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The world is wide, the ocean unending, and Elizabeth Turner is utterly, unutterably alone.
She watches the horizon afterwards, dry eyed, straining vainly for another glimpse of green in the darkening sky.
Ten years.
It is unthinkable.
Of course she knew they were leaving her behind. She had understood that, as they made their goodbyes. Mrs Turner, Barbossa had called her, recalling that night in the harbour off Port Royal, gunsmoke scenting her hair and the echo of screams still sounding in her ears. Poppet. And Jack Sparrow, with his wicked grin glinting golden and a twinkle in his eye, mistrusting her offered kiss for old times' sake. It was a fitting farewell.
Her adventure has ended now, and her place is on dry land, awaiting her husband's return.
She lasts just shy of a week.
"Mind where you put that blasted bucket, boy!"
She hooks it out of the way, keeping her head down and watching the dirty water slop around inside the pail. Mr Berwick, the second mate, seems to have a permanent bad temper – still, it takes more than a little grumbling and cursing to make her quail. The crew of the Fair Eleanor have welcomed 'Ellis Starling' into their ranks readily enough. Captain Harding listened to her story of woe with an unreadable expression that made her belatedly question the wisdom of including sea turtles, but he accepted her aboard nonetheless.
Passing herself off as a boy is becoming second nature now. Elizabeth has never been good at acting the lady, and ever since Captain Jack Sparrow consigned her wretched corset to perdition she has found it difficult to even play the part. She far prefers the freedom of breeches, and the simplicity of her hair tied back in a queue. In truth she has always been too skinny and lacking in curves to cut much of a womanly figure, and now that she has learned to walk with the long strides and the swaggering bravado of a boy it feels like dissembling to take dainty paces and walk with downcast eyes. To know her place. She knows her place fine well, does Elizabeth Turner: she is King of the Pirates, elected by the Brethren Court. And although she may be presently between ships – well, Captain Jack Sparrow has been between ships for years at a time, without being any less a captain.
"You're doing a fine job, Starling. Don't let the stroppy old bugger get you down." Joe Change, a kindly giant of a man whose ruddy face is creased with laugh lines behind his bristling red-gold beard, beams at her. From where she kneels on the deck, with water soaking into her knees and shins, he towers as tall as any mountain. She would not fancy tackling Joe in battle, for all his gentle humour. He is built like a ploughhorse or a great black bear, and there's a gleam in his eyes that makes her suspect he knows his way around a sword. Or possibly an axe. He would make a convincing Viking.
She grins back. "Ta, Joe. I don't mind him."
"Good lad." He carries on his way, whistling tunelessly, and the rolling deck quivers beneath his feet.
Elizabeth Swann never scrubbed the floor of her father's house, and Elizabeth Turner's husband had no house to scrub. Still, she earned callouses enough while Will taught her to handle a sword, and ever since some ill wind blew Cutler Beckett into Port Royal there has been little of ease or luxury in her life. She doesn't pine for her old existence, but – it had been a pleasurable innocence, not knowing how to build a fire or clean cloth or iron. Not having to worry if one tore a hole in one's shoes or one's dress, because there were other clothes in one's wardrobe and other fingers deft enough to patch and mend.
There is a certain irony to the fact that it is only through posing as a boy that Elizabeth has learned this 'woman's work'. As a sailor she has learned to clean and sew and cook well enough to make any blacksmith's wife proud. Although, as it turns out, she didn't wed a blacksmith after all – and her marriage will never require her to cook, clean or sew for her husband.
Elizabeth leans over the bucket and scrubs her face roughly with the back of one hand. The water is already full salty enough, and needs no tears of hers.
Elizabeth Turner has a plan, of sorts. She is going to beg, bribe, charm or threaten her way to Tortuga, and then she is going to find The Black Pearl. And then she is going to ask Captain Jack Sparrow about a story he once told her, after too much rum and too little sleep, about a man called Robert - or Bobbie, or Rabbie, or Hob, or something like that – who had learned of a way to cheat death without having to turn into a skeleton by moonlight.
Maybe she must reconcile herself to waiting ten years between each meeting with Will, but Elizabeth is damned if she's going to have white hair by their fifth date.
She's in the crow's nest, the first time she hears a woman's voice carried on the wind. It makes her shiver with recollections of the kraken, with the memory of the appalling maw of the maelstrom that finally swallowed Davey Jones. Tia Dalma had disconcerted Elizabeth enough when she was simply an uncanny witch-woman with a throaty laugh and a handful of crab claws. Now – now Elizabeth fears her, and pities her, and envies her all at once.
She watches the clouds in trepidation for a long time, expecting something terrible that never comes.
She's leaning out over the figurehead watching the sleek shapes of dolphins cutting through the water and feeling the spray against her face, dewing the lashes of her stinging eyes, when she hears it again.
"Elizabeth."
The voice is unmistakable, warmly mocking and musical, a voice that shapes the syllables of her name into something unfathomable and intimate. Something that might be a threat or a promise. She shivers.
"Tia Dalma?" Her own voice comes out brash and bold, cracking very slightly on the last syllable. A heartbeat later, recalling the clatter of claws scrabbling across the deck and the stinking impact of several thousand crabs hurtling out of the sky: "Calypso?" This time it is an entreaty breathed over the sea.
Flecks of wind-borne foam kiss her cheeks, the dolphins' dark fins flash in the sunlight, and no voice sounds in reply.
"Has anyone broken you in yet, boy?"
