A Pirate's Song.

Chapter Sixteen.

Twelve years later.

1751.

Evangeline.

I was floating, drifting aimlessly through the dark water with my legs stretched out beneath me, toes pointing towards the depths, eyes staring emotionless and empty down at the unseeable bottom. My back was to the surface, hair of ivory dancing around me as I seemed to just exist. There was no need for me to breathe, no need for air in my lungs as my eyes began to adjust onto the sight below.

Mary was ascending toward the bottom, her gaze staring right through me with her arms limp at her sides. She looked so calm, so at peace as her eyes began to droop, the air escaping her in a cluster of bubbles that moved through my chest in their quest to find the surface as if I wasn’t really there.

A woman made of water swam up from the depths, appearing before Mary with eyes of glowing sapphire.

A nymph.

She had a tail that resembled that of a crocodile, swaying back and forth behind her with hair that seemed to be never ending, made of sea foam and salt water.

She took Mary in, from her curly blonde hair that swayed in the liquid around her to her slightly darker skin tone and mismatched eyes, one blue, one silver. They were my eyes.

‘A heart of the sea’ the nymph announced, speaking in an ancient tongue that sounded foreign at first but later registered in the back of my mind.

The words that Gigas had spoken to me, words that had felt so familiar yet so foreign.

The woman took both of Mary’s hands in her webbed ones and leaned down so that her face was close to that of a relaxed Mary.

‘Return to me’ the nymph said moments before her lips connected to Mary’s, causing her eyes to widen in a mixture of both shock and a desire to fight, to want to live instead of die.

The water spirit pulled away, her hands moving to shove Mary’s chest, sending her deeper down into the unknown. A bright light caused me to squint when it erupted from Mary’s chest, her mouth gaping as if she were in pain. I tried observing for as long as possible but had to look away from the intensity of the light, the sound of someone struggling in the water reaching my ears.

‘Mary!’ Caleb’s voice registered in the back of my mind, but when I turned to look towards the surface, to look at him, I was no longer in the water, not staring at a struggling man but instead at a starry night sky.

The moon standing out against a black canvas. I looked towards the sea in front of me and froze when I met with my own reflection.

Her eyes were the exact same as mine, her hair blonde instead of white, her skin slightly darker with a blue silk gown hugging her figure. She was stood among the waves that crashed around her, her features calm and her posture relaxed as she moved towards me.

I stayed rooted in place as she approached, every step made with grace and elegance, her toes pointing whenever she would lower her foot into the water and sand.

She gripped the fabric of her dress, moving, acting as a noblewoman would, her head held high and her shoulders rolled back as if she was stepping into a ballroom.

I was stood naked, my skin littered with silver scales that glistened violet while my hands were webbed, claws forming where nails had once been. My hair seemed almost silver, my fangs probing the inside of my mouth as my eyes watched her move with slit pupils.

She paused for the briefest of moments, directly in front of me, her height matching mine, her body shaped like mine.

She gave a small, sad smile then stepped forward, crashing into me. Her body dissolving into water that flowed around me. I turned to watch as it evaporated in the air. An overwhelming feeling of sadness filling me, my eyes tearing up at the thought of her dying, of her being gone when she was so close to the touch just moments before. I remember thinking that must have been how Caleb had felt when she had leapt into the water, when she had drowned. She had been right there but so far out of his reach.

“Lassie?” the word came as a whisper which I ignored, the sun starting to rise around me, painting the unknown world that I was trapped in, in beautiful pinks, blues, purples, oranges and yellow.

“Las!” the voice yelled from behind me and I turned to find that I was back on the Sunken Soul, the Irishman standing across from me with his arms gripping my shoulders.

It took me a minute to realize what was going on. I had sleepwalked my way onto the deck and was heading for the side of the ship as if I wanted to jump overboard, into the dark water of the night.

The man in front of me had worry in his red eyes. I could smell the alcohol rolling off him in waves and staggered back a few steps to distance myself from him, not liking the feel of his touch against my skin even if it was only through the material of my dress.

