Twenty-One

Jack

As you're no doubt aware, dear reader, Jack considered himself to be an optimistic person, able—even in the most seemingly dire of circumstances—to see the good in any given situation. (When life gave him bananas, he could definitely make banana cream pie.) But at this moment, Jack was curled up in a miserable ball on the cold, dank floor of Fort Charles's coldest, dankest prison cell, and all he could think was some variation of poor me, poor me, poor me .

He was going to (gulp) die.

The humans were going to kill him, which felt like such a betrayal. He'd defended them when some of those in Underwhere said humans were a terrible, bloodthirsty species that would hopefully destroy themselves before they ended up wrecking the planet. Oh no, he'd said, humans were brilliant. Look at their inventions, he'd said. Look at their art, their writing, their appreciation of beauty. He'd never imagined that one day he'd be locked up, waiting for men to come and lead him to one of humanity's less fun inventions: the gallows.

Jack curled up even more tightly, shivering, the shackles around his wrists and ankles biting into his flesh. He didn't know what time it was, but the judge had said they'd hang at sunset, and Jack sensed that the sun was getting awfully low. Any time now, and they'd come for him. And then he'd (gulp) die.

It felt so impossible, at his mere seventeen years of age, to be faced with his own untimely demise. Mers, if you'll recall, live to be approximately three hundred years old. What did it mean for his life expectancy, he had often wondered in the time since he'd come Above, to be half human? Would he still get three hundred years or only one hundred? But now he was never going to find out.

He was never going to find Ted and solve the mystery of his parentage.

He was never going to see Tobias again.

Or Mary.

Or his mom. What must she be thinking now that he hadn't checked in on his shell phone?

Sniff. His shell phone.

And (gulp) he was never going to get to hold Bonn's freckled face in his hands and kiss her salty, chapped lips one last time. She'd been taken somewhere—he'd heard the guards move her, they'd said something about her father—and he thought maybe she'd get out of this somehow. He hoped she'd get away from here, disappear and live out her life in some safe obscurity. Never look back. He wanted that for her. But he was also devastated by the idea that he'd never hear her sweet brogue again.

He reached up to swipe the wetness from his face. Such a bizarre thing, crying. Perhaps if he cried enough tears, he could make a puddle large enough to wet himself. (He'd tried the number one way to wet yourself earlier, but he was just so darned dehydrated from the copious blood loss that even that didn't work.) He wanted to revert to his Mer form, not to escape, since Mer Jack would have been even less capable of getting out of this cell than human Jack was, but on the off chance that if he changed, the transformation might fix the hole in his leg .

Yep, he still had a musket ball in there, and it still really hurt. His thigh had become swollen and hot to the touch. Infected, probably.

It might be better to quickly die now, he reasoned, than to die slowly and painfully of blood poisoning later.

See now? Hanging would be better. Perhaps Jack had found a silver lining here, after all.

Heavy boots sounded in the hallway. They were coming.

Jack scrambled back against the wall farthest from the door. Nope, no silver lining here. Dying still sucked, hanging or otherwise.

The door opened and three burly guards shuffled in. The one in front grinned at him, which was rude, considering the circumstances. It wasn't polite to enjoy the misery of others.

"Time's up, Calico Jack," the guard said.

Oh, good. The name had finally caught on.

"Careful now, I'm injured!" Jack protested as they hauled him painfully to his feet. But they only laughed and goaded him.

"That leg won't be troubling you for long, lad," said the rude guard, and they dragged him from his cell and toward the bright door at the end of the hall.

Jack really, really, didn't want to go into the light.

"No! No!" he cried, dragging his feet, reaching out with both hands, trying in vain to grab hold of something—anything—that he could use to stop himself from exiting this world. "I don't want to die yet! I'm not ready! No! NOOOOOOO!"

His fingers caught in the bars of another cell, and he clung to them for dear life. The guards shouted their displeasure and began to hit him: first a fist to the stomach that brought him wheezing to his knees, then a hard, fast blow to his leg, which hurt so much he saw starfishes. But he did not let go.