It is their fourth day at sea. Joe Change took her under his wing her first day aboard, and it is, she suspects, largely down to him that she hasn't endured more hazing than she has. Joe is up in the rigging now, and she must fend for herself; this doesn't worry her, although perhaps it should. She's a good swordsman and an excellent strategist, but when it comes to hand-to-hand fighting – well, when all is said and done Elizabeth Turner is still a willow-thin girl who was wearing corsets until very recently, and she's a long way from home. She probably shouldn't be quite as cocky as she is.
Mallory has been watching her like a hawk ever since she stepped aboard the Fair Eleanor. She cannot quite decide what is on his mind, but there's an unsavoury sort of urgency to his looks and an odd hunger that puts her in mind of Captain Barbossa when first she met him on the Pearl.
"What do you mean?" her voice comes out as deep as she can make it, harsh and unmusical. It is still far too high. She is claiming to be fourteen – a little old for a cabin boy, but she is not a raw recruit, and had proved herself handy with knots and nimble as any undead monkey when it came to clambering up unsteady rigging. She is worth her salt.
Mallory sidles closer. The rank smell of clothes that have been slept in, sweated in, soaked with salt water and slept in again for weeks upon weeks envelops her. He looks and smells enough like a pirate that she almost likes him. Were she less alone here, he might be almost reassuringly familiar.
"Joe hasn't had you since you've been on board – there's no secrets on a ship this size. But has anyone else broke you in?" He licks his lips. It is not a pleasant sight.
She replays the words several times, but still cannot begin to fathom his meaning.
"Can I help you, Mal?" They both jump at the sound of Joe's voice. For such a large man, he can move with remarkable stealth when he's a mind to. Elizabeth has no idea how he got down from the rigging so quickly.
Mallory looks up at him with unhidden dislike. "No thankee, Joe. Just passing the time of day with young Starling is all."
"You'll pass it better elsewhere, if you catch my drift," says Joe, mild as milk. Mallory flinches, and scurries away. They both watch him go.
"You're going to find yourself in trouble soon, Ellis, and no mistake," says Joe softly, without looking at her.
"I don’t know what you mean." Her voice is gruff. She resents being rescued. She could have handled the situation just fine without his interference. "We were just talking."
Joe studies her then, his head cocked to one side. A smile breaks across his face as bright and wide as the sunrise over the ocean. His teeth, she notices, are stronger and whiter than any she has seen, and for all that he bathes no more regularly than the rest of them, there is an odd absence of stink about him. "Ah, bless you, Ellis, you're as green as seaweed wrapped around a mermaid's tail and as innocent as a new born babe." He leans closer, and lowers his voice to a whisper. "Passing yourself off as a boy won't keep you safe from lustful thoughts, my dear. Sailors are a practical bunch when it comes to getting their pleasures, and they can go a long time between ports. You make a right bonny lad, and it's going to cause you trouble if you're determined to go for a sailor. Mallory there would have you bent over the side with your breeches round your ankles before you could squeak, if it were up to him. Be grateful Cap'n Merryweather runs a tight ship – and make damn sure you don't find yourself alone with Mal Seacombe, unless that's the fate you fancy." It is a very rare thing that Elizabeth finds herself at a loss for words, but on this occasion she does not know where to begin. Joe gives her a pat on the back that sends her reeling. He really is a very big man. "I'll look out for you, young'un. I've sisters of my own, and I haven't seen them in too long."
"I – I am in your debt, Mr Change," she says at last. Her mind is still spinning. She has the general gist now, but the mechanics of the business are still a puzzlement. Still, she would cut out her tongue sooner than beg an explanation. "I shan't forget your kindness," she adds awkwardly.
"Get on with you, lad," he says, ruffling her hair, and Elizabeth is startled by a sudden surge of longing for her father's arms. When she was tiny he used to pick her up and swing her in the air, setting her skirts and her long hair flying, and she used to laugh and laugh and laugh for the sheer joy of flight, absolutely secure in the knowledge that he would never let her fall.
It is her fault he is dead. A more ladylike daughter would never have stolen a pirate medallion from Will Turner, or gone haring off to sea. Of course, a more ladylike daughter would probably have been raped and murdered by pirates when the Black Pearl came to Port Royal looking for the blood and the gold of Bootstrap Bill Turner – still, she misses her father, at this moment, with an almost physical ache, and feels terribly alone.
"You'll not tell?" She has to ask it, because they are still mostly strangers, but she is ashamed of the look of hurt that passes across his face.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," he says with an odd smile. He runs his eyes up and down her, assessingly, and then laughs. "But you'll be giving the game away yourself soon enough, my dear."
He doesn't know her very well, she thinks. She's passed herself off as a boy before now, and manipulated a whole shipful of sailors into taking her where she needed to go. She can take care of herself, and she won't give the game away any time soon.
The third time she hears the voice of the goddess, Elizabeth Turner is peeling potatoes in the rain. Water beads the blade in her hand and she jumps so badly that she almost severs a thumb.
She drops the bucket with a clatter, keeps the knife in her hand, jams her thumb into her mouth and leans out over the water, straining to hear it again. The world is full of the sound of rain smashing into water and drumming onto wood, but somewhere she had heard her name.
"Calypso?" There is blood on her tongue as she utters the name; perhaps that helps. Perhaps it is simply a matter of third time lucky. Regardless, she is startled when the wood beneath her hands reshapes itself, and a familiar face peers up at her.
"Elizabeth Turner."
She flinches away, and then tells herself this is not the strangest thing she has seen. She squares her shoulders and sticks out her chin, and reminds herself that she is the Pirate King, and that her husband is Captain of the Flying Dutchman – but there is still a slight tremble in her voice when she speaks. "What do you want of me?"
"Are you afraid, Elizabeth Turner?"
