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There was a time in Edward Teach’s life when the idea of having his own room much less command of a ship was a distant dream, a high ambition.
He’s been sailing for about five years when he finds a little kitten in a room he set fire to, its short whiskers singed. He grabs it without thinking. Puts it in his pocket, right next to its old owners’ pearl necklace.
Next thing he knows, there’s a fucking cat in the cabin he shares with Mary Read and sometimes Jack. The captain of this ship is terrified of cats, he learned on his first raid after he found the cook preparing bait for the fish. And this cat so sweet and sleepy and responsive to Ed. It eats when offered scraps, sleeps most of the day, barely makes any noise.
He realizes that he can keep it alive til they make port in a fortnight. He knows that keeping it hidden will be tricky, so he pays off Mary and Jack for their silence. Still, they tend to linger in the room long after Ed returns—shooting the shit and getting their share of kitten time in.
It stays in their room through the season and Ed looks after it and grows to love it despite himself. And he can tell he’s growing distracted with worry, his little secret taking up a bigger and bigger space in his mind.
But the weeks pass and they make port, kitten and all. By now it’s a happy, sweet, slightly longer slight little thing that simply adores Ed and likes Mary well enough.
Ed, however, is coming apart at the seams with nerves. As small as it is, this cat is the heaviest thing Ed owns.
“I can’t wait to be rid of it,” he tells Mary, who offers to drop the cat off with a friend and Ed almost says yes. Except. His mom lives on the island and he owes her a visit and half a trunkload of loot. Mary laughs at him, calls him soft, asks if she can come with and he can’t think of a reason why not.
His mother has never been the most affectionate—austere and disciplined, the very image of a dignified widow. She hides her surprise about Mary well, brings out cups for some tea, thanks her for helping Eddie with the trunk.
As Mary settles with her tea, his mother finally approaches him to hold his face, assess how life at sea has been to her boy. “You’re keeping your hair long—oh!”
They all startle when she pulls her arms back and Mary breaks into a fit of laughs because Ed had completely forgotten about the fucking cat perched on his shoulders, hiding behind a curtain of hair and now curiously peeking out to sniff at his mom’s fingers.
“Forgot to tell your mom about your little secret, Eddie?” Mary says, wiping tears off her eyes, holding her belly.
“Fuck off. Don’t call me that,” he says, now too conscious of the kitten on his shoulder, its head apparently on a swivel as it takes in its surroundings. Sharp claws dig into the meat around his collarbone, trying to keep balance, catching on Ed’s hair as it considers playing with it. He manages to keep half his attention on his mom’s surprised face.
“Jeez, ma, you scared me there.”
She breathes out a disbelieving chuckle, “well, I’m not the one hiding cats in my hair, am I?” Mary laughs and laughs and he can’t help but chuckle too.
She reaches up again, but this time for the cat, a thrill in her eye. The homely smile has turned into something different, picaresque and playful. She looks so much younger with the cat hanging from her hands. She gathers it in her arms. Distantly, Ed remembers that she grew up with cats.
“So, who’s this?” she looks at Mary, “Secret, you said? Is that her name?”
And Mary, shit-eating grin plastered on her stupid fucking face, props her chin on her hand and gives his mom the deepest, most indulgent nod he’s ever seen.
“Picked her up just for you,” she points at him before taking a sip of her tea, “isn’t that right, Eddie?”
And Ed doesn’t know what the fuck is going on because he had not even thought about pawning the thing off to his fucking mom, who he sees maybe once or twice a year. He wanted to part entirely from it, forget about the gentle comfort of it, the burden of feeding it and scratching behind its warm ears and stepping on its shit and cleaning it all up and anxiously looking for it after a raid, gunpowder under his fingertips. He thought the captain was a madman, but now understands why pets on a ship are a bad idea. He had made his resolve by the second week.
But his mom is thrilled with the unexpected gift, gently squeezing her paws and complaining about another mouth to feed. He sits next to Mary to drink his own tea and Mary pinches his cheek hard and makes kissy noises at him. He swats at her, calls her an asshole, which only makes her laugh harder.
But he thinks he gets it. So he decides that this was his plan all along. The cat was just more booty to pillage—an exotic gift for his dear mother. An exercise in subterfuge and deceit.
“Yeah, ma,” he says, staring straight into Mary’s eyes and for some fucking reason *that* is what gets her to lay off. He takes a breath in, puffs up his chest a little as he stretches on the chair, lets some of Mary’s good humor seep into him.
“Yeah, that’s her name. Little secret I kept for you,” he says with a playful smile, scrunching up his nose when he says “little secret” in a way that he knows his ma finds charming. It makes her laugh.
“Well,” she sets Secret on the windowsill, revels in the way she stretches so she can pet all along her outstretched back, even letting her gently tug on Secret’s tail. Ed’s eyes feel watery all of a sudden. Perhaps he’s allergic.
“She’s lovely. Thank you, Edward.”
Afterwards, Mary surprises him with a bottle of wine and some pastries, telling him he needs the charity after wasting all that coin on such a bad investment. Ed’s grateful but can’t deal with feeling so exposed, having Mary know so much about him. Luckily for him, she seems about as relieved as he feels about having put the thing behind them. He decides to forget about it, vows to never let another animal aboard again.
But the cat’s still at his mom’s, a scraggly old thing that lives for her and still loves him so so so so much. Ed still scratches her behind the ears when he visits. Thanks her for being sweet to his mom and forgets all about her when he goes back to his ship.
————
The next time he runs into Mary, they’re in different ships and they’ve both risen ranks, bolstering their men’s respect and trust more than guns and blades. He hears the crew gossiping about her and her second-in-command who tried to woo her while she was dressed as a man when they first met. He catches sight of them together, poring over a map, flirting openly. Anything goes at sea.
She smiles when she catches sight of him across the deck and he can’t help but break into giggles. She crosses the deck, punches him hard on the arm, wide smile still plastered on her face
“Ow! Fucking dick,” he says between chortles.
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck’s so funny, Eddie?”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he punches her arm, gives as good as he gets. She laughs again, lifts her eyebrows so he remembers to answer the question, her eyes sweet.
“Ah, nothing. Just had a thought when I saw you and, uh,” he motions to the woman across from them.
“Anne.”
Ed has to look away so he can properly make fun of Mary, more teary-eyes than his outburst warrants. He looks at her “yeah, Anne. Mate, your face.”
Mary levels him a look, suddenly serious, which makes Ed laugh harder. He slaps her shoulder and holds it tight.
“Ever heard the expression ‘cat that got the cream’?”
Mary’s laugh is the warmest he’s heard in years.