Song of the Sea: Sunsets and Black Sails

Chapter 22: The Chest of Davy Jones

"Guard the boat, mind the tide," Jack instructed Pintel and Ragetti, who, having bickered about the pronunciation of kraken the whole way to shore, looked as though they had been about to start up again. "And don't touch my dirt."

They didn't look terribly pleased about it, but they didn't really have much of a choice.

"Alright, Elizabeth," Aria said. "Where is the compass leading you?"

"This way," she said. The others followed as she slowly walked along the sand, keeping a careful eye upon the compass.

Elizabeth took them along the beach, down near the shoreline, then she paused. She glanced around, then began to pace back and forth between two grassy patches.

"Liz?" Aria asked.

Her sister huffed and sat down on the ground, tossing the compass down beside her.

"This doesn't work! And it certainly doesn't show you what you want most!"

Aria sighed. Her heart went out to her sister, but her patience was wearing thin. Jack was running out of time.

"If you're conflicted, the compass won't work. If you're focused on finding Will more than you're focused on the way to find him, it's just going to spin."

Jack peered down at the compass.

"You're sitting on it."

Elizabeth looked up at him with a disapproving frown. "Beg pardon?"

"Move!" Jack declared, shooing her out of the way. He whistled at Norrington, and with a heavy sigh and an exasperated roll of his eyes the other man began to dig.

Aria paced restlessly, until a few shovelfuls of sand later when a thunk! rang out. The four of them all looked at each other, then slowly peered into the hole, tentatively brushing at the sand with their hands. Sure enough, their efforts revealed a trunk, grimy and gritty from years of hiding. Together, they hauled it out of the hole.

Aria handed Jack a shovel, and he smashed the rusty lock off. Their gaze met, a nervous sort of anticipation hanging heavy between them, a tension without breath. All that they had worked for these past two years lay within. The threat which hung over them would soon be no more.

Jack knelt in the sand, and carefully opened the lid.

The others carefully crowded on their knees around him, almost reverent. Aria pressed as close to Jack as possible, and yet she felt the warmth of James' closeness over her shoulder, as her former fiance, too, stooped to look. Elizabeth looked on silently from Jack's other side.

Inside the trunk, small papers and folded notes buried something beneath. Aria gently moved a bouquet of dead flowers aside to pick up one of the letters, wondering who had plucked them, once upon a time. She unfolded the parchment and skimmed the words. It was a love letter, poetic and full of sadness.

Not unlike those which she had written to Jack so many years ago, stored in green glass and given unto the ocean's care.

My heart,

I long for the day I can see you again. The tides will guide us back together.

My goddess,

Look for me upon the horizons. I will be there.

But her attention was drawn from the letters by Jack. He brushed aside the bits of parchment and pulled from deep within a smaller chest of black metal. All four of them leaned in close, holding their breath, and then... they heard it thump.