“Ye be walking in ye sleep” he announced, his arms falling back to his sides as he watched me. My fear of him was greater than the fear that I harbored for Caleb and I readied myself to run in case he would try to throw me over the side of the ship.

I stayed silent, not sure how to react to my sleepwalking or him stopping me from jumping from the ship. His eyes narrowed onto me.

“Ye’re seeing things” he declared, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end.

How did he know about the visions? How did he know that I was seeing Mary?

My eyes searched the deserted deck in case anyone was near to hear his words but found that we were alone and that all was silent around us. My lips parted.

“H-How do you-?” he shrugged his shoulder, causing the words to die down in the back of my throat.

He was a muscular man, close to Caleb in size with light brown hair and a beard to match. He wore a low cut shirt and trousers that were tucked into his rusty, red leather boots. Around his neck dangled a few gold and silver chains as an earring hung down from his right earlobe.

“Me mum was an oracle” he casually stated to which I furrowed my eyebrows up in confusion. He brushed it off and stepped past me, heading for the trap door when my hand shot out to grab hold of his wrist, stopping him dead in his tracks. He glanced down at my hand as if I had stung him.

“What-what is an oracle?” I asked, my eyes searching his features. He looked up at me, his eyes locking onto mine to see the pleading force behind them, a need to know more. Something inside of me made me feel like the Irishman knew something that could help explain what I was going through.

“Ye really are just a simple woman” he muttered, shaking his head from side to side and tearing his arm away from me. I let go when he turned to address me, his lip curling up as he contemplated telling me. After a while he turned his head to the side, staring out onto the ocean.

“An oracle can see things-.” he began, eyes going back to a decade or so. The man was older than Caleb by at least five years and had wrinkles all over his face but despite that he was still as fierce as someone in their youth.

“Whether it be the past, present or future-.” my eyes widened slightly, my visions had to be from the past since Mary had died a long time ago. I eagerly waited for him to continue.

“They often have odd dreams and sleepwalk most nights”

If I was an oracle, then what did that make me? A mermaid who was able to see the events of the past? I had so many questions but I wasn’t sure whether I could ask them or not.

He turned his gaze back onto me, a cold and hollow look clouding his eyes.

“I suggest ye drink some sea water before bed, me mum used to say that it helped keep her visions at bay” with that he turned once more, opening the trapdoor so that he could descend down to where Rebecca, Ben and the rest of the crew were most likely fast asleep. I again reached out to him, this time with my voice.

“Wait!” the single word came out louder than I intended for it to be. He halted with one foot on a lower step and one still on the deck. I could tell that he was growing increasingly irritated with my refusing to let him go below deck to rest before the light of the morning.

I thought back to earlier that day when I had been sat on the chair near Rebecca who was managing the wheel of the ship, to when I had promised myself that I would get the Irishman’s name to be able to refer to him as something other than ‘the Irishman’ or ‘the former first mate’

“What’s your name?” my words were a low, unsure whisper that caused him to glance back at me from over his shoulder. There was confusion in his eyes as if to ask, why does this woman care about what to call me? Why is she talking to me to begin with?

“Nolan” he uttered like it was an obvious thing but to me it could’ve been anything from Tom to Christopher.

I nodded my head slowly, feeling an awkward silence fall between us. “Evangeline” I responded, not knowing what else to say. He gave a crooked smile, shook his head and started down the steps but not before he muttered an almost nonexistent “Night, las”

The trapdoor shut behind him, leaving me alone to my thoughts. Perhaps I was just seeing things that had occurred in the past due to my recent connection with Caleb or maybe it was because I was the reincarnation of Mary? Either way I found comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only person out there having to live with such strange dreams and confusing visions.

I headed back below deck, my feet moving from one step to the other until they stilled at the sight of Caleb fast asleep on the feather mattress.

