection in the glass pane seemed revealing enough for the time being. From what he could discern against the blazing sunlight, he was unusually pale, with dark shades below his eyes and a beard that didn’t look like his anymore. Even though he had always shaved to keep his facial hair from resembling Barbossa’s untamed rat’s nest, he couldn’t help mourning the loss of his twin braids. Blasted woman, he was fortunate that she’d left his head where it was.
Running his fingers through his hair, he discovered that some braids had loosened. As soon as he had recovered, he needed to sail to Hispaniola and see Mama Ayché, the only one he trusted enough to lay hands on his precious hair. For the time being, however, he had to make do with himself. It took him several minutes, but when he was finished, he thought that his reflection looked less shabby and more like the dashing rogue his admirers knew him to be.
Reasonably content with the result of his efforts, he turned his attention to the sight that presented itself to him when looking out of the window. He was surprised to find that it was the sea gazing back at him, a shimmering blue carpet stretching far beyond the horizon. ‘Had it always been like that?’ he wondered. Had a little boy once sat on his mothers arm, looking out of the same window to see the end of the earth where his imagination lead him to assume its location? As hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember. It was the image of his mother that rose in his mind; and for once, her features weren’t smeared with blood and clouded with the haze of death, but full of life and agonizingly beautiful. He knew that she would have wanted him to remember her in this way, without the deadly bullet lodged in her stomach, but he had never managed to shake off the cruel memory of her loss. He had been six and she had been the first woman he had loved. Maybe the only one. Not even that he could say with reasonable certainty - like so many things in his life.
He had also loved Charlotte, oh yes, and he would have married her if fate in its merciless brutality hadn’t decided otherwise. Still, the naïve young man who had once been engaged to a decent young woman of social standing didn’t seem part of him anymore, and sometimes, he even wondered if his existence was no more than a fading dream, forgotten when dawn finally broke. He rarely thought about Charlotte, even rarer than he thought about his mother, but when he did, one image wouldn’t leave his mind: Her delicate figure in a blue dress, dangling from a windowsill with a rope around her neck, while a loose shutter ceaselessly banged against the wall.
His lesion began to throb, and he had to support himself with his hands to stay upright. He wanted to lie down again, but his mind’s ceaseless wandering meandered further into the mire of his past, through a muddy, heavily vegetated swamp at the end of which sat a small, dilapidated cabin, belonging to the mystic Tia Dalma. It was hard to say whether he’d loved her or not, but it didn’t matter. She had never loved him and he doubted a mere mortal could ever touch her heart. She had used him, as she’d used his parents, but when he ignored the un-pleasantries, he rather enjoyed looking back on the time they’d spent together. She had taught him everything about lust, pain, and his own limits, and though he wasn’t sure he wanted to repeat the experience, he savoured it. Sometimes, when he thought about his mother’s necklace, he wondered what would have happened if he’d never given it to Tia but such musings yielded nothing. Remorse was no stranger to him, but he had never allowed it to consume his life, being an eternal optimist by nature. There was a difference between mistakes made by the impetuousness of youth and those caused by arrogance. For the latter, he’d paid with his soul, and though he liked to believe he too had ‘a touch of destiny’, the poor decisions he made in life were not the result of Calypso’s clever plotting.
After Tia, there had only been the sea in its purest form for him, endlessly deep and unforgiving. Of course, he’d had a variety of women in his life - sometimes also men, but he’d never desired them beyond their physical merits. Some of these encounters meant something to him; a trophy, or mere satisfaction of wants, but not love.
He remembered that one day, in the midst of the Persian Gulf, he’d been struck by the completely preposterous thought that maybe he actually loved Elizabeth Swann. Sheer Madness! Oh, he must have been brick-faced! She had dazzled him, yes, vexed him; indubitably, but he’d sooner go back to the Locker than acknowledge that love might have been part of his feelings. If anything, it had been astonishment; yes, he was astonished that another person - a woman, of all people - could in so many regards so closely resemble himself.
