"Jack!" Will said as Jack continued to try to coax Maggie out of her cabin. "Elizabeth is in danger!"
"Have you considered keeping a more watchful eye in her, maybe just lock her up somewhere?" Jack suggested, walking to the helm.
"She is locked up in a prison bound to hang for helping you!" Will said, trying to make Jack feel guilty
But Will clearly forgot Jack was unable to feel guilt... mostly.
"There comes a time when one must take responsibility for ones mistake" Jack told him, continuing to ignore him.
Will pulled a sword from a nearby pirate's belt and pointed it at Jack's neck.
"I need that compass of yours Jack!" He said, fed up with Jack's mind games. "I must trade it for her freedom."
"Mr. Gibbs!" Jack called to his first mate.
"Cap'n?" Gibbs replied.
"We have a need to travel up river..." Jack whispered to him.
Gibbs appeared reluctant to the idea. "By need, do you mean a trifling need, fleeting as in, say... a passing fancy?"
"No" Jack said "A resolute and unyielding need."
"What we need is to make sail for Port Royal with all haste!" Will demanded.
"William, I will trade to you the compass, if you help will me find... this!" Jack showed him the drawing of the key.
"You want me to find this?" Will asked him.
"No, you want you to find this" Jack told him "because the finding in this finds you incapacitorially finding and/or locating and your discovering of detecting of a way to save your darling belle, ol'... what's-her-face, Savvy?"
"This is going to save Elizabeth?" Will asked, trying to simplify whatever Jack just said. Captain Jack was a man of many, many, MANY words!
Jack leaned in as if the air itself was listening. "How much do you know about Davy Jones?" He whispered to Will.
"Not much?" Will said, confused.
"Yeah... it's going to save Elizabeth..." Jack said.
"Why are we whispering?" came a third voice from between them.
They both jumped when they noticed Maggie in between them.
"Bloody heck, Maggie!" Jack said as he jumped "What have I told you about sneaking around the ship and scaring people out if their skins?"
Maggie pondered this for a second. "I forget?" She shrugged "I wasn't really listening, their was this pretty seagull in the sky and-"
"Not to! I said not to go sneaking around the ship and scaring people!" Jack reminded her.
"Well, maybe you're just losing your hearing?" Maggie said "you know, that's a sign of old age?"
Jack's jaw dropped. "Did you just call me old?" He asked her.
"No" Maggie shook her head "I simply stated that you're starting to show one of the main signs of your age!"
"Well...I wanted a boy!" Jack smirked, knowing he had her beat at the insult game.
Maggie returned the smirk. "So did Grandpa Teague!" She said.
Jack glared at her as she giggled.
"You're going in the time-out corner!" He said.
"I'm too old for the time-out corner!" Maggie whined as her grin fell.
"Well... I'm bringing it back!" Jack told her.
"You can't put me in a time-out just for being funny!" Maggie told him.
"You're going in a time-out for insulting your captain and father!" Jack said.
"Aw, Boo-hoo! I hurt the poor captain's feelings!" Maggie fake-pouted "Poor Captain Baby-Boy Sparrow!"
☠💀☠
No less than five minutes later Maggie sat in a chair tied to the main mast which was considered to be her Time-out corner. Apparently her father had no sense of humor about his age or gender.
Will came by and sat beside her. "So how's the pirate's life treating you?" He asked her.
"I'm starting to contemplate wither or not I should've stayed in Port Royal" Maggie said as she struggled against her bonds.
"So am I" Will said.
"Truth be told, Dad has been acting a little off lately?" Maggie whispered to Will.
"What do you mean by off?" Will said.
"Well for starters, he doesn't want to go out to sea anymore and he's always keeping the Pearl in shallow waters!" Maggie whispered "And he won't tell me why, we usually tell each other everything! He's acting like he's terrified of the sea?"
"Jack's afraid of the Ocean?" Will asked, unable to believe it.
"I know it sounds crazy, but look at him over there!" Maggie nodded her head in Jack's direction.
