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Tangled Threads - A Story of Pirates	By : KiwiGirl Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 4819 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twelve - Ties that bind

She sat, cross legged in the crows nest, as alone as one could be on a ship
carrying almost a hundred pirates. She was one of the few on board that
actually liked the duty, it could be dangerous climbing up here in rough
weather and most tried to avoid it. It was the solitude that Bella liked. The
being able to think and watch, just that much removed from what was happening
on the decks below. In the past few years Bella had spent many hours on her own
and while she enjoyed the bustle and camaraderie, at times she found so many
people in the one place stifling. It was good to escape up here to the clean
air and relative quiet.

Petit Goave was more than half a day behind them, Jack would not be catching
them now, even if Turner had told him that she was in Petit Goave it would take
him some time to find that she was on board the Silver Gull and her brother
would have no way of knowing where they were heading. There was that compass of
course � but Bella did not think that she was the thing that Jack wanted most.
She didn�t think she could say what Jack wanted most, she pondered on that for
a few minutes then shook her head trying to clear her thoughts.

Nothing seemed right anymore, each time Jack came home to Tortuga the gap between
them seemed to get larger. It had never been like this before. Bella closed her
eyes and lost herself in memories. Her first recollections as a child were all
of Jack, him picking her up when she fell and tickling her until she stopped
crying, or sitting with bended head listening as she babbled about her day. He
had always walked just a little slower so that his baby sister could run to
catch him on chubby legs. But the memories that she treasured most were the
ones where she had snuggled up to him and he had told her stories. Grand tales
filled with good and evil, magic and adventure.

She unwrapped the bread and cheese that the cook had given her that morning,
she was hungry and she savored the chewy crust and the sharp tang of the
cheese. The mould she had trimmed off with her belt knife she threw to the
gulls that flew behind them. Always hopeful of an easy meal they grabbed the
furry morsels out of the air, squawking their pleasure as they tumbled through
the air. She smiled as she watched them, they were creatures without
compassion, survival the thing that drove them, but they were free.

She looked out over the empty ocean before leaning back against the rough
planks, losing herself in memories again. She felt that same sharp pang of sadness
that always accompanied the recollections of what she had been told when she
was old enough to understand. That she was adopted. Pulled from the sea, it was
a small boat drifting, on board her and a woman who had died hours after
rescue. Captain Sparrow had promised to look after her daughter, but she had
shaken her head, the child was not hers. Bella had been wearing a heavy gold
locket looped around her neck; a woman�s locket with a small picture that she
thought must be that of her mother. She liked to think she looked a little like
the pretty woman with the curling hair and blue eyes, often when she sat up in
the crows nest alone she opened that locket just to stare at the small portrait
within. She had it in her hands now, her fingers tracing the patterns in the
gold, her hands drawn to it, she rubbed a thumb across the engraving on the
back before tucking it under her shirt, close to her skin.

The Captain had taken the child back to Tortuga first to wait for the word that
a babe was missing at sea, and when that did not come, to raise the child as
his own, he had always known that his wife yearned for another child, it seemed
like fate had placed Bella in his hands.

Jack had been brother, hero and best friend, a swaggering boy already known for
his cleverness and charm he had fallen in love with the raven haired child who
had followed him everywhere. When the other children had teased her about not
having any real parents he had picked her up, dried her tears and woven long
tales in which Bella was a princess, a pirate queen, a mermaids daughter given
legs and lungs with which to breathe air. He had made Bella feel special and
for that she loved him even more.

And as she had grown he had taught her to fight with fists and sword knowing
that she would need these skills in Tortuga. She had also
learnt to sail and had just assumed that one day she would sail on the Black
Pearl. But once Jack had finished with his learning he had gone to sea more and
more. And then there was the day that they had got the terrible news, a mutiny
on the Black Pearl

Months had passed and they had begun to reconcile themselves to the fact that
he was never to return when in the wee hours of the morning there had been a
furtive knock at the door. It was Jack, back from the dead but there was little
time for rejoicing. He had done the unimaginable, stolen a ship out from under
the noses of the Royal Navy and now was going after Barbossa and the Black
Pearl. However, before he had set sail with his motley band of thieves he had
moved his mother and Bella to the house on the hill, he had never really
explained why, least ways not to Bella. The two women had lived in complete
isolation waiting for son and brother to return.