"Get up, you dog!" yelled the rude guard next to his ear, and Jack closed his eyes against the brutal noise of it, but he did not let go.

Then a hand closed around his on the bars.

"Get up, Jack," said Mary softly.

His eyes opened and he gazed through the bars at his cousin. There was despair in her expression, an undercurrent of fear, but there was also determination. Fury. Salt. Mary had salt. And she was trying to impart some of hers to him.

"Littlest," he whispered. "I am sorry."

She shook her head. "I'm the one who should apologize. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for me."

"You're right," he agreed. "Thank you for owning up to that."

"GET UP!" bellowed the guard, and hit Jack again, but Jack held Mary's gaze.

"Have courage, cousin," she said, a shimmer of tears in her eyes. "I'll be right behind you."

Courage. Yes. If she could be so brave, he could, too.

He struggled to his feet, bracing against the terrible pain in his leg, and stepped back slowly, releasing the bars.

"Goodbye, Mary." He struggled to keep his voice even. "You're the best pirate I ever saw."

"Goodbye, Jack," she replied, squeezing his hand. "You're the worst pirate I ever saw, but that's to your credit, I think. You give them one hell of a splash."

Ha! A splash! He could almost laugh at that, imagining it as he walked between the guards toward the light. Perhaps he should ask them to put up a sign. Warning: Splash Zone! it would read. Any onlookers standing in the first three rows will get wet.

But he stopped laughing when the guards marched him out of the jail and into the square, where a small crowd was gathered, and at the sight of him, they immediately began to jeer.

"You're about to feed the fish now, boy!" one man shouted.

"You bilge-sucking, scurvy dog!" a woman cried.

"That's not fair. I like dogs," he gasped. Dogs had been one of his favorite things about being human. Gawl, there were so many things about being human he'd loved.

Someone hurled a head of rotten cabbage at him, which struck Jack full on the chest with such force that he stumbled and the guards had to drag him to his feet again. Then they were pushing him up the steps and onto a tall platform fitted with a noose, a trapdoor, and a lever.

The gallows.

The hangman—a large fellow wearing a hood over his face—put the noose around Jack's neck. Jonathan Barnet came forward and read some things off a piece of paper, but Jack couldn't make sense of the words. His heart was a riotous clamor in his chest, his breath sharp and shuddery, and his hands and legs began to tremble so that he was afraid he'd fall again. He scanned the crowd, unable to keep himself from looking for the flash of Bonn's beautiful red hair. He didn't see her. She hadn't come. Perhaps she was still angry with him. Or perhaps she was far away from here by now.

He swallowed.

It was for the best, that.

Barnet asked him if he had any last words. The crowd fell silent. He felt his terror subside. The sun had just set, and the sky bloomed into a rosy lavender color he'd never seen before. He turned his face up to feel the soft Caribbean breeze against his skin. Breezes were good. Sunsets were good. Somewhere he heard a bird singing, and he looked around until he located it, perched in a gnarled tree just beyond the edge of the fort wall. A little gray bird with a bright yellow head. Its song was beautiful, a run of several sweet notes on one pitch, followed by some at a lower pitch, ending with a single note on the original pitch.

Birdsong. Another one of his favorite things.

"Thank you," he said softly, and then cleared his throat to address the crowd.

"Does anyone know a man named Ted?" This was, he supposed, his last chance to ask.

The crowd murmured among themselves. These were pretty strange last words.

But one man—miraculously—stepped forward. "My name is Ted."

"Oh! Really?" Jack stared down at the fellow in disbelief. The man was tall, with dark hair and eyes! He was a most friendly-looking man, with a large bushy mustache and a big smile. He was holding up a sign that read, BELIEVE .

"You're Ted?" Jack said breathlessly.

"Yep, that's my name," said the man, in the funniest accent Jack had ever heard. He must be from Holland. "Ted Lariat, at your service."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Lariat," said Jack. "And are you now, or have you ever been, a sailor?"

"Nope. I'm a coach."

Jack had no idea what that was.

"And have you ever met a mermaid, sir?" Jack asked.

"Well, that would be real neat," said Mr. Lariat, "but I can't say I've ever had the pleasure."