He was facing the rest of the room, his bare back directed towards the ceiling with his arms tucked away underneath his pillow. The blankets went up to his lower back and beside him it looked like someone had been sleeping there, the sheets tossed aside with wrinkles in the mattress.

Had I been sleeping there?

The book of the seven treasures was neatly placed on the table beside the bed and I realized that he’d most likely found me there on the floor, asleep and tucked me into bed.

The thought of sleeping in the bed beside him, on the side where Mary used to sleep made me feel like it wasn’t my place. That spot wasn’t meant for me, it was hers.

I stood beside the bed, my hand moving to brush my fingertips along Caleb’s cheek, cupping it then letting my hand drop away. Mary’s emotions were becoming stronger, growing inside me like a virus that threatened to consume me whole. I could feel myself wanting to kiss him, wanting to lay beside him, to feel the warmth that radiated from his skin but I tore myself away, once again reminding myself that those emotions, those feelings didn’t belong to me.

I wondered through the room, eyes scanning every surface, taking in the carpet, the blood stains from my wounded leg that still remained there, the dresser that had various different trinkets scattered across the top of it. From a glass dolphin to a gold coin, a frame with nothing in it, a bottle that had the replica of a ship in it.

I rand my fingertips along the surface of the dresser and over to the desk that was covered in maps, pieces of paper with writing on it and letters, one of which that caught my eye.

It was a folded white envelope that had a red unbroken seal with a rose sigil on it. There was something about the rose that looked so familiar like I had seen it somewhere before.

An image of Mary, sat behind a desk and melting red wax in the middle of the night came to mind. She was beautiful, her hair done up in delicate curls, her lips painted a brilliant red.

I blinked and was back in the Captain’s quarters, my eyes staring down at the envelopes. My hand moved on its own to take the letter, turning it over in my palm to find myself growing stiff. The name ‘Caleb’ was written across it in black cursive writing, my hand writing. I felt myself growing numb with the thought.

How could someone be so similar as to possibly be an exact copy of someone else?

“Read it to me” my head shot up, my body turning in the direction of the husky and deep voice to find that Caleb was sitting on the edge of the bed, running a hand over his face, watching me.

Did I wake him?

My hand tightened around the envelope when I realized that it was still sealed because he didn’t know how to read, he had spent years not knowing what she had written for him, what she had wanted to say before she died.

I looked to the letter, contemplating whether I wanted to know what stood beyond the white paper, contemplating whether it would cause the visions to intensify, the emotions to surge. My eyes flickered over to the letter opener that lay on the desk. I had to know why we were so similar, why she was haunting me, why I could feel her emotions as if they were my own.

My hand moved to pick it up, slowly, tentatively like the cool metal was going to burn my skin. The light from the candles reflected off its surface when I tore through the seal, expecting to see her but there was nothing. After my pause I set the opener back down and reached into the envelope. There was a folded piece of paper, a flattened, dry, red rose and a piece of golden hair that had been cut off and tied at the ends with thread.

I held the hair in my palm, the strands so soft and alive as if they were still attached to the back of her head.

Caleb sat observing, his muscles tense when I set the rose and hair aside to unfold the letter. I was trembling, I realized when I noticed that the paper was shaking along with my unsteady hands. My gaze scanned the words, my mouth growing dry when I parted my lips to run my tongue along them. I took a deep breath in.

“Caleb-.” I began, my voice barely there. The opening line made my heart start to ache in my chest “Please forgive me-.” my mind went back to when he had held me, sobbing, asking for Mary to forgive him but there she was, asking the same of him “I did not have the heart to tell you myself-.’ I could feel the sadness weighing down on me, Mary’s growing pain, her grief and regret filling my body and mind.

“I could not stand to see your face, forgive me, I had no choice” her repetition made me stop to take a deep breath in, my hands starting to shake even more violently, so much so that Caleb noticed, his eyes locking onto my trembling body “My father saw us, they know about us” a sense of fear came over me, a great anxiety that left me feeling small and helpless “Tonight we will meet and go out onto the sea like we normally would-.” I knew she was talking about the night she drowned, talking about their secret meeting, their trip out onto the ocean where she jumped from the side of the ship never to return to the surface again.

