Prologue
Many years ago, in a time and place not our own, the world was still an open map, not totally filled in and uncharted. The common people survived as best they could, the poor in their small towns and settlements trying to make what legal living they could while the wealthy lounged in their fashionable estates squandering their coin on elegant soirees and lavish dinner parties. And on the outskirts of all society were those who wouldn't fall willingly into either category and instead chose a life of freedom as boundless as the sea itself. These persons were known as 'pirates', 'scoundrels', 'buccaneers' and many other unfriendly terms. Pirates lived by a code that only applied to themselves and did any and everything they could to survive when the navies of many nations chased them across the seven seas.
One of the most notorious pirating waters was the Caribbean Sea, where English, Spanish, and Portuguese and several other European countries ran their merchant ships to and from the New World. All along the Caribbean were both large and small settlements by all these powers, though one of the best known was the English town of Port Royal on the island of Jamaica. Though still shabby in some places, but all cities had their slums, it was swiftly turning into the hub of all English trade and culture thanks to the newly appointed Commodore Norrington, known throughout the colony as bringing 'the civilized' into a land of lawlessness.
It was in this town that our story begins, for here lives not only the brave Mr. William Turner and his beautiful fiancee Elizabeth Swan but also their life long friends. One such friend, unknowing of her adventurous destiny, dreams of a life of freedom like the romanticized pirates she reads so faithfully about since childhood. Little did she know what lay in her future would be greater than anything she had ever imagined…..
Chapter 1
Lucinda looked out at the harbor at her home in Port Royal, the sun was just setting and the tide was at a high. The docks were shutting up for the night and all the stores had begun to close, their masters scurrying about for every last unlocked nook and cranny, the only things open were the inns and the local pubs. (Which the port had in abundance) It was a nightly ritual for the young woman to come out at this time and admire the sunset. Sometimes she would go with her charcoal and paper, or if she was lucky some of the few paints she owned, and sketch the view from a perch on a dock or boat deck.
"You've been standing here all day, come home," said a high voice from behind her.
"Oh don't nag 'er", she's still upset that we were away when those pirates showed up," a second female voice joined in.
"Well
you never know," Lucinda replied without even turning around,
"some pirates rotate ports. I've always wanted to see a
pirate."
"And be one," mumbled the other two
under their breath.
"I heard that!"
"We know!" Together the three girls laughed and made their way off the dock. These spirited ladies were the Collins sisters, good friends of Will Turner. Lucinda was the eldest, a 19-year-old with the classic shape of a Greek statue, full figured, curvy and average height. Her eyes were a hazel, sometimes green then other times light and gold flecked. Though is was her hair that was her crowning feature, it fell to her waist, a straight, rich brown lightly streaked gold and red from exposure to the sun. The second oldest was Amanda who was slightly larger then her sibling but no less pretty. Men often flocked about her due her ample bosom, she would bat her pale blue-green eyes at them, flip her curly, shoulder length auburn hair over her neck and leave them in her trail for amusement. Youngest, and actually the tallest of the three was Emma, a slender girl with laughing brown eyes and dirty blond hair that just grazed her collar bone. Even though she was 17 she did have the habit of acting more like a 7-year-old and was often seen with her hands on her slim hips grouching about something or other.
The younger two loved to tease their sister about her fantasy about sailing on a galleon ship and being a pirate, this had been going on since they were 3, 4, and 5 and showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. So they walked along talking and giggling to the road that led to their home. They lived alone, their parents died in a boating accident, their father had been a fisherman, when Lucinda was 13 and they had been on their own since. But they got by working in the pubs as bar maids and selling baskets they wove or odds and ends they made.
"You
know I heard the ship that sacked town last year was the Black
Pearl," Emma commented. That caught her sister's attention,
they knew some pirates had indeed come, but they didn't know what
ship it had been. Amanda opened the front door with the massive key
she had in her pocket and they moved into the little parlor.
"Are you joshing me?" Lucinda asked, the Black Pearl
had been an obsession of hers for some time now. That was something
she and Ms. Swan had in common, since they were children stories of
the Black Pearl had always been a favorite. Part adventure
and part horror, the idea of a ship crewed by the damned wove dreams
in the little girls heads of leaving their restrictive lives and
heading out to sea themselves. Hanging up their capes and hats they
sat by the fireplace as one lit the single candle on their little
center table. Amanda combed out her red/brown hair and picked up a
book as Lucinda untied her own long brown from it's bun while Emma
literally fought with her dirty blond tresses with a bone comb.
"Nope,
I heard it from our buddy the blacksmith Mr. William Turner,"
she answered.
"Oh get over him, Em," Amanda told
her. Emma had been drooling over William until she found out some
weeks ago he was engaged to Ms. Elizabeth Swan, the governor's
daughter. Least to say she was not happy and had invested in a
rather seedy collection of voodoo instruments. "You've been
trying to make a doll to destroy of Ms. Swan ever since you knew he
was getting married to her."
"Well
you can't blame me for trying."
"Yes we can,"
replied the older girls. They laughed at Emma's expression and soon
decided to go to bed.
Lucinda's bedroom
"Yo
ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me," a quiet voice rang in the humble
bedchamber. She sung quietly to herself while looking into her vanity
mirror, the song had come from a game once played with Elizabeth.
