[POTC series fic] - KINGDOMS OF THE SWAN, Installment One, "The Ghosts at the Brink" - rated R
Series: KINGDOMS OF THE SWAN
Installment: 1/???
Segment Title: "The Ghosts at the Brink"
Timeframe: Post AWE
Pairing: J/E, shades of W/E
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,444
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. All rights belong to Disney, etc.
Acknowledgements: Many, many thanks and squishes are owed to djarum99and piratemistress , for flawless beta, concrit, and much sage advice. All typos, grammatical hoo-ha, and other errors are all my own.
Summary: This is a story about coming to terms with the future as well as the past. Elizabeth, returned from the edges of map, war-battered and alone, buries more than mere wood and flesh.
A/N: This story begins a new series of (mostly) interconnected vignettes about the rise (and in several cases, the fall) of the newly crowned Pirate King. Stay tuned for new segments. This story is updated in my fic list.
WARNING: This series contains the following material which may be unsuitable for some readers: children, scenes of childbirth, moments of tooth-decaying sweetness, unapologetic angst, gratuitous violence, infidelity of varying degrees, political and piratical ramblings, attempted regicide, familial dysfunctions, excerpts from the collected works of John Donne, numerous spectral whatnots, reckless usage of literary allusions, and discourses on exotic food stuffs. In addition, you will encounter generous portions of doubt, self-pity, introspection, arrogance, anger, hope, personal reinvention, persons of questionable sanity and scenes of a sexual nature. Life, basically. Here, there be monsters.
The Ghosts at the Brink
After much delicate handling of the chest, and a mere two feet from the shoreline, it was Elizabeth’s heart - not Will’s - that sank to murky depths. She fancied she heard a muffled plunk - a tiny, mournful splash - beneath her ribs as she eased herself out of the boat, her heartbeat in her stomach.
It had only taken one swell to drive home the epiphany: Will’s heart required solid ground. In retrospect, the box had felt heavier as she’d lifted it into the boat, and the first slap of water reminded her of Calypso’s precarious temper. What if she capsized? What if a wave thrashed them, flushing his heart out to sea? She shivered, imagining him on the deck of the Dutchman, choking and sputtering in the open air as his heart plummeted beneath the waves. Or perhaps he would merely drift, untethered, if no part of himself was anchored in solid ground.
Regardless of the outcome of any number of possible seabound tragedies, Elizabeth understood that the chest did not belong on a rickety, two-oar boat.
Dragging the boat ashore, she wiped her brow, pensive and perspiring. She sprawled on the shore, and she rested her hand on his chest - their chest, she supposed - her body forming a bridge connecting earth to organ. Rubbing the socket of her shoulder, she groaned. Her muscles throbbed from the acrobatics of battle and bed. She felt her exhaustion in her marrow, blunted pain traveling through her bones and into her joints. She flexed her sword hand, her knuckles swollen with a clammy, seawater sort of ache.
And so, breathless and drenched to the knees, she lay beside him on the beach. The sky was cloudless, the ink and sparkle overhead smudged by several wisps of smoke billowing from Shipwreck City. Her palms itched to open the lid, to cradle him to her, heart in hand. Instead, she pressed her ear to the timbers, the steady thump a lullaby.
In no time, she was fast asleep.
Startling awake, Elizabeth surveyed her surroundings, panic building. Her room looked as it had always looked - same dressing screen, same canopy overhead, same teak shutters flung open to the breeze. The moon road high on the horizon, round and oddly lemon-bright. It cast a lazy, sterling spell on the books at her bedside, on the combs and brushes and pins strewn across the far table.
On her wedding gown, pearls twinkling in the moonlight. She wiped perspiration from her forehead, perplexed.
“Could it all have been a dream?” Beckett. The Kraken. Jack’s screams and James’s death and her father, washed away in his little boat.
And Will. What of Will?
Slipping from her bed, she grabbed her robe from its hook near the bed, knotting the tie with trembling fingers. The silk was cool against the exposed skin at her throat and forearms. Careful to avoid treading on the floorboards that creaked, she edged up to the door and gentled it open. The hinges groaned.
Tiptoeing down the hall, Elizabeth considered the possibility that none of the events of the past year had happened. Will would be free, sleeping snugly in his bed at the shop. Her father would be pacing his study, she imagined, brandy in hand as he reviewed the details of the upcoming ceremony for the hundredth time. She smiled, thinking of them warm and well, all the most-love people of her world fitting into their usual slots once again. And James - James would still be at sea, chasing after Jack and his Pearl.
Jack. Something inside her clenched at the thought of him, wind in his hair and a bottle of rum at his lips. She realized with a grim, confused pang that she would likely never see him again, whatever the truth. Suddenly, she felt breathless. Her muscles stiffened, and her legs refused to cooperate. What could it mean, this ache in her ribs? She licked her lips, remembering the taste of him as she sent him to his doom. Something hot and panicked and restless filled her to brimming, her eyes watering. Something like anguish flavored with something else she could not place, and she found herself wondering what it was that made her feel so ill. Was it the memory of his death, or the thought of never seeing him again that obliged her to blink back tears?
“Don’t be foolish, Elizabeth,” she chided with a whisper. “It’s better if none of it happened.”
Forcing her legs to work once again, she continued down the hallway, chin lifted.
The soft glow of firelight greeted her at the landing, and as she descended the stairs, she was sure that someone was awake below. She clutched the railing, a tenuous mixture of hope and fear coursing through her. Padding through the parlor, she approached her father’s study. The door was ajar. Light from inside flooded hall, the shadows long and flickering.
Inhaling, she pushed the door aside and entered.
Her father sat at his desk, spectacles low on his nose. The decanter of brandy was unstoppered, a sifter half-full near his left hand, papers sprawled across his blotter. He was studying a document as he chewed his pipe, and he’d removed his wig. Pensive and seemingly lost in thought, he exhaled a small puff, the heady scent of tobacco jolting Elizabeth out of stunned silence. Her voice caught in her throat, and she half-gasped, half-squeaked at the sight of him.
Her father looked up, clearly startled, and frowned as he set down his pipe.
“Elizabeth, is everything alright? You look deathly pale.”
“I - I’m alright.” She gulped back tears, her eyes smarting. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He stood, concern wrinkling his brow, and Elizabeth, legs finally thawed, ran towards him, nearly slipping on the rug in her mad dash. She crashed into him, almost toppling them both, and she hugged him so tightly that it was a wonder he could breathe.
And - like a river rushing over its banks - she burst into sobs. She clutched the collar of his coat, the fabric bunched in her fists.
Soothing her, he murmured something she could not hear. His hands brushed over the crown of her head, patting her hair as he had when she was a husk of a girl wailing for her mother.
When she finally calmed, unhinging her arms and releasing him from her grip, he stepped away and held her at arms length, clearly disturbed.
“Elizabeth, what in the world happened? Is it the wedding?”
“The wedding?” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Are you having doubts, my dear?”
So it had been a dream after all. Everything. No slamming of the cell door. No journey to Tortuga. No nausea as the Pearl sank, something like screams heavy in the air as the boards snapped and ship groaned. There had been no Tia with her blackened smile, and she’d never plummeted from the edges of the map. The starvation, the thirst and the loss - the incalculable, overwhelming loss - they had all been figments. Fantasy and nightmare, all of it.
And as for the wind in her hair, the weight of her sword and the rasp of Jack’s breath, those had been conjured as well. She was no King. She had not fought and sailed and laughed beside men. Beside Will and Jack.
Her father snapped her from her musing, his voice severing the thin twine that bound her to the woman she could have been - a creature both better and far worse.
“Elizabeth? You’re giving me quite a fright. What is this all about?” He sounded frail, and she turned to him, seeing his age and worry with a crispness she’d lacked. She spied the tremble in h is hand as he poured another glass of brandy.
When he guided her to sit in his chair, she saw new lines creasing his face. The tint of his hair was more white than grey, and his hands seemed speckled with age as he pressed the snifter into her palm.
“Oh,” she shook herself, willing the lingering image of his drifting boat to fade, “I’m sorry.” She patted his hand, smiling a thin smile. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just had a bad dream, is all.”
