BENEATH, pt. 2
“Your little sparrow’s uncommon quiet today.”
Captain Yearwood’s voice drew Bill’s gaze briefly away from Jack, who, across the Beacon’s damp deck, was beginning his ascent to tend a damaged sheet. Yearwood’s bright blue eyes followed the young man aloft, his face neutral and observant. To the ear of one who didn’t know better, he might merely have been making idle conversation.
“He didn’t sleep well last night,” Bill replied, warily. Yearwood’s conversation was never idle. He broke his silence with purposes, not noise.
“And neither did you, I’ll wager.” Yearwood adjusted the brim of his hat in attempt to keep a bit more of the fine, drizzling rain filling the air like over-ambitious mist off of his face. “Happening a lot lately, isn’t that?”
Bill cottoned to their course, but not its destination. He turned to face his captain more squarely. “It’s a persistent difficulty, yes,” he acknowledged, briskly.
“Persistent,” Yearwood echoed, squinting in the milky grey-white glare of the morning. “O’ course, persistence and permanence both start out looking very similar.”
“With all respect, sir,” Bill returned, “I don’t hear any music, and you’re not that pretty a partner, so suppose we quit dancin’ around whatever it is you want to say.”
Yearwood’s grey moustache quirked as he glanced up at his quartermaster. “You’re a pushy son of a bitch, Bootstrap, y’know that?”
“The only person who ever got foreplay out of me was my wife.”
The captain snorted, but the mirth didn’t linger long. “Then I’ll come right to it. I’m not convinced Sparrow’s fit to crew with us long-term.”
Bill absorbed this, and took his time in replying. “That so? I’d been getting the impression you were rather taken with his abilities.”
“Didn’t say I wasn’t. He’s a clever lad. Scary clever, even. But there’s more to it than that, and you know it as well as I.”
“And that ‘more’ is worth turning away someone who courts a ship the way Jack did in that storm?”
“That’s precisely what I’m trying to decide, Turner.” Yearwood turned and began to walk the deck, Bill falling into step beside him. “I need to know if he’s going to be a lick of use in a raid. If he’s not dealin’ so well with the last bit of bad water he drifted into--”
“He’s dealing just fine, Captain. I imagine if you or I was shut up inside a boatful of half-eaten dead people, dozing off would be something of a challenge for us, too.”
“Don’t get so bloody defensive, Bootstrap. I don’t begrudge him his demons, but I need to know they aren’t going to choke him someday when I need every hand aboard ready and steady.”
“You’re not seriously comparing what that lad lived through to a raid,” Bill scoffed.
“The question, Turner, is will he compare them?” He glanced sideways as Bill expelled his breath in a frustrated huff. “I’m a bit concerned about his effect on you, as well.”
Bill looked incredulous. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning you need to be able to think about this like a pirate and not a man who abandoned his child.”
Bill froze mid-stride, and glowered at Yearwood with fire spreading behind his eyes. “I think it would be best, sir, if you didn’t rely on things you have no fucking knowledge of to make your point.”
Yearwood raised his chin, and there was neither anger nor apology in his face. “I know that if I put Jack Sparrow off my ship when we reach Tortuga, I’ll be down two men when he goes.” He waited for a rebuttal, and when he didn’t get one, prompted, “Am I wrong about that?”
Bill stared him down, then took a deep breath, turning to look out across the rain-spattered sea. “No,” he ceded quietly, leaning on the gunwale.
Yearwood nodded. “So the question then becomes, what can I expect from you if the lad stays on? Is he going to be a crewman, or a distraction?”
The fire in Bill’s gaze had cooled, and continued to do so, as he turned back to the other man. “I’ve never had any trouble doing what you’ve asked of me, Captain,” he stated levelly.
“Aye,” Yearwood granted. “But you’ve never given a damn before now, either.”
And to that, it seemed, the Northern Beacon’s quartermaster had no response.
……………………
His task finished, Jack tucked the thick needle and heavy thread into the pouch on his belt, and dallied a while on his perch among the sails. He tipped his head back, savoring the feel of the cool, moist air here, high above the bustle of business on deck. The Beacon rocked gently on a sleepy grey sea, and Jack rested in her embrace, lulled by her swaying. He pushed rain-damp hair behind his ears, blinked the fine, fresh water out of his lashes and tasted it on his lips when he ran his tongue over them.
If I could sleep right here I’d never dream of anything but flying.
The ship leaped up abruptly just then, jostling him enough to make his eyes pop open, as if in playful reminder of why that wouldn’t be a good idea.
“You wouldn’t drop me, you old dear, and you know it,” Jack murmured to the ship, chuckling.
Still, he’d probably lingered as long as he should. With a sigh, Jack began his climb down.
……………………..
In the close quiet of the hold, wood creaked, out of sync with the slow, regular motion of the ship on the water.
From inside the long box came the hushed, rasping sound of weight shifting in a tight space. The box’s lid shuddered, straining against the buckled leather bindings holding it in place.
Time passed, and walls of the box groaned, resisting the force trying to warp them from their proper shape and structure. Finally there came a loud, ringing snap, as one of the leather straps succumbed, bursting loose of its buckle. For a few moments after, there was patient silence.
Then one end of the lid lifted, allowing for a gap that was barely more than an inch at its widest point to appear.
Four long fingers, stretched between with translucent, dark-veined webbing and mottled in patterns of green-black and watery grey, slid through that gap, flexing and curling up to grasp the edge of the lid. Wicked ivory claws ticced and tapped their darkened points against the wood. Then the fingers slid along the narrow opening, down towards the second of the leather straps.
TBC