Pirates Of The Caribbean Fan Fiction ❯ Mirror, Mirror ❯ Journey ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

The Flying Dutchman furled its sails and glided smoothly into its berth at Tortuga. It was no question that the place was a pirate-controlled port, but it was also a place where honest merchant ships traded for profit. The sailors on these ships often disembarked to seek pleasurable company after hard months of sailing through storm and shine and to drink themselves into oblivion. It truly was Sodom and Gomorrah reborn.

Although James detested the place himself, he once had fallen victim to its endless carousing, drinking, and fighting. He went there to drown his sorrows after the loss of the Dauntless, and while he did not seek the prostitutes the port had to offer, he certainly downed several bottles of rum and engaged in a few good brawls as a means of venting rage at himself for his own pride and stupidity. It was all he could do to keep from putting a bullet in his head or hanging himself in the cargo hold of the ship that had plucked him from the island he washed up on. Yet fate , or in this case, Mr. Turner, decided that he should return to this God forsaken place, this time to embark on what James now began to call `the impossible journey.'

The Dutchman was tied down to the docks, and the gangplank was extended for the occupants to disembark. Will, unfortunately, was not due to step on land for another ten years, and that first step in a decade would be reserved for his beloved Elizabeth, so he ordered the crew to stay aboard and sent his father along with the Bo'sun instead. They readily obeyed, as Bootstrap and the Bo'sun removed the cloth and began to carry him toward the gangplank. Will stopped them.

“I wish you the best of luck, Norrington,” Will said. “I only wish I had a better way of sending you along.”

“I wish myself luck in this impossible endeavor, but I understand, this was the best you could do.”

Will nodded and motioned for Bill and the Bo'sun to carry out the duty. The two men walked in silence until James spoke.

“Where are you taking me?” he inquired.

“To sell you,” Bill answered.

“S-sell me?!” James shouted.

Fortunately, the occupants of Tortuga couldn't hear him, but the Turner men could.

“Aye,” Bill replied. “You've got to begin your journey somewhere.”

James was beginning to think this was a bad idea, that he should have stayed back in the sea of the dead in his little boat and contemplated other ways of evading death.

Bootstrap and his fellow crew member approached a merchant trader, placing the mirror down near the gangplank of his ship.

“This is an outrage! I've changed my mind! Find a way to get me out of here, and I'll find my own way to Calypso!” James protested.

“It's too late to change your mind, mate,” Bill whispered.

“I wish someone would have told me that!”

The merchant came over to the men and admired the looking glass as the discussed trade options. Apparently, James was valuable - or at least that's what he gathered from the conversation. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly happy with his predicament, and he began to rap on the glass with his fist to gain someone's attention. To his surprise, the merchant didn't even hear or see him! Why?

Bootstrap ignored Norrington's tapping for now as he set up a trade agreement, using James as the item for bargaining. Had this been any other situation, James would be highly insulted for being treated like such an object, but in this case, he really was an object. Finally, the merchant conceded to accept the looking glass in trade for a few needed provisions for the Dutchman.

As the merchant went to retrieve the goods, Bill turned to James. “Godspeed, James. I hope you find your path.”

“Thank you for your…help,” James replied, as if this were really any help at all.

Bootstrap turned from James, swallowed up by the crowd of pirates and other persons on the docks. In the back of his mind, he wondered if that would be the last time he ever saw Will, Bootstrap, or any familiar face for that matter, again.

For unnumbered days afterward, James lay in his looking glass prison in a dark crate somewhere in the recesses of a damp cargo hold of some merchant ship. Where it was bound, he hadn't a clue, nor did he have any idea as to how long he'd been in there. All he knew was that if he did not get out of the darkness soon, he felt he would lose his mind.

The Admiral tried everything he could think of to keep his mind busy, from singing every sea shanty he knew since he first joined the Navy as a boy to telling himself wondrous stories to recalling memories of the people he knew and loved. Yet every time he engaged in the latter, he thought of Elizabeth as the central person in his life that he could never obtain. She'd used him, broke his heart, and continued to do so whenever he saw her, yet through it all he still loved her, even when he'd betrayed her.

“Our fates have been intertwined but never joined, Elizabeth…”

 

James was interrupted from his dark reverie by the sudden shifting of his crate.

A storm? he wondered.

He rocked a few times, but upon hearing footsteps and many obscure voices outside his box, he concluded that this may not be a storm. In fact, the ship's motions did not feel as though it were in a storm. It felt more like he was being carried somewhere. Of course, he'd been nailed inside the box for so long that he could no longer tell what was up or down. The motion suddenly stopped, and the Admiral soon heard the sound of cracking wood around him as a small sliver of daylight cut the darkness. Soon the sliver turned into blinding daylight as he was set up for display in what looked to be some kind of shop. Was he in Port Royal? London?

A gentleman that appeared to be the shopkeeper approached him with a cloth in his hand. He began to dust the James's glass off, causing the officer to step back, startled. Regaining his composure, he moved closer to the glass.

“Pardon me, but where am I?” he asked.

The keeper said nothing and went about his business. Perhaps he was hard of hearing.

James spoke up. “Sir, where am I?”

The man turned and walked away, placing the dust cloth on the counter to help a customer. He hadn't even acknowledged James in the least, as though he didn't even exist. James frowned. If he couldn't make contact with anyone, then how was he supposed to find Calypso? He frustratingly ran his hand through his chestnut brown hair, having lost his wig somewhere on the Dutchman just after he was killed. This was not looking well for him.

For days he continued to try to make contact with someone. He grew desperate for attention of some kind, for someone - anyone - to acknowledge him. Everyone who approached him, James tried to speak to them, even touch them, only to be blocked by the surface of the glass, yet the only result he ever yielded was them turning away never to be seen again and taking with them hope that he'd ever get out of his glass dungeon.

On one particular day, however, a rather nice-looking older gentleman came into the busy shop and looked over the mirror, yet never seeing the man trapped inside, despite the ruckus the Admiral raised to gain his attention. He walked over to the shopkeeper, pointing in James's direction, and then exchanging some bills.

I've been bought!

Almost immediately, the officer was shut once again into the perpetual night of a crate and carried onboard a ship, again, the destination unknown. And once more, James lay in the container lost inside the reveries of his thoughts as he tried to corral his frustrations and his waning sanity.

From his container, he could definitely tell by the motions of the ship that they were certainly sailing through a storm this time, and it made him fearful that if the ship were to sink, he would never be recovered and would forever lie at the bottom of the sea imprisoned. Though he was a well-seasoned sailor himself, James could not help but to hold some kind of paranoia in this case as there would be nothing he could do to help his situation if that were to happen.

Fortunately, the storm died, and it seemed to be fair weather for the remainder of the voyage. James sighed, once again returning to his normal routines. He later could hear the feet of sailors scampering across the deck above him, soon entering the cargo hold and converging upon the many crates of fine goods from the other side of the world. He could hear the muffled voices of the crew and the Captain giving orders as he felt himself be lifted off the floor once again.

Where am I going now?