White and Black Pearls 1 - Seven Pearls

Chapter Eleven


When the Black Pearl was out of sight, Celestiana looked down at the near-dead man at her feet. Her lips pressed tightly together when she found them to be trembling, and she crouched down, slipping her hands under his arms and dragging him out of the tide and higher onto the beach. She undressed him and examined his wounds, cleaning them out with the cloth from her own cloak and calling up a gentle rain to fall down upon them and wash him with fresh water. When he was tended to as best as she could provide, she put his pants and shirt back on him and left his effects inside the hollow trunk of a driftwood tree on the beach, then wrapped him in her cloak like a blanket to keep him safe. She sat down in the white sands near him, and drew his head to rest upon her lap as it had when he was a boy. He would not wake; the only signs of life from him were the quiet moans that came out once every few hours, and the soft, shallow breathing that made his chest rise and sink.

She brought clouds to cover the sun and keep his skin from burning, but also kept the winds warm, so that he would not be chilled. Right now, she was directly interfering with human beings and breaking nearly every single one of the few rules in place over her head, but she couldn’t care less. Her sweet Jack Sparrow was suffering both inside and out, and his suffering was her suffering whether she liked it or not. As she sat there, stroking his hair and staring at his bruised face in the light of the setting sun, she began to weep.

For two full days she wept off and on, and while the weather around the desert island was fair, everywhere else in the world on every ocean was struck with hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and wind, every sailor on the waters fearing for their lives as the stars fell and the skies were filled with a howling wind that chilled them to their bones.

Two days’ sailing away, Barbossa was hanging tightly onto the rigging of the Black Pearl as his crew struggled to keep the ship afloat. Several had been lost already to the rocking and tossing of the boat. He couldn’t help but think that this had something to do with Jack Sparrow, but such thoughts were dismissed as quickly as they came. It was impossible for such a pipsqueak of a captain to have friends in places high enough to call forth such treacherous weather conditions and make the skies fall.

On the desert island, just as the moon was rising, Jack’s eyes cracked open. He blinked slowly, and one eye closed again when something wet struck his cheek. Rain? No, rain wasn’t warm. He opened his eyes all the way and looked up, watching as a new tear streaked down Celestiana’s cheek and a star streaked across the sky at the same time. He moved to sit up but found himself unable to do so, only able to release a painful groan.

‘Shh,’ she cooed, placing a hand on his chest. ‘Stay still. You’re weak right now.’ Celestiana picked up the halved coconut she’d been using as a cup these last two days, and lifted his head slightly while holding the coconut to his lips. ‘Drink,’ she whispered. ‘It’s rain water, fresh and cool.’ Jack drank as told, thankful for the soothing water on his lips and tongue, and hitting the back of his sore throat.

‘Pearl,’ Jack croaked when he’d had enough water to get his voice back.

‘Yes, the Black Pearl is gone,’ she acknowledged with a nod while wiping more tears from her face. ‘I’m sorry Jack.’

He shook his head no and sipped the last of the water before trying to speak again. ‘I lost them all. There’s only one left.’ He lifted his left hand, which was in better shape than the right, and touched his hair.

Celestiana lifted her hand as well, and she too touched the lock of hair that he used to keep the pearls in. She could only feel one. But, for him to know that… to have that thought come to him first ahead of all the others she’d expected… ‘Jack, you kept track?’ she breathed. ‘You kept all my pearls tallied and tried to keep them all for yourself without trading or selling them?’ When he nodded, her expression became touched. ‘Nobody has ever gone this long… nobody has ever…’ She smiled weakly then and leaned forward, drawing his head into her arms and hugging him close while kissing his temple. ‘Only you Jack Sparrow.’

‘Have you been hurt?’ Jack asked quietly as he felt her shake with a new bout of tears. Seeing her like this was unnerving.

To say ‘no’ to such a blanket question would be a lie, but in the way he was asking, he didn’t mean heartbroken. ‘You have,’ Celestiana answered. ‘Several times over. It took all my strength not to interfere. That strength gave out when you washed ashore here.’ She touched her fingertips to his dry, cracked lower lip. ‘Jack,’ the pale woman whispered, ‘I love you.’ He started at this and opened his mouth to say something, but she pressed her fingers tighter to his lips, keeping him silent. ‘Don’t answer. I know you don’t feel the way for me that I do for you. You don’t have to try and comfort me, there is no comfort for unrequited love… and I’ve done more than enough damage in your life. Just let me take care of you here and when you’re better, and safe, you can go back to forgetting about me.’

