The Isle of Gold

by Seven Jane

  He didn’t cower, but fear slid across his face and Evangeline stepped in front of him so that he was hidden entirely behind her skirt. “You will not harm him,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, I will not harm him,” she seethed, and the corner of her lip curled upward as sharp and dangerously as a fishhook. “That would be too much of a mercy. I will do worse—I will destroy his hope. Whatever hope you had of shedding that miserable man flesh, it ends now.” And with that she plucked a shell from her hair and stabbed it in into the fur, dragging it down so that it tore a hole into the supple folds of the sealskin leather. Dunn collapsed to the stone floor, crying out as if he, too, had been stabbed.

  “And you, dear girl, my Mélusine” the sea witch addressed Evangeline now as she dropped the torn skin to the floor. “The queen of the thieves of Isla Perla. Have you not learned what I am capable of these past two years?” She raised milky white fingers to caress the side of Evangeline’s golden cheek, and I saw my sister flinch and then regain her composure, staring boldly back at our mother. “You, poor girl, have the same unquenchable greed as your father—the same banal, myopic vision to control the waters. But if it is treasure you seek, then you will become it yourself, both in form and in legend. And because you have seen fit to bind yourself to your precious Erik Winters, he will enjoy the same sentence as your father. He will sail the world forever in search of you, but he will never claim you.”

  “You underestimate him,” Evangeline said as she helped Dunn to his feet and held him protectively against her.

  “No, my darling, you underestimate me,” our mother taunted her, and she gathered up her skirts and pulled from their folds a piece of glistening white shell in one hand and the handheld mirror I had seen her wield before in the other. The stone was the same color and shape as the one I wore on my finger; identical to the one that Evangeline was touching now as she wrung her hands. The stone itself, I realized, as I remembered the ones that lay at the throats of Captains Winters and Jones, was somehow the link that bound those mortal men to the women of the sea. Our mother rolled it around in her long, pale fingers, and it sparked with life as she stared into the mirror with the sand dollar face that was the same as the one emblazoned on my journal and the gun ports of the ghost ship, Caleuche. I saw the ships in the mirror’s reflection, the Riptide reduced to a smoking, burning mass as the Caleuche rained down cannon fire upon it. I saw Erik Winters, my friend and my captain, when he crossed blades with my father, eyes grey and unseeing as he fought back, advancing and indestructible against the man who would fight bravely until he could no more. I saw Jomo, cut and bleeding as he attempted to hold off the ghostly double of Tom Birch who bore down upon him.

  Satisfaction shadowed my mother’s face as her hatred consumed what little humanity was left in her. “My darling Caleuche will destroy what is left of your vessel,” she said. “And you will watch as the men onboard are claimed by me, and then the Caleuche will own them, and will sail their souls to the other side of the world forever. It will be a fitting end for this Curse of Jones,” she sneered. “Three souls for three men who dared so tame the sea—the one who began it will be forced to slay the one who tried to break it, and the last will meet them both at the bottom of the world.”

  I knew it would spell the end for me, but even this impending knowledge did not slow me as I sprung forward and grabbed both Dunn’s skin from the floor and the mirror from my mother’s hand. I sent the last shattering to the floor, destroying whatever power it may hold. “I will not allow you to do this,” I said. “If it is only death that will slake your thirst, then I will destroy you myself before I allow you to do this.”

  “Don’t be foolish, dear girl,” she said. “Whoever controls the sea controls the Caleuche, and whoever controls her controls the fate of men who sail. And I control them both, and you are not strong enough to take it from me.”

  The answer was simple, but the task impossible. “I will. I will control the Caleuche, whatever it takes. I will bind it to me if I must, it and all the men, and I will save them.”

  My mother regarded me with a look of hostile disappointment as water began to flood the cove. She unwound the lace mask to reveal stunning white orbs, shaped of the same, iridescent stone that hummed atop my hand in place of where her eyes should have been. The red tendrils of her gown began to lengthen and take on life of their own, sucker pods erupting and winking evilly as they turned upward and the creature began to make its way out of the cove.

