Curiosity (Sparrabeth/WillTurnerxOC) Book 2

Chapter 2

Elizabeth and Olivia ran to the docks with their weapons and the letters of marque in hand. Seeing a medium sized merchant ship, they snuck into the ship. They wandered about the ship, looking for some sailor clothes to change into when they noticed some breeches and shirts in a sack in the stores below deck. They quickly slipped them on, along with the belts and boots that they found lying nearby. They then tied up their hair in low ponytails to look less like young women.

Leaving their dresses behind, they walked up on deck and started to blend in with the crew, fixing sails and pulling ropes.

They saw a sailor go down to get some rope to tie the sails more tightly and realized with fear that he would discover their discarded clothes. As there was nothing they can do to prevent it without their identities being revealed, they continued to do their work, glancing at the trapdoor every now and then.

The sailor slammed open the trapdoor and, holding the two dresses, rushed to another sailor, a friend of his apparently, muttering something about the ghosts of two women haunting the ship.

They started pulling at the dresses, making a commotion and drawing a crowd when the captain came, "What's all this?"

The sailor who went below deck replied, "This ship is haunted."

The captain turned to the other sailor, "Is it now? You?"

He responded, "There is the presence of two females amongst us here, sir. All the men, they can feel it."

As the rest of the crew nodded in agreement, another sailor added, "Belongs to a lady widowed before her marriage and her bridesmaid, I figure it. Searching for her husband lost the sea."

Another sailor said, "Virgin, too, likely as not. And that bodes ill by all accounts."

The sailor who found them suggested, "I say that we throw the dresses overboard and we hope the spirits follows it."

The sailor who was arguing with him disagreed, "No! That will just anger these spirits, sir. What we need to do is to find out what the spirits need and then just get it back to them."

Olivia and Elizabeth internally smiled at their idiotic belief.

The sailors started pulling and arguing again, annoying the captain who shouted, "Enough! Enough! You're a pair of superstitious goats and it's got the best of ye!"

Snatching the dresses from them, he explained, "Now this appears to be as no more that we have two stowaways on board. Two young women, by the look of it. I want you to search the ship and find them. Oh, and, uh, they're probably naked."

This lifted up the crew's spirits as they scrambled to search for the two women on their ship. Putting away their work, Elizabeth and Olivia joined the search as well so as to not appear suspicious.

After obviously failing to find the naked girls, the crew went back to work. During lunch, Olivia and Elizabeth took their food and went below deck to discuss a plan to convince the captain to go to Tortuga.

That night, they executed their plan. Olivia and Elizabeth attached strings to the dresses and the strings to wooden sticks. They stood on the mast, and, using the sticks, moved the dress behind the glass at the back of the captain's cabin, so that it looked like the dresses were floating.

The captain and the two sailors who were arguing before ran to the glass and looked out of it for the floating dresses.

After a moment, the two girls swung the dresses again.

The crew and captain walked on deck to see the two dresses floating in front of them and pointing at the sea behind them.

A sailor said, "They want you to do something."