Seventeen

Tobias

At this point Tobias would have been happy to never set foot in the ocean again. He was cold and wet and, frankly, disappointed. They hadn't found his pa's treasure. They had risked their lives for a diamond necklace and a handful of gold coins. (Jack had dropped the candelabras in their mad rush to get away from Mary's sister.) Tobias had no idea how they were going to win the Pirate King contest now.

But they'd survived. He supposed that was the important bit. And Mary was currently holding his hand.

Jack stood up triumphantly. "I'm dry!" he exclaimed. "Check out these legs!"

Tobias was the first to turn around, and then quickly finished the circle to face away. "Sit down, Jack. You're not wearing any pants. Again."

Jack sat down. "Sorry. I can't seem to help it."

"Go back into the water," Mary directed him. "Swim to the Ranger and tell them where to pick us up—"

"And explain myself how, exactly?" Jack asked. "Plus, I still won't be wearing pants."

"Hmm. Well, there's a fire over there." Mary gazed down the beach to where they'd seen smoke rising earlier. It was still there, a curl of black against the azure sky. "Which means there's a person. Perhaps they can assist us."

"Or rob us," Tobias said, eyeing the huge diamond necklace still around Mary's neck. He shivered, remembering how his fingers had brushed the tender skin at the back of her neck when he'd put it on her. (Or maybe he was just shivering because he was really cold.)

Mary tilted her head to one side to smirk at him. "We're pirates, remember? We're the ones who rob."

"It could be a traveling towel salesman," Jack said hopefully, even though traveling towel salesmen didn't exist. "You never know."

"All right, Mary and I will go," Tobias said. "Jack, you stay here. If there's a decent person over there, they don't need to be exposed to your un-pantsed state. Mary, you should hide that rock."

Mary took off the necklace and stuffed it into her pocket. The two of them headed toward the smoke. Sand squished under their feet. Palm trees whispered. Waves crashed against the shore.

"I'm sorry," Mary said after a moment.

"What for?" Tobias said.

"Well, there's getting to be quite a list of things I should apologize for," she admitted. "But just now I was talking about bringing you to the grotto. I didn't think my sister would be there."

"Family is complicated," he said. "Mine isn't exactly normal, either."

She chuckled. "Yes, I know."

Then Tobias stopped walking because the campfire had come into view. Sitting at the fire was a large brown man staring into the flames with a pensive expression. "I don't believe it," Tobias breathed. "I don't believe it!"

"Tobias?" Mary asked.

But Tobias was already running toward the fire, shouting, "Caesar!"

Caesar looked up, a smile growing on his face. "Toby!"

Tobias threw his arms around the man. He was nearly in tears, he was so relieved to see Caesar, the one person who'd always been there, looking out for him, for nearly as far back as Tobias could remember. "You're alive!" Tobias gasped. "I thought you'd gone down with the Revenge !"

Caesar shook his head. "Barnet didn't get me. I doubt he knows, but if he does, I hope it keeps him up at night." He laughed and pulled away from Tobias, clasping him behind the neck for a moment, before patting his shoulder and turning to Mary, who was walking up behind them. "And who is this?"

"Oh. Allow me to introduce Mary Read," Tobias said a bit haltingly. "She's the captain of the Ranger . My... captain."

Caesar glanced at Mary in obvious surprise, then back at Tobias. "I see. What happened to Vane?"

"He got beat by a girl," Mary said.

That earned a short laugh from Caesar. "I think I like this one," he said.

Wonderful. Tobias cleared his throat. "Mary, I'd like you to meet Caesar, my father's second-in-command." There was so much more that he wanted to tell her about Caesar. About how the man had once been a tribal war chieftain who'd been taken from his home in western Africa and fought his way to freedom. How he'd spent years captaining his own ship, targeting and freeing slave ships. About how, in some ways, he'd been more of a father figure to Tobias than Blackbeard had been; the one who'd taken an interest in Tobias as a person, not just an heir. It had been Caesar who'd taught Tobias how to be a man.

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," Mary said, and Tobias felt a wave of emotion rise in his chest, that these two people who were so important in his life were now able to meet.

"How'd you get away from Barnet?" he asked. "What happened?"

"No stories until you've dried off and warmed up," said Caesar. "You're both soaked through."

Mary moved to sit on the large piece of beach wood near the fire that Caesar had been using as a makeshift bench. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then abruptly opened them again. "Wait—I almost forgot Jack. We have another companion down the beach."

Caesar motioned toward a large chest near the fire. "Take whatever you need."

Tobias threw back the lid. The chest was full of clothing and supplies. Blackbeard's clothing and supplies, he realized immediately. He removed a velvet bathrobe that he'd often seen his pa wear, deep burgundy and trimmed with silver threads. "Think Jack will like this?" he asked.

