Adrift

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Thank you, everyone, for your reviews and more importantly, your patience! I know you've been waiting for this one and I certainly hope it doesn't disappoint. :)

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The night wasn’t exactly cool but by the time they reached the wooded area just south of Fort Zachary Taylor, Beth found herself shivering against Hector’s back. Maybe it was the breeze that whipped over her bare skin as they cruised through town...or maybe another day of living on the edge had frayed her last nerve. She wanted to crawl beneath the covers of her bed back on the Morgan LeFay and lose herself in the cozy oblivion of her downy blankets, to sleep for days and awaken to realize that it had all been a bad dream.

But returning to her ship was out of the question...going back to Wisteria was not a possibility...and who knew if she’d ever see the beautiful old wreck again. She found herself entirely at loose ends and she hated it. It was one thing to be free to do as she wished without any real ties; it was another thing entirely to be shut out of her own life and all she held dear.

Well, not everything she held dear. Not the man who’d kept her from making the most foolish decision of her life. If she’d set off from the island without Hector, there was no knowing what might have happened to both her and Brad.

The thought caused her to tremble even more, both in anger and in fright. She could sure talk a good game about looking after herself but when she insisted on leaving the haven that was Wisteria, she had just about cost the three of them their lives. It was time to pack her pride away and admit to herself that she truly did need the protection that Hector provided.

She tightened her hold on his hips as he slowed the motorcycle to a stop near a stand of casuarinas. As he fiddled with the ignition wires, the faint smell of the Australian pines wafted on the air around them and the breaking of the tide upon the reef could be heard faintly through the trees. She carefully dismounted and let her knapsack drop to the ground, taking a few steps away from the bike and peering into the darkness towards the water. Beth rubbed her arms rapidly to stop herself from quaking like a leaf. Hector thought her brave and yet here she was, so visibly proving she was anything but.

Strong arms wrapped around her from behind and he pulled her into the warmth of his embrace. Beth waited for the recriminations but they didn’t come; in fact, he didn’t speak at all and she gradually relaxed against him, grateful for both the solid feel of his body around hers and the calming rhythms of the ocean.

It seemed impossible that he could understand her so well as to know what she needed from him and when she needed it most. Could Beth say the same, knowing as little as she did about him? Maybe, she thought, she knew all that really mattered. In retrospect, it seemed unfair and childish to have called into question his motives when his every action proved his feelings.

“What are we going to do?” she said, laying her hands over top of his forearms and holding tightly.

“Tonight we’ll be keepin’ our heads down. Tomorrow, we’ll see if’n we can’t get Jack to impart a bit of helpful information. I can be convincin’ when need be, don’t ye fret,” he said angrily, the words rumbling against her back. “We’ll find our answers yet and put an end to this duplicity once an’ fer all.”

Beth didn’t doubt for a moment that Hector could be brutally persuasive, or that he would likely take no small pleasure in extracting from Jack Sparrow the nature of his involvement. But even if he did find out who it was that was hunting her, she wasn’t sure she could bear to let Hector put himself into the line of fire for her sake again...being able to heal quickly wasn’t going to do him much good if they managed to kill him. Then she truly would have lost everything.

“Maybe I should abandon the wreck,” she suggested quietly. “I’ll pull my people out and hand over the antiquities we’ve found, and then let Jack know where to find the dive site. Whoever is doing this will have what they want and there’ll be no need for anyone else to get hurt.”

Hector growled and whirled her around in his arms. “I’ll not be hearin’ that, girl. Slink away in fear and ye’ll not be able to live with yerself. S’what they want...s’what they expect a woman to do. Are ye gonna give ‘em the satisfaction of knowin’ they could take what be rightfully yers and without resistance?”

“Why not? They’re just things! Little pieces of a lost era and most certainly not something worth dying for!”

“Then tell me this,” he said, his lips pursed and his eyes sparking cobalt in the moonlight. “Why do ye search fer them pieces at all? If’n they mean so little, what is it as compels ye to pull them from the sea?”

“Because they’re a part of history! And if we lose that tie to the past, how can we ever really know ourselves?” she asked in exasperation. It confused her that her suggestion to give the attackers what they were after made him so mad. It seemed a simple solution to their problem and so what if she had to start over again somewhere else?