Following a spontaneous impulse, he turned away from the window and waved his hand, directing an invisible audience’s attention to his surroundings. In reality, however, the beckon was directed at none other than himself. Everything he saw was visible proof that he’d been wrong about her, had misjudged her in any way possible until he’d found himself entangled by her cleverly spun web of deceit. At first, she’d revealed herself to be a cold-blooded murderess; then, in her all consuming ambition, she’d soared to become Queen - pardon, King - of a dying breed. And now? Now she was acting the whelp’s virtuous wife and mother for his fiendish son while resting on her already fading laurels. ‘Bravo!’he wanted to exclaim, but all sarcasm got stuck inside his throat when the bitterness of his thoughts came crashing down upon him
He had never been one for self-criticism, but he began to feel like a spiteful vainglorious actor, unable to carry the mask of age with dignity. Elizabeth hadn’t succeeded in making the best of her abilities, but then, who was he to judge her. With a considerably greater amount of time to turn his existence into something peripherally useful, he had achieved less - and how he had tried! Seeing where his last attempt at setting things right had led him, he couldn’t help but think that there was not much of a purpose to be found in his efforts. Ending up with a bullet in his chest, bereft of his seven senses, naked as a newborn child and, worst of all, in the bed of a woman the acquaintance of which he’d wished to erase from his biography could hardly be termed a successful application of his talents.
He pulled a face, disgusted by his uncharacteristic venture into the nasty realm of self-pity. Maybe this was part of getting on in years; like the tweeting ache in his joints when a change of weather was imminent, or how his eyes seemed to fail him whenever he needed their services most. Even Gibbs, though quite a bit older than he, was able to read charts without putting his nose to the table’s surface. He had even considered wearing an eye patch, so no one would get the impression that the legendary Jack Sparrow’s inability to decipher even his own handwriting sprang from something as profane as age.
He thought of the state of his aged father, stooped with a cane; in a few years time, that would be his face. He almost wished that deuced bullet had killed him! Almost; he was still Captain Jack Sparrow, the infamous pirate who had escaped an uninhabited island on the backs of two sea turtles. Theoretically, he had sacked Port Nassau without firing a single shot and had managed to leave Davy Jones’ Locker wholly alive. His admirers deserved a statelier exit; a grander finale than his dying in a bed, on land and without his boots and coat--especially after he’d loused his search for the Fountain of Youth.
Despite Elizabeth’s erroneous assumptions, he was a man who pondered thought on a wide range of subjects. Undeniably, it was this trait that had won him more than one advantage when dealing with opponents less intellectually sound than him, but now, condemned to stay in a house filled with unwanted memories, he found that he was prone to brooding. The negative turn of his thoughts brought the edges of his moustache downward--he needed to escape!!
He had spent enough thought on his current situation to accept that he was still far from leaving Shipwreck City; considering that he had no ship created another difficulty, though one that could easily be overcome as soon as he felt well enough to plot a ruse to deprive an honest sailor of his vessel. Of course, it was still possible that such an endeavour would prove to be unnecessary … ‘No!’ he scolded himself, shaking his head. His men knew what was at stake. They had disobeyed his orders when they’d brought him to the Cove, but as their defiance had saved his life, he found he could hardly use that against them.
That didn’t mean, however, he wouldn’t give them a sound lecture about decorum, maintaining Captain’s orders, whoever falls behind gets left behind, and so forth, the moment he was back on the Pearl; presuming, of course, a particular unsavoury someone had the decency to keep his dirty fingers from matters that required a careful hand and an alert mind. If that certain someone hadn’t said presence of mind, Jack feared that his sojourn as an invalid had brought all their toiling schemes to naught. Jack’s stomach turned at the thought, and he brushed it aside as quickly as he had the lamentable adventure that had cost him the Fountain of Youth.
Feeling that delving deeper into his endless concerns might depress him, he chose to go for a walk to lift his spirits and chase away the blue shadow of nagging guilt.
xxx
As long as he kept close to the wall, everything was fine. Whenever a stabbing pain wreaked havoc through his chest, interfering with his balance, he only had to reach out for support and after a few seconds’ rest, he was ready to proceed. After having passed the door frame, however, his venture seemed to grow a little more difficult. He had completely forgotten about the fact that his room was located on the first floor, meaning that he would have to go down the stairs in order to reach the garden. There was something rather tempting about being able to relieve oneself without having to use a chamber pot, and despite his warrantable concerns, he decided to try. He leaned against the wall to better estimate the distance between where he was standing and the stair-rail. Four steps, five at most, he guessed, confident that he’d be able to master the obstacle, but as soon as he’d taken one step without the wall’s protective shelter, he felt overcome with vertigo. The room spun faster and faster until he nearly stumbled, saved only by his fingers closing around the doorframe moments before his legs started to give way.