He exhaled, relief in his eyes. Sitting in the chair opposite her, he reclaimed his pipe and leaned back, taking a few puffs before speaking. “It seems that these jitters are a normal occurrence for every young bride and groom. They are part and parcel of the matrimonial leap, my dear. Why, I remember when I was preparing to wed your mother. I barely slept a wink, and I was quite a cheerless, quivering wretch for nearly a fortnight prior. Your Uncle Charles was forced to steady my wayward nerves with nearly a full bottle of port before I could muster the courage to enter the church. Luckily, you’ve been spared much of those nerves - thanks to your mother’s strength of conviction being so singularly pronounced - but fortitude aside, Elizabeth, I’d be most worried if you weren’t feeling these small anxieties. Wedlock is a serious affair, one which requires much careful contemplation, and so this measure of trepidation is God’s way of reminding us of life’s milestones. Now tell me, what manner of dream has been troubling you? I assure you that any qualms as to the specifications of the ceremony are easily laid to rest.”
“Oh yes, the wedding,” she said, suddenly aware that she had no idea of the date - and thus no inkling as to whether she’d be dressing for the ceremony at daybreak or in a month’s time. Try as she might, she could not remember even a minor detail to illuminate the date or even the day of the week. There were no lingering recollections of crawling into bed that evening or the events of the day.
She shivered, wrapping her arms around her body to ward off the chills. “It’s not the wedding I dreamt of, Papa. Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
“No, it was so much more, really.” She paused, trying to collect her memories into palatable morsels. “I dreamt that the wedding was interrupted by an evil man, and that Will and I were thrown into jail - but you freed me, and I ran away. I had to sail to the ends of the earth to find - something of importance - and then,” the words caught in her throat, her mouth turned to cotton. “Then, you - you died, Papa. I tried to save you, but I couldn’t. And then James was run through trying to free me from another sort of imprisonment. And Will was - well, in the end I lost him to the sea.” Tears brimmed over her lashes, trailing hot paths down her cheeks.
And Jack, she thought, don’t forget that you as good as murdered him.
“There, there, darling,” he said, patting her hand and rising to plant a kiss on her forehead. “It sounds as though you’ve had a very vivid dream, but I assure you that I have no plans to die anytime soon, and I’m certain that you will have a long, satisfying life with William - if you wish it.”
She smiled at his words, stifling a bitter chuckle. For all of her father’s optimism, she could not shake the feeling that there were no guarantees as to life and the landscape of one’s happiness. Her father was still uncertain of her marriage to Will, not an unexpected sentiment in and of itself, but Elizabeth felt a nagging sensation of panic nonetheless. What if he was right about their differences? What if they were not the best match for each other?
Certainty of any sort, it seemed, was fleeting as a heartbeat.
“How can you be certain, Papa?”
“Well, you do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A sigh. Another breath. “Of course.” Her voice wavered, a vision of Will gathering form in her periphery. Her brave William, on the deck of the Pearl, the stench of death thick in the salt-spray as he drew her close and asked for her hand in one desperate breath.
“Then you’ve nothing to worry about, my dear.”
“And the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?”
“You must be careful, Papa. There are so many men that hunger for power, and I could not endure facing my days without you.”
Something in her father shifted in that moment - like a cog slipping into a new slot - and chills prickled her spine. The furrow in his brow smoothed, and he regarded her with a tenderness that made her remember the look of him in that little boat, listing towards another world.
“One day, my path will leave your side, as your mother parted from us years ago. But you must remember - you must never forget that I will always love you, Elizabeth, and I will always be with you. You have always been the brightest light in the darkest of places, and I am so very proud of you, my little bird.” He kissed her cheek then, smoothing a shaking hand over her hair. “Get some rest now, and in the morning everything will be right again.”
Elizabeth climbed the stairs heavily, heart-sore and exhausted. As she entered her room and removed her robe, she could not shake the sense of finality draped her like a shroud. She wilted into the bed, boneless and eager for rest, but the breeze had stilled and the room was muggy.
Sleep eluded her. The cool pockets in the bedding grew warm beneath her body, and after a few moments she threw the covers aside, raking a hand through her hair.
“Trouble sleeping, love?” A familiar figure peeled itself from the shadows, gold glinting in the moonlight as he smiled. “I hear it’s a common symptom of impending matrimony. Fortunately, I know the cure.” His gold-capped smile uncurled lazily, and he winked, cocking his head.
It was Jack, in her bedroom, sun-brown and arms folded. Captain Jack Sparrow in his battered tricorn and slouching coat, the same faded sash looped round his waist and his vest fraying at the edges.
“Jack?”
“In the flesh, darlin’,” and as if to accentuate just how present said flesh was, he slipped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to expose tawny forearms. He puffed proudly, all pomp and predatory glee as he prowled towards her. “Miss Swann.” He doffed his hat, sketching a bow. “Still comely as ever, I see.”
Finally able to stop gaping, she bolted from the bed. Several long strides and she stood facing him, her staccato heartbeat roaring in her ears. All thoughts of the impropriety of her dress and the scandal of his very presence in her bedchamber were dashed from her mind as she flung her arms around his shoulders. He did not move to return the gesture, and after several moments of holding him to her, she stepped back, cheeks pinking. He gaped at her, frowning as though puzzling over sums. As though he was straining to remember something.
“Jack, it’s,” she paused to compose herself, smoothing her dress and straightening her shoulders. “Well, it has been some time, hasn’t it? It’s good to see you.”
“So it would seem. Can’t say I was expecting quite such a boisterous welcome - maybe a slap or two and a jibe - but certainly not so much enthusiasm.” Shrugging, examined his hands with exaggerated aplomb. “Course, I do have a habit of underestimating me own considerable charm.”
He grinned, sauntering past her to lounge on the bed, hands behind his head and boots propped on a pile of blankets. However, though he made a valiant attempt at taking her familiarity in stride, she could see he was still somewhat unnerved.
“And what brings you to Port Royal, Captain Sparrow?”
And to my bedroom, she amended mentally.
“Ah, yes. That.” He patted the bed beside him, wagging his eyebrows. To their mutual surprise, she found herself settling beside him, hands folded primly in her lap. “Yes, well - you’re awfully accommodating tonight, Lizzie. Young Master Turner been lax in his duties, has he?”
She rolled her eyes, yawning. “As we’re not yet married, he hasn’t actually assumed those particular responsibilities yet.”
“Ah, well, such a pity. You know, I could assist you in-”
“You haven’t answered my question, Jack.”
He snorted, slouching lower. “Shouldn’t you be indignant, darling? Demanding that I leave your bedchamber immediately or some such rot?”
“After you answer my question.”
“And I suppose I’m to take your nonchalance as a sign that I’m in no peril of being run through by your overzealous fiancé?”
“He’s not here.”
“I can see that,” he purred, sliding closer. His palm brushed her thigh. “All the better.”
“You’re stalling, Jack.”
“And you’re still persistent, I see.”
“Always.”
He grinned beneath the low brim of his tricorn. After making a grand show of patting down his pants and rifling through his pockets, he produced from within his vest a tattered, water-warped slip of paper. It was a wedding invitation.
More precisely, it was one of her wedding invitations.
“I’ve come to Port Royal - risking life and limb, I might add - to bear witness to the blessed union of Mr. William Turner the third and,” he held the paper at arm’s length, squinting, “ one Miss Elizabeth Anne Swann, daughter of Weatherby Horatio Swann, Governor of His Majesty’s Colony of Jamaica, and the late Lady Catherine Swann nee Wellington.”
“I can hardly believe that you’ve come all this way just to see Will and I married.”
“Well, not such a long way, as it turns out. Found myself in a bit of brine at Kingston Harbour a few evenings ago. Nasty buggers, the Royal Guard. In any case, I felt it would be less than courteous to miss such a monumental occasion, seeing as I brought you two doe-eyed lovebirds together and all. However, I must say,” he smirked, removing his hat and setting it on the bedside table, “I was dashed through the heart to discover that I - the facilitator of said match - was not extended a proper invitation. Really, Lizzie darling, it was terribly rude of you.”