He backed her up until she could feel the bark of a tree press against her spine, the earnest intensity on his face causing her trembling to start again. “Just a tie to the past, ‘Lizabeth? Or a tie to yer past?”

Beth’s eyes widened in shock. How could he know? She’d never told anyone of the sense of familiarity that sometimes came upon her when she took an old coin into her hand or carefully cleaned the concretion from the bits of an ancient pistol. At times it was a recognition so strong that it almost seemed a memory as opposed to something about which she’d only read. The need to capture that type of intimate feeling – it’s why she did what she did. Why she’d always been drawn to the sea and its secrets.

He eyed her knowingly. “Aye, that’s the thing, ain’t it? Ye know there be a part of ye missin’, somethin’ lost that calls to ye. Each wreck ye discover, each piece of treasure...’tis not fer the sake of history ye return, time and again. Ye search for yerself.”

“That’s absurd,” she stammered without any conviction at all – it seemed the thing to say, though.

“Don’t that taste a lie in yer mouth, lass?” he said dubiously. “Ye want honesty from me, but yer disinclined to speak it yerself?”

“Even if I told you that it sometimes seems that way,” she admitted reluctantly, feeling foolish that she’d put even that much into words, “that doesn’t mean it’s worth risking life and limb over. There will always be another wreck, another chance to explore.”

Hector slowly shook his head, cupping her face in his hand and caressing the high bone of her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “There be none other like this one, girl. This ship...she be the one ye been searching fer.”

Beth was baffled at his certainty. “You’ve only seen her once through a muddy camera shot. How could you know anything about her?”

“Told ye before, didn’t I, that there weren’t anyone who knew better what ye’d find on yer dive than I. I’ve a history with the Pearl...as do ye.”

“Wait...what?” she asked, shaking her head, utterly mystified. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Did you say the Pearl? The ship that you and Jack were fighting about...that can’t be the same one. The ship we found has been sitting on the bottom for hundreds of years.”

He regarded her with stormy blue eyes, fighting for the right words and seemingly on the cusp of a decision. “I’ve somethin’ to be showin’ ye; ‘tis why I brought ye here. Before I reveal it to ye, though, I need ye to know,” he said, his voice low and solemn, “whate’er ‘tis ye discover...always have I loved ye.”

Hector leaned in and kissed her softly, slipping his hand around to cradle the back of her head so it wouldn’t strike the tree as his mouth took hers with aching tenderness. There was no urgency, no fiery passion; in fact, it was a kiss that tasted like goodbye. Beth’s heart suddenly squeezed in panic.

“I don’t want to see it, whatever it is!” she gasped, pulling back from him and seeing the sadness on his face. “I don’t care anymore if I know the truth...not if it means ruining what we have. Hector, please.”

“’Lizabeth,” he began, the heartbreak already dulling his eyes and confirming her fears. “There be no takin’ it back...”

“No! Not right now. Not after everything that happened today,” Beth pleaded, needing to ease the pain that had settled like a stone in her chest. For reasons she couldn’t explain even to herself, she knew without doubt that seeing what he had to show her would change everything. She simply wasn’t ready to face that. “Maybe tomorrow...”

He took her firmly by her upper arms, his face darkening with anger. “Ye can’t put the genie back in the bottle, missy! Ready to walk away today, weren’t ye, demandin’ that I give to ye all as had been kept back. And so shall I accommodate ye and aye, there’ll be consequences, but understand that ye’ve set us upon a course that cannot be altered. I give the helm o’er to ye, ‘Lizabeth and say to ye now– hollow be yer affections if yer not willin’ to see past the end of yer own nose! Can’t force ye to face the truth, but I’ll not go forth without ye havin’ done so. Me spirit be weary from carryin’ the burden alone.”

Beth’s face flushed red with shame. She had pushed him for the truth despite his reluctance to share and so had no right to refuse when it was finally offered. “You’re right,” she said quietly, her shoulders sagging. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to hold back the tears that burned behind. “I have to know what’s going on, like it or not. Show me.”

Hector gathered her close, resting his chin on the crown of her head as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. A sob escaped her throat despite her attempt to stifle it and she wrapped her arms tightly around him. What had she done? What had she been thinking when she’d lashed out at him earlier? Beth thought she had been afraid during the earlier pursuit and narrow escape, but that feeling paled in comparison to the cold, tight tentacles of fear that lashed at her heart with the thought of what lay ahead...and what it would mean for the two of them.

