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Immortal Seas
The moon was new and black on Yulemas eve and the sea salt air was still warm and thick. It rested heavily on the sleeping port town, where dreams of bitter winter were distant and forgotten. Here the seasons never changed, but for the wind and rains of the tropic cyclones.
Hanson stood at sentry on the stone wall of the fort longing for his bed hidden in the dark hamlet below. The glowing multitude of stars was his only source of light illuminating the surface of the Caribbean Sea. From his vantage point the world seemed older, wilder, as if the age of man had never darkened the surface of the earth. He shivered despite the lack of chill and straightened his uniform.
A dark shape moving silently across the surface of the water caught his attention. At first Hanson thought it merely a trick of the light, perhaps the shadow of a passing cloud, but his eyes soon made out the distinctive outline of a ship. The faint glow of the stars reflected eerily off the topmost sail so that even at this distance Hanson could make out what the ship flew in place of colors. A ghostly white skull floated above the image of a bone saw.
Hanson's blood chilled at the loathsome sight. The Bone Cutter.
The tales of The Bone Cutter were the stuff of legends. Mothers warned their children to say their prayers at night lest the ship arrive to punish the wicked. The Royal Navy debated its existence, some calling it a fairy story, others as real and deadly as lightening.
They said it was crewed by ghosts, or demons, or hobgoblins, and came only in the blackest of night. Some claimed it left no survivors, and stranger still, some claimed it killed none at all - that the crew moved unseen through the streets of unsuspecting villages taking what they pleased.
Hanson ran for the brass bell to sound the alarm.
***
Steel clashed against steel. The man Hanson fought laughed as if this were nothing more than a game. They barred and parried, feet dancing over the cobbled stones of the street. He could not let these devils take the city or whatever it was they were after.
"You are quite good." The man complemented, blocking his thrust with practiced ease. With a brocade waistcoat and lace cuff he seemed more like an aristocrat than a pirate. "You, my friend, are wasted as a guard."
Hanson grunted and threw his weight into the man's shoulder to knock him off balance. Using the momentum he thrust his thin blade up between the man's ribs. The cold steel slid through fabric and sinew ripping through the soft organs within.
He jerked backward freeing his dripping sword as the pirate dropped, gasping, to his knees. Blood splattered onto the stones, a brighter more violent red than Hanson could imagine. Horror clawed its way up his throat. He had never killed a man before.
The pirate looked up at him slowly and smiled despite his obvious agony. "Until next time then."
He winked cheekily; red bubbling at his lips, and then collapsed forward. The body made a wet sound as it hit the ground. And then before Hanson could begin to process the carnage before him - it vanished.
The man was gone.
5 Years Later
Jo poured over the map with a detailed eye, calculating the currents and tides. She trailed her artful fingers over the thick, worn parchment, her brow furrowed in concentration. After centuries Henry still found Jo as lovely as the day he first laid eyes on her - even if she was trying to steal his ship at the time.
His First Mate and wife looked up from her musings. "We'll need to head East to Spanish Town."
Henry's lips turned up at the thought. "I do love Jamaica, even when the bloody Spanish were running the place."
Jo, whose Spanish blood was clear in her sculpted features, shot him an exasperated glare at that. The Captain and First Mate's banter was as much a part of The Bone Cutter as the sea and salted winds. They were the very heart of the ancient vessel far more so than the wood and pitch that held it together.
The ocean was smooth as glass and their sails were fallow, leaving them drifting in the tropic doldrums. Blue stretched out endlessly in every direction making land seem like a forgotten dream. Only the waters existed and everything else was nothing more than a figment. The crew lounged in their bunks or assisted Abe in grilling fish on cedar planks on the deck.
Henry stepped out into the sunlight tired of his dark quarters, his gaze on the limp sails overhead. "We won't be headed anywhere if the wind does not pick up soon." He frowned.
Time wasted drifting stretched drinking water supplies thin and had killed many a ship and her crew over the eons. He knew this from particular experience - dehydration was one of the worst ways to die because the madness set in long before bodily death. Though most opted for a bullet to the skull before it came to that.
"No to worry, Cap'n, the storm is coming." Lucas appeared at his side with a cheerful grin. His mannerisms were loose and comfortable. Henry might have called the younger man sloppy if he did not know the intelligence hidden behind the face.
Henry nodded. "We'll be making port in Spanish Town. Is everything prepared?"
"Aye." The Shipwright confirmed waving towards the Union Jack unfurled above them. "We're a proper, law abiding, English vessel."
"God save the King." Jo muttered, her dark eyes on the murky clouds brewing on the horizon.
"And us." Henry added darkly.
"We can't keep looking for it forever." Lucas glanced at the Captain's black expression.
"On the contrary, forever is all we have."
