White and Black Pearls 1 - Seven Pearls

Chapter One


When the name Davy Jones only referred to a young man in love with something he shouldn’t be, Calypso was a free goddess, able to rule over the waters as she saw fit. The tale of the love between her and Davy Jones intertwines with the tales of Celeste and here is where it begins as far as anybody can tell.

Jones was drunk with love, desperation and several bottles of rum when he stumbled to the bow of the ship he was currently a crewmember of and looked up at the cloudless night sky. ‘Calypso!’ he cried out, shaking his fist and sloshing some of the rum from the bottle in hand down his arm, soaking his sleeve. ‘Calypso!’ There was, of course, no answer. He sank down to his knees on the ship and stared at the stars with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Calypso…’

‘Poor man,’ a voice said from behind Jones, soft and far too feminine to be one of the crew members.

Jones stiffened and turned, dropping his bottle into the ocean with hope on his face. He blinked in confusion when the woman standing before him was not his Calypso, and the confusion grew as this strange female reached out and touched his cheek. He could not even form words as he remained frozen in place, mouth open and eyes fixed upon her face.

She was a vision of beauty; her skin was pale and white and she seemed to carry her own light about her, a soft glow radiating from her very body. Her hair was black as midnight with strings of tiny, sparkling pearls laced through it, and she wore a black cloak about her shoulders with a delicate satin dress underneath and more pearls stitched into the bodice and fabrics. The pearls everywhere against so much inky black looked like stars in the night sky, and the gentle look upon her face drew any who saw her into a silent awe. ‘David Jones,’ the woman said softly. ‘You suffer so, screaming for your Calypso. Why do you seek to have a thing that will never come to be? Why do you torture yourself with your desires for a being that can never return these feelings?’

‘Celeste,’ Davy whispered, knowing who this must be. There was no mistaking a goddess when she stood before you, and only one cast the cool light of the moon in the night time and warm radiance of the sun during the day. Celeste moved closer to Davy, and touched his cheek again; the sensation of her cool fingers to his warm skin sent a shiver down his spine for more reasons than he could name, but he could not bring himself to say anything he wanted to or ask any of the questions burning from within. Her smile made his guts knot up inside him. It took a full minute before he managed to stammer out, ‘Why have you come here?’ rudely.

Her hand drew away from him and turned palm-up as though to say, look about you. Look at yourself. This is why. ‘You call for my sister… and yet you are looking up at me while you call for her. How can I not hear your cries?’ She folded her hand back inside the comfort of her cloak and pulled the black cloth tighter around herself so that only her pale throat and face cast soft light before him. ‘But you have not yet told me why you pursue dear Calypso so relentlessly.’

Davy tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but found he was unable to. Nor could he give an eloquent explanation to Celeste for why he felt so powerfully for her sister. He understood that to ignore the request or inquiry of a creature such as Celeste was a fool’s notion, but was unable to form phrase or even a little whimper to confirm he was trying to answer.

She smiled then, after allowing the lack of words to drift between them and the roar of the ocean surround them with a blessed lack of total silence. ‘Your expression tells me,’ she whispered, ‘what every man’s expression says, when he is at his wit’s end with love unrequited. How you have fallen so deeply in love with Calypso who could not care less if you were scoured from the face of the planet, I do not understand. I wish to understand this. You fascinate me.’ The deep, dark sunset red of her lips parted as she smiled wide this time, causing Davy’s innards to stop knotting and instead turn to ice. The smile of a goddess is dangerous when turned upon a common man. ‘I will tell you two things, either of which you can use at your discretion, or never use at all… The choice to use them will be entirely yours and I will take no responsibility for your actions.’ The many hems from layers of her flowing dress rustled softly along the deck as she moved to stand directly beside him and Celeste looked across the waters. ‘I will tell you first, how you can call Calypso forth to meet with you,’ she whispered. ‘You may use that as you wish… to woo her, to try and convince her… whatever you can think of. And the second thing I will tell you is that it is very possible to bind Calypso into the form of a human, and I can tell you how.’ Her eyes seemed to flash and spark with mischief as she watched Davy’s expression change and he began to realize what was being offered to him.

‘What do I have to do in return?’ he pressed immediately, lifting his hands to place them on Celeste’s shoulders but stopping himself just in time, at least having the wits about himself not to touch a goddess without permission or prompt. The icy feeling in his gut grew worse as he watched her turn to face him once more and there was a seemingly benevolent smile upon her face; Davy Jones felt the same way children in faerie’s tales felt when a kind wolf offered to help them to safety.


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