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The moon had waned over the course of the week and the night was nowhere near as bright as it had been only a few days earlier. The dark didn’t give Hector any pause, though, as he led her down a craggy, root-strewn path through the woods. Once or twice she stumbled over a rock or an errant log, but he caught her up before she fell and guided her silently towards the rocky beach.

They came upon a boulder, worn and beaten by the waves. Hector placed himself directly east of the rock and started taking carefully measured steps back towards the trees, counting under his breath. When he’d taken nine strides, he pivoted on his heel and disappeared into an outgrowth of bush. Beth followed tentatively behind him, tracking him by the noise he made moving through the vegetation rather than by sight.

She finally found Hector by nearly tumbling over him as he knelt in a shadowy glade, sweeping sand and grit away from around a group of smooth stones. Crouching down beside him, she saw that he was clearing dirt away from the ridges of a much larger stone, almost as though he was trying to dig it out of the earth. Beth watched carefully as the shape of a square became apparent through his efforts and it finally hit her that it was a doorway of some kind.

For a moment she thought about kidding Hector about digging for buried treasure, but a dark and anxious mood hung over them both, and there really didn’t seem to be much to joke about. Even without laying her eyes on its contents, whatever was beneath the stone slab made her nervous.

Hector forced his dagger in between the dirt and the stone, scraping at the last of the encrusted soil. Slamming on the hilt of the knife with his palm, he drove it down further and then began to pry the stone loose from its well-settled position.

Beth’s heart jumped when the rock moved and made a harsh grating sound that echoed below. Using the knife as a lever, Hector widened the gap enough that he could slip his fingers under the slab and then with a grunt, began to slide it over to the side. Finally letting it fall with a dull thud against the ground, he stood up, breathing heavily and wiping at his brow.

There was nothing to see but a hole, deep and completely devoid of light. Beth leaned over slightly, trying to peer through the impenetrable blackness. A slightly musty smell emanated from the pit and there was a distant sound of trickling water. A subterranean cave, perhaps, formed naturally from the limestone foundation that made up most of Florida’s bedrock.

A sudden gust of cold air swept up out of the hole and caused Beth to jerk back, shivering as her hair flew up around her face. It almost seemed to laugh as it twirled around them and Hector glared up into the night, a frown on his face as the phantom gale caught strands from his ponytail and whipped them around his head. The wind moved off as quickly as it had come upon them, blowing back towards the ocean and leaving an eerie calm in the little glen.

“What was that?” she whispered. To her ear, the sound on the air had been almost human. Maybe even feminine.

“A bit of a warnin’,” he huffed with a surly tone. “Ain’t meant fer ye, so ye needn’t worry o’er it.”

“A warning from whom?”

He ignored her as he hunkered down and slipped his legs over the edge so that they dangled into the darkness. “Yer to stay here, ‘Lizabeth. I’ll return when ‘tis safe for ye to follow.”

Beth shook her head, her stomach tying itself into worried knots. “I don’t like this, Hector,” she said, grasping his shoulder. “These kinds of underground caverns can flood without any notice and you’d be trapped with no way out. I’d never be able to find help in time to save you. Please just tell me what’s down there. You don’t have to show me...I’ll believe you.”

“Faith alone won’t do the trick here, girl,” he said, laying his warm palm over top of hers for a moment as he gazed back up at her. “What’s down below, ye must see with yer own two eyes. Besides,” he went on, bracing himself against the edge of the hole with his hands, his muscles bulging as he held himself aloft, “this here grotto ain’t e’er flooded...carefully chosen, it was, to keep undisturbed that which we stowed within.”

With that, he released his hold and dropped into the obscurity of the cave. Beth heard his boots thud against the bottom and a moment later saw a small flare cast a momentary silhouette on the floor around him. Hector moved deeper into the dim space below and she lost sight of him entirely as the sound of his footsteps faded away.

She sat down and looped her arms around her knees, staring into the hole while she waited for him to come back. The permeating quiet of the night was unnerving...there should have been a swift breeze off the ocean, the sound of night birds or at the very least, the pounding of the surf. It had all faded into nothingness once the slab had been moved, though, and she felt like she was trapped in some sort of bubble.