Mary laughed. "He'll love it."

Tobias tossed it to her, along with a large black coat. "One for you, too. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like a private word with Caesar."

"Of course." Mary slipped the jacket over her damp clothes, then carried the other away.

"I'm glad to see you." Tobias pulled a deep blue dinner jacket from the trunk and took his own place by the fire.

Caesar smiled. "I'm glad as well, my boy. But I will say I'm surprised to find you so far out this way. How came you to be here?"

"It's a long story," he admitted. "After word came that Captain Blackbeard had died, the AARP—"

"Ah," said Caesar. "The Admirable Association of Retired Pirates. I thought that a silly name, but I can appreciate the notion."

Tobias frowned. "You know about the AARP?"

"Aye. It was technically Blackbeard's idea."

Tobias thought for a minute. "So the meeting, the one he set up with all the pirate captains at the Scurvy Dog, that was—"

"To announce his retirement and the formation of the AARP," Caesar said. "And set up the promotion of his successor."

"His successor..."

Caesar nodded. "He had some cockamamie notion of a contest to determine the next Pirate King."

Oh. So his father hadn't planned to announce Tobias as his successor. Tobias didn't know whether to be relieved or ashamed. "The contest being whoever could come up with the most treasure?" he assumed.

Caesar nodded. "Which would be you, naturally, seeing as you're the one he gave his treasure to."

Ohhh. And we were back to his father wanting him to follow in his footsteps. Trust Blackbeard to rig the game. The rules had said that cheating was allowed.

"Yeah, about that," Tobias said, and very quickly gave Caesar a rundown of the past couple weeks. By the time he finished his story—leaving out the mermaid bits, as that wasn't Tobias's secret to tell—Caesar was frowning.

"Wait. You're not competing to become the Pirate King yourself?" Caesar asked.

"No. I'm with Mary." Tobias jerked his head back in the direction Mary had gone. "She wants to be the king."

"And you're helping her out of the sheer goodness of your heart?" Caesar said, an edge to his voice.

Tobias didn't know how to answer that. "I... She's my..."

Caesar sighed. "So it's like that between you, is it? She's the one for you? And you for her?"

"I don't know if she'll let me be the one for her," Tobias admitted, ignoring the barb behind Caesar's words. "Things are changing between us. Right now we're focused on the hunt for Pa's treasure. But I went to Plum Point, and it was all gone. Every bit of it. So maybe he didn't intend for me to be king. Maybe he'd decided I wasn't his favorite son, after all. We didn't part on good terms, last I saw him."

Caesar looked troubled. "He wasn't well, last you saw him. That was just before he laid siege to Charles Town. He was behaving very strangely."

Tobias swallowed hard. "Why on earth would he besiege Charles Town?"

"He was trying to get medicine for the malady that plagued him," Caesar replied. "But all he got for his trouble was a pirate hunter on his tail, and a swift and bloody death."

"It was... violent?" Tobias asked softly.

Caesar nodded. "Aye. But he wouldn't have gone out any other way. And when it came to his legacy, he never wavered. He wanted everything to be yours. He meant you to become the Pirate King. But if you want to, you can take the treasure and never have to be a pirate again. You can build whatever kind of life for yourself you want." Caesar's jaw tightened, and he gazed off, clearly frustrated. "But instead you want to give it away to a woman you fancy."

"More than fancy," Tobias protested. "A woman I—"

He still could not quite produce the word out loud.

Love.

He was about to attempt to explain the depth of his feelings to Caesar, but now the others were coming back, both wrapped in their borrowed clothes. Tobias threw a pair of pants at Jack, who faced away and slipped them on.

"Will you tell us the story of what really happened to Blackbeard?" Mary asked as they sat at the fire, warming themselves. Caesar could never resist telling a story, so he told them of how Barnet had caught Blackbeard by surprise here in the shallow water off Ocracoke, sailing in with two sloops and his men disguised as pirates themselves.

"Blackbeard was suspicious from the first, though," Caesar said. "He called out, ‘If you shall let us alone, we shall not meddle with you.' But then Barnet called back, ‘It is you we want, and we will have you dead or alive!' and the fight was on. Brutal, it was, as tough a fight as I've ever been in. And when it was clear that we would lose, Blackbeard saved my life. He sacrificed himself so I could escape. I still hardly made it out of there. I jumped in the water just as I saw him fall. I washed up here sometime later, along with that." He gestured to the trunk.

"He saved you," Mary asked, and it made sense why she was confused, because that didn't exactly sound like the Blackbeard everyone knew and feared. "Why?"

Caesar met Tobias's eyes. "Because he wanted me to find you."

