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It took some time for Madi to realize what Captain Flint had become.
To be fair, when John brought her the news that James had disappeared in the night on Skeleton Island, after John had given his ultimatum, she didn't have time to ponder where he went. John had revealed his treachery, and she had been left to do damage control.
John had mounted a large scale search for Captain Flint, but nothing came of it. Flint was gone.
It began with stories, as all things do.
Men's whispers of the Ghost of Captain Flint, come to haunt them at sea. Every ship he ravages, but one man is left alive to tell the tale. Madi hears one of these tales, of the sea-trodden man screaming for revenge, for retribution, and she remembers.
Madi remembers the tales her mother told her when she was a girl. She knows the Sea will take servants; it's something her people both worship and fear. To be chosen by the Sea or the Sky or the Land...some believe it to be the mark of a true monster. Madi believes that James' soul was simply lost for so long that it finally found solace in the Sea - that he chose to become part of the only thing that remained constant for him after so much turmoil.
John thinks it's codswallop. He says it's a superstition, an unfounded fear... Until one day, when John is patrolling the sea, he sees it for himself.
He sees Flint, drenched and half-formed, his eyes impossibly blue but also green and black and every color of the sea. As soon as he sees John Silver, those eyes turn black as ink, and the sky follows suit. Silver realizes all at once that he is back in Captain Flint's domain, but this--Flint's Sea--is far more treacherous than the Walrus ever was.
John tries to call out to him, implores him to spare the other men on the ship, but Flint doesn't seem to understand speech. He's not quite present, like he's gone half mad. All he knows is rage. Rage, aimed so destructively towards John Silver.
After, the ship is all but destroyed. It will take months to repair her, but John isn't worried about getting another vessel. Max has a fleet at her disposal, after all.
She lends him exactly one ship before Flint finds him again, and that ship meets the same fate as the first. She will not lend him any more after that, and John can't blame her. It's obvious Flint will stop at nothing to keep John from the sea.
"What are we to do, John?" Madi asks the night John returns from Max empty handed.
John stares into the fireplace and sighs, a thought taking hold in his mind. "I told you I sent a man to Savannah to inquire about Thomas Hamilton."
Madi nods. "He'd been dead some five years, you said."
"Consumed by a sinkhole in the fields." John confirms. "He pulled seven people out of the ground that day before the earth consumed him."
Madi waits. Her husband must be headed somewhere with this thinking, so she waits for him to arrive at it.
"Strange things are happening in Savannah." He begins again. "The weather is odd, my man reported. In the months after Thomas' death, crops seemed to burst from the ground one moment and shrivel the next. As time passed, the cane became easy to break, the soil pliable, and there hasn't been a crop blight in years.
"My man says the insects leave the crops and the workers alone, but the slavers and plantation owners in the Main House are constantly plagued by contaminated water, mosquitos, and sickness. When a beating occurs, a free man contracts an illness and dies." John finally looks up from the fire and meets Madi's gaze, turned watery from unshed tears.
The Earth in Savannah is fighting back.
"They sought help from a passing medicine man, but he said he could not help them. He said the land is guarded. He said the spirit of the Land will bid the sickness wipe out the free population of Savannah should the beatings continue. So the beatings stopped."
Neither of them speak for a long while. Finally, Madi breaks the silence, her voice thick with emotion. "What is the state of the plantation now?"
John shrugs. "Business continues, and everyone is as happy as they could be in those circumstances."
"John, what are you planning?" She presses.
He gives her that lopsided smile he wears so well, a thing promising mischief and tinged with sadness. "You know what I must do."
"John..."
"I believe Thomas has become the Land in Savannah, and we know that Flint has become the Sea. We have to do something."
"And what do you propose, exactly?" Madi demands. "How can you possibly do anything for either of them?"
"I can reunite them." John insists.
Madi sighs. Her patience is fraying. "They are no longer of our world. You seek to meddle in the affairs of gods, for they are gods now, John. This is a perilous path you walk."