He clung to the darkened wood as though his life depended on it, waiting for the panic to subside. Panting heavily through his parted lips, he hesitantly let go with one hand and tried to assure himself that all was well; he’d fallen victim to a particularly nasty whiff of sickness that was unlikely to come back anytime soon. A closer look at the staircase, however, prevented him from making another attempt at reaching the rail, let alone a descent down to the front door. He leaned forward, but recoiled at the sight; the stairs seemed endless and as steep as a mountainous ravine. When he imagined himself at the bottom stair with a broken spine, he chose another route--he had never particularly cared for gardens.
In search for an alternate possibility for entertainment he scanned his surroundings, hoping to find anything of interest. As he’d already found out during his walks with young William, there were three additional rooms on the first floor. There was the Turners’ bedroom, the lad’s room, and another room the purpose of which remained a mystery. There was not a tinker’s chance he’d ever lay his eyes on the bed Elizabeth and Will shared together; equally he had no desire to find himself faced with the chaos that undoubtedly prevailed in young William’s realm. So if he was to go on expedition, the mysterious room adjacent to his own remained the only choice - not an exciting prospect, to be sure, but better than lying in bed, pondering matters he’d thought successfully removed from his mind.
Taking up all of his confidence - shaken, no doubt, by his near-breakdown only moments before - he continued to follow the wall up to the door handle. His fingers scraped lightly over the brass, discovering a thin layer of dust; obviously, the room he was about to enter was not regularly used by the Turner family, which made his curiosity rise again. Maybe there were some secrets left to discover, after all.
xxx
As soon as he opened the door, he felt his hopes collapse to the dusty floor. The room was neglected, as he’d assumed it would be, but the reason for its disuse was clearly visible and anything but inexplicable. If he’d learned one thing during the weeks he’d spent at the Turners’ domicile, it was that there was nothing Elizabeth despised more than housework. Despite all the trouble she took to preserve what she liked to call “personal hygiene”, her interest in dusting the floors was as remarkably humble, as her attempts at cookery. With a dreadful lurch of his stomach, he recalled her soups, which usually included either too much salt, or no salt at all; all other kinds of food - ranging from meat to beans - were burnt or overcooked. From the looks of the scattered corpse-like remnants of shattered shirts, skirts and other tufts of fabric it appeared he’d discovered another pastime she desperately sought to avoid: Sewing.
Bedclothes and linen sheets were lying in heaps on the floor or thrown carelessly over one of the various chairs standing around in no apparent order. He spotted one shirt within his reach and picked it up to examine it closely. Judging from the size, it belonged to the elder Will Turner and had once suffered from a tear in the shoulder seam until Elizabeth had solved the problem with an uneven row of amateurishly drawn stitches. Jack tried to decide whether the torn shirt would have looked better than the patched one, but the difference was probably slight.
Though he had never been particularly fond of sewing, least of all his own shirts, he was quite convinced that if he tried, the quality of his work would surpass Elizabeth’s by far. Luckily, he’d always been thoughtful enough to prevent her from nearing his sails with needle and thread, even though he remembered that she’d once offered this particular service on their crossing from Tortuga to the Isla Cruces. Tossing Will’s shirt aside, he thanked the heavens that it had been that blasted midwife and not Elizabeth to stitch his wound; then he continued his examination of the chamber.