Jack frowned. "So were you just going to stay here, hoping we showed up?"

"It didn't have to be you," Caesar said, "but I knew eventually I'd see familiar sails on the horizon." He was quiet a moment. "Anyway, it gave me time to think." He cleared his throat and stood. "So that's my gruesome tale, and I am glad to be alive to tell it. But enough of Blackbeard's death. I hear it's his treasure you seek."

"Did he have it with him?" Mary asked Caesar urgently. "We searched Plum Point and the Queen Anne's Revenge , and it wasn't there."

Caesar cocked his head, troubled. "You searched the Revenge ? How did you manage that?"

"That's another long story that we probably shouldn't go into," Tobias said.

"The captain didn't have the treasure with him," Caesar said after a pause, like he'd just decided something. "He relocated it to Booty Island months ago. Everything is there. Every last coin."

"Booty Island? That sounds made up," Mary said doubtfully.

"He never took me there," Tobias said. "I didn't even think it was a real place. I thought he was just... mad."

"It's real enough," Caesar murmured.

"Where is this island?" Mary asked.

"He left a map for you." Caesar reached into an inner pocket of his coat and drew out an oilskin envelope, which he handed to Tobias. Inside was a folded sheet of parchment. Tobias smoothed it out on top of the trunk and gazed down at it.

Mary peered over his shoulder. "It looks like a regular map to me. Except these bits around the edge." She pointed at the border. "I can't make heads or tails of what that's supposed to be."

"It's in a code," Caesar said.

"Oh." Mary sat back. "Can either of you read it?"

Tobias scanned the markings, the lines, and the numbers. "I can."

The next morning, the four of them walked up the beach until they could see the Ranger and Mary's other two ships in the distance. They set a signal fire, and a short while later, a rowboat came rowing in to take them back to the Ranger .

Tobias was half expecting Anne Bonny to confront Jack again the moment they set foot on board. But she remained aloft in the rigging, discernible only by the flash of her red hair under the sun. Tobias couldn't tell if this was a good or a bad thing. He felt for Jack, who kept looking up again and again. Relationships were hard.

"Impressive fleet you have here," Caesar told Mary as they traversed the Ranger 's deck.

"Thank you," she said. "I'd be honored if you'd take charge of one of the ships. The Jester doesn't have a proper captain yet, just an actor pretending to be a captain. The men could benefit from having someone with your experience."

"I'll think about it. For now, let's get after that treasure."

Soon the whole fleet was heading south again—toward the Caribbean—and Tobias, Mary, Caesar, and Jack all squeezed into the captain's cabin and spread Blackbeard's map onto the table.

Tobias traced his finger along the row of symbols that bordered the map. "It reads, ‘ Get kicked by the boot at midnight and call my name .'"

"How do you know that?" Jack asked, peering down at the map, befuddled. "I don't see anything about footwear."

Tobias grinned. "Navigator magic. They don't call me the Artist for nothing, you know."

Mary rolled her eyes, but with a smile. "All right, so we're looking for a boot."

"Is it an actual boot we need to find?" Jack asked. "Finding the boot we need in a world full of people wearing boots is going to be a challenge."

"It's got to be a landmass," Mary reasoned. "Somewhere we must go to call Blackbeard's name. And the part about getting kicked must tell us where, exactly, on that landmass to be at midnight."

"There's Nassau. And here's Port Royal. And here"—Tobias's finger touched a tiny island that was hardly visible between them—"is the little boot."

They all crowded around the map to squint at the spot he'd showed them.

"I don't think that looks like a boot at all," Jack said.

"Yes, more like a slipper," Mary said.

"Just go with it," Tobias said. "Let's call it a boot."

"So that's Booty Island?" Jack asked hopefully.

"No, that's the island that you have to stand on, at midnight, to say Blackbeard's name and be shown the location of the real Booty Island."

"That doesn't make sense," Mary said. "So we go to the island and say the thing at midnight and then something magical will happen? That seems unrealistic. Was Blackbeard magic, then?"

"I don't think so," Tobias said. "It's more likely that it's just another puzzle to figure out, like the keyhole at the Kettle. Pa was clever, but not, as far as I know, magic."

"Not as far as I know," Caesar agreed. "But he did have a way about him. He could be spooky."

That was true. It had helped his reputation that people weren't sure what he could do, exactly. And that he did unusual (and unwise) things, like putting fireworks in his beard. And he'd been awfully obsessed with mermaids. It seemed possible that Blackbeard had known magic existed , even if he wasn't magic himself.

"That island is awfully close to Port Royal," Mary noted. "It'll be risky to sail anywhere near Barnet again. He'll be watching out for us."

"You could always change your mind about the contest," Caesar said. "You could wait. The treasure will be there whenever you feel that it's safe to fetch it. I hear Aruba's nice this time of year."