"Yes," she breathes, after an internal struggle that stills her tongue for long moments. This is no time for lies or half-truths.
"Then you have learn some little wisdom at last." Elizabeth feels the wooden gaze weighing her. "It was the Pirate King and his men that stole me from me salt sea bed and bound me in that form. I swore I would have revenge. You are the Pirate King now, girl."
Elizabeth feels a chill that has nothing to do with the rain soaking her through to the skin. She has feared this ever since she buried the chest containing Will's heart and took herself back to sea. "But they are long dead, and it was we who set you free. Please – please be merciful. Isn't it enough that I've lost Will? One single day of married life and now I must wait ten years – and some of us are not immortal. Some of us will age and wither and die, waiting to see our loved ones."
"Your boy Will kill Davey Jones and steal him ship."
She cannot deny it. "Davey Jones stabbed him first," she protests, feeling like a child. "And I thought – wasn't it what you wanted? Didn't it return him to you?"
There is a long pause. Elizabeth has no idea how to read expression on an animated carving. At last Calypso begins to laugh. "It is what I wanted, what I hope for. And I bear no malice for William Turner. I knew it be him the moment he walk in to me house. I knew he bring me freedom and me love back to me arms."
"Well then." Elizabeth's heart is racing.
"But between us, girl – that another matter.
She licks her lips. "Are you going to kill me?" Suddenly, from nowhere, she finds her courage has come back to her. She straightens her spine. "Go on then. Go on, if that's why you're here. I have lost my father, my home, my name and my love. I have lost my shipmates – or they have lost me. I cannot go back to Port Royal, disgraced, outlawed – I'd be arrested the moment I arrived. I cannot build any other life for myself, penniless, a woman alone – I'm not a sorceress, as you were. All I have is my body and my sword, and I will die before I sell either one. So here I am, trying to be a sailor again, trying to find the Pearl – but whether I walk openly as a woman or disguise myself as a boy, I am an oddity and alone." She thinks of Mallory, and wonders what other threats she is too ignorant to fear, and suddenly her solitude seems unbearable. "I have lost my William."
"Him doing important work. Great work." Now she sounds more like Tia Dalma, her voice reproving. "Him serving an honourable purpose. And he be back to see you and hold you in ten years' time, because wicked Jack Sparrow have a warm heart in him chest still. Him save your bonny Will, and free my Davey."
Elizabeth considered that with some surprise. It was true enough, at that – Jack Sparrow had done the right thing in the end, for all that she knew he wanted to take Davey Jones's place himself. She had told him once that he would do the right thing. And he had told her that she was a pirate. "So why are you here, if not for revenge?"
"I am come to grant you a boon, Elizabeth Turner. One wish, woman to woman, in thanks for my love come back to me."
Elizabeth stares. "Will!" she gasps. "I want Will back"
Calypso clicks her wooden tongue. "Silly girl. That not in my power to give. Him bound to him duty. Do not throw this away. Think."
"Then – then make me immortal too. I never wanted to live forever, but if this is my life, with Will free only one day every decade – please, you know what it feels to love someone with your whole heart, and be parted from them. Please help me to stay young and strong, as he does, for as long as he does."
The wooden mouth curves into a smile. "I put an opportunity in your path. Be careful you take what is offered when it come." And the face gradually sinks back into the wood, as if it were never there.
The next day they are attacked by pirates.
Elizabeth has half a dozen weapons secreted about her person for just such an eventuality, and she meets the first wave of the attack with her sword drawn and a grin of exhilaration. It's the Pearl. Calypso has been as good as her word.
Around her, men are dying. Joe Change, who has kept an eye on Elizabeth throughout the proceedings, is laying about him with a sword which must be fully four feet long and laughing joyously. He is splattered with gore and scything merrily through the pirates like this is all some big game. The rest of the Fair Eleanor's crew are not doing so well. This was no part of the plan – these sailors are good men, honest men who have done the pirates no wrong, and they do not deserve to be slain. (But that's what pirates do, Elizabeth, a voice murmurs in the back of her mind. Where did you think they got their plunder from, if not good and honest men?)
"Parlay!" she yells, putting all the strength of her lungs into the word. "PARLAY!"
"The code!" cries one of their attackers, a man she does not recognise. He looks torn. His sword wavers in the air.
"That only holds good 'tween pirates, you numbskull," says another, laying about him with a wicked-looking machete. "And it's more of a guideline anyway."
"Try telling that to Captain Teague, and see how fast he puts a hole in your belly," spits the Pirate King, her eyes flaming. "My name is Captain Turner, formerly Captain Elizabeth Swann, elected King of the Pirates by the Brethren Court, and by the code of the brethren laid down by Captains Morgan and Bartholomew, I demand to speak with Captain Sparrow at once."
"Hello, Poppet! Fancy meeting you here!"
She turns to see familiar faces at last. "Parlay!" she says again. "Parlay!"
"We didn't know this was your ship, now, did we, ducky? You ain't flying no colours."
"I've been looking for you," she says, ignoring the question in his words. "I need to speak to Jack."
It is Barbossa who answers her. "Then it's Tortuga you'll be wanting, Mrs Turner, for Jack Sparrow is not welcome aboard my ship. Now what's all this talk of parlay?"
Elizabeth's heart sinks, and she curses her folly for trusting the word of the goddess. Opportunity indeed. She looks about her, at a ring of unfriendly faces, and thinks fast. Leverage. She needs leverage of some sort, but for the life of her she cannot think what will work on Barbossa, if he chooses to ignore her title.