She rolled her eyes, fluffing a pillow and propping it behind her. It struck her as vaguely odd that she wasn’t more reserved in his presence, and yet somehow she felt as easy as if it was Will who lounged beside her.
“Well, I didn’t think you’d be interested, actually, and it’s not as though I could have sent word via a respectable ship. Short of tying a note to a cuttlefish and praying it found you, I didn’t really have the means to send word. Besides, half of the Royal Navy is attending the ceremony, and I don’t suppose you’d like to risk the noose for a piece of cake and a few dances.”
“Mmmm. You do have a point.”
“Of course I do.”
They were silent a moment, the air growing sultrier.
She could not wrench her eyes from the bit of exposed skin were his shirt had come unfastened, his chest copper in the half-light.
Elizabeth found it difficult to breath. Her shift clung to her skin, her brow dampening, and she longed for a whisper of breeze. Or for less clothing, a thought that swept through her mind unbidden and bloomed across her cheeks.
After several laden minutes, Jack broke the silence.
“So, I’ve brought a disguise.”
“For the ceremony?”
“Why else.”
“And it is?”
“A surprise.” He wagged his eyebrows, displaying a delighted mouthful of ivory and gold. “Nothing scandalous, of course.”
“Then why am I worried?” She couldn’t help returning his smile, imagining several possibilities.
“Don’t know, love. Perhaps because you’re about toss your life over the rail.”
“There will be no tossing, I assure you.”
“Mmm, well I won’t argue with you on that point, but I maintain that it’s the noose for you, love. Not I.”
“Jack Sparrow, you are incorrigible!”
“Captain, love. And I’m only speaking the truth, though as expected, truth doesn’t seem to go over quite as well as one would imagine.”
“Truth? There is nothing resembling truth in that statement.”
“Balderdash.”
“I am perfectly happy with Will.”
“Course ye are, darlin’.”
“I want to marry him, and you know it. I am elated to be marrying him!” Red-faced, she realized she was nearly shouting. Her eyes darted to the door and she lowered her voice to a whisper, continuing with a hiss. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand things like love and commitment and - and,” she stammered searching for the proper word, but all that came to her mind were spectral syllables.
Honor. Decency. A moral compass.
“And?” he prodded.
“And anything honorable, that’s what.”
“Mmm, quite right.” His eyes smoldered, were glazed with something she could not - and would not - name. With a shiver she registered that he’d leaned closer, that he was near enough for her to smell the rum on his breath, the scent of salt and sand in his hair. “Got me pegged, love. Wouldn’t know ‘bout any of those things.”
His hand slid across the sheets, his index finger tracing her collarbone. She stiffened. Her muscles were tangled ropes, and she tasted wool as he bent over her, matted hair stiff against her shoulder.
Jack’s rings were cool against her skin, and the part of her that should have jerked away from his touch - that same treacherous, mute part that should have screamed - was instead remembering sensations of her dream: Will inside her as she pressed her cheek to his hollow chest and Jack’s shudder as the shackles clamped shut.
And she was wondering how Jack would feel nestled between her legs - how his tongue would feel inside her mouth - when he propped himself above her and pressed his lips to the base of her throat.
She swallowed once. Twice.
Her eyelids fluttered shut and she was craning into him even as her mouth floundered for words of protest. For a cough.
A hiccup.
Anything.
Unable to meet his eyes - afraid of what she’d find there, she stared at the canopy above.
Sweat beaded on her brow, on her lip - in the cleft of her breasts, a valley that Jack’s fingers were perilously close to exploring. She swallowed, straining to ignore the heat of his mouth and the almost painful throb between her legs as his fingers slipped beneath the thin gauze of her neckline.
She whimpered when his lips found hers, and he groaned as her forced her mouth wide. His kiss had none of Will’s gentleness. He was devouring her. Jack was fire and rage and something terribly desperate.
He bruised her lips, his teeth drawing a droplet of blood. She fancied, for a brief moment as he laved the wound, soothing her with the tip of his tongue, that she could almost hear the snapping of boards and the bellow of the Kraken’s jagged maw.
“Jack,” she managed, his mouth trailing a wet path across her jawline.
“Mmm?” he breathed, her skin tingling beneath his moustache.
“I- ”
But then his hands were cupping her breasts, her nipples painfully erect and tender beneath the linen of her dress. White-knuckled, she grasped his collar and yanked him forward, their teeth colliding.
Elizabeth startled awake, breathless. Her eyelids were water-raw, slick and sore and swollen. The tide had risen high enough to lap her ankles, and she scooted away from the waterline, her hand darting to the chest to draw it near. Judging by the height of the moon and the reach of the water, she calculated that she’d dozed for less than an hour.
Just long enough to dream.
The girl inside her quivered at the brink of tears. Elizabeth balled her fists and braced herself for deluge and downpour, but her eyes were drying. She could not summon a single droplet.
Feeling hollow, she wrapped her arms around her torso, the fabric of her tunic salt-stiff. She sat cradling herself for several moments, her clothing crisp - made stern by the sea.
The air was brisk, and she felt feverish as breeze dried her perspiration.
You’ve been hollowed out, Elizabeth. You’re a bit of crisp - a dried up husk of a daughter and wife. And you never were much of a friend, were you?
“Stop it,” she yelled, hands at her ears.
Go on and toddle off, Elizabeth. Or have you forgotten you’ve got work to do?
“I remember,” she whispered to no one at all.
Sniffling, her chin trembling, she willed herself to forget the phantom downiness of her bed, to forget the warmth of home, like layers of batting. To forget Jack, poised above her.
Instead, she thought of her father in his study, of the room’s sturdy scent: tobacco and cloves and vetiver soap. She pressed her fingertips to the place on her cheek where he’d kissed her. Something like peace nestled in her belly, and she placed her hand on her abdomen, feeling warmer and less hungry.
Moonlight glanced off the gold ring circling her thumb. It had been her father’s most cherished possession until he’d misplaced it on the journey from England to Port Royal, and it had been returned to her on another sojourn, during that terrible night the Pearl bore the living through currents of the dead.
As if illuminated by the memory of the Locker, the thin band of sterling looped around her left ring finger flared white-blue in the moonlight. She turned her hands to inspect the few pieces of jewelry she still possessed. Her wedding band was simple - thoughtful and elegant. Will had forged it himself, had kept it tied to a string around his wrist as they’d journeyed from port to port, as they’d fought and bled and toppled onto the Dutchman. He’d slipped it onto her finger at dusk before brushing his lips across her thigh and vanishing in a flicker of green.
Sighing, she lowered her hand, the new weight still alien.
Elizabeth removed her father’s gold ring, examining the familiar grooves and peaks of their family seal. It was an old piece of jewelry, one he’d not worn since leaving England.
Since her mother had died.
On one particularly frigid morning - the dawn of her mother’s twenty-eighth birthday - her father had lent her the ring, allowing her to borrow it to seal her present, a collection of poems and watercolors she’d slaved at for weeks. She’d pressed the ring’s face firmly into a measured dollop of gooey, red wax. Giggling, she felt significant and adult as she sealed the gifts in an envelope, proud of her steady hand.
Galloping down the hall, she’d burst into her mum’s room, laughing and waving the letter. But her mother did not stir from beneath the covers, and sidling closer, she’d noticed her chest did not rise. Elizabeth had yelled for her mother to wake, tugging at her arms and thinking it another of their games. But her mother’s arms had been ice, her skin sallow and her fingers stiff, blue-tipped. Terrified, she’d shaken her mother, wailing for her to wake up, to drop the ruse.
But she never woke.
And Elizabeth never forgot how her mother’s head had lolled from side to side like a doll with lifeless, glass eyes. She’d crouched beside the door in the hall when the doctors crept out, and there, huddling beneath the potted fern, Elizabeth had twirled her father’s ring round and round and round her thumb, humming shanties until she could no longer hear the sound of her father’s weeping.