Seconds ticked by and then minutes, and Beth shifted restlessly as she perched over the stony shaft. So gradually that she almost didn’t realize it was happening, a glow started to spill over into the space below as she watched. It was warm looking and reminiscent of firelight, painting shadows that undulated and grew increasingly more erratic as she watched. The pattern of darkness against light became mesmerizing and so it came as more than a surprise to her when from out of the gloom, two thick wooden struts were thrust up through the opening and propped against the edge.

Beth pressed her hand against her heart, trying to calm the racing beat within her chest as Hector regarded her from the bottom of a long, rather primitive ladder. “Mind yer step. The slats be none too stable but ye weigh next to nothin’, so ye should be fine.”

She had to fight a sudden impulse to turn and run, so strong were her trepidations. Before she could break her word to Hector, though, she reached out to grasp the dry and cracked sides of the ladder, swinging her legs over one at a time to shift her weight to the rungs. The wood creaked a bit beneath her but seemed to hold okay, and she finally began her descent.

Hector grasped her around her hips as she got closer to the ground, making sure she alighted safely on her feet. Wordlessly he took her hand and led her into an arched tunnel. The craggy walls and roof around them glowed with faint phosphorescence that made the path seem otherworldly and along the way she was almost sure she caught the glimmer of yellow metal in the gritty brown dust at their feet.

Ancient-looking torches affixed to the rough walls were the source of the illumination she’d seen from above, the smell of burning rag and rancid oil hovering around them as they walked. Threads of greasy smoke rose sinuously from the ends and would have stained the ceiling had it not already been coated with soot.

They came to a bend in the tunnel and Hector stopped her short, a mixture of excitement and dread on his face. “What lies before us, ‘Lizabeth, has not been looked upon for nigh on two hundred years. But ‘tis part of yer story, same as the Pearl...same as meself.”

“If no one has seen it for that long, how do you know what’s in there?” Beth whispered.

“All yer answers lay just beyond,” he rejoined, his expression guarded. “In ye go and reclaim that part of yerself as has been hidden fer so long.”

Hector squeezed her hand and then let it go, moving back out of the way so she could pass by him. Beth’s hands trembled ever so slightly with foreboding but she stepped forward anyway into the unknown.

The tunnel opened up into a vast cavern. More torches brightened the scene, ‘though these were stuck upon poles and shoved hastily around the space into loose mounds of sand. In the dim light she could see a high-domed ceiling, the limestone variegated with streaks of green and grey. There were rough openings that let the starlight seep through the hall, cool beams of silver that complimented the warm golden glow of the fire.

The sound of water was louder now and Beth saw an underground river that ran through the place, hewing an oblong island from the sandy base of the cavern. It wasn’t overly humid, though, and she understood that the uneven chunks had likely been cut from the top of the cavern to ensure that the place stayed dry.

Once her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she let out a shocked gasp and stumbled backwards a few steps. It was as though she’d walked onto the set of a “Treasure Island” remake. Swaths of rich tapestries and Oriental silks spilled from barrels. Coins made of precious metals overflowed cracked and broken chests, and fire threw a rainbow of colours across the walls from the casks of gemstones that rested at odd angles through the room. Flasks and trays, candelabra and weaponry of every description caught the gleam of the torches and made everything she’d ever recovered from a sunken wreck look like so much trash.

The archaeologist in her took over and she ran into the midst of the trove, leaping onto the sandbar and then falling to her knees to dig a heavy golden cross buried haphazardly amongst many other priceless items.

“This is Spanish,” she said with awe, her fingers flitting lightly over the religions engravings. “Early eighteenth century, brought to the new world by crusaders on their way to South America.”

“Aye,” said Hector, taking up a seat on a nearby closed chest. “Many a Spanish ship gave up her pricy church-bound cargo to marauders in hopes of barterin’ mercy. Armed they were, but no match for those as made fightin’ a way of life.”

Beth placed it gently down only to have her eye drawn to a tarnished silver goblet. “This is Elizabethan!” she cried, seizing it in her hands and turning it over. “It bears the Queen’s emblem!”

Hector crossed his arms and shrugged. “Family heirloom, perhaps. Long dead was the Virgin Queen before that’d have been plundered from the hold of a British ship.”