To his great disappointment, he found nothing of interest, apart from a small bookshelf on the opposite wall. He doubted that Elizabeth possessed any works he’d like to read, but seeing that his life had become so dull he was forced to entertain himself with evaluating someone else’s needlework, even one of those horrible ‘novels’ young ladies read secretly beneath their bedcovers would provide a welcome distraction. He slowly approached the shelf, cautious to avoid the various rags littering the floor with a wolfish grin on his face imagining ways to taunt her with the choice of books he would doubtlessly find:
‘And what, luv is ‘The Torrid Adventures of Captain Ahab’ supposed to tell me about the state of your marriage’ Jack’s grin deepened as he imagined the flush that might climb to Elizabeth’s cheeks when he withdrew the novel from behind his back and dangled it like a rotting fish in front of the pert curve of her delicate nose. His imagination ran wild with the possibilities: ‘The Passionate Adventures of Captain Ahab’…Can’t recall if I’ve heard that legend before. What is the novel’s about, I wonder… Oh, I recall! Isn’t it about a young chambermaid who is kidnapped and coerced into slavery by a brutally attractive yet strangely insightful highwayman?’
The possibilities were endless, but already the first look at Elizabeth’s library told him that he’d cheered too soon. There were no passionate adventures or kidnapped chambermaids, but a surprisingly decent collection of books in various languages. As might have been expected, she owned books dealing with explorers, buccaneers and pirates; none of these remotely resembled a work of romantic fiction written to satisfy a young woman’s secret desires.
“Oh bugger,” he muttered dejectedly as he pulled out a book entitled “The Twelve Most Wanted Pirates”. He licked his index finger as he thumbed through the book, halting his search when he discovered a familiar name, his own name: Jack Sparrow, “a giant of a man”, with “a broad, hairy chest” and “long blonde hair”. He turned the book on its side to examine the artist’s rendering of the said description. Smirking, he closed the book and put it back onto the shelf, chuckling all the while. Apparently, this was the only book in her collection that had been written to satisfy secret desires of young women…
He reached inside his shirt to examine his chest hair as though perhaps the artist had captured him in his sketch, something that he had never once noticed; no, all he found was smooth skin and the rough linen of the bandage covering his wound. ‘Like a girl,’ a cruel, mocking voice rang inside his head. ‘You know you have a pretty face, don’t you?’ After the voice, the only thing he remembered was the flashing of a knife. It was a miracle nothing had lingered but a slash through his eyebrow and a small scar on his chin, now covered by his beard. He shook his head to chase the memory away then returned his attention to Elizabeth’s books. A small green volume looked familiar to him and when he pulled it out, he found that he’d seen it before. It was his mother’s book, the Spanish translation of an old Arabian work on birds, listing their names and characteristics beneath a colourful illustration. Elena Teague had loved birds, but finding she was unable to take their freedom away, she enjoyed their company in the garden or on the pages of the book he was holding.
As though acting of their own accord, his fingers began turning the pages like they’d done a hundred times before. Forty years were momentarily erased, and young Jack Teague found himself looking for his favourite entry: Gorrión - the sparrow. He remembered his mother’s smile when she compared him to the bird. ‘They’re as quick as a flash and always chattering - just like you.’
When he finally reached the page, worn from frequent use and the careless fingers of a child, he was surprised to find two sheets of loose paper. Someone had put a letter inside the book, then placed it back on the shelf and forgotten about it. Curious to find out whose words had dared to settle next to his favourite bird, he lifted the letter to his eyes and began to read. The salutation made him startle.
‘Dearest Jack,’ it read in small, rather cramped script. His heart raged faster and for a split-second, he believed that the words had been written by his mother. He recalled tardily that his mother would have written to him in Spanish, and though he had no memory of her handwriting, he found it hard to picture her making use of such a minimalist style. Everything about her had been generous and elegant, but the letter before him seemed to display only confusion and insecurity. If she wasn’t the author, this could only mean that Elizabeth … as soon as the thought had struck him, all strength disappeared from his body, rendering his legs wobbly, while his wound throbbed bitterly. The pain was excruciating and he had to close his eyes; his outstretched hand blindly reached for support, found a wooden armrest and to keep himself from collapsing to the floor, he threw his weakened body into a nearby chair. When the pain had faded, he realised that he was sitting on top a heap of torn sheets. Like a king resting on a strange throne preparing to speak to his people, he reopened the book and took out the letter. Why not read it in its entire length? It was, after all, addressed to him.