Weatherby Swann never donned the ring after the funeral, claiming he’d misplaced it whenever Elizabeth asked to view it. Thus, her shock at seeing it again, after so many years, had left her breathless, inarticulate. The night her father had drifted past the Pearl - that terrible, endless, windless night - she’d been curled in her bunk, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, between the living and the dead, when she’d heard the door of her cabin creak, footsteps approaching the bed. Will had long ago left her to grieve, their camaraderie still stretched thinner than she’d like. Thus, she’d felt little surprise than expected when she saw Jack’s silhouette facing her in the dim.
“I want you to know,” he’d said, squatting beside the mattress, “that this doesn’t change things between us.” But his eyes held something fragile as he produced the ring from his pocket and pressed it to her hand.
She’d started, staring at it for several breaths before she could find her voice. For a heartbeat, she was a bird in his palm.
“Jack, how did you-”
“Pirate.” He’d shrugged, eyes distant.
“But he said he’d lost it.” She had worried at the metal, turning it over in her palm. “Years and years ago. When would you did you have the occasion-”
He’d raised his hand to silence her, straightening and heading for the door.
“Jack.”
“Yes?” He did not turn.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, love,” he’d whispered, his voice like gravel and his hand on the doorknob. But then something in him seemed to shift, and he’d pivoted, the sound of his boots like the folding of wings. “As I said, Elizabeth: it doesn’t change anything.”
Swallowing the knot in her throat, she’d stifled tears as she rasped her reply. “I understand.”
“Good.”
“Thank you, Jack. You’ve no idea what this means to me.” He’d nodded gravely before slipping from the room, the door clicking into place with a final sort of sound.
Flipping the ring to examine the underside of the band, Elizabeth ran a finger over the worn engravings inside, squinting to read the inscriptions though she’d memorized every dip and loop years ago. “Nosce te ipsum,” below the seal. “Know thyself,” her father had explained as she’d nestled in his lap one snowy winter evening. And at the thinnest part of the band, these words: “Ad vitam aeternam” beside her mother’s name, Catherine Anne Swann. For all time the past urged, a captive whisper in the worn metal.
“Goodnight, Father,” she whispered, returning the ring to her thumb. Long minutes passed as she sat watching the sea lap the shore in drowsy, pewter lengths.
Sighing, she wobbled to her feet.
Her first order of business was finding a home for the chest. She scanned the cliffs for outcroppings and caves, but the rock - a dove-colored shale - had been blown smooth by centuries of harsh winds. A crude path was cut into the face of the cliff, and before long Elizabeth found herself scaling the jagged steps, the soles of her feet scraping the stone in tired rasps.
The ascent proved more difficult due to the weight of the chest. Cradling it awkwardly, she reached the plateau after what she gathered must have been nearly a half hour.
Elizabeth plodded through the tall grass, stopping occasionally to set the chest on the ground and reclaim her breath. Woozy with exhaustion and hunger, she stumbled forward, finally stooping to lower the trunk and drag it behind. Every thud made her cringe as she considered Will’s heart jostling in her wake.
After trekking through weeds and underbrush, she stumbled across an unexpected sight. A rather large house loomed ahead, and Elizabeth lurched to a halt, tugging the chest into the shadows and ducking beside it. Despite its obvious decay, there was a stately, almost palatial air to the building reminiscent of the governor’s residence in Port Royal. It had the same dignified windows and wide entrance, and yet unlike her former home, this house seemed abandoned for several years. Vines clung to the front columns, and crows nested in the veranda. A few shutters swung on crooked hinges, the wind clapping them against the edifice, timbers stuttering in the breeze.
For a moment, she considered stashing the chest inside, but she shook off the notion with a frown as she considered the home’s proximity to Shipwreck Cove. It would be nothing for a headstrong crew to stray to this island. This house - the only structured she’d glimpsed and the closest structure to the harbor - would offer a tempting hideaway for looters and lovers alike.
Heaving the chest against her breast and bracing it with her forearms, she trudged past the building, tilting her head in parting.
After a quarter hour of searching, Elizabeth, having found no suitable stashing nook of any sort, cursed her lack of a shovel and decided to surrender. She was ready to retreat to the house, praying that it would be free of snakes and furnished with some manner of bed, when she spied another trail winding down the opposite side of the cliff - down the ledge that faced away from Shipwreck Cove. There the stone was porous and rough.
The pumice crumbled underfoot as she crept down the steep path. By the time she reached the sand, she was sweat-soaked and panting.
And then she spied it. Near the base of the path gaped the mouth of a small cave, the opening just large enough to accommodate her if she scuttled on her belly. Flopping onto the sand and pushing the chest in front of her, she slid beneath the lip of the opening, flinching at the pitch, deaf blackness. She inhaled short, panicked breaths, the walls of the tunnel scraping her tunic as she pulled herself forward on her elbows.
This is like a coffin - a damnable grave.
Tasting bile and her blood in her ears, red speckles danced behind her eyelids as she blinked.
You’re about to faint, Elizabeth. You are going to swoon like a child and bump your bloody head - and then you’ll die here. Is that what you want? To die like an infernal earthworm in this hole, with these cliffs as your headstone and Will left to roam the oceans forever.
No? So then bloody breathe, damn it. Prop the damned chest against some rocks and just shimmy out, but for the love of God, breathe.
But air was in short supply, and she found herself sputtering with each gasp, sand and gravel pricking her lips as she inhaled, nose to the ground. Unsure of how she would push herself back out, she cursed herself for not bringing some sort of flame - anything to cut the blinding darkness - and bracing her palm against the jagged wall of the tunnel, she gave a chest one last shove.
The trunk clattered forward, echoing as it landed with a thud. Scooting after the chest, she found herself plummeting, face-first, into a large grotto.
A well lit grotto.
The walls were covered in phosphorescent algae, the ceiling high and mottled with what appeared to be icicles of stone. Drawing herself up, she stretched, flexing stiff joints. Her knuckles cracked.
Propping herself on a nearby ledge, she bent over the chest, examining the wood for damage. She exhaled a held breath when she pressed her ear to the grain and heard the soft, muffled rhythm of heart against wood. Crouching, she tucked the trunk into a snug crevice in the wall.
She pressed a parting kiss to the lid, her palm stroking the timbers one last time. Squaring her shoulders, she scooped as much of the algae from the walls as she could manage to cup in her hands. The sludge oozed through her fingers.
She made the journey out of the tunnel in silence, blinking back tears, her tongue swollen and bitter.
You will not cry, Elizabeth. This her mantra as she climbed the sharp incline to the clifftop.
You will not bloody cry, Elizabeth, she repeated, staggering past the house with its wagging shutters and contorted vines.
Do not cry, God damn it, as she tripped down the stone steps and waded into the waves. Cool fingers of seawater circled her ankles - her calves and then her knees - until she was thigh deep in the ocean. Finally, with one last glance at the island, she hoisted herself into the dinghy.
The cadence was something like Jack’s voice in her head as she began to row, each pull of her oars whisking her farther from all the certainties of her youth. You’re their king now, love, and you’ve got to be kingly, savvy? Something regal and stately and fit for all those storybooks of yours - for little girls in their canopies and for every scalawag on his deathbed what called himself pirate and whispered your name.
And so teeth gritted and wet-backed, she pulled and pulled - away from the memory of Will Turner and his aching heart. Away from the spectral winds of youth - once gale force, now the last licks of breeze. With much effort, she steered her mind away from memories of her husband’s hesitant smile, of the seering scrape of his fingernails against her hip and the scent of his skin - lye soap and iron flakes and sun-dried linen.
She stroked through the grey night with few glances spared for the diminishing shore. The stars seemed sparse and muddied overhead.
She kept the soft glow of the city in her sights, refusing to wonder at the objects that tempted Will’s eyes in the deep blue. As the smoke and sparkle of the cove grew brighter, she ignored the burn in her arms and the rawness in her eyes. She swallowed lump after lump of grief, her stomach hollow and her mind struggling against memories of the soot of his forge, of her husband’s body trembling above hers.
She reached Shipwreck Cove in the better space of an hour, and as she climbed ashore, she forced a flailed handwave for all the cheering, whooping and back-slapping pirates that ushered her ashore.
But for a moment, before she remembered to laugh and smile and raise her chin high, she instead remembered her mother’s icy skin, her father’s patient eyes and Will’s parting kiss. Her Will, buoyant beneath the waters now, his hair tendrils of kelp in the deep blue sea.