"The lady would like to offer you the chance to surrender, before I gut every last one of you - and your little monkey too." They all look up at Joe Change, plastered with gore, beaming down at them as he leans on his sword. He towers there, surrounded by blood and viscera and twitching meat and wearing an almost joyous expression, and Elizabeth realises that she does not know him very well at all. Captain Barbossa swallows audibly. "This is all very exhilarating, isn't it?" Joe adds cheerfully. "You know, that's a most impressive hat you have there, sir."
"I'm partial to it," allows Barbossa, studying the grisly figure before him. His fingers close over the handle of his pistol, and Joe makes a tsking sound as he withdraws it from its holster.
"Hector, Hector. Don't make me end you," says Joe, his tone reproachful. Barbossa's eyes widen.
"Have we met?" he asks, cautiously.
Joe Change shakes his head. "I used to work with your grandfather, and I try to keep up with who's who. And currently, unless I'm very much mistaken, Mrs Turner here is King of the Pirates. So you'll be meeting her for a spot of parlay, right?"
"Ah. Right," says Barbossa, scowling at the enormous broadsword. He cocks his pistol. "And if I were to blow your brains out where you stand?"
"Then it would certainly be the last thing you ever did."
This makes no sense to Elizabeth, but she still believes it. Evidently Barbossa does too. "Parlay," he agrees, irritably.
And so it comes about that the pirates leave the Fair Eleanor with her cargo intact, if not her crew, and Elizabeth Turner joins the equally depleted crew of The Black Pearl, with Joe Change in tow. He is quite adamant about not leaving her alone with the pirates.
"You're in no condition to deal with them alone, Ellis," he says, which strikes Elizabeth as more than a little patronising – but the truth is that she is grateful for his strong right arm. She doesn't understand Joe at all, though. He seems almost fond of the pirates, despite having cheerfully felled a score of them aboard The Fair Eleanor. They, for their part, treat him with the wary respect appropriate to a very large man with a very large sword and a very fast arm. "It's their nature," he says placidly, when she questions him about it.
He will not tell her how he comes to know so much about pirating. It puzzles her a little, for he seems to know all about Barbossa, and all about the Brethren Court – and yet none of the pirates recognise him.
"Land ho!"
It is an unremarkable enough island, from the looks of it, but Captain Barbossa is practically salivating at the sight of the place. Elizabeth watches him narrowly. He is clutching something small in his hand, something that he has taken to fondling absentmindedly. It reminds her a little of the way Jack Sparrow held his compass.
"Is this it? Cap'n? Is this it?" asks Mister Ragetti, quivering with anticipation.
Mister Cotton's parrot flaps its wings, a flash of vivid green against the clear sky. "Never die!" it screeches. "Nevermore!"
"What is this place?" asks Elizabeth, ready to explode with curiosity.
The pirates have been rather unforthcoming since she rejoined their ranks, but all of them look excited now, and one leans over to her. "The fountain of youth!" he whispers, gleefully.
Elizabeth's jaw drops. She forgets her uncertain position on the ship and strides up to Barbossa's side. "Is it true? Do you seek the fountain of youth?"
There is a light in his eyes that she remembers all too well. "We do," he says. "Eternal life, Mrs Turner. Eternal life, and no cursing of a man's flesh to become a bag of bones by moonlight, no endless, insatiable hunger. Just life. That's the treasure we're a-seeking of. Life."
"I'm coming with you," she says.
"Are you now?"
"Yes, she is. And I'll be coming along with her." Elizabeth is grateful for Joe's presence at her side at that moment, watching Captain Barbossa's expression shift.
"Fair enough, Mister Change," he says. "There's water enough for the lot of us."
"That's what I'm afraid of," murmurs Joe. Elizabeth shoots him a questioning look, but before she has the chance to get to the bottom of that remark, another sailor sets up a cry that distracts them all.
"Sail! Sail ho! A dinghy, Captain!"
"Sparrow!" Barbossa spits the word out as though it stings his tongue. Elizabeth peers over the side, and her mouth curves into a smile as she picks out the familiar figure. She hadn't realised how much she missed Captain Jack Sparrow until this very moment, but the thought of him feels incongruously like a homecoming.
He glances back at them, and starts to row frantically.
The banana trees are familiar enough, and so are the guavas and tamarinds, but Elizabeth is bemused by the wild array of foliage that they have to cut their way through with machetes. There are fruits she does not recognise at all, and others that she has not seen growing in the wild since leaving Europe: fat blackberries, and bright little crab apples, and juicy looking pears. There are flowers too – not just the lush ones she's accustomed to, but small, frail little wisps of blooms that surely should not be able to flourish in this climate, and on this soil. Nor should they be blossoming on trees that bear fruit. It's all distinctly odd. She watches the birds wheeling overhead and keeps her eye out for spiders and other creatures with too many legs. There is something uncanny about this place.
"Well this is an unexpected pleasure, and no mistake," says Jack, grinning ingratiatingly at her. "The King of the Pirates herself! I thought you'd gone respectable on us, Elizabeth? Given up the sea?" His hands are bound, and there are naked weapons pointing at him as they walk, but he still carries himself like this is all some kind of joke between friends.
Elizabeth shrugs. "I found that dry land didn't agree with me after all."
"And who can blame you? It's not an egregiously agreeable kind of place." His eyes dart to Joe Change, and his expression is speculative. "And you've found yourself a new knight in shining armour, I see?"
"What? No!" Elizabeth glances over at Joe, wide-eyed, and wonders for a moment whether it's possible that he harbours any romantic feelings for her. She can't believe it, though, from the lazy kindness of his smile. It's brotherly, or avuncular, even, not hot or shy or hungry. "Joe is my friend."