His dark eyes smoldered with the need to say something, but even after she removed her fingers, he kept his tongue still.

‘There’s rum about,’ she continued after they had sat in silence for a few minutes. ‘I would have gone to get some for you earlier but couldn’t leave till you’d woken. Stay put.’ She slipped out from under him and rested his head in the sand before disappearing in the trees.

Jack looked up at the sky as the minutes drifted past and so did the clouds. Strange, he didn’t recognize that one particular star. A frown was creased deeply into his brow as he fixed his gaze on that star. He knew all the others, they were quite familiar to him for both navigation and personal reasons, but that one had never been there before. When Celestiana returned with several bottles in her arms, he glanced over at her; she would know better than any other what was going on with that star.

Her gaze looked over at him, then up where he was staring, before it returned to Jack. Taking a seat on the log on the beach, she helped Jack to sit up and opened one of the bottles, tipping it to his lips. ‘There you are,’ she murmured. ‘One or two of these bottles in you, and you’ll be able to move without too much pain.’ She resumed trailing her fingers through his hair as he drank like a fish to water. ‘I put that there,’ Celestiana mumbled as the contents of the first bottle disappeared down Jack’s throat. ‘It’s a guiding star. There are several ships on their way here, following that star. I’ve put my winds into the sails of the one that will suit you best.’ When she opened the second bottle, Jack managed to take it from her and hold it up for himself as he drank.

‘When you interfere with human affairs, you certainly interfere with human affairs,’ Jack acknowledged with a slight slur. He paused and looked up at her to make sure she wasn’t making a displeased face, and was happy to know that she hadn’t changed since he was younger – he could still make those remarks and know that she would understand it had been meant as a compliment. ‘I haven’t seen your smile for years,’ he added when he spotted it. ‘It’s much better to look at than your tears.’ Jack finished his second bottle of rum and tossed it aside before pushing himself up onto his feet.

Celestiana stood up beside him, prepared to catch him if he fell, either from the drink or from his wounds. She wasn’t prepared for the sudden yank of his arm about her waist, pulling her closer as he stood there in her cloak and his worn out clothes. ‘Jack?’ she asked softly. She had no will to resist as his lips pressed to hers, and her arms draped lightly about his shoulders, filling her fingers with his hair.

Only the stars got to watch as Jack Sparrow reunited with the goddess of the sky, albeit he did so awkwardly and with many breaks in between to rest his weary body and refuel with rum.

When the sun rose on the third morning, a small ten man ship came ashore on the desert island after following the star all night. The rum runners called out their celebrations at being able to find the island again; they’d lost their navigational charts that had it marked down and whatever gods had led them here were surely on their side. As they hurried up the beach towards their hidden below-ground stores, the men all came to a stop at the tree line.

‘I gave you guidance to your island,’ a strange woman in stranger clothing said to them in their Mother Tongue. She pointed down the beach. ‘You will take him off this island with you in return and forgive what he’s consumed of your stores.’

The rum runners looked amongst each other, recognizing a powerful being when it was before them. They nodded, and some went after the stores while others headed down the beach where she’d pointed.


Jack winced and blinked as he felt a shadow fall over his face. When had he fallen asleep? He rubbed his forehead with a sandy hand and sat up slowly, the loud clinking of bottles rolling off him jarring his hangover-sensitive nerves. He opened his eyes just a little under the shade of his lifted hand and looked up at the figures standing before him before looking down at himself.

Those people were not Celestiana, and he was not covered with a scrap of clothing between himself and their prying eyes. ‘Good morning,’ he said with a charming smile. He got dressed rather quickly, pulling his clothes out from under more bottles, and when he did not see Celestiana’s cloak anywhere in the sand with him, and noticed that the only footprints on the entire beach were his own and those of the men before him, he knew he was alone, again.

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(Chapter 12 to come...)