  “Then you will perish with them,” my mother said coldly as what was left of her mortal form dissipated into the crimson red body of the kraken.

  XXIII

  When my head broke free of the water, Evangeline and Dunn were beside me in the sea, clinging to the edge of the small boat that had been left to float forgotten in the water. The air was filled with gun smoke and the sounds of men’s voices as the crews of the Riptide and the Caleuche fought furiously to vanquish one another, the men distributed between the two ships that sailed side by side. The Riptide’s men fought valiantly—I could see the figures of O’Quinn, Gregory Nip, Domingo, and others as they brandished swords and guns like the fearsome pirate crew they were—but still the shimmering spectral men advanced on their mortal foe as they inevitably would. The men of the Riptide were powerless against an enemy that could not die, and the writhing arms of my mother’s unforgiving, monstrous form rose up again from the waves to curl around the ship, squeezing and tightening as it bowed and then with a loud snap finally broke and sunk, taking anyone who remained onboard with it below the sea. The remains of the ship’s once mighty frame was reduced to broken fragments of splintered wood that floated atop the thrashing water. On the deck of the Caleuche I could see the auburn red of Winters’ hair and the grey of Jones’, and beside their fighting forms I saw the ghost of Tom Birch rising over Jomo’s as he bore down upon him with the point of his sword aimed at the man’s chest. Gritting my teeth in determination, I swam for the ghost ship with all my might, leaving Evangeline and Dunn to follow behind me.

  “Merrin, what have you done?” Evangeline cried, smoothing her curls away from her face as she swam alongside me away from the smoking mass that was the Riptide and toward the Caleuche. Her skirts billowed around her and she fought with them, pushing them down in great burping heaves. “You can۪not win against her.”

  “I have to,” I called back, fighting the waves that tried to push me under.

  Water lapped against Dunn’s face, and his hair was dark and sodden against his head as he, too, struggled in the waves. “We need to get to the ship,” he said, as if he could read my thoughts and knew what it was I aimed to do. “None of it will matter if we don’t reach them in time. She’s already taken the Riptide. The Caleuche is our only hope.”

  The grey sky turned black above us as if it, too, knew my intent, and with her prey reduced to rubble the kraken’s red arms loosened their hold on the remaining fragments of the ship and retreated back into the sea. I looked to see what was large and dark enough to obliterate the rising sun, and when I did my breath stuck in my throat. A rogue wave towered above us, taller and wider than the ship itself, like the ocean had gathered its body to stand upright so that it could swallow us whole and put an end to this madness, purging the ocean’s surface of the evidence of the battle no man alive could have won. The wall of water was rushing toward us, growing larger as it inhaled the water in its path. When my hands reached the slippery rungs of the Caleuche’s side, I pulled myself upward and over the railing, ignoring the screams of the men as those that were still living jumped overboard, attempting to escape the blows of the Caleuche’s men, or the inevitable, drowning crack of the looming wave. I had to crawl over the dead to reach where Tom stood bearing down upon Jomo, and I rolled between them just as Tom’s sword came down, stabbing deep inside the meat of my shoulder until it scraped across the wood of the deck beneath me.

  I screamed in agony as the pain washed over me, and suddenly Winters had thro
wn off Jones and was there, forcing Tom back and away as Jomo wrenched the bloody sword from his grip and Dunn and Evangeline gathered me up, helping me to my feet. The pain was searing and intense; it blurred my vision as I held my wounded arm and tried to hold myself upright, willing myself not to lose consciousness. I staggered some, but when I had my footing I stumbled over to where Jomo held Tom with both arms pinned behind his back.

  “Let him go,” I ordered, and Jomo did so instantly though the expression on his face said plainly that he did not like it. Winters grunted his approval and positioned himself protectively in front of Evangeline. I knew, deep within my soul, that the cost of saving Tom was to bind him to me, the same as the sea had bound Jones and Evangeline had bound Winters. The sea was never-ending and immortal, and there was power within us that could be shared with those we loved. Our mother’s heart was cruel and unforgiving, and she would not rest until the sickness within her had destroyed all that she might have once loved. Mine was pure. I would bind Tom to save him, and then I would give myself to the sea and save them all.