"That's lucky," says Jack. He looks around and then leans towards Joe with exaggerated stealth and drops his voice to a whisper that carries further than his normal speaking voice. "You want to watch out, mate. Our Elizabeth leaves a trail of destruction in her wake. She's not the safest of lasses to go befriending, if you take my drift."
Elizabeth is a little hurt by this. "That isn't fair," she says, frowning at him.
Jack raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm not saying you're intentionally unkind, love – I'm sure a warm and tender heart beats in that girlish bosom. But, really, Lizzy – think on." He raises his bound hands in front of him and starts counting on his fingers. "The poor, benighted Commodore is fish food, Daddy dearest was last seen at World's End floating towards the land of the dead, Sao Feng lost his life and his ship both to you, and sweet William had his heart carved right out of his chest. And yours truly, of course, got eaten by a giant squid and trapped in the strangest sort of dry hell any man was ever trapped in – albeit a hell populated by a remarkably handsome and clever array of fellows. I like you well enough, Elizabeth, but you've got to admit that your track record is sufficient to give any sane man pause."
She really wants to protest, but honesty prevents her. He does have a point. She glances over at Joe, red-faced and defensive, and is surprised to see him smiling at her fondly. "I know Mrs Turner very well, thank you. She's a fine lass, and no mistake, and I'm happy to bear her company."
"Your funeral, mate," says Jack Sparrow, equably. "Just thought you deserved a warning."
"And I appreciate the kindness, indeed I do. Although you're a fine one to talk, Captain. I hear you have something of a reputation yourself: there's more than one disaster that folks have laid at your door."
"Misunderstandings," replies Jack swiftly. "I am much maligned, my friend, and cruelly misrepresented."
Joe Change nods. "No doubt," he says, but his eyes are twinkling. "But I would never hold a man's misfortunes against him."
"You're a gentleman and a scholar, sir," says Jack, looking at him sideways. "And a giant. Or possibly a mountain."
"Jack!" protests Elizabeth, but Joe Change is laughing a huge, booming laugh that seems to well up out of the ground and startles the parrots out of the trees. Jack winks at her, and she sighs.
"Sorry," she says to Joe. "Jack has all the manners of – well, a pirate."
"Or a goatherd," says Joe, still grinning. Jack jumps as though someone has just stabbed him with a hat pin, and casts a wild-eyed look at Joe Change. "I hear you're rather fond of goats, Captain?"
Elizabeth is astounded to see Jack's cheeks begin to redden. She has never seen Jack Sparrow blush in her life. "Jack?" she exclaims, suddenly wracked with curiosity. "Jack?"
"I don't have any notion to what you might be referring, mate," says Jack, very unconvincingly. "Unless you're thinking of curry? I like a bit of curry goat, I do."
"Oh, I'm just pulling your, ah, leg, Cap'n," says Joe mildly. "Just milking the, ah, gag." Oddly this doesn't seem to help Jack's blushes to decrease. Elizabeth is wildly intrigued.
"That's enough lollygagging back there!" calls Barbossa, from the front of their crocodile of pirates. "Get a move on, ye lazy dogs!"
They quicken their pace, and Elizabeth is obliged to leave her questions for a later date.
.
The dog comes bounding out from nowhere, and startles the lot of them. It's remarkable that he manages to avoid being shot by any of the weapons levelled in his direction, but somehow he is suddenly there, barking gleefully and then leaping up to lick Ragetti's face. Ragetti gives a squeal and clutches at his weapons, then seems to realise that the beast isn't trying to bite him. He squints at it, and then breaks into an enormous grin. "It's the dog!" he exclaims, elbowing Pintell. "The one with the keys!"
"He doesn't have any keys. He's a dog, you idiot. What does a dog want with keys?" snaps Barbossa, eyeing the dog with some suspicion. "Where did he come from?"
"Got away, did you?" says Sparrow, nodding affably to the dog as one sailor to another. "Gave 'em the slip? Good job, mate. Kinging's all very well, but being barbecued is no life for a person." A troubled look crosses his face. "How the devil did you get here, though?"
He looks around, frowning, and eyes Joe Change accusingly, as if he's somehow responsible for the oddness. "Funny place, this." Elizabeth glances at the fluttering white dogroses growing cheerfully next to a mango tree and cannot disagree.
"Water! A spring, Cap'n! A spring!" It's one of the new sailors who yells out, a young lad who's been darting ahead of Barbossa to hack a path with a machete, and glancing back every few minutes to check that he's still going in the right direction for his captain. Every head snaps up at the words. Elizabeth catches a glimpse of Joe's face, and has no idea how to interpret his expression. He looks almost rueful, or perhaps resigned.
It's a very unremarkable looking little spring. They crowd around it, tentatively excited, jostling one another and muttering, and for a moment it looks like they're just going to rush in headlong and lap it straight up.
“Back! Back, you scurvy dogs! Have you none of you learned a single shred of caution after all we've suffered?” barks Barbossa, and they flinch away.
Elizabeth watches, curiously, as Barbossa licks his lips. He's rubbing the stone in his hands and breathing too hard, and there's a gleam of sweat beading his brow. All the men are excited, but Barbossa is more than that – almost feverish, almost lustful. Still, he doesn't dip his hands in and drink just yet. The monkey chatters shrilly, and tugs at the brim of his hat, but he ignores it.
“But, Cap'n,” mutters Mister Gibbs, apologetically. “Are we not going to drink it? Is there a curse? Something we should know about?”