In triumph he did. With the Pearl and a story of curses
and treasure and a great love, a true story that rivaled any of his conjured
tales. They had not moved back down the hill though. Jack�s Mama had been of
the opinion that the time marooned on that island had addled his brain some but
she was an old lady now, too tired to argue so they stayed in the house.

Jack had changed, no longer did he want Bella to sail and frowned on her
talking to other folk in Tortuga, and he had never explained why, and no longer
did he talk about who she might have been but shushed her if she ever spoke of
her past. The more he didn�t wish to talk of it the more Bella needed to know,
the child had been easily diverted but the adult knew that Jack was once more
keeping secrets and she was determined to know the truth. So she had decided to
find it herself, it had all seemed so simple, she would take work on one of the
other pirate vessels and in her travels find out who she was. But she had
sailed backwards and forwards between Tortuga and a number of
ports and no one seemed to care to even think about any of her cautious
questions. Her small pile of gold and jewels was growing but the thing that she
really sought remained elusive.

There were shouts below and the sound of running feet on the wooden deck,
jolted back to the present she quickly scanned the horizon, she had been so
caught up in her own thoughts that a flotilla could have crept up on them and
she would not have noticed. There were no sails, nothing, and she felt a surge
of relief as she leaned over to see what was happening, a pod of dolphins were
racing alongside the ship leaping and dancing over the water and the crew
crowded the rail to watch them. The dolphins had long been a friend of the
sailor known to rescue drowning men they were always a welcome sight. She watched
for a while waving acknowledgement when Tess called up to her. All too soon the
graceful creatures spun away and the crew returned to work and Bella to her own
thoughts.

And then their mother had died and, things had shifted again, before her passing
their Mama had talked for a long time with Jack and Bella, she had made Jack
promise to look after Bella to keep her safe, as if she knew something that
they did not. Then she had sent Bella from the room asking her to get a cold
drink for her. Jack�s face had been very serious when Bella had come back and
his eyes had lingered long on her face the next time that he had sailed. But he
had still gone and left her alone in that big house, these days he was gone
sailing more than he was ever home and Bella felt very alone, as if the things
that had rooted her were now gone and she was just drifting.

She was scared of what the future held for her, in Tortuga there were not many
options for women, pirate, pirate�s wife, whore. There were a few women shopkeepers
but Bella had no skills that they would find useful, and she did not want
marriage, she did not really believe in love. She had read books that talked of
love but the only thing that she had seen in Tortuga that resembled that
was Sam and Maggie. From what she saw of those that worked around her what they
called love always involved a transaction of some sorts, either money if you
were a whore or freedom if you were not.

She had kissed and been kissed and engaged in some half hearted fumbling encounters
in dark corners of the ships that she had sailed on but each encounter had been
more revolting than exciting and now she kept an invisible barrier around
herself. Cold and hard guaranteed to encourage any amorous pirate to try
somewhere else. Unless it was to dance, that was something that she loved, but
there it ended, and when they tugged at her arm wanting to go somewhere more
private the cold shell snapped around her and she fingered the knife at her
belt. Tess teased her, telling her she had a lot of catching up to do, that she
had been living like a nun locked in that old house. But no man ever measured
up to Jack, and every man she met she compared with her brother and they all
paled into insignificance along side his flamboyant presence.

She stood up stretching tall, raising her arms above her head so that she could
feel the wind on her face. This was the only time that she felt alive, when she
was on the ocean, if she couldn�t sail she didn�t know what else there was.
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Tangled Threads - A Story of Pirates