Dearest Jack,
If there is a poor way to open a letter, it begins with an off- hand remark about the weather. The day is clear and bright, autumn sunshine fills the yard. Poorer still, is the letter that opens with a stark confession; the writer admits that they don’t know how to begin the letter in question. Let it be known between us that in this instance, my letter to you is a poor example amongst better, more clearly written prose and it is true; I am unable to find the courage to start this letter to you.
There are things I wish to tell you, so many words left unsaid at our last parting, but I feel my poor pen can not do them substantial justice. Yet, the only way to ease my burden seems to be with my pen. Do you see the laughable contradiction?
I fear that you might think me ungrateful and arrogant. The circumstances under which we parted all those months ago were anything but fortunate, as was my choice of words. Please, Jack, believe me when I tell you that I do know what you’ve done for us - for me and Will! I know of your suffering, and I understand that there is nothing I can do to return your sacrifice. Oh, how I wish I could!
I am at Shipwreck City, and won’t be able to leave anytime soon for reasons happier than you might expect. I’m carrying Will’s child, and though it saddens me to think our child won’t know its father for ten long years, I am grateful that part of him will stay with me until we’re allowed to meet again. My life has changed in ways I never expected and while I might not have wished for these circumstances, I comfort myself when I think of what you might say: ‘There’ll always be rum and sea turtles.’ Or at the very least: ‘There’ll always be sea turtles to bring the rum.’
Shipwreck City is a wonderful town. It’s the place I dreamed living in as a child and I am confident I made the right decision to raise my baby here. People here are ever so kind, and none has been more helpful than your dear father.
Jack grimaced at the mention of his father. The old man had always possessed a talent for making people see what he wanted them to see. In Elizabeth’s case, he’d apparently acted the loving grandfather. Jack stuck out his tongue, as if he’d just tasted an especially disgusting flavour of rum. It was an almost grotesque image, Teague taking care of a pregnant young woman, and a stabbing pain suddenly filled his chest. His own family, Jack and his mother, had never mattered to him - at least not as much as piracy and that confounded Code had. And in his blasted self-righteousness, his father had never tried to explain himself, or express any kind of remorse for what he’d done.
Anger took hold of Jack’s soul, sweeping him away like the raging sea. He’d grown up an orphan, a stranger among strangers in a country he never considered ‘home’. It was only after events the memory of which was no more than a bloodied veil atop a darkened pool when he found out that he’d been abandoned and betrayed. How well he remembered that day! Golden rays of sunlight that fell through weathered planks, a face that belonged to a life long forgotten, arms that wouldn’t come around him in a welcoming embrace … They’d stood there, staring at each other, unable to believe it was actually true. At first, he’d thought that Beckett had done it, that he’d lost his mind somewhere in the vast space between darkness and pain. But as his vision had cleared through the tears that wouldn’t come, he’d wished that madness would finally come to claim him.
While his mind roamed the uneven paths of memory, his fist closed around the thin paper, crumpling the letter. Hate consumed him, threatening to swallow him whole when his eyes fell upon two words, peeping at him from underneath his fingers: ‘miss you’.
With renewed interest in Elizabeth’s writing, he slowly unlocked his fist and ran a smoothing hand across the letter.
Captain Teague told me you never come to Shipwreck City, but I do so wish you would. There’s so much I need to say to you; I miss you.
Frantically, hardly daring to trust his eyes, he turned the page but found only glaring white looking back at him--the letter was unfinished. Disappointment crept to his features and it was with fading hopes that he unfolded the second page. His heart leapt with glee when he discovered that it was covered in writing - the same uneven, cramped handwriting that had told him that somewhere someone had actually missed him.
Captain Teague already told me you never come to Shipwreck City, but I do so wish you would. There’s so much I need to say to you. I miss you.
To his surprise, it turned out to be another letter, not a mere continuation of the first one.
Dearest Jack,
You’ll probably be surprised to find a letter from someone you must think an ungrateful wretch. I realize that our friendship has not always stood on solid ground. Yet I hope that one day, you’ll be able to forgive me for what I’ve done to you.