Barbossa chews his lip and wrinkles his brow into a gargoyle's grimace. “It's the Fountain of Youth,” he mutters to himself, rubbing at the stone. “She would not play me false. Would she? Would she? Never trust a woman – it'll always lead you astray. This is the place right enough – but is there a catch?” He looks wildly frustrated for a moment, and then an expression of sudden calm settles over his features, and he smiles. "Sparrow," he says, eyeing Jack. "You look to me like a man with a powerful thirst. Have yourself a good long drink, why don't you?"
Jack's eyebrows wriggle up towards his hairline like they're trying to escape, and then drop down over his eyes. He licks his lip, then bites it, then licks it again. "That's uncommonly generous of you, Hector," he says nervously. "But I'm not sure that I…"
"You will drink that blessed water, Jack Sparrow, or I will put a hole in your belly right now," says Barbossa with convincing sincerity, pointing his pistol right at Jack's navel. Elizabeth looks from one to the other, frowning. "Don't you want to live forever, Jack?"
"Well, I've never been one for commitment, now, have I? Forever seems such a – that is – certainly!" Jack winces away from the blade that has suddenly materialised at his throat. "So I'm to be your poison taster, then? Checking it's not cursed?"
"That's the shape of it, Jack," says Barbossa, affably. “No knowing how it works, after all – it could be that it makes you younger. So it'll be you that turns into a mewling babe in arms, Jack, and not I. Have at it.”
Jack grimaces, and then ducks his head in acknowledgment. He stretches out his bound hands hopefully. “It would be an awful lot easier to drink, to be sure, if I had both hands free...?” he ventures.
Barbossa laughs. “You can drink just fine with them bound.”
Jack sighs. “But the logistics – a man's hat might fall into the water, or he might lose his balance – really, I'd take it as a kindness if you'd just...”
“Less talking, Sparrow, and more drinking. Now. If you're so worried about your hat, I'm sure Mrs Turner will look after it for you.” And with that Barbossa plucks the beloved object from his head and passes it to Elizabeth with an expression of exaggerated courtesy. She accepts it. It feels warm against her skin as she pulls an apologetic face in Jack's direction.
Jack makes an unhappy little noise and watches his hat as though it might be in danger of breaking. “Very kind, I'm sure. Very thoughtful. Always the soul of consideration, Hector, and so I've always said, no matter how your detractors might slight your manners.”
“Jack.” There's no mistaking the threat in Barbossa's voice now.
“Yes, yes, all right, no need to make a song and dance about it,” says Jack Sparrow, and then he sinks gracefully down to his knees and scoops a glittering handful of water out of the spring. "Eternal life," he says softly to himself, his mouth twisting into a rueful little smile above his dripping hands. He raises his cupped hands towards Elizabeth, as if they were a chalice. “Your very good health, Captain Turner,” he says, his dark eyes twinkling.
And then he drinks.
The clearing is utterly silent and still, as if even the birds and the insects are waiting to see what might happen next. Everyone watches him closely for signs of poison or unexpected side effects, and no face is more avid than that of Hector Barbossa.
“Jack?” he says, after a moment, as Jack Sparrow licks his lips and peers nervously down at his hands for signs of any change. “How are you feeling?”
Jack tilts his head, as if giving the question careful consideration. “Alive,” he says at last. “Yes. Definitely, conclusively, unmistakably alive. Dead is generally sandier, in my experience, and comes with a better class of company.”
Barbossa draws in his breath with a delighted hiss. He's about to help himself to a handful of water, when several things happen at once.
Jack Sparrow reaches out for his hat, as Elizabeth steps towards him with her hands outstretched, and somehow or other at this very moment Joe Change sticks his foot out in front of her, and so it happens that Elizabeth Turner goes tumbling face-first into the Fountain of Youth, and Jack Sparrow's hat is not, in fact, preserved from a dunking. The dog sets up a frenzied barking, and bounds back and forth around the water's edge, making nervous little rushes forwards and then back as Elizabeth emerges spluttering and gasping, her belly and her lungs feeling equally waterlogged. The pirates all take a step back, watching wide-eyed to see whether a full blown immersion in the magical spring will cause any of the hideous consequences they'd been more than half expecting Jack Sparrow to undergo. All except Joe Change, who is smiling a decidedly naughty and secretive smile as he strides knee-deep into the water and helps Elizabeth to her feet.
“You tripped me!” she says, coughing, and he does not deny it as he pats her on the back and helps her out of the water. He does not, she notices, make any effort to drink the water while he is there, and in fact wipes his wet hands dry on his shirt, rather than licking up any of the droplets.
“That's proof good enough for me,” says Barbossa, eyeing the way Elizabeth's soaking shirt clings to her curves with a dispassionate gaze. He leans forward to drink, but Joe Change closes one large hand around his wrist and stops him short.
“I would not do that, if I were you,” Joe says, equably.
Barbossa stares, and there's a wild recklessness about him now that reminds Elizabeth of someone dangerously drunk. “You may be as tall as a good-sized tree and have muscles coming out of your ears, Mr Change, but I am the Captain here, and no man tells me what to do,” he says, his voice cold and clear and sharp as any sword of Will Turner's making.
Joe smiles. “I'm not telling you what to do, Hector. And I'm not a man, come to that, as I think you may know, in your heart of hearts. Still, I'm only giving you a friendly warning, not an order. It would not be wise to drink from this spring now that I have stepped in it.”
Barbossa laughs shortly. “Mr Change, were your boots coated in filth from the devil's own midden, it would not hold me back from drinking.”
“As you wish,” says Joe, with a shrug. “A man must choose his own fate, after all is said and done.”
“Thank'ee,” says Barbossa in a voice heavy with irony. He plunges his hands into the water and drinks, at the very same moment that the prison warder's well-travelled dog bounds forward and slurps a great mouthful of water from the spring.