Create your own visitor map!
Installment: 1/???
Segment Title: "The Ghosts at the Brink"
Timeframe: Post AWE
Pairing: J/E, shades of W/E
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,444
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. All rights belong to Disney, etc.
Acknowledgements: Many, many thanks and squishes are owed to djarum99and piratemistress , for flawless beta, concrit, and much sage advice. All typos, grammatical hoo-ha, and other errors are all my own.
Summary: This is a story about coming to terms with the future as well as the past. Elizabeth, returned from the edges of map, war-battered and alone, buries more than mere wood and flesh.
A/N: This story begins a new series of (mostly) interconnected vignettes about the rise (and in several cases, the fall) of the newly crowned Pirate King. Stay tuned for new segments. This story is updated in my fic list.
WARNING: This series contains the following material which may be unsuitable for some readers: children, scenes of childbirth, moments of tooth-decaying sweetness, unapologetic angst, gratuitous violence, infidelity of varying degrees, political and piratical ramblings, attempted regicide, familial dysfunctions, excerpts from the collected works of John Donne, numerous spectral whatnots, reckless usage of literary allusions, and discourses on exotic food stuffs. In addition, you will encounter generous portions of doubt, self-pity, introspection, arrogance, anger, hope, personal reinvention, persons of questionable sanity and scenes of a sexual nature. Life, basically. Here, there be monsters.
The Ghosts at the Brink
After much delicate handling of the chest, and a mere two feet from the shoreline, it was Elizabeth’s heart - not Will’s - that sank to murky depths. She fancied she heard a muffled plunk - a tiny, mournful splash - beneath her ribs as she eased herself out of the boat, her heartbeat in her stomach.
It had only taken one swell to drive home the epiphany: Will’s heart required solid ground. In retrospect, the box had felt heavier as she’d lifted it into the boat, and the first slap of water reminded her of Calypso’s precarious temper. What if she capsized? What if a wave thrashed them, flushing his heart out to sea? She shivered, imagining him on the deck of the Dutchman, choking and sputtering in the open air as his heart plummeted beneath the waves. Or perhaps he would merely drift, untethered, if no part of himself was anchored in solid ground.
Regardless of the outcome of any number of possible seabound tragedies, Elizabeth understood that the chest did not belong on a rickety, two-oar boat.
Dragging the boat ashore, she wiped her brow, pensive and perspiring. She sprawled on the shore, and she rested her hand on his chest - their chest, she supposed - her body forming a bridge connecting earth to organ. Rubbing the socket of her shoulder, she groaned. Her muscles throbbed from the acrobatics of battle and bed. She felt her exhaustion in her marrow, blunted pain traveling through her bones and into her joints. She flexed her sword hand, her knuckles swollen with a clammy, seawater sort of ache.
And so, breathless and drenched to the knees, she lay beside him on the beach. The sky was cloudless, the ink and sparkle overhead smudged by several wisps of smoke billowing from Shipwreck City. Her palms itched to open the lid, to cradle him to her, heart in hand. Instead, she pressed her ear to the timbers, the steady thump a lullaby.
In no time, she was fast asleep.
Startling awake, Elizabeth surveyed her surroundings, panic building. Her room looked as it had always looked - same dressing screen, same canopy overhead, same teak shutters flung open to the breeze. The moon road high on the horizon, round and oddly lemon-bright. It cast a lazy, sterling spell on the books at her bedside, on the combs and brushes and pins strewn across the far table.
On her wedding gown, pearls twinkling in the moonlight. She wiped perspiration from her forehead, perplexed.
“Could it all have been a dream?” Beckett. The Kraken. Jack’s screams and James’s death and her father, washed away in his little boat.
And Will. What of Will?
Slipping from her bed, she grabbed her robe from its hook near the bed, knotting the tie with trembling fingers. The silk was cool against the exposed skin at her throat and forearms. Careful to avoid treading on the floorboards that creaked, she edged up to the door and gentled it open. The hinges groaned.
Tiptoeing down the hall, Elizabeth considered the possibility that none of the events of the past year had happened. Will would be free, sleeping snugly in his bed at the shop. Her father would be pacing his study, she imagined, brandy in hand as he reviewed the details of the upcoming ceremony for the hundredth time. She smiled, thinking of them warm and well, all the most-love people of her world fitting into their usual slots once again. And James - James would still be at sea, chasing after Jack and his Pearl.
Jack. Something inside her clenched at the thought of him, wind in his hair and a bottle of rum at his lips. She realized with a grim, confused pang that she would likely never see him again, whatever the truth. Suddenly, she felt breathless. Her muscles stiffened, and her legs refused to cooperate. What could it mean, this ache in her ribs? She licked her lips, remembering the taste of him as she sent him to his doom. Something hot and panicked and restless filled her to brimming, her eyes watering. Something like anguish flavored with something else she could not place, and she found herself wondering what it was that made her feel so ill. Was it the memory of his death, or the thought of never seeing him again that obliged her to blink back tears?
“Don’t be foolish, Elizabeth,” she chided with a whisper. “It’s better if none of it happened.”
Forcing her legs to work once again, she continued down the hallway, chin lifted.
The soft glow of firelight greeted her at the landing, and as she descended the stairs, she was sure that someone was awake below. She clutched the railing, a tenuous mixture of hope and fear coursing through her. Padding through the parlor, she approached her father’s study. The door was ajar. Light from inside flooded hall, the shadows long and flickering.
Inhaling, she pushed the door aside and entered.
Her father sat at his desk, spectacles low on his nose. The decanter of brandy was unstoppered, a sifter half-full near his left hand, papers sprawled across his blotter. He was studying a document as he chewed his pipe, and he’d removed his wig. Pensive and seemingly lost in thought, he exhaled a small puff, the heady scent of tobacco jolting Elizabeth out of stunned silence. Her voice caught in her throat, and she half-gasped, half-squeaked at the sight of him.
Her father looked up, clearly startled, and frowned as he set down his pipe.
“Elizabeth, is everything alright? You look deathly pale.”
“I - I’m alright.” She gulped back tears, her eyes smarting. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He stood, concern wrinkling his brow, and Elizabeth, legs finally thawed, ran towards him, nearly slipping on the rug in her mad dash. She crashed into him, almost toppling them both, and she hugged him so tightly that it was a wonder he could breathe.
And - like a river rushing over its banks - she burst into sobs. She clutched the collar of his coat, the fabric bunched in her fists.
Soothing her, he murmured something she could not hear. His hands brushed over the crown of her head, patting her hair as he had when she was a husk of a girl wailing for her mother.
When she finally calmed, unhinging her arms and releasing him from her grip, he stepped away and held her at arms length, clearly disturbed.
“Elizabeth, what in the world happened? Is it the wedding?”
“The wedding?” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Are you having doubts, my dear?”
So it had been a dream after all. Everything. No slamming of the cell door. No journey to Tortuga. No nausea as the Pearl sank, something like screams heavy in the air as the boards snapped and ship groaned. There had been no Tia with her blackened smile, and she’d never plummeted from the edges of the map. The starvation, the thirst and the loss - the incalculable, overwhelming loss - they had all been figments. Fantasy and nightmare, all of it.
And as for the wind in her hair, the weight of her sword and the rasp of Jack’s breath, those had been conjured as well. She was no King. She had not fought and sailed and laughed beside men. Beside Will and Jack.
Her father snapped her from her musing, his voice severing the thin twine that bound her to the woman she could have been - a creature both better and far worse.
“Elizabeth? You’re giving me quite a fright. What is this all about?” He sounded frail, and she turned to him, seeing his age and worry with a crispness she’d lacked. She spied the tremble in h is hand as he poured another glass of brandy.
When he guided her to sit in his chair, she saw new lines creasing his face. The tint of his hair was more white than grey, and his hands seemed speckled with age as he pressed the snifter into her palm.
“Oh,” she shook herself, willing the lingering image of his drifting boat to fade, “I’m sorry.” She patted his hand, smiling a thin smile. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just had a bad dream, is all.”