“I will hold you, kiss you, taste you-.” my breathing became short, my eyes growing foggy as I continued to read her words, her emotions out into the air between us “But it will all be for the last…time” my voice broke, in between ‘last’ and the word ‘time’

I couldn’t control what was happening to me, couldn’t control my actions or feelings “A life without you is not a life worth living-.” my eyes flickered up to where he was sitting, a look of sadness and grief in his gaze as he stared down at the floor, emotionless and quiet.

“You to me are like the sea-.” I gasped for breath, my body leaning back against the desk when my legs felt like they were going to give in beneath me “Wonderfully beautiful, dangerous, filled with mystery”

I sobbed when I read the next sentence, my hand shooting up to cover my lips with a trembling hand, a tear running down the side of my face. “A-And my love for you is far greater than its depths, its lengths” I picked up when I managed to calm down a bit. Caleb was looking at me again, his gaze intense, eyebrows furrowed up and hands clasped together while his elbows lay propped up on his parted knees.

“Tonight I will take my own life because without you in it, I am just a rose trapped in a glass box” my eyes glanced down at the seal, the rose on the desk beside me. She had been locked away behind stone walls for most of her life and all she ever wanted was to go beyond them, Caleb had taken her there, shown her what living truly was like and she didn’t want to go back to what her life was like before she had met the monster of a pirate Captain.

“I hope you can forgive me” she said once more, her voice coming through me, projected through my body as if speaking to Caleb herself. I looked up at him, my hands no longer able to hold onto the piece of paper. It fell to the floor by my bare feet.

“Yours always, Mary Sillvan” I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore, my eyes closing as I wept, the knowledge that Mary did not jump into the sea because of her need or love for it, but that she had sacrificed herself to it because if she couldn’t be with Caleb like her heart wanted her too, she didn’t want to go on living. As a noblewoman, her father would’ve tried to hunt Caleb down, tried to kill him for wanting to be with her but instead by taking her own life she was allowing him to live free of the burden of being hunted.

I slid down the leg of the desk until I was sat on the floor with my knees pressed up against my chest. My hands clutched my mouth, my body convulsing with each sob.

She was such a noble, brave, caring woman, a woman that I could only dream to be.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter when the sound of feet nearing me reached my ears.

I could never compare to her beauty, to her grace, to her heart. Caleb knelt in front of me, his hand moving to rest on one of my knees to help steady himself. My eyes opened to find him staring at me with a blank expression.

My need to be close to him, to touch him grew more urgent the longer I stared at him until I finally threw myself into him, my arms winding themselves around his neck as I hid my face in his shoulder. He tensed but after a few moments wrapped his own arms around my waist, holding me close as I cried, one hand moving to hold the back of my head.

I could feel him there with me, I could sense him and the thought of him being there, of not having been torn away from him like the letter suggested seemed to calm me down.

I gasped for breath, my pants growing calmer, taking time to slow. A sudden exhaustion came over me when I was done and I fell into him, curling up against his chest, my hand moving to grip his like I was a little girl, afraid that if I let go, he would disappear. He cradled me, moving to lean back against the dresser when he pulled me into his lap.

I could smell the scent of alcohol, salt, leather and sweat coming from him, mixing together. To me it was so familiar, so comforting.

In that moment, there wound in his arms, I felt safe, protected from the harsh world around me.

I couldn’t remember who Ben or Nolan or Rebecca was, all I could remember was him, was Caleb. He was all that mattered, all that I could think of and despite not knowing where my emotions began and Mary’s ended, I felt happy, relaxed when I gave into those emotions, allowing myself to start to fall.

I stepped from the edge of that giant cliff without hesitation. It was then that I started to fall for him, that I began to fall in love with the pirate Captain, Caleb Campbell without really realizing it myself.