Tobias had a feeling Caesar was speaking more to him now than to Mary.

"Definitely not. There's too much at stake." Mary jabbed her finger at the island. "We're going there now. We're getting the treasure. And we're winning this contest. No matter what it takes."

"She won't even speak to me," Jack said wistfully a few days later as the three of them—Mary, Jack, and Tobias—settled into the rowboat (which was starting to feel familiar). The Jester and the William were stashed away in a cove off another island, well out of sight from Port Royal, so it was only the Ranger now, just off the tip of the boot island, where you'd have to be in order to be properly kicked. "What do you think that means? Is she angry? Hurt? Simply too occupied in her new position as lookout to have time for me? Yearning for me, as I am her? Plotting my demise?"

Mary heaved a weary sigh, and Tobias knew the feeling. Jack had been like this for days, asking a string of questions that none of them could answer about the possible state of mind of Anne Bonny. Still, he felt for the guy.

"Give her some space," Tobias suggested. "She'll find you when she's ready to talk."

"To break things off with me," Jack said grimly.

"At least then you won't have to worry about coming up with a thousand pieces of eight," Mary said. "Now row!"

Jack rowed the boat for a few moments in silence. Then:

"If only she'd talk to me, I feel certain that I could mend things between us. I could try to make her understand the depth of my feelings. How I love her. How I'm devoted to her, and her alone. How me being half Mer won't be an impediment to our relationship... unless we happen to get caught in the rain, I suppose... but it could be an advantage, too."

"You're a good man, Jack," said Tobias to bolster him. "Mer or otherwise. Anne would be a fool not to see that. She'll come around."

Jack beamed. "You think so?"

"I do," Tobias said, then mumbled, "Of course, I'm no expert on the ways of the heart, myself."

"You're doing all right," Mary said quietly.

Tobias looked up, startled. The corner of her mouth was turned in a tiny smile. He found himself smiling back. "Really?"

"I think we're here," said Jack.

They'd come upon a rickety old dock, where they secured the dinghy.

"This way," Tobias said. He'd figured that the very tippiest tip of this island was the edge of a craggy cliff, which jutted out above the water about fifty yards down the shoreline. And sure enough, when they approached the cliff, he spotted a series of steps carved into the side, which allowed them to quickly climb to the top.

For a minute they all just stood there, looking out.

"I think I can see Port Royal from here," Jack said, squinting. "Ah, good times. It feels like a lifetime ago, when I first crawled out of the ocean there and became a man."

(Reader, it was roughly six months ago.)

"We should do this and get out of here," Mary said.

"BLACKBEARD!" Jack yelled.

Nothing happened.

"It's not midnight," Tobias pointed out. "We'll have to wait."

They passed the time by playing some cards and drinking some rum and singing YO HO, YO HO, A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME a bunch of times. Then they fell asleep, because it turns out that rum makes you sleepy. The next thing Tobias knew, Jack was yelling, "Get up! It's almost midnight!" Tobias checked his pocket watch and gasped. "One minute to midnight!"

"Mine says two minutes!" Mary said, peering at her own watch.

"The moon would suggest more like five minutes," Jack said.

"Darn but we need a standard unit of time," Tobias cried.

They all stood on the very edge of the boot (on the cliff) and yelled, "BLACKBEAAARD!" into the moon-glimmered waves.

But nothing happened that Tobias could see. The moon kept glimmering the waves. No magical island appeared.

They tried some variations: "Captain Blackbeard!"

"The Pirate King!"

"Pa!" Tobias exclaimed for good measure.

Still nothing.

But then they did notice something. But it wasn't a magical island full of treasure.

It was the Ranger , anchored just where they'd left it.

But it was not alone. There was another ship alongside it.

Mary put the spyglass to her eye. "Oh no. It's the Conspicuous !"

Tobias's heart skipped.

This was not a good time for Vane to show up.

(Actually, dear reader, there was never a good time for Vane to show up. That guy was an ass.)

"We've got to get back to the Ranger !" Mary cried, and started running down the cliff stairs and then straight for the dinghy. Tobias and Jack followed, and a moment later, they were pushing off.

"Bonn's on that ship," Jack said. "Row faster! I thought you were this legendary pirate!"

Somehow, even though the boat was small and slow, it reached the ship quickly.

"Haul us up!" Jack cried as he secured the dinghy to the Ranger .

Some of the men began to run for the pulley that would hoist the anchor. In moments, Jack, Mary, and Tobias all tumbled out onto the deck.

"What a strange catch we have today," came a raspy voice. They looked up to find Charles Vane smiling down at them. "Oh good," he drawled. "You're just in time for the vote."