White and Black Pearls 3 - Ten Pearl Strand

Chapter Sixteen

“Celestiana,” Jack whispered as he shifted his position on the deck so that he was sitting with his legs out. He drew her head onto his lap and ran his fingers through her hair clumsily but with good intention, trying to get some of it out of her face. “We really have to stop meeting like this.” He tried to laugh, but only a strange noise came out, and when he realized that it was a choked sob, Jack clenched his jaw tight.

Her gaze rolled up across the sky, and over to the Blood Moon. Celestiana stared at it for a few moments before looking at Jack. “Death,” she whispered, making a new streak of blood paint across her cheek from the corner of her mouth, “So much of it. It’s warm.”

“That’s good,” Jack said tightly, nodding and pulling her closer. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then her lips; as soon as he had, he was unable to stop, kissing her whole face desperately as though trying to get his kisses in now while he could. “Don’t go,” he begged suddenly. “Please don’t go.”

It was his fault; he hadn’t executed the plan in time, or he hadn’t done it right, or it had been the wrong plan… but whatever the reason, it was his fault. She was dying in his arms because he hadn’t done enough, hadn’t done the right things… if only he’d done something different, anything different… he would give up everything to keep her alive now.

“The sun always sets,” she mumbled, her speech starting to slur as her mouth continued to refill with blood and it took longer to swallow or cough out each time so that she could take another breath. “Jack…”

She had been grabbing at Beckett’s body, removing the bracelet of her items from his wrist, when Jack’s helpless little wail caught her attention. Calypso lifted her head and turned sharply, watching as her sister’s eyes started to close. Her lower lip trembled as tears rose in her eyes, but she stood strong, watching respectfully as she should at the death of a brethren, fallen in battle.

Davy Jones watched her as well; she was the woman who had enabled him to snag Calypso’s attention and her heart in the first place, and in the end, she was also the woman who helped in bringing them back together, even under these unhappy circumstances. She was the woman who had been his comfort during his worst times of need, and she was the woman who had been his friend despite their setbacks.

Hector Barbossa pressed his lips into a hard line as he lifted his gaze and stared at the horizon, his arms folded across his chest.

“Celestiana,” Jack breathed, “Keep your eyes open. Look at me, look at me! I love you, more than I can ever say it, I’ve never said it enough times, I love you!”

The moon was setting over the water, tinting it red as blood. Her eyes opened up a little more, but just slightly, and she managed a small smile. “I must say. You are the first to do that to me,” she whispered, repeating the very first words she’d ever said to him, though this time they were much slower and labored. “And you’ve ruined one of my… strands of pearls Jack Sparrow. But I am not typically a cruel person… I understand that you are young and foolish. Lucky to have lived so long as it is… I’d wager…” Her eyes slipped closed then as Jack pulled her closer. Celestiana breathed shallowly against Jack’s ear, “Seed Pearl.”

“Her pearls,” Jack blurted suddenly, his eyes stinging, unable to see much through the blur of tears in them. “Give me her pearls!” he demanded.

Calypso came forward and handed the pearls over.

Jack accepted them and clutched them in his hand, feeling them and rolling them between finger and thumb one by one. He knew each of the seven that had been in his hair, by their shape in his fingers, and he stopped when he finally found the last pearl. That one he held the tightest as he pressed the ten pearl strand into her palm. “You have them back,” he gasped out. “They’re yours again, I got them all, I got every last one like you told me to. I didn’t keep them, I didn’t hide them, I didn’t ensure they were safe… but I got them all. Celestiana, don’t do this to me. Please don’t go, I got them all.”

Her fingers curled around the pearls, her hand closing, as Celestiana’s chest sank down and she let out one slow, final breath.

She fell still in Jack’s arms, pearls in hand, as Calypso bowed her head and uttered a small prayer.

“She be in a finer place now Jack,” Barbossa said solemnly.

The last sliver of the full moon disappeared on the horizon and the sun rose up higher, shedding its early morning light onto the deck of the Black Pearl and revealing the bloody mess everywhere.


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