Jack deflated. This was not his father. "Well, thanks for coming to my Ted talk."

"No problem. Good luck with the hanging, son," Ted replied kindly.

Oh. Right.

"Any other last words?" asked Jonathan Barnet with a sniff.

"Hmm," said Jack. "Let me think."

We'd like to pause for a moment here, dear reader, to address a legend about Calico Jack Rackham. History would report that he was indeed hanged at Port Royal for piracy and then put in a gibbet (the birdcage thing, remember?) at the entrance to the harbor, as a warning to anyone who sailed into the town. His last words, or so the legend goes, were: "Woe to him who finds my many treasures, for no ship can carry them all." To which we, your faithful narrators, say, HUH? That makes no sense at all. Jack never had much in the way of treasure, unless you counted his friends as treasure, and, well, we do.

But why would Jack say this?

Had he decided to mess with the people who had come to see him hanged? Was he going for mystery here? Was he trying to stall, like maybe if people thought he had a great treasure, they'd wait to hang him until after he could tell them where to find it?

Did he say it at all?

We don't know. What we do know is that, whatever it was that he said at that moment, they weren't his last last words.

Because right then, with the hangman's hand on the lever and the rope chafing against Jack's neck, a trumpet sounded on the far side of the square.

Everyone spun around to see what was going on. Then the crowd was confused, because there, having just entered the square, was a man in a bright-red-and-gold jacket, a broad-brimmed hat with a large purple plume, and a sheathed rapier at his hip. He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd.

"TO BE, OR NOT TO BE," he intoned dramatically.

Jack felt an incredulous grin spreading over his face. Because it was Mr. Gregory, the captain of the Jester , come to give Jack one final performance. And because Jack had also noticed that, while everyone else was looking at Captain Gregory, another figure had emerged, riding a horse at full speed toward the gallows.

Bonn.

Her copper curls bounced in the air with each stride of the horse. She'd smeared her face with some kind of blue paint. And, strangely enough, she was carrying a stick of dynamite and a squawking chicken.

"THAT IS THE QUESTION," said Gregory.

"GAWLLLLLLL!" yelled Bonn, and Jack's chest swelled with love and terror at the sight of her. Love because he loved her. Duh. And terror because she was taking such a big risk, all for him.

Everything happened very quickly after that:

Bonn hurled the chicken up into the air, where it fluttered for a moment before launching itself at a nearby spectator, pecking violently at anyone who came too close. "BEGAWK!"

"Wait. I think this is a distraction. They're attempting to free the prisoner!" a man from the crowd said loudly.

"You're right! Release the trapdoor!" shouted Jonathan Barnet. "Kill the pirate!"

The hangman dutifully pulled the lever. Metal clanked. The floor dropped out beneath Jack's feet.

Oh ship.

The rope burned at his throat, but before the noose had a chance to tighten, a blade whistled through the air, and the rope split apart. Jack landed on the packed dirt beneath the gallows with a thunk and a strangled cry—his poor musket-ball-filled leg was jarred by the impact, enough to have him seeing starfish again. Did it hurt? Oh, yes. It was agony. Was it better than being hanged by the neck until dead? Absolutely.

"Get that pirate!" screamed Jonathan Barnet. "Five pieces of eight for the first man to bring him to me!"

Ted Lariat, who was still at the front of the crowd, dropped his sign and blew a whistle. "Be a goldfish, son!" he coached. "Go! Go!"

What a time, Jack thought, to be unable to properly run.

"Get him!" The crowd roared and converged on Jack, and, as he turned to flee, he realized that he still had three significant problems: his hands, which remained shackled; his blasted leg; and the noose still around his neck—now with a convenient tail for anyone to grab.

He reached around, grasping for the end of the rope, at the same time as he ducked and pushed between half a dozen men running toward him.

"Get out of my way, you!" Bonn's voice rose above the frenzy. Hoofbeats thundered toward the gallows, forcing people to flee or be trampled. "Run away! Get out of here! Git!"