  Tom advanced on me, and as he did he peered down with grey, alien eyes that did not know me. His skin was the pallor of death and there was no warmth in him, but as I held up my hand with the ring gleaming on my finger, he paused, his head bending sideways as if in curiosity.

  “Stop,” I yelled, not knowing if such a command would work, only that it must. Words that I had not planned rushed to my lips as the heat of the ring rolled over me, dulling even the pain in my shoulder. Davy Jones was coming again, his fingers white in the basket handle of his sword and his face still wore a blank, unseeing mask. Once again I used the power of my name, this time exercising the full weight of it as I staked my claim on the bridge of the ship. The Caleuche was a living thing that answered to the goddess of the sea, and I knew her legends. She had not always been a ship of the damned, but of the dead who had loved the ocean more than life and were content so sail forever. Perhaps its allegiance could be changed if I could summon enough power and free her of the sea witch’s hold. “Caleuche,” I cried, “hear me now. I am Merrin Jones, daughter of Davy Jones and of the sea, and I would claim this ship as my own. You will be free to sail as you did before.”

  Immediately—unbelievably—the ship listened. Quiet fell around me as the crew of the Caleuche stopped and turned to stare, my father foremost among them. Then, gradually, things began to change. The Caleuche’s crew thickened and their bodies lost their brittle quality, strengthening into a more solid substance as color gradually began to return to their clothing first, and then their skin. My father pushed past whoever had been holding him back, stepping inside the inner circle that was Winters, Dunn, Evangeline, Jomo, and me. His eyes were hazel again and his hair was still grey, but his skin was tan and sinuous now, and no longer was he covered in fish scales and other debris of the deep ocean. He drew me into his arms and I could smell the sweet scent of the sea on him as he held me tightly against him while the wave yawned above the deck of the Caleuche, seconds away from crashing down and drowning us all. “I asked you before if you knew the power of your name,” he whispered against my ear, his voice calm and reassuring even as I heard the cracking sounds of the water around us being sucked into the oncoming wave, and then the lift of the ship as she began to tip upward into the rush of water. “You had assumed I meant the power of the name Jones, but it was not that name. It is yours … Merrin, the name of a savior. You, love, will save us all.”

  I stepped out of his embrace and looked at the circle of faces around me. An angry, hateful scream surged from below the water as the wave towered over us. It was coming, that much was certain, but for a moment I had everything. It was nothing like I would have ever imagined, but it was more and better than I could have ever dreamed when I left the harbor of Isla Perla searching for the answers to the questions of my past. I looked at my father, Davy Jones, and at my sister, Evangeline, whose fates had called me home to the sea. I saw Winters, my captain, and Dunn, my guardian, and Jomo, the warrior, these men who had become more than my crew, but my family and my friends, and who stood beside me now at the end of the world. At last I fixed my eyes on the man in front of me who looked so much like Tom Birch. His color was changing, but still his eyes were grey and unseeing.

  “Merrin, don’t,” Evangeline cried, realizing at last what I meant to do as the first rains of the wave began to pelt violently down on top of us and the ship arched upward so that we all were forced to hold on to whatever was anchored down around us. “Someone must keep watch over the sea. If you do this you will seal that fate as your own, and you must face her alone.”

  I smiled at her, but I took Tom’s hand in mine and wrapped my ring into his palm, curling his fingers over it so that they encapsulated it in a weak fist.

  “Forgive me, Mister Birch,” I said. Then I pulled at his shirt until I brought him low enough that I could reach him, and standing on the tops of my toes I pressed my lips against his. I kissed him deeply, even as the sound of water rushed up and over us all. His lips were cold and lifeless beneath me, but I kissed even harder, tightening the coil of his fist, as I did ignoring the raging sea while it screamed around me. I kissed him until there was no air left in my lungs, and just when I thought it wasn’t working, that I lacked the strength to bind my spirit to him, I felt his body relax and his arms loop around my waist, and then he was kissing me back. When at last we broke, I saw that life had returned to the boatswain’s eyes and they were vibrant, saltwater green again.