“Ah well,” says Joe, with a rueful smile. “He cannot claim I gave him no warning.”
Elizabeth is squeezing the edges of her shirt out onto the grass, but she frowns at this. “Are you in earnest?” she asks, trying to read his expression and finding nothing reassuring there. “I don't think I understand.”
And it is at this point that Hector Barbossa turns a wide-eyed, baffled face upon his crew, and falls to his knees. Elizabeth's jaw drops, and the pirates, as one man, take a horrified step back. There's a sudden buzz of speculation, and much frantic crossing of selves and clutching at amulets and lucky charms as the captain of the Black Pearl hunkers on the ground and pants loudly, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Cap'n Barbossa?” ventures Mr Gibbs, crouching down and peering at his captain with an expression of wary concern. “Are you ill, Cap'n?”
Barbossa remains on his hands and knees, tilts his head to one side as he looks back at Mr Gibbs, and then barks.
There is an astonished silence, and then the pirates' buzz of whispers and mutterings grows into a positive hubbub of fear, like a dozen dozen swarms of murderous bees.
“Well that's something you don't see every day,” says Jack Sparrow, his eyebrows darting up towards his dark hairline once more. “Hector? Not feeling yourself, I take it?”
Barbossa barks again, then scurries up to Ragetti and tries to push his face into the pirate's crotch. This action is greeted with howls of merriment and derision from the rest of the crew, and howls of dismay from Ragetti himself.
"Captain!" protests Pintell, his voice ingratiating and appalled in equal measure. "Let's not go joking around, hey? Captain? Captain?" Barbossa kneels, places both hands on Pintell's chest, and licks his face with enthusiasm. Pintell jumps back as the hubbub around them rises to a crescendo, and when Barbossa scrambles towards him he scurries back out of the way as if afraid of being burnt. "Captain, I'm not one to object to a little honest affection, but you're frightening the men now. Sir? Captain Barbossa? Sir?"
"Witchcraft!" shouts one of the men, pointing at the way Barbossa's tongue lolls out of his mouth, and the drool that's sliding down his chin. And that's the last straw, the two little syllables that send the pirates scuttling back to the ship, shouting and cursing and muttering prayers to any god they can think of.
"The spring's poisoned!"
"Every man for himself!"
"It's cursed!"
“Well, this is bloody marvellous,” says the prison warder's dog, very clearly, as the sailors scatter, and Barbossa scrambles after them on all fours. “Never, ever trust a woman. They're treacherous as snakes, the lot of 'em.”
Elizabeth's head snaps down and she stares at the dog in open astonishment. The voice is very familiar.
"Hector?" says Jack Sparrow, his eyes widening. "Hector Barbossa, is that you inside that malodorous bundle of scrofulous fur?"
Elizabeth would have said, had anyone asked her, that dogs could not glare. As it turns out, however, dogs are perfectly capable of glaring, and the prison warder's dog is fixing Jack Sparrow with a scowl fierce enough to curdle milk. His lips draw back into a definite snarl, and he growls. Jack swallows, and takes a step back.
"Now, now," says Jack, raising his bound hands in a gesture incongruously like prayer. "Don't go taking this out on me. It's none of my doing, I'm sure - didn't I drink from the spring, exactly like you told me?"
The snarl deepens in pitch, and Jack backs away carefully. Elizabeth looks from Jack to the dog, and from the dog to Jack, and then she looks up at Joe Change. "Did you do this?" she asks, not quite believing the thought has even crossed her mind. It seems ridiculous. And yet...
"I'm afraid I did," he says, looking decidedly apologetic. "But, you know, I did warn him."
"But, but..." Elizabeth doesn't know where to even begin. "But how?" she says at last.
"By standing in my sister's pool," Joe says. "That's all it took to spoil the spring, you see. Just one touch." He gives a little shrug. "It's not the Fountain of Youth any more, you see. It's - something else."
"And you couldn't have told me that?" says a thoroughly irritated voice from knee-level. Elizabeth looks down at the dog. "You couldn't have spelled it out for me? 'Don't drink the water, Hector, or you'll turn into a flea-bitten mongrel cur.' You couldn't have said that?"
Joe hunkers down, and scratches the dog - scratches Barbossa - behind his ears in a way that makes him whine with delight. "I did try, you know," he says apologetically. "And I wasn't to know what form it would take, you see. If the dog hadn't happened to drink at the same time as you, it would have been something else. Metamorphosis. You might have turned into a tree, or into a swarm of bees. You might have burst into flame. It's not predictable." He scritches the spot between the dog's shoulder blades, and the dog - Barbossa, Elizabeth reminds herself again - gives another little blissful whine and licks Joe's hand. And then promptly tries to pretend he never did any such thing.
He pulls away from Joe Change, and gives a frown of canine concentration. "So if I drank again...?" he says.
Joe shrugs. "Metamorphosis. You might turn into a puddle of quicksilver, or a sea turtle, or a lady's fan. Or a lady. There's no telling."
"And if we both drank a second time, me and the dog both?"
"The same." Joe pulls a face. "The odds against you having another simple body swap are incalculable. You'd be far more likely to explode, or turn into an oyster."
"Marvellous. Just - marvellous." The dog stares up at him. Behind them, the pirates are hunkering down and addressing Barbossa's body with increasing hysteria. "You're not human, are you?"
Joe shrugs. "I tried to tell you that too," he points out.
"Yes, yes, fine, well done. Full points for honesty," grumbles the dog. "I trust that, at the very least, I'm not cursed to an eternity like this?"