He exhaled, relief in his eyes. Sitting in the chair opposite her, he reclaimed his pipe and leaned back, taking a few puffs before speaking. “It seems that these jitters are a normal occurrence for every young bride and groom. They are part and parcel of the matrimonial leap, my dear. Why, I remember when I was preparing to wed your mother. I barely slept a wink, and I was quite a cheerless, quivering wretch for nearly a fortnight prior. Your Uncle Charles was forced to steady my wayward nerves with nearly a full bottle of port before I could muster the courage to enter the church. Luckily, you’ve been spared much of those nerves - thanks to your mother’s strength of conviction being so singularly pronounced - but fortitude aside, Elizabeth, I’d be most worried if you weren’t feeling these small anxieties. Wedlock is a serious affair, one which requires much careful contemplation, and so this measure of trepidation is God’s way of reminding us of life’s milestones. Now tell me, what manner of dream has been troubling you? I assure you that any qualms as to the specifications of the ceremony are easily laid to rest.”
“Oh yes, the wedding,” she said, suddenly aware that she had no idea of the date - and thus no inkling as to whether she’d be dressing for the ceremony at daybreak or in a month’s time. Try as she might, she could not remember even a minor detail to illuminate the date or even the day of the week. There were no lingering recollections of crawling into bed that evening or the events of the day.
She shivered, wrapping her arms around her body to ward off the chills. “It’s not the wedding I dreamt of, Papa. Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
“No, it was so much more, really.” She paused, trying to collect her memories into palatable morsels. “I dreamt that the wedding was interrupted by an evil man, and that Will and I were thrown into jail - but you freed me, and I ran away. I had to sail to the ends of the earth to find - something of importance - and then,” the words caught in her throat, her mouth turned to cotton. “Then, you - you died, Papa. I tried to save you, but I couldn’t. And then James was run through trying to free me from another sort of imprisonment. And Will was - well, in the end I lost him to the sea.” Tears brimmed over her lashes, trailing hot paths down her cheeks.
And Jack, she thought, don’t forget that you as good as murdered him.
“There, there, darling,” he said, patting her hand and rising to plant a kiss on her forehead. “It sounds as though you’ve had a very vivid dream, but I assure you that I have no plans to die anytime soon, and I’m certain that you will have a long, satisfying life with William - if you wish it.”
She smiled at his words, stifling a bitter chuckle. For all of her father’s optimism, she could not shake the feeling that there were no guarantees as to life and the landscape of one’s happiness. Her father was still uncertain of her marriage to Will, not an unexpected sentiment in and of itself, but Elizabeth felt a nagging sensation of panic nonetheless. What if he was right about their differences? What if they were not the best match for each other?
Certainty of any sort, it seemed, was fleeting as a heartbeat.
“How can you be certain, Papa?”
“Well, you do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” A sigh. Another breath. “Of course.” Her voice wavered, a vision of Will gathering form in her periphery. Her brave William, on the deck of the Pearl, the stench of death thick in the salt-spray as he drew her close and asked for her hand in one desperate breath.
“Then you’ve nothing to worry about, my dear.”
“And the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?”
“You must be careful, Papa. There are so many men that hunger for power, and I could not endure facing my days without you.”
Something in her father shifted in that moment - like a cog slipping into a new slot - and chills prickled her spine. The furrow in his brow smoothed, and he regarded her with a tenderness that made her remember the look of him in that little boat, listing towards another world.
“One day, my path will leave your side, as your mother parted from us years ago. But you must remember - you must never forget that I will always love you, Elizabeth, and I will always be with you. You have always been the brightest light in the darkest of places, and I am so very proud of you, my little bird.” He kissed her cheek then, smoothing a shaking hand over her hair. “Get some rest now, and in the morning everything will be right again.”
Elizabeth climbed the stairs heavily, heart-sore and exhausted. As she entered her room and removed her robe, she could not shake the sense of finality draped her like a shroud. She wilted into the bed, boneless and eager for rest, but the breeze had stilled and the room was muggy.
Sleep eluded her. The cool pockets in the bedding grew warm beneath her body, and after a few moments she threw the covers aside, raking a hand through her hair.
“Trouble sleeping, love?” A familiar figure peeled itself from the shadows, gold glinting in the moonlight as he smiled. “I hear it’s a common symptom of impending matrimony. Fortunately, I know the cure.” His gold-capped smile uncurled lazily, and he winked, cocking his head.
It was Jack, in her bedroom, sun-brown and arms folded. Captain Jack Sparrow in his battered tricorn and slouching coat, the same faded sash looped round his waist and his vest fraying at the edges.
“Jack?”
“In the flesh, darlin’,” and as if to accentuate just how present said flesh was, he slipped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to expose tawny forearms. He puffed proudly, all pomp and predatory glee as he prowled towards her. “Miss Swann.” He doffed his hat, sketching a bow. “Still comely as ever, I see.”
Finally able to stop gaping, she bolted from the bed. Several long strides and she stood facing him, her staccato heartbeat roaring in her ears. All thoughts of the impropriety of her dress and the scandal of his very presence in her bedchamber were dashed from her mind as she flung her arms around his shoulders. He did not move to return the gesture, and after several moments of holding him to her, she stepped back, cheeks pinking. He gaped at her, frowning as though puzzling over sums. As though he was straining to remember something.
“Jack, it’s,” she paused to compose herself, smoothing her dress and straightening her shoulders. “Well, it has been some time, hasn’t it? It’s good to see you.”
“So it would seem. Can’t say I was expecting quite such a boisterous welcome - maybe a slap or two and a jibe - but certainly not so much enthusiasm.” Shrugging, examined his hands with exaggerated aplomb. “Course, I do have a habit of underestimating me own considerable charm.”
He grinned, sauntering past her to lounge on the bed, hands behind his head and boots propped on a pile of blankets. However, though he made a valiant attempt at taking her familiarity in stride, she could see he was still somewhat unnerved.
“And what brings you to Port Royal, Captain Sparrow?”
And to my bedroom, she amended mentally.
“Ah, yes. That.” He patted the bed beside him, wagging his eyebrows. To their mutual surprise, she found herself settling beside him, hands folded primly in her lap. “Yes, well - you’re awfully accommodating tonight, Lizzie. Young Master Turner been lax in his duties, has he?”
She rolled her eyes, yawning. “As we’re not yet married, he hasn’t actually assumed those particular responsibilities yet.”
“Ah, well, such a pity. You know, I could assist you in-”
“You haven’t answered my question, Jack.”
He snorted, slouching lower. “Shouldn’t you be indignant, darling? Demanding that I leave your bedchamber immediately or some such rot?”
“After you answer my question.”
“And I suppose I’m to take your nonchalance as a sign that I’m in no peril of being run through by your overzealous fiancé?”
“He’s not here.”
“I can see that,” he purred, sliding closer. His palm brushed her thigh. “All the better.”
“You’re stalling, Jack.”
“And you’re still persistent, I see.”
“Always.”
He grinned beneath the low brim of his tricorn. After making a grand show of patting down his pants and rifling through his pockets, he produced from within his vest a tattered, water-warped slip of paper. It was a wedding invitation.
More precisely, it was one of her wedding invitations.
“I’ve come to Port Royal - risking life and limb, I might add - to bear witness to the blessed union of Mr. William Turner the third and,” he held the paper at arm’s length, squinting, “ one Miss Elizabeth Anne Swann, daughter of Weatherby Horatio Swann, Governor of His Majesty’s Colony of Jamaica, and the late Lady Catherine Swann nee Wellington.”
“I can hardly believe that you’ve come all this way just to see Will and I married.”
“Well, not such a long way, as it turns out. Found myself in a bit of brine at Kingston Harbour a few evenings ago. Nasty buggers, the Royal Guard. In any case, I felt it would be less than courteous to miss such a monumental occasion, seeing as I brought you two doe-eyed lovebirds together and all. However, I must say,” he smirked, removing his hat and setting it on the bedside table, “I was dashed through the heart to discover that I - the facilitator of said match - was not extended a proper invitation. Really, Lizzie darling, it was terribly rude of you.”
She rolled her eyes, fluffing a pillow and propping it behind her. It struck her as vaguely odd that she wasn’t more reserved in his presence, and yet somehow she felt as easy as if it was Will who lounged beside her.