  “Oi, Rivers,” he said as he leaned his forehead against mine.

  “Not Rivers,” I said, laughing sadly as I pressed my body against his, the last solid thing I would feel as the wave poured itself over the ship. “My name is Merrin Jones, and I will end the curse of Jones. I will save you all, that I swear.”

  Epilogue

  What happened between Merrin Jones and the depths of the sea is a story that has not yet been told. All that is known is what became in the moments afterward, when what was left of the crews of the Riptide and Caleuche awoke on the black-sanded banks of Bracile.

  They woke in turns. First was Captain Erik Winters, though he stayed so still that only a slight change in the rhythm of his breathing proved him to be awake. The wounds he bore on his face and arms from battling the undead of the Caleuche’s crew had already begun to close over with crusted blood, and his red hair spilled out in careless tangles on the sands beneath him. The stone he wore around his neck was no longer a glowing white, but had deepened to the color of agate, darker at the edges and wound through with spirals the colors of a violet sky. Otherwise, he was unchanged and lay still with his faced turned profile to the heavens.

  Shortly after the captain’s awakening, the woman who lay clutched tightly in his arms opened eyes of brilliant chrysoprase blue and inhaled as deeply as if it were her first. The sea had washed away the golden plague that had covered her lovely skin, and her milky-white flesh was flawless under the light of a pale orange sun. Evangeline did not stir as she lifted her eyes to Winters’. The two spared a moment gazing at each other without encumbering the quiet with the weight of unnecessary words. At last Winters stood, and then drawing Evangeline up beside him they moved together in the direction of where rest of the crews’ men lay scattered about on the sands.

  Not far away, Jomo was the next to rise, pulling himself forth from the glittering black sands like a mountain rushing up from the dirt. He surveyed the beach around him with sharp, quick eyes, and then, deeming it safe—or safe enough for now—offered his hand to one of the men who had sat up near his feet. Around him, other men began to stir and mumble amongst themselves—Domingo and O’Quinn, the gunner, among them, along with others. He studied the faces around him, but then he saw the captain and Evangeline making their way toward him, and Jomo took his leave of his shipmates. When they were reunited, Evangeline swept between the two men, looping one of her slender pale arms in each of theirs. The trio stood silently, observing t
he blank expanse of tranquil ocean before them with calculating eyes. An endless expanse of jade green water laden with floating boulders of solid ice flowed between them and the other side of the world, and there was no sight of sails on the horizon that could ferry them home to Isla Perla, nor any trace of what had become of the Riptide, the Caleuche, or the two women who were somewhere beneath the water. For a moment, things looked hopeless, but at least they were alive. Not all of the men moving about the banks of the island had come from the Riptide and there were faces unaccounted for, but all here seemed alive and well.

  Within a few minutes, the sound of impending footsteps signaled an approach from the craggy, granite cliffs looming behind where Winters, Evangeline, and Jomo stood watch. The three turned and saw that walking toward them, and at a quick and purposeful pace, was Captain Davy Jones. He strode confidently over the sand, and as he came closer it was apparent to all that he had been restored to his full and former glory. The evidence of the sea’s curse had vanished from his form and he was a man again, full-colored and mortal with deep, ruddy skin and piercing hazel eyes. A look of resolve was stamped upon his face, and it was echoed in the countenance of Tom Birch who, reinstated as well, walked beside him. Both of the men now wore agate stones that matched Winters’ around their necks.

  Evangeline let loose Winters and Jomo and ran to her father, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck while he ushered her up in his arms. The two other men received Tom Birch; Winters offered his hand to the boatswain, and Tom accepted it with a nod, the exchange being of the sort that a prideful father might welcome a long-lost son. There were murmurs and greetings all around—the merest of which passed between the two captains, who still fostered a deep-seated distrust between them—and the company looked anxiously around them for the one face still missing.