A sense of dazed disbelief still swam through Hanson's mind making him question his sanity for the umpteenth time over the years. He had spent half the decade tracking The Bone Cutter through drunken sightings and wild barroom rumors. Splicing the fact from fiction was nearly impossible where the legendary vessel was concerned, but Hanson had made the tenuous connections buried within and realized the East India Co. merchant mariner, Siren's Call, and The Bone Cutter were one and the same.
Hanson stood on the stern, now one of the three new temporary hands working for passage. He stared around him. Everything here seemed as it ought to be, nothing made this ship appear any different from any other - there was no sign this ship was from the depths of hell itself. And if anything, that made it more terrifying.
Disguised by beard, rough clothes, and the weathering of time, Hanson still felt the stirrings of panic when his gaze landed on the man standing beside the helm.
It was him. Unmistakable and unchanged, there could be no doubt. It was the man he killed all those years ago.
What was he? What was this ship?
***
"Did you really think I would forget the man who stabbed me?" Said the Captain as he stepped up to the railing alongside Hanson, who was watching the twilight sea.
The purple and orange glow painted Captain Morgan's handsome features in an otherworldly light. The stubborn defiance which made Hanson a good soldier (but a terrible hand at cards) squashed down his fear and forced him to meet the other man's eyes steadily.
Hanson said nothing, muscles tightened and jaw clenched.
"Chatty fellow, you." The Captain smiled humorlessly. His bright gaze was rife with intrigue. "Tell me what your plan was? Holy water? Stake through the heart? Silver bullets?"
Hanson could not honestly say what his plan had been, beyond proving to himself he was not mad. He had to know what this ship was before he had any chance of expelling the spirits on board.
"Would any of those have worked?" He questioned evenly.
The Captain chuckled, his face breaking out into a genuine grin. "Certainly not!"
The tightness in Hanson's gut began to relax, against all logical judgments he did not find the other man threatening. An intuition about people had always been one of his greatest gifts and, for whatever reason, that instinct was telling him to trust the Captain. A pirate of all godforsaken things! Perhaps he was mad after all.
"What … what are you?" Hanson said at last.
The Captain turned away from him to study the setting sun on the distant horizon. "Cursed." He said softly.
Henry studied his reflection in the polished mirror, aged with a faint speckling, and adjusted his waistcoat. "I think he can help us."
"You're too soft for your own good." Jo murmured in affectionate exasperation. "The man is not some lost puppy, he came here hunting you." She leaned against her husband and entwined their fingers.
"He came hunting answers." Henry pressed his lips to the back of her palm, a gentlemanly gesture left over from a life before he believed in magic and sea witches. Before endlessness. "That kind of resourcefulness could be quite useful."
Jo sighed a touch wistfully, the corners of her mouth turning down. "250 years and your optimism never ceases to amaze, husband. How can you still believe we'll ever find her?"
Henry looked down at her, faintly alarmed at her tone. "Don't you?"
"I did once." She said softly. "We all did. But with each passing decade life before this curse feels more and more like a dream. Some days I don't really believe I was ever mortal once, that the witch was anything but a bedtime story."
"We will get out of this." He whispered pulling her closer and tucking her under his chin. Jo was the strongest of them all and her melancholy scared him. "I promise."
She simply hugged him tighter in response.
***
Henry watched Hanson's face carefully as Abe recounted the whole, bizarre narrative. He took it with the same level headed straightness he seemed to take all things. Though telling someone that once upon a time you followed a map to a hidden island, and then consequently got you and your crew cursed with immortality by a sea witch for trespassing … it was a lot to swallow. But Hanson merely nodded, his eyes only slightly wider than usual.
Henry knew he was right about him.
"So then why do you attack?" Was Hanson's one and only question at the end of Abe's tale.
Everyone glanced at Henry. Hanson focused on him as well.
"We lost the map." He said lightly. "Without it there is no route back. Think of it more as a key to a door than your standard bit of parchment. No key, no island, and no witch."
Hanson frowned. "So killing her is the only way out of this for you?"
"Ah, you catch on quickly."
Jo spoke up. "And not even that is for certain, but what other choice do we have?" She crossed her arms over her chest. From her expression it was clear she had yet to put her trust in Mr. Hanson. "So we need our map."
Hanson paused a moment before continuing as if weighing his next words. "I've been tracking you for a long time," He let out a somewhat dark chuckle. "Or at least what seemed like a long time on my end anyway. In all that time I've never found a single credible report that The Bone Cutter has taken any victims."
He said it as a statement yet the question behind it was clearly implied. Henry knew Hanson's trust lay with him answering correctly. If he failed this test Henry knew the man could make the fate of The Bone Cutter extremely susceptible. He could have the entire Royal Navy on them, and not as myth but as a solid target.
Henry nodded carefully. "Piracy maybe our title but that is due to necessity, not a thirst for violence. We do not spill blood unless there is no other earthly option. I could have killed you that day on the wall; you're a good enough swordsman to know that. Instead here we sit."
Hanson stayed silent a long while. The whole galley held their breath waiting.
"All right." He said at last meeting Henry's gaze seriously. "I will help you."