Joe's face takes on a decidedly shifty cast. "Well..." he says, and the Barbossa dog gives a whine of pure frustration. "Maybe?"
"On the bright side, mate, you'll be able to lick your own bollocks," points out Jack Sparrow helpfully. The Barbossa-dog turns to glare at him again. "Hey, I'm just saying that a skill such as that isn't to be sniffed at. Or at least - well, possibly sniffing may be involved, but you get the general gist of my argument? There's many would account it a perk."
Barbossa growls.
"But it didn't hurt us," says Elizabeth, staring up at Joe Change. "It didn't hurt Jack or me."
"Well, when you drank of it it was still the Fountain of Youth," Joe points out.
"So when you tripped me up..."
"I was just making sure that you drank some of the water." It may be Elizabeth's imagination, but she could almost swear the big man is blushing. He shrugs. "Jack Sparrow wasn't wrong about you, Elizabeth - you've a way of bringing destruction upon those that care for you. You're my creature, my dear, whether you will or no, and I've always had a soft spot for star-crossed lovers. This way you can stay young as long as your William does."
"Why, Mr Change, I never took you for the romantic sort," says Jack Sparrow, smiling toothily. "Who could ever have suspected such a tender heart beat within the mountain's breast?"
Joe Change is distracted from answering by a mighty splash, as the Barbossa dog throws himself back into the spring. Elizabeth lunges towards him too late, and Joe snatches her shoulders and holds her back. She covers her face with her hands, and waits for an explosion, or a squelch, or something dreadful and dramatic. When nothing spectacular seems to occur, she lowers her hands and blinks down at - a wet dog. A different wet dog.
"That - was quite exceptionally foolish," says Joe, a little breathlessly; then he whisks Elizabeth around and shields her with his body before she can say a word. She sees Jack go skittering back out of the way, but doesn't understand until droplets of water go flying past, and she realises that the dog must be shaking himself dry. All around them, leaves are turning into pebbles and sweetmeats and butterflies and silk. Snakes come hissing into existence, and then turn into lengths of rope; flowers turn into feathers turn into buckets turn into swords. There's a very long pause before Joe releases his hold on Elizabeth, and sets her down on her feet. She's surprised by how sorry she is to be set free; it had been, for a little while, like being cuddled by an unaccountably gentle bear. Elizabeth realises that, even if he is not entirely human, and even if he is, it appears, really rather terrible, she nevertheless has a tremendous fondness for Joe Change. It is entirely unreasonable to say that he reminds her of her father, since it would be difficult to find anyone more utterly different from Governor Weatherby Swann...and yet he does, somehow. Or a father, at least. There's something tremendously comforting about him, in spite of the sense of violence held in check. Or perhaps because of it.
"Still a dog, then?" says Hector Barbossa's voice from behind them.
"Still a dog," confirms Jack Sparrow, from a safe distance. "Although, for what it's worth, you're rather less scabby-looking now, mate. Almost distinguished, in fact."
The dog sighs.
"Well, I'll just be on me way," says Jack, sidling backwards. "Looks to me like The Pearl is sorely in need of a captain, and by a remarkable stroke of luck it's a role for which I'm admirably suited."
Elizabeth watches him go, and shakes her head. She feels suddenly light-hearted and carefree; she has, she realises, all the time in the world. "I suppose we should follow him," she says, smiling. "I don't much fancy roping sea turtles together into a raft to make good my escape from this spot." She glances up at Joe. "Coming, Mr Change?"
"No," he says, to her surprise. "I've a mind to bide here a little while."
"But..." she begins.
"I don't need a ship to leave this place, Elizabeth," he says, gently, and her eyes widen. "I'm not bound by the same rules as you, my dear."
"That's all very well," says the dog. "But what about me? I can't exactly resume my life of successful piracy now, can I? Can't even hold a sword. This is ridiculous. I can bite a rapscallion's ankles, or piss upon his shoes, but I can't take the wheel, or command my men. What's to become of me?"
Joe looks at him speculatively. "Well," he says, and there's a new note in his voice that is surprisingly tentative. "You could always come a-wandering with me, Hector. There are an awful lot of interesting places still to see."
The dog makes a dismissive sort of snort through his nose. "I've been to World's End and back again," he says, rather grandly. "You won't find me easily impressed."
"Ah, but which world?" says Joe, with a smile. "There are more worlds out there to visit than there are grains of sand upon the beach, or drops of water in the sea. You could visit them with me, Hector."
"Not Hector," says the dog. "If I should choose to bear you company for a while - not Hector. That name reminds me of what I've lost."
"Barbossa?" suggests Joe, but the dog tosses his head in contempt. "Well then - Barney? Bartleby? Barnabas? Barnabas is a fine name."
"Barnabas," says the dog, thoughtfully. "Yes. Yes, it has a certain gravitas. I like it. Barnabas. That will do." He looks up at Elizabeth, who has been mesmerised by the entire conversation, and his ears prick up. "And as for you, Mrs Turner - if you don't get a move on, that good-for-nothing Sparrow will be sailing off in my ship, and leaving you stranded with nothing but a poisoned spring and the pair of us to keep you company."
"Oh!" Elizabeth exclaims, because this is perfectly true. She feels slightly cheated, because this is the start of a story and she'd love to know where it will go next - and she'd gladly hand over chests of gold and rubies for the chance to spend longer with Joe Change, and find out about these other worlds. But time and tide and Captain Jack Sparrow will wait for no man.
"Good luck!" she says, and then turns her back on the pair of them and breaks into a run. She is, after all, the King of the Pirates, and there's an eternity of adventuring stretching out before her.