John is silent. Madi knows he hears the truth in her words. But then,
"I hear him every day, Madi. I hear him thrash and wail and rage, an unspeakable madness. If any part of James remains at sea, I must reunite it with whatever remains of Thomas Hamilton in Savannah."
"Perhaps it is not Thomas in the earth." She says what her husband dreads.
John sits back and stares into the fire once again. She feels his sadness all at once, his helplessness. He doesn't say he knows his actions may be in vain. He doesn't confess he seeks some kind of redemption for his betrayal. He doesn't say how much it pains him to leave Flint in this half-death state. What he does say is,
"I have to try, Madi."
They are quiet again, and the sounds of the island drift through the air. Madi reaches out to smooth her hand over John's cheek, cupping his face and bringing his eyes back to hers.
"Then we will try."
The way his eyes spark with blue fire makes her heart wrench.
*
John Silver sets sail again, this time with Madi aboard. It had been another fight between them, whether Madi would go. She insisted Flint would scuttle the ship as soon as John got into deep water, and John couldn't deny she was right. There is a chance that Flint will let a ship captained by Madi sail without trouble.
They fare better than expected.
Flint screams and howls but he cannot and will not sink the vessel if Madi is on board, of that John is doubly sure. It feels like a betrayal of some kind, witnessing Flint's rage make the sea rock and churn, but knowing that the ghost of whatever Captain Flint used to be is in so much pain and anguish and unable to act. It makes Silver even more certain that the soul that loved Thomas Hamilton still exists.
The winds die halfway to Savannah. It seems if Flint cannot destroy the ship, he will try to starve them.
The ship is stranded for three days while they wait for the winds to return. John almost sends Madi to a nearby shore in the long boat, but she will not leave him to Flint's wrath. Finally, Madi resorts to pleading to whatever remains of the man she admired.
He loves you, James.
He wants to make amends however he can, and this is the only way he knows.
Allow John Silver to save you one final time.
The winds slowly breathe into existence, like a great sigh from a tired soul.
Flint lets them reach Savannah safely after that. They arrive on land, and Madi fills a bowl with seawater. She's unsure if this will be enough, but they've come this far, and she knows of no other way to bring James with them inland. Madi looks back to John, sees him watching her. He nods, and they fetch the horses.
They finally arrive at the gates of the plantation. A man dismounts to pry them open, but the earth yawns at his feet, a great warning not to come closer.
Suddenly, there is a man at the edge of the plantation. He's filthy, wearing dirt-covered night clothes. He looks unkempt and rugged and yet...Madi thinks his eyes are so very soft.
There is confusion among the riding party. Silver opens his mouth to speak, and that is when the earth revolts.
Roots of every size spring up from the dirt and wrap around necks, hands, hooves, and ankles. They knock riders from their horses, and the ground turns to quicksand. John is shouting at the men not to shoot, and Madi makes a split second decision. She spills the bowl of seawater on the rebelling earth.
Everything stops.
The earth-covered figure stares across the field at something half-formed, something trying to claw its way into existence. Madi looks across the field and there's another figure. It's Flint, still soaked to the bone, still pale and wrecked, but his eyes are not lost. His eyes are fixed on Thomas. On the thing that used to be the man he loved. His mouth opens, but no words come out. Thomas seems fixated on him, regardless. They walk towards each other, slowly.
No one breathes.
When they meet, when Thomas' hands fly to James' face, when James' arms clamp around Thomas' waist, when their bodies meet, they melt together. Their forms flicker, seafoam and earth, together at last.
They share a kiss; full-bodied and raw and intimate as they cling to one another, like waves crashing into a cliff.
The earth sighs, and the riding party is released. Men cough dirt from their lungs as they break from vine, root, and quicksand. Madi makes her way to John, but he does not see her. His eyes are fixed on the two beings, completing each other in every way they know how.
"You did well, John," she tells him, cradling his face gently. He looks at her slowly, and she sees the release. She sees the exact moment that John Silver forgives himself, because James and Thomas are--finally--together.
The End