“Well, I didn’t think you’d be interested, actually, and it’s not as though I could have sent word via a respectable ship. Short of tying a note to a cuttlefish and praying it found you, I didn’t really have the means to send word. Besides, half of the Royal Navy is attending the ceremony, and I don’t suppose you’d like to risk the noose for a piece of cake and a few dances.”
“Mmmm. You do have a point.”
“Of course I do.”
They were silent a moment, the air growing sultrier.
She could not wrench her eyes from the bit of exposed skin were his shirt had come unfastened, his chest copper in the half-light.
Elizabeth found it difficult to breath. Her shift clung to her skin, her brow dampening, and she longed for a whisper of breeze. Or for less clothing, a thought that swept through her mind unbidden and bloomed across her cheeks.
After several laden minutes, Jack broke the silence.
“So, I’ve brought a disguise.”
“For the ceremony?”
“Why else.”
“And it is?”
“A surprise.” He wagged his eyebrows, displaying a delighted mouthful of ivory and gold. “Nothing scandalous, of course.”
“Then why am I worried?” She couldn’t help returning his smile, imagining several possibilities.
“Don’t know, love. Perhaps because you’re about toss your life over the rail.”
“There will be no tossing, I assure you.”
“Mmm, well I won’t argue with you on that point, but I maintain that it’s the noose for you, love. Not I.”
“Jack Sparrow, you are incorrigible!”
“Captain, love. And I’m only speaking the truth, though as expected, truth doesn’t seem to go over quite as well as one would imagine.”
“Truth? There is nothing resembling truth in that statement.”
“Balderdash.”
“I am perfectly happy with Will.”
“Course ye are, darlin’.”
“I want to marry him, and you know it. I am elated to be marrying him!” Red-faced, she realized she was nearly shouting. Her eyes darted to the door and she lowered her voice to a whisper, continuing with a hiss. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand things like love and commitment and - and,” she stammered searching for the proper word, but all that came to her mind were spectral syllables.
Honor. Decency. A moral compass.
“And?” he prodded.
“And anything honorable, that’s what.”
“Mmm, quite right.” His eyes smoldered, were glazed with something she could not - and would not - name. With a shiver she registered that he’d leaned closer, that he was near enough for her to smell the rum on his breath, the scent of salt and sand in his hair. “Got me pegged, love. Wouldn’t know ‘bout any of those things.”
His hand slid across the sheets, his index finger tracing her collarbone. She stiffened. Her muscles were tangled ropes, and she tasted wool as he bent over her, matted hair stiff against her shoulder.
Jack’s rings were cool against her skin, and the part of her that should have jerked away from his touch - that same treacherous, mute part that should have screamed - was instead remembering sensations of her dream: Will inside her as she pressed her cheek to his hollow chest and Jack’s shudder as the shackles clamped shut.
And she was wondering how Jack would feel nestled between her legs - how his tongue would feel inside her mouth - when he propped himself above her and pressed his lips to the base of her throat.
She swallowed once. Twice.
Her eyelids fluttered shut and she was craning into him even as her mouth floundered for words of protest. For a cough.
A hiccup.
Anything.
Unable to meet his eyes - afraid of what she’d find there, she stared at the canopy above.
Sweat beaded on her brow, on her lip - in the cleft of her breasts, a valley that Jack’s fingers were perilously close to exploring. She swallowed, straining to ignore the heat of his mouth and the almost painful throb between her legs as his fingers slipped beneath the thin gauze of her neckline.
She whimpered when his lips found hers, and he groaned as her forced her mouth wide. His kiss had none of Will’s gentleness. He was devouring her. Jack was fire and rage and something terribly desperate.
He bruised her lips, his teeth drawing a droplet of blood. She fancied, for a brief moment as he laved the wound, soothing her with the tip of his tongue, that she could almost hear the snapping of boards and the bellow of the Kraken’s jagged maw.
“Jack,” she managed, his mouth trailing a wet path across her jawline.
“Mmm?” he breathed, her skin tingling beneath his moustache.
“I- ”
But then his hands were cupping her breasts, her nipples painfully erect and tender beneath the linen of her dress. White-knuckled, she grasped his collar and yanked him forward, their teeth colliding.
Elizabeth startled awake, breathless. Her eyelids were water-raw, slick and sore and swollen. The tide had risen high enough to lap her ankles, and she scooted away from the waterline, her hand darting to the chest to draw it near. Judging by the height of the moon and the reach of the water, she calculated that she’d dozed for less than an hour.
Just long enough to dream.
The girl inside her quivered at the brink of tears. Elizabeth balled her fists and braced herself for deluge and downpour, but her eyes were drying. She could not summon a single droplet.
Feeling hollow, she wrapped her arms around her torso, the fabric of her tunic salt-stiff. She sat cradling herself for several moments, her clothing crisp - made stern by the sea.
The air was brisk, and she felt feverish as breeze dried her perspiration.
You’ve been hollowed out, Elizabeth. You’re a bit of crisp - a dried up husk of a daughter and wife. And you never were much of a friend, were you?
“Stop it,” she yelled, hands at her ears.
Go on and toddle off, Elizabeth. Or have you forgotten you’ve got work to do?
“I remember,” she whispered to no one at all.
Sniffling, her chin trembling, she willed herself to forget the phantom downiness of her bed, to forget the warmth of home, like layers of batting. To forget Jack, poised above her.
Instead, she thought of her father in his study, of the room’s sturdy scent: tobacco and cloves and vetiver soap. She pressed her fingertips to the place on her cheek where he’d kissed her. Something like peace nestled in her belly, and she placed her hand on her abdomen, feeling warmer and less hungry.
Moonlight glanced off the gold ring circling her thumb. It had been her father’s most cherished possession until he’d misplaced it on the journey from England to Port Royal, and it had been returned to her on another sojourn, during that terrible night the Pearl bore the living through currents of the dead.
As if illuminated by the memory of the Locker, the thin band of sterling looped around her left ring finger flared white-blue in the moonlight. She turned her hands to inspect the few pieces of jewelry she still possessed. Her wedding band was simple - thoughtful and elegant. Will had forged it himself, had kept it tied to a string around his wrist as they’d journeyed from port to port, as they’d fought and bled and toppled onto the Dutchman. He’d slipped it onto her finger at dusk before brushing his lips across her thigh and vanishing in a flicker of green.
Sighing, she lowered her hand, the new weight still alien.
Elizabeth removed her father’s gold ring, examining the familiar grooves and peaks of their family seal. It was an old piece of jewelry, one he’d not worn since leaving England.
Since her mother had died.
On one particularly frigid morning - the dawn of her mother’s twenty-eighth birthday - her father had lent her the ring, allowing her to borrow it to seal her present, a collection of poems and watercolors she’d slaved at for weeks. She’d pressed the ring’s face firmly into a measured dollop of gooey, red wax. Giggling, she felt significant and adult as she sealed the gifts in an envelope, proud of her steady hand.
Galloping down the hall, she’d burst into her mum’s room, laughing and waving the letter. But her mother did not stir from beneath the covers, and sidling closer, she’d noticed her chest did not rise. Elizabeth had yelled for her mother to wake, tugging at her arms and thinking it another of their games. But her mother’s arms had been ice, her skin sallow and her fingers stiff, blue-tipped. Terrified, she’d shaken her mother, wailing for her to wake up, to drop the ruse.
But she never woke.
And Elizabeth never forgot how her mother’s head had lolled from side to side like a doll with lifeless, glass eyes. She’d crouched beside the door in the hall when the doctors crept out, and there, huddling beneath the potted fern, Elizabeth had twirled her father’s ring round and round and round her thumb, humming shanties until she could no longer hear the sound of her father’s weeping.
Weatherby Swann never donned the ring after the funeral, claiming he’d misplaced it whenever Elizabeth asked to view it. Thus, her shock at seeing it again, after so many years, had left her breathless, inarticulate. The night her father had drifted past the Pearl - that terrible, endless, windless night - she’d been curled in her bunk, drifting somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, between the living and the dead, when she’d heard the door of her cabin creak, footsteps approaching the bed. Will had long ago left her to grieve, their camaraderie still stretched thinner than she’d like. Thus, she’d felt little surprise than expected when she saw Jack’s silhouette facing her in the dim.