Every day, I cling to the hope that you’ll turn up at my doorstep and we’ll finally have the opportunity make amends, but with the passage of time, my hopes grow dim. As you’ll probably know from hearsay, Shipwreck City is my new home. I suppose you might find it most unfitting for a Pirate King to lead a landlubber’s life, but circumstances leave me with no choice-- my life has been blessed with a boy. He has his father’s eyes and smile, and every time I look at him, I feel as though Will has been allowed to stay with me.
It might interest you to know that my son’s name was intended to be William Jack. However, on further thought, I wanted to ask you about it first, and as you haven’t come, I perished the notion, thinking that you probably wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.
I would be lying if I told you that life here is never lonely, but little William and the people of Shipwreck City almost make me forget that I am alone in this world. Especially your father - god bless him - he has been most kind to us, but from what I’ve been able to gather news of your father isn’t what you would want to hear about.
‘Clever girl,’ Jack thought with a smirk. It had taken her months, but she’d finally come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t want to hear about his father … splendid!
‘But please, Jack, even though I know it’s not my place to meddle, your father dearly loves and misses you.’
Well, maybe not so clever, after all. As he proceeded, he was relieved to find she’d at least possessed the decency to lead the subject into a different direction.
You’ll probably remember Tai Huang, my former First Mate; he’s the man with the scarred face. I wanted to pass the captaincy of the Empress to him, but he would have none of it. He lives now at Shipwreck City; he’d always dreamt of opening his own restaurant, and he owns a small cabin in which he sells the most bizarre but delicious concoctions. We have every reason to believe he’ll soon marry town’s midwife, but I should stop prattling about people you do not even…
The letter ended mid-sentence, as if she’d been interrupted and never resumed the task. Jack sat motionless, eyes fixed on the sheet of paper in his lap. His thoughts spun around wildly like a loosened rope during a hurricane, and he caught the first one he could grasp, clinging to it like a drowning man.
If she’d been so desperate to see him, why was it she’d kept the letters in an old book instead of sending them? ‘And to where exactly was she supposed to send them?’ the voice of reason answered. ‘To Jack Sparrow, somewhere out there?’ Even if one of the letters had actually reached him - by bird, perhaps, he’d seen similar before - how would he have answered? Would he have come?
But that wasn’t really part of the problem. After all, he’d come to Shipwreck City during all those years, had endured his father’s unnerving presence time and time again, only to assure himself that she was well. No, the question that lingered on the air like prevailing wind was: Would he have spoken to her? More than once, he’d been agonizingly close to approaching her; one day, he’d even dared to go to her shop, but as he observed her through, while the sunlight gleamed like a rare of gold off her hair, he’d caught her eye and his courage had left him.
What would a mangy, cantankerous, salty sea dog have to offer her for conversation anyway?
‘Hello, luv, I’m frightfully sorry I didn’t mention it before but I’d previously taken a vow of silence, in an effort to take orders as a man of the cloth. What? Slander and calumny! Of course, I didn’t stay away because I was livid with you for all your betrayals-how dare you accuse me! Why must you always stir up the old stories? You wished for my presence your majesty and now I am verbosely here--Captain Jack Sparrow, the godfather to your son, and your most trusted advisor. The ear you may talk sore whenever you feel compelled to speak of your beloved husband, the jester you call whenever you require a fool to dance and make merry - No, no. Please don’t thank me! This is the role I was born to play…’
His ludicrous version of their imaginary meeting didn’t prevent his empty misery. Elizabeth was far from the company he would have willingly chosen for himself, but by no means did she deserve the pile of malice he’d thrown at her during the past weeks. Her constantly sour mood and the thinly veiled reproaches hadn’t exactly rendered things easier for him, but the discovery of the letters had softened the hardened lump that formed in his chest when he considered the way he felt about her. It was probably nothing more than a mere trifle, and if someone had asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to name it though “hope” was its closest relative. He knew now that she had wished for him to return; and for a reason that remained a mystery this newly acquired knowledge made him happier than he had been for years. A grin spread across his face until his cheeks ached at the turn of his thoughts, which had catapulted from the doldrums of despair to sweet elation at a new, startling revelation: sometimes an ending could turn into a new beginning if one only found the courage to change the tide.