White and Black Pearls 2 - One Remaining Pearl

Chapter Nine

Jack choked, coughed and sat up, spitting out a mouthful of water irritably and wiping at his wet face. He didn’t even have the strength to get up as the water rolled around him from where he sat, leaning against the boulder in his cell. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes, more than the usual; he was worn out, and tired. He hadn’t slept in two days now for more than a few minutes, because the wave kept coming and waking him. He couldn’t sleep atop the boulder either, he’d tried that, and he just kept falling off.

After a moment’s delay to regain his sense of reality, he looked around expectantly. “No!” he blurted. “Stop, not good!” The man suddenly found the will and means to move: his food was floating away again, before he had a chance to even give it a smell. Jack crawled on hands and knees as fast as he could after the disappearing roll, reaching out eagerly, but it was moving too fast on the retreating wave. His face and shoulder slammed against the bars of his cell as he closed his fist in the water; his fingertips brushed the edge of the bread before his meal washed away and disappeared back the way the water had came.

Jack’s hand dropped to the floor as his whole body sagged and he let his hair fall forward in a curtain of dreadlocks on either side of his face. Starvation, sleep deprivation… it was enough to drive a man insane. When he heard a noise above, he lifted his head slowly, staring up at Davy Jones from under the lip of his bandanna. Jack paused then, and tilted his head to the side. “Shouldn’t you be laughing or sommink?” he offered tiredly, his tongue sluggish in his weakened state and his slur becoming heavier. The Davy Jones that Jack knew would be laughing at Jack’s misery.

“I should be, yes,” Davy replied grimly, standing at the edge of the outcropping high above Jack and holding his hands behind his back in the powerful pose of a sophisticated man. “But there is not much left to laugh about any more.” He lowered his head slightly, narrowing one eye while looking at Jack. “You don’t even know why I made that pact with you about the Black Pearl do you?” he asked tightly.

Jack blinked, and offered, “Because you’re Davy Jones, scallywag and bloody pirate?”

Davy sighed impatiently. “Your woman,” he said accusingly. “Your woman you blundering fool. She came after me, she called in both debts I owed her to go and save you.” He was practically snarling his words out now, the spittle flying. “Under the guise of wanting to help you, she came to me, Davy Jones, to strike a deal with you and pull you and your precious Pearl up from the depths! She acted angry when she realized that I’d bargained for your soul but she’s no fool, she had to have known what would happen to you in my hands! Your woman is cut of the same foul cloth that Calypso came from, and even worse than that! She is the devil incarnate that comes in a bodice and bonnet!”

Again Jack Sparrow was taken aback. He wasn’t sure which startled him more, the fact that Celeste had used whatever chips she’d had against Davy Jones on Jack’s behalf, or the fact that he found himself believing she just might have done it with the purpose of his demise in mind.

No. That was wrong. She’d loved him back then. She wouldn’t have been so very upset with him over bedding Calypso if she didn’t care. Right? Jack’s fingers curled into fists as he stared at the rocks below him.

“You and I were both played for fools!” Davy continued at the top of his lungs. “By the twisted sisters of ancient times, we were! Under the guise of love and dedication they knotted the threads of our real destines up so tight around their pretty little fingers that we’re left like this, you dying shortly and me dead, monsters in our own forms!” He drew his hands out from behind his back then, causing Jack to reel in horror. Davy’s whole left arm and all down his claw were blackened with a thick shaggy mold, the claw frozen and unable to open or close any more, stuck in place. “If it weren’t for this, I would have killed you myself by now and put you out of your misery so that at least one of us could be relieved of this wretched existence under the thumbs of those two!”

“Black Moss,” Jack whispered in horror, unable to take his eyes off the claw.

“Black. Moss,” Davy Jones replied through clenched teeth, slow and pointed.

“So that explains it.” Sparrow sat back and found himself looking at his own hands again, suddenly thankful that he was only imprisoned in a cell. “I knew I’d stabbed your heart to the hilt.”

“If only the end of my life could have come that easily,” Davy spat, before turning to his chair. He moved over to it slowly, one of his legs dragging before he sat down hard, his chest heaving as he sucked in wet, rattling breaths. He could feel the moss growing inside him too, consuming him, and taking over. “If you ever decide to turn a kind favor towards any man, then do yourself one: kill yourself before you’re put to use in his plans. That’s the kindest thing you can do for yourself and all those you know.” He closed his eyes then, hanging his head down and just trying to breathe.

Jack’s lips pressed tightly together as he stared up at the outcropping where Davy had been standing. He could hear the man’s labored breathing though he couldn’t see Jones. “Is it true then?” he called out. “Is it true what they say about the only two ways to cure the moss?”

There was a long pause. “It’s true,” Davy’s voice replied grimly. “And I don’t think either of us stands a chance at that.”

“Bugger,” Jack whispered.

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More to come....