The crowd began to run away. Then the horse was right beside Jack. "Come on!" Bonn cried, and Jack limped out from under the gallows. But before he could climb onto the horse, someone grabbed the rope, which sent him sprawling to the dirt again, gagging.

It was Barnet. Who was, strangely, smiling. He jerked on the rope again, tightening it on Jack's neck.

"Rude!" Jack sputtered. He spun and kicked Barnet in the knee (with his good leg), forcing the man to let go of the rope.

"Here. I brought you a present." Bonn reached back into the horse's saddlebag and retrieved a large black item. She tossed it down to Jack, and he caught it between his chained hands.

A frying pan.

He grinned. "How well you know me, my love!" he said jovially, and then clocked Barnet on the back of the head right as the man was getting to his feet, and Barnet went down again, this time for the count. "Perfect!"

"I'll be taking this back." Bonn pried her knife out of the wood where it had stuck after cutting Jack's rope. Then she looked down at Jack. "Well, don't take your time about it," she rasped in her adorable brogue. "Climb up!"

That was going to be difficult, considering the leg, the shackles, his general inexperience with horses, and the frying pan. Jack heaved himself back up onto the platform, ducked the hangman's punch, bopped the rude guard on the head with the frying pan, and then tried to figure out if there was a good way to get on the horse from up here. And the answer was, no, not really.

"Let's go!" Bonn called to him, then brandished her dagger at one of the men trying to get to Jack. "Get back! He's mine!"

"Hold this, will you, darling?" He tossed the frying pan to her, and she jammed it hastily back in the saddlebag. Then, before he lost his nerve, Jack threw himself bodily onto the horse, landing half across Bonn's lap (which, all right, wasn't so bad) and halfway across the pommel of the saddle (which was quite painful where it jabbed at his ribs).

"Gawl, Jack," Bonn said. "Don't you know how to get on a horse?"

"I'm a little tied up now, darling." From Jack's vantage point—which was, unfortunately, right by the horse's front shoulder—he could just see the angry mob closing in on them again. "Um, I don't mean to alarm you, but we seem to be surrounded," he called up.

"I see that! We have to wait for—"

"BEGAWK!" A weight thumped onto Jack's left butt cheek. Talons dug into his skin.

"Is that the chicken?" he inquired.

"Stay down." Bonn's hand pressed on Jack's back as she kicked the horse again, twisted them around—and the mob pressed in more tightly. Above Jack, Bonn heaved a great sigh. "Well, I didn't want to have to do this, but here we go."

"Wait, what?" Jack couldn't see what was happening.

But then he heard a hiss, and very, very quickly, the angry mob started to move back. "Run away!" they shouted. "She's gonna blow!"

There was the sound of screaming, the violent jerk of Bonn throwing something, and then the rush of the wind (and horse's mane) in his face as they took off at full speed. The chicken held on to Jack's trousers (and butt) even more tightly.

All this running was really making his leg throb.

"What's happening?" Jack shouted. But because he was lying half on Bonn's lap and half on the pommel as the horse galloped out of the square, it came out as "Wh-ah-h-ah-t-ts-ts ha-ha-ha-owww-pen-in-ing" followed by a pained groan because the bruise developing on his ribs was really starting to bloom.

"They're getting away!" cried members of the angry mob.

Which was the wrong thing to pay attention to, because at that very moment, a loud BOOM shook the square, the gallows exploded, and screaming crescendoed.

"Gawl, that was more fun than a frog in a cup of milk!" Bonn shouted. Then she urged the horse faster with a "Yah!" and they were careening through the streets of Port Royal at top speed.

They fled for their lives for several more minutes. The horse's mane continued flying into Jack's nose and mouth. And the pommel continued jabbing him in the ribs. The chicken clutched tighter. And not to mention the musket ball in his leg. If this was riding a horse, Jack wanted nothing to do with it ever again.

It was fully dark by the time Bonn allowed them to slow and stop. Jack slid, groaning, off the side of the horse. His legs crumpled underneath him. The chicken flew off to safety.

Whale rocks. Everything hurt.

"What about Captain Gregory?" he asked. "We left him."

