A TOUCH OF DESTINY | Henry Turner

01. A Life in Glimpses

AGE FOUR:

"AYE, AVAST!" cried the little girl, waving a wooden sword in the air. "My name's Lyla Sparrow and I'm a scary pirate!"

Jack Sparrow raised his own wooden sword and knocked it gently against his daughter's. "And I'm Captain Jack, the most feared pirate in all of the Seven Seas."

"Not for long!" Lyla yelled, swinging her sword and laughing as Jack pretended to back away in fear. "Get back, you mangy dog!"

Amara heard her daughter's language in passing and scoffed. "Who's been teaching her to talk like that?"

Jack immediately pointed at Mr Gibbs, who shook his head. "Absolutely not, Miss Amara."

While Jack was distracted by the reproachful look he received from his wife, Lyla whacked him in the leg with her wooden sword. "You're dead, dad! Go down!"

Jack fell to the deck dramatically and laid there on his back. Lyla giggled and dropped her sword, rushing towards her father and dropping down on his chest, sitting so that she was facing her father. She reached for the beads in his hair, a favourite pastime of hers, and Jack's hands held her steady in case she lost her balance.

As the two of them played together, Gibbs and Amara stood watching from afar. Leaning closer to Amara, Gibbs said, "It's nice to see Jack looking so happy."

"It is," Amara smiled. "He's a better father than I expected."

"Aye, I think we all expected him to be worse than he is," Gibbs replied, watching as Jack lifted Lyla into the air and she filled the air with laughter.

Amara chuckled softly. "I think I did well, Mr Gibbs."

"You couldn't have done much better, Miss."

AGE EIGHT:

"BUT I WANT to go with you!" Lyla demanded.

Jack turned to his daughter. "No, no, absolutely not. Tortuga is no place for a child, much less a girl."

Lyla put her hands on her hips and fixed her father with a glare, the same glare he so often saw on her mother. "I want to go with you."

"And I said no," Jack replied. She opened her mouth to argue, but he beat her to it. "No, no, be quiet. No, I won't hear it, no. Oh, shut up, you little minx, before I throw you overboard for treason."

He swept Lyla up into his arms and carried her towards his cabin. There was no malice in his tone as he spoke; in fact, he was merely joking around, and as Lyla laughed and tried to wriggle free of her father's embrace, Jack grinned.

"Not so tough now, are you, squirt?" he asked. Lyla went limp in his arms and was suddenly dead weight, a change which Jack was unprepared for. He stumbled slightly and gasped. "Oh, now that's playing dirty."

"Let me go with you?" Lyla asked. "Please? Mr Gibbs said Tortuga is fun."

"Fun for big boys and girls," Jack said, entering the cabin and finding Amara tidying away Lyla's clothes. "Hello, love. Mind watching Baby Bird for a while?"

"Of course not," Amara said, as Lyla was placed back on the ground. "What are you doing?"

"Dad's going to Tortuga and won't let me go with him," Lyla said miserably.

Amara chuckled. "For once, your father is using his common sense. You're not going to Tortuga until you're at least sixteen, sweetheart."

"But mum—"

"Ah, ah," Amara interjected. "No buts. Come on, me and you will go down below decks and play cards with the crew. I'll teach you everything I know."

"You better listen to your mum, Baby Bird," Jack said. "She knows how to cheat in ways you'd never expect."