The Captain

fifteen

Over the next week or so, I fell into a comfortable routine on the Mermaid's Revenge. Bonnie helped me with my sword-fighting every day for a bit in the mornings, and then I'd climb up to the crow's nest. Tim and I alternated, but I didn't get as much vertigo as he did, so it was mostly me.

Maverick had yet to tell the rest of us where we were actually going. He would just use his compass, the one that I was pretty sure was broken, and follow that. 

One afternoon, I climbed down from the crow's nest to let Tim up only to see him behind the wheel, cursing. 

"Uh... Are you okay?" I asked.

His gaze flashed up, eyes meeting mine. He looked furious. His expression morphed into something pained when he saw me. 

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine."

"Leave it alone, Florence. It's none of your business," he spat, turning away, still fiddling with the compass. 

"I hate to break it to you, cap, but I think that compass is broken."

He whipped around, eyes flashing dangerously. 

"Stop talking, now."

I backed away slowly.

"Ooookay. I'm just gonna..." I sidestepped him and wandered over to the bow of the boat, where Charlie was sitting. He and I were actually becoming decent friends like he was the uncle I never had. 

"What's wrong with Maverick today?" I asked quietly, seating myself on the deck next to him. 

He shrugged, mouth full of an apple.

"Dunno. Came up this morning pissed about the compass. He won't tell us what's wrong, or where we're going."

"Which seems a little ridiculous, right? Shouldn't we be allowed to know where we're going?"

He shrugged again. 

I leaned back, thinking about the clue. I still had no idea where we were supposed to be going, but at this point, I didn't really have a choice other than to trust Maverick Sparrow's judgement. 

I wasn't exactly radiating optimism. His strange antics and the way his treatment of me seemed to vary hour to hour meant that the chances of me coming away from this with any kind of gold was getting slim. 

"Do you even know what's in this Jaques Robesport's treasure?"

He snickered. 

"Pierre Jaquesport, Florence."

I rolled my eyes. 

"Whatever. Why is it so important anyway?"

"Pierre Jaquesport was a legendary captain. Problem was, nobody except his crew ever saw him. Nobody fought him and came out alive, nobody knew who he really was except from the stories. He vanished for like a decade, came back, gave the clue to his treasure to someone, and was never heard from again."

"Well, that's awful. Does nobody know what happened to him?"

He shrugged for the third time. Apparently, that was all he knew how to do.

"Dead men tell no tales. Anyway, supposedly he left a massive vault of most of his looted stuff, jewels, money, clothing and apparently some clues to other vaults."

He lowered his voice to a whisper. 

"It's what Jack was looking for before he died. Maverick is carrying on the obsession."