Bonn dismounted gracefully and knelt in front of him. Quickly, she loosened the rope still around his neck and slid it over his head. "He'll be all right." She hurled what was left of the noose to the other side of the road. "He has something else to do right now. You were the only one I was after."

Jack's heart gave a great lurch as he gazed up at her. "I really thought I was going to die. It was most upsetting."

"Not on my watch." Bonn removed a lockpick and tension wrench from her boot, then got to work on his shackles. "Of course I came to rescue you, you daft bucko. You're my man. And I'm your woman."

"I am? You are? But what about how angry you are because I didn't tell you I was a Mer?"

"There were a few things I didn't tell you, either," she said. "We'll get to that later."

"But what you said at the trial—about me hanging like a dog—"

She snorted. "Oh, I didn't mean that about you . I was addressing the other men from the Ranger . The ones who went to cower below when the real fighting started. You were shot, Jack. You couldn't very well fight, now could you?"

"Oh. Well, that's a relief." The shackles fell off, and Jack rubbed at his wrists. Then he rubbed his ribs. Then leaned to rub his left butt cheek. And before he could go for his leg, Bonn was standing over him with a bucket of water and—

Splash.

Again? "Why do you keep doing that?" he cried.

But then he understood. Water poured across him, soaking him instantly. His pants ripped the rest of the way as his legs fused into a tail, pushing the musket ball out onto the street. Everywhere the water touched, the pain subsided.

Jack exhaled slowly. "Not being in total agony feels amazing," he said.

Bonn bent to pick up the musket ball. "Do you want to keep this? For good luck?"

"Of course. What a souvenir that will be." Jack closed his hand around the tiny ball of pain. "How about a towel? Do you have one of those stashed somewhere?"

Bonn pulled a blanket out of a pack on the horse.

A few minutes later, Jack's legs were dry and he was wearing the pair of too-short pants that Bonn had stolen for him. They weren't calico, but they covered up all the things that needed to be covered up.

"You had this all planned out to the last detail, didn't you?" Jack said.

She shook her head, sending a tumble of curls into her eyes. "Nah. It was Toby, mostly, who did the planning."

Jack gasped. "Tobias survived Barnet's attack? He's alive?"

"He was last I saw him," Bonn said. "He's a clever one, sure enough. I'm sure he's fine."

"Then will you—will you go back to your father's house now?" Jack asked tremulously. "He can take care of you, right, shield you from the law?"

She snorted. "Not after what I just did."

"But perhaps you should try to go ba—"

"Gawl, Jack." She stared at him, brows drawing low over her green eyes. "Did you not hear the part about you being my man and I your woman?"

"Yes, but I desire you to be safe."

"When are you going to understand?" she asked, leaning to catch his face in her hands. "I don't care about being safe. I never have. I'm a pirate, Jack, in my blood. And I realized somewhere along the way, even though you're green as a wee little pup sometimes, even though you're prettier than me, even though you're part fish, that I'm actually quite fond of you. I want to be with you. I love you."

Jack's chest felt like it would explode from happiness. She loved him. "I'm so honored, Bonn," he murmured. "I am so—" He couldn't even put into words what he felt. Alive. Full of wonder and hope and joy, because he was loved by Anne Bonny, and that was a miracle indeed. "I—"

She rolled her eyes. "Just say it back, fish boy."

He laughed. "I love you. But you already knew that."

She kissed him, but then quickly pulled back. "We have to go now. We've a boat to catch."

"The Ranger ?"

She shook her head. "Barnet had the Ranger taken to the impound dock, locked up tight. Impossible to steal, even for us. We're going to have to leave her. Toby has the William and a small crew of men."

"Where is Tobias?" Jack asked, but then he realized he already knew the answer to that question. "He's gone to get Mary, hasn't he?"

"Aye, and we're to meet them both presently." She tied the horse to a post, slung the saddlebag over her own shoulder, and picked up the chicken, which squawked approvingly. "Shall we take a stroll, my love?"

Jack's chest swelled with warmth. My love, she said. And she loved him. She'd said that, too. Out loud. With words.

In spite of the near-death thing, in spite of the pain he'd been put through, today was, quite possibly, the best day of his life.