“I want you to know,” he’d said, squatting beside the mattress, “that this doesn’t change things between us.” But his eyes held something fragile as he produced the ring from his pocket and pressed it to her hand.
She’d started, staring at it for several breaths before she could find her voice. For a heartbeat, she was a bird in his palm.
“Jack, how did you-”
“Pirate.” He’d shrugged, eyes distant.
“But he said he’d lost it.” She had worried at the metal, turning it over in her palm. “Years and years ago. When would you did you have the occasion-”
He’d raised his hand to silence her, straightening and heading for the door.
“Jack.”
“Yes?” He did not turn.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, love,” he’d whispered, his voice like gravel and his hand on the doorknob. But then something in him seemed to shift, and he’d pivoted, the sound of his boots like the folding of wings. “As I said, Elizabeth: it doesn’t change anything.”
Swallowing the knot in her throat, she’d stifled tears as she rasped her reply. “I understand.”
“Good.”
“Thank you, Jack. You’ve no idea what this means to me.” He’d nodded gravely before slipping from the room, the door clicking into place with a final sort of sound.
Flipping the ring to examine the underside of the band, Elizabeth ran a finger over the worn engravings inside, squinting to read the inscriptions though she’d memorized every dip and loop years ago. “Nosce te ipsum,” below the seal. “Know thyself,” her father had explained as she’d nestled in his lap one snowy winter evening. And at the thinnest part of the band, these words: “Ad vitam aeternam” beside her mother’s name, Catherine Anne Swann. For all time the past urged, a captive whisper in the worn metal.
“Goodnight, Father,” she whispered, returning the ring to her thumb. Long minutes passed as she sat watching the sea lap the shore in drowsy, pewter lengths.
Sighing, she wobbled to her feet.
Her first order of business was finding a home for the chest. She scanned the cliffs for outcroppings and caves, but the rock - a dove-colored shale - had been blown smooth by centuries of harsh winds. A crude path was cut into the face of the cliff, and before long Elizabeth found herself scaling the jagged steps, the soles of her feet scraping the stone in tired rasps.
The ascent proved more difficult due to the weight of the chest. Cradling it awkwardly, she reached the plateau after what she gathered must have been nearly a half hour.
Elizabeth plodded through the tall grass, stopping occasionally to set the chest on the ground and reclaim her breath. Woozy with exhaustion and hunger, she stumbled forward, finally stooping to lower the trunk and drag it behind. Every thud made her cringe as she considered Will’s heart jostling in her wake.
After trekking through weeds and underbrush, she stumbled across an unexpected sight. A rather large house loomed ahead, and Elizabeth lurched to a halt, tugging the chest into the shadows and ducking beside it. Despite its obvious decay, there was a stately, almost palatial air to the building reminiscent of the governor’s residence in Port Royal. It had the same dignified windows and wide entrance, and yet unlike her former home, this house seemed abandoned for several years. Vines clung to the front columns, and crows nested in the veranda. A few shutters swung on crooked hinges, the wind clapping them against the edifice, timbers stuttering in the breeze.
For a moment, she considered stashing the chest inside, but she shook off the notion with a frown as she considered the home’s proximity to Shipwreck Cove. It would be nothing for a headstrong crew to stray to this island. This house - the only structured she’d glimpsed and the closest structure to the harbor - would offer a tempting hideaway for looters and lovers alike.
Heaving the chest against her breast and bracing it with her forearms, she trudged past the building, tilting her head in parting.
After a quarter hour of searching, Elizabeth, having found no suitable stashing nook of any sort, cursed her lack of a shovel and decided to surrender. She was ready to retreat to the house, praying that it would be free of snakes and furnished with some manner of bed, when she spied another trail winding down the opposite side of the cliff - down the ledge that faced away from Shipwreck Cove. There the stone was porous and rough.
The pumice crumbled underfoot as she crept down the steep path. By the time she reached the sand, she was sweat-soaked and panting.
And then she spied it. Near the base of the path gaped the mouth of a small cave, the opening just large enough to accommodate her if she scuttled on her belly. Flopping onto the sand and pushing the chest in front of her, she slid beneath the lip of the opening, flinching at the pitch, deaf blackness. She inhaled short, panicked breaths, the walls of the tunnel scraping her tunic as she pulled herself forward on her elbows.
This is like a coffin - a damnable grave.
Tasting bile and her blood in her ears, red speckles danced behind her eyelids as she blinked.
You’re about to faint, Elizabeth. You are going to swoon like a child and bump your bloody head - and then you’ll die here. Is that what you want? To die like an infernal earthworm in this hole, with these cliffs as your headstone and Will left to roam the oceans forever.
No? So then bloody breathe, damn it. Prop the damned chest against some rocks and just shimmy out, but for the love of God, breathe.
But air was in short supply, and she found herself sputtering with each gasp, sand and gravel pricking her lips as she inhaled, nose to the ground. Unsure of how she would push herself back out, she cursed herself for not bringing some sort of flame - anything to cut the blinding darkness - and bracing her palm against the jagged wall of the tunnel, she gave a chest one last shove.
The trunk clattered forward, echoing as it landed with a thud. Scooting after the chest, she found herself plummeting, face-first, into a large grotto.
A well lit grotto.
The walls were covered in phosphorescent algae, the ceiling high and mottled with what appeared to be icicles of stone. Drawing herself up, she stretched, flexing stiff joints. Her knuckles cracked.
Propping herself on a nearby ledge, she bent over the chest, examining the wood for damage. She exhaled a held breath when she pressed her ear to the grain and heard the soft, muffled rhythm of heart against wood. Crouching, she tucked the trunk into a snug crevice in the wall.
She pressed a parting kiss to the lid, her palm stroking the timbers one last time. Squaring her shoulders, she scooped as much of the algae from the walls as she could manage to cup in her hands. The sludge oozed through her fingers.
She made the journey out of the tunnel in silence, blinking back tears, her tongue swollen and bitter.
You will not cry, Elizabeth. This her mantra as she climbed the sharp incline to the clifftop.
You will not bloody cry, Elizabeth, she repeated, staggering past the house with its wagging shutters and contorted vines.
Do not cry, God damn it, as she tripped down the stone steps and waded into the waves. Cool fingers of seawater circled her ankles - her calves and then her knees - until she was thigh deep in the ocean. Finally, with one last glance at the island, she hoisted herself into the dinghy.
The cadence was something like Jack’s voice in her head as she began to row, each pull of her oars whisking her farther from all the certainties of her youth. You’re their king now, love, and you’ve got to be kingly, savvy? Something regal and stately and fit for all those storybooks of yours - for little girls in their canopies and for every scalawag on his deathbed what called himself pirate and whispered your name.
And so teeth gritted and wet-backed, she pulled and pulled - away from the memory of Will Turner and his aching heart. Away from the spectral winds of youth - once gale force, now the last licks of breeze. With much effort, she steered her mind away from memories of her husband’s hesitant smile, of the seering scrape of his fingernails against her hip and the scent of his skin - lye soap and iron flakes and sun-dried linen.
She stroked through the grey night with few glances spared for the diminishing shore. The stars seemed sparse and muddied overhead.
She kept the soft glow of the city in her sights, refusing to wonder at the objects that tempted Will’s eyes in the deep blue. As the smoke and sparkle of the cove grew brighter, she ignored the burn in her arms and the rawness in her eyes. She swallowed lump after lump of grief, her stomach hollow and her mind struggling against memories of the soot of his forge, of her husband’s body trembling above hers.
She reached Shipwreck Cove in the better space of an hour, and as she climbed ashore, she forced a flailed handwave for all the cheering, whooping and back-slapping pirates that ushered her ashore.
But for a moment, before she remembered to laugh and smile and raise her chin high, she instead remembered her mother’s icy skin, her father’s patient eyes and Will’s parting kiss. Her Will, buoyant beneath the waters now, his hair tendrils of kelp in the deep blue sea.
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