Charley's Curse.

Chapter 16-Epilogue

It had been six months since the curse had been broken and life was fun, we sailed the entire world the Navy always on our tail and always just out of reach. Having my abilities back came in handy too. It meant we could make a quick get away when Uncle Jack caught himself in more trouble than we could handle and believe me that happened more often than not. That man loved his rum. I sat on the lower mast over the ocean and tied various ropes singing to my self. "I've savaged and pillaged and pilfered each village ... My conquest, I'm justly proud of ... Each time that I plunder, I leave to an asunder ... A pirate's life is one to love ..." I looked up and saw a navy ship in the distance, pulling out my spy glass I trained it on the boat and saw that it was a ship-of-line for the Great British Navy, so carefully hoping up I balanced along the mast and hopped onto the deck. "Right Lads!" I called and everyone turned to me. "We got the Navy in front of us, about turn and lets give the command a chase he wont forget." I commanded, the crew cheered and quickly set to work, I ran up to the helm, to the wheel. I spun it round and joltingly we turned.

"Beg ya pardon Lieutenant what about the Captain?" Gibbs said coming over to me.

"I'll get him, you keep course, we are going straight into that storm we were out running, tell the lads to hold onto something, we can't afford to lose any of them right now." I said before disappearing to find my uncle. Like always he was in his cabin in a rum dazed stupor. I kicked his leg and stood over him with my arms crossed until he finally got his surroundings.

"Huh, Char what do ya want?" He mumbled before taking a swig of rum before offering it to me which I took, and then had a swig before answering him.

"Navy were going round heading into the storm hopefully it will destroy the ships, I suspect it's Norrington again though how he got ahead of us I don't know." I state sitting down. The cabin was slowly getting darker as we approached the storm.

"Ah, the Commodore is smart, though I doubt he will get through this after all we have you and me and the ability to control the water and weather, see a very useful gift." He said getting up and popping his back, he grabbed his hat and went to his door. "Let's go and give your boyfriend a warm pirate welcome."

"He's not my boyfriend!" I called back. Over the last six months I had thought about those sea green eyes and more often recently I wished I was there with him, by his side. Don't get me wrong I love piracy but Lizzie's letters about her life, Nessie' life along with information about Wyatt and Will it made me wish I was there on solid ground creating a foundation like they were but I knew instinctively I would hate it, sitting still in one place. I shook my head I couldn't get distracted right now, I had to focus on not getting arrested again. I ran out on deck and helped the crew as we entered the storm, rain pelted us relentlessly, lightening only narrowly avoiding us. I focused on keeping the waves low and pushing the Pearl as quickly as possible through the storm, the less time in here the better we would come out. Eventually we saw sunlight and we were through, I let go of my hold of the water and we slowed down, I commanded the crew to turn and stop, we waited, with baited breathe to see how many of the Navy got through and after three hours we saw the first bits of drift wood emerge and half hour later two ships followed, one had barely any crew and I knew this was the opportunity I was waiting for. Along side that frigate, get ready to board I called as we jumped into action and before I knew it I was standing in front of about 40 men, tied up, the crew of the Pearl standing there ready to stab any one who protested.

The other Navy ship which s I suspected was the Dauntless was so beat up by the storm that it was struggling to turn and face us. So I took this opportunity to address the crew. "Lads, your commanding officers are dead, you are in my hands. Now I give you two options either you can join me and a life of piracy. I will treat you well, you will still get your ration of rum and you will get paid your fair share. Or you can stay with the Navy and suffer I will let you join the ship Dauntless and leave it be. Think carefully because on option is infinitely better than the others." Murmuring echoed through the lads as they discussed the options. "Those who are staying stand and the crew of the Pearl will release you, those who wish to go to the Dauntless stay sitting down." The majority of the crew stood, they looked around to see if their mate was standing as well, eventually that left five men still seated. I walked over to them. "Names!" I commanded, and th five looked at me terrified.