For some reason though when she jokingly mumbled it close to her
friend Lizzy had stuttered and refused to sing along. Just minutes
before she had changed into a plain, linen white night dress and
robe, now she was braiding her wavy dark locks and humming the
favorite song. Emma and Amanda had already fallen asleep, but for
some reason she could not, too much was running through her head. "I
wonder," she whispered. Her friend Will was rumored to have been
an ally to the one and only Capt. Jack Sparrow, and this seemed
something that was too good to be true. She finished her hair and
debated whether or not to wear her nightcap when a loud pounding came
from the front door. "What the hell!" she rushed down the
hall and down the little flight of steep stairs. Amanda and Emma ran
out of their shared bedroom and followed her, Emma nearly fell down
the staircase, which was nothing new. Lucinda rushed through the
kitchen/ dining room and sitting space as the pounding continued even
more urgently before she reached the door. The home was only about
medium size and had only two floors for living and a cellar, but at
times it seemed bigger, like now, especially when one was in a hurry
to reach a particular location. "Who's there?" she yelled.
"It's me, William, let me in! It's an emergency!" She
gasped and threw open the latch and yanked the door open. Will came
in, struggling to hold up a semi- unconscious man under his arm and
nearly fell due to the dead weight. The smell of rum radiated form
the man and blood trickled from his forehead, which was covered by
long black hair and a red bandanna not to mention several strange
beads.
"Bring him to the sitting room," Lucinda
said as she helped hold the man on the opposite side. "Amanda,
go heat some water and get bandages! Emma, you go get my sewing kit
and a bottle of brandy from the cellar!" she ordered. Will and
her laid down the intoxicated man on an old couch and she put her
robe over him, the house was drafty and it was a rather cold night.
"Where are your flint and steel?" Will asked. The girl pointed to a wooden chest by the fireplace and he brought out the fire lighting tools. Soon a roaring flame had sprouted and her sisters had come with the supplies she needed, she thanked whatever deity was listening that for once her sisters had listened to a word she said. The man groaned and looked right into Lucinda's hazel eyes, the firelight played on them and reflected in the specks of gold in her irises, she took a glance hasty at his own black rimmed brown eyes.
"Did
I die?" he asked.
"No Jack, you didn't die, but
you got yourself pretty banged up," Will told him as he set the
supplies neatly on the table in a row.
"But I musta
died." Lucinda thought that the man must have lost his mind if
he thought he was dead, but then again it could be the alcohol taking
it's affect, after all she had worked in a tavern long enough to
know when a man wasn't himself.
"And why, sir, do you think that you've died?" she asked.
"Cause' an angel's lookin' down at me," he explained. Her eyes widened, and then she dismissed what he said as the alcohol talking as she had suspected. But her sister's thought it was quite entertaining, having a drunken man calling Lucinda an angel, they knew she was uncomfortable with compliments. But what really got them giggling was that as an experienced bar maid she should have been used to men leering at her and saying unwanted comments. If she wasn't ready to take the back of her hand to his face by now then it could only mean that she found him, at least somewhat in his current condition, pleasing to the eye.
"Alright? hold still," she peeled back his bandanna and took a look at his wound, he had a long cut going half way across his forehead and it was pouring out blood.
"What the hell happened to him?" Amanda asked.
"He took me out to 'celebrate' my engagement, in his own way. But, during a game of cards someone cheated him out of some money-" Jack cut him off.
"Some? That was 80 shillings worth of gold!"
"And," Will continued like nothing had happened, "he got angry, picked a fight and as a result was wounded right on his head."
"That explains it." Meanwhile Lucinda was cleaning up Jack's bloodied head while he tried to talk in a slurring tone of voice.
"You do this often?"
"What do you mean?"
"Cleanin' up drunks in the middle of the night in ye shift."
"Oh yes," she smiled cheerfully, "nothing makes my night like stitching up a drunken stranger whose probably poisoned my friend Will's mind with your idea of a celebration." She pulled a needle and thread out of her sewing kit and held the needle up to her eye to poke the string through.
"Ye got spunk, a girl after me own heart," then he saw what she was about to do, "oh no, that's just what I need, another set of stitches to mare me perfect face."
"I
would hardly call your face perfect, Jack," said William. Amanda
and Emma got their first good look at their guest; long black hair in
dreadlocks, braids but most of it hung loose, beads in his beard,
shadowy dark eyes and worn looking clothing which at one time must
have actually been of fine quality. The apparent nurse held the
needle with a piece of cloth and held it over the flame before
turning to face her patient.
"Now hold still, I'm going
to start the stitching. I know you're already past drunk but if you
can't take it I've got some brandy here for you." Half an hour
later Lucinda finished, no thanks to her squealing assistants who
flinched each time she pulled the thread tight.
"Will he
be alright?" William asked his friends.
"I
think so, but with the hangover he'll have in the morning and the
time it will take for that gash to heal, I think it's best he stay
here a few days. A fortnight at most."
"Thank you,
Miss Lucy, Miss Amanda, Miss Emma, you don't know how hard it is to
keep him in check." Jack glared up at Will's smirking face
from his place on the couch.
"No
problem, and Will, you don't have to call us 'Miss' We've been fiends
the entire time you've lived here," said Amanda.
"You
go home now, it's late," added Emma.
"I'll be back
in a week to check on him. Thank you so much, goodnight ladies,"
he let himself out and began the walk home to the smithy.
"Well, that was fun. Come on Em, let's get back to sleep and
leave 'dear Lucy' with her patient." Taking the hint as a
chance to torment her oldest sibling she followed Amanda up the
stairs and out of sight, they barely hid their evil expressions.
"Seems it's just you and me luv," Jack said with a
drunken smile that revealed his gold and silver teeth.
"You
Sir have to get some rest, but I'll stay here in case you need
something, or if you try to take something," the last part she
said to herself.
"Wadda ya say you give ol' Jack a
goodnight kiss, savvy?"
"How about you give ol' Lucy some quiet so she can sleep?"
"Ouch, luv," he held bejeweled hand over his chest where his heart would be, " but I'll let you go this time, night me pretty," and as soon as his head hit the pillow he was out like a light.
"Oh, men," she muttered and adjusted herself on a chair with a blanket and was asleep just as fast.