She got to her feet again, whirling as she tried to take it all in. Her eyes fell upon a sword and a jolt that felt like recognition hit her hard. Slowly she approached and tugged it from where it had been thrust into a trunk full of coins.

Hector stood and walked slowly towards where she stood. “And what have ye to say of that?”

“It’s...I don’t know. It almost looks Asian...” she said slowly, turning it over to examine the simple bronze hilt adorned with short wings and the long, straight blade. If she had her books with her, she likely could have identified it more quickly, but the feeling persisted that she knew the sword...not just the classification but the specific weapon she had in her hand. Its weight felt familiar, the grip fit her palm as though made for her and the flash of the steel in the light...she could almost hear the clash of metal and the battle cries of desperate men.

He gave her a knowing smile, nodding. “Right ye be. T’is a jian as belonged to the Pirate Lord of the South China Sea...King of the Brethren Court, too, as a matter of fact. Seen action, so it has...the pirate as wielded that there weapon cut down many a foe with a ferocity and passion unequalled. Led a glorious battle against mercenaries of the East India Trading Company...had them turnin’ tail and fleein’ fer their lily-livered lives before the day was done.”

Beth grabbed an empty velvet bag that she spotted at her feet and wiped the blade down, gently cleaning off the years of neglect to reveal its glistening surface. As she wiped from hilt to tip, she caught her reflection in the shining metal. By some trick of the light, her face appeared younger and her hair lank, as though soaking wet. She squinted to get a clearer look and her simple yellow blouse seemed to morph into a traditional Chinese garment with a mandarin collar, surrounded with silver brocade and protected with a leather chest guard of some kind...

“What the enemy will see is the flash of our cannons, they will hear the ring of our swords and they will know what we can do!”

Upon hearing the cry, she spun and frantically sought its source. The declaration echoed in her ears even as she came to recognize her own voice. She gripped the sword tightly and stared down at it wide-eyed. Her heart pounded fiercely against her ribcage...her imagination was getting the best of her. That had to be it. There was no other explanation, ‘though she looked to Hector and sought an answer in his anxious face.

“More speed! Haul your wind and hold your water!”

It wasn’t her speaking this time, but the singsong voice with the West Country accent was unmistakable. Only the words hadn’t come from Hector...he hadn’t opened his mouth at all.

Her breathing turned shallow as her panic began to grow. Perhaps there was some kind of noxious gas in the cavern that was making her hear things, see things that simply weren’t there. As if to prove the point, Hector reached out towards where she stood and as his hand crossed through a dusty pillar of moonlight, the flesh disappeared and all she saw was desiccated bone entwined with shrivelled sinew.

Beth shrieked and floundered backwards away from him, helpless to stop herself from doing so but feeling her heart break even as his eyes filled with hurt. The scream resounded off the walls of the chamber around them and gradually faded away.

“What the hell is going on?” she sobbed, falling into a drift pile of coins. They tinkled like chimes as they rolled down the slope towards the water.

He took a step forward before seeming to think better of strolling through the cold shaft of light again and instead walked around it. Crouching at her feet, he stretched out a cautious hand towards her. Beth’s stomach tied itself in knots as his fingers settled on her knee, but it was just him...his warm, strong hand on her bare flesh. With her free hand she grabbed at his, determined to hold onto something real and solid.

“What’s going on around ye, what ye be seein’...none of it be happenin’, not now. Echoes of the past, is all, and nothin’ as can harm ye,” he said in a low voice, talking to her as though trying to calm a frightened child.

“Do you see it...hear it...too?” she asked hopefully, her heart sinking as he shook his head slowly.

“Nay, but ain’t hard fer me to guess what it is as appears to ye.”

“I love you! I've made my choice. What's yours?” asked the disembodied voice of her ex-husband, the heartfelt appeal shaking her to her core.

“Barbossa!” she cried out and then gasped at the sight of the man squatting in front of her. Elizabeth tore her hand away from his and scuttled back from him as quickly as she could, sending pieces of treasure flying in her wake as she brandished her sword once again.

“Welcome back, Miss Swann,” he said grimly before his chin slumped against his chest and he buried his head in his hands.

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Well? I know some of you have been waiting for that long dead past to reveal itself to Beth. :) Please let me know what you think, either with reviews or emails...your feedback buoys me!