Will looked over to where Jack was staring out to sea with his spy glass.
"What's wrong with him?" Will shrugged "he's just looking around?"
"That's all he ever does!" Maggie hissed "he stares out to sea with that spy glass everytime we're out on the open ocean! He acts like someone's after us!"
Maggie wasn't about to tell Will all the details about the conversation she had overheard between Jack and Bootsrap Bill last night. Not only because she thought Will wouldn't believe her, but also because she didn't fully understand what Jack and Bootstrap were talking about herself. Maggie wanted to figure it out for herself before she went around telling people.
☠💀☠
As the sun set over the horizon that day, Captain Jack, Will, Maggie and the rest of the crew piled into the longboat's travelling down a river and into a dark, swampy patch of wetlands. It was known as the Pantano river, all Jack had told Maggie was that they were going to see an old friend to get information.
Maggie sat in the back of the first boat with Jack, who stood near the front. She began to listen closely to the conversation in the boat behind them, as Will asked Gibbs the question that Maggie didn't have the guts to ask.
"Why is Jack afraid of the open Ocean?" Will asked.
"Well, if ye believe such things, there's a beast that does the bidding of Davy Jones" Mr. Gibbs explained "A fearsome creature from the depths with giant tentacles that'll suction your face clean off and drag an entire ship down to the crushing darkness... The Kraken!"
The crew stared at him, trying to hide the pure fear that was written across their faces. Maggie had read about the Kraken, the way it wrapped it's tentacle's around a poor doomed ship and crushed it and anyone who wasn't lucky enough to get away to nothing. It was a horrifying thing to witness!
"They say the stench of it's breath..." Gibbs shuddered disgusted "...imagine the last thing you know on God's green earth is the roar of the Kraken and the reeking odor of a thousand rotting corpses... if ye believe such things..."
"And the key will spare him that?" Will asked.
"Now that's the very thing Jack wants answered" Gibbs said "bad enough even to go visit... her..."
"Her?" Will asked.
"Aye" was the only answer Mr. Gibbs gave him.
Maggie thought back to what Bootsrap Bill said to her father the night before.
"Jones terrible Leviathan will find you and drag the Pearl back to the depths and you along with it!"
The Leviathan is the Kraken itself! Jack's not scared of the sea, he's scared of the giant squid beast that dwells within it!
Bootstrap said something else about the Kraken, but what was it?
"He comes now drawn with ravenous hunger for the man what bears the black spot!"
Maggie gulped as she peeked under the scarf that was still wrapped around her hand. Sure enough, the black spot was still there! That's how the Kraken is able to track them! When the Kraken comes for Jack, it's going to want Maggie too!
They finally arrived at a house - Well, not really a house, more of a shack- deep within the swampy wetlands.
Jack stepped up onto the front porch. "No worries, mates!" He told the crew "Tia Dalma and I go way back! Neigh inseparable we are... were... have been... before."
"I'll watch your back!" Gibbs told him.
"It's me front I'm worried about..." Jack murmured to him.
Maggie raised a brow.
"Mind the boat" Jack told Gibbs.
Mind the boat" Gibbs passed on to Maggie.
"Mind the boat" Maggie told Will.
"Mind the boat" Will told Pintel.
"Mind the boat" Pintel told Regetti.
"Mind the boat" Regetti told Marty.
"Mind the boat" Marty told Cotton.
"Mind the boat!" Cotton's own parrot told him before flying off.
They stepped into the shack, which smelled of sea salt and organic mold. Inside there were countless odd objects and creatures, snakes slithered from the rafters, jars of things like tiny animal bones and what appeared to be a preserved sea snake hung above their heads. Maggie even noticed an alligator that had once been alive, but was now stuffed.
A dark-skinned woman looked up from the wooden table in the center of the room. Her dark brown eyes landed on Maggie's father as she grinned.
"Jack Sparrow..." she said in a Jamaican accent.
"Tia Dalma..." Jack returned the grin.
"I always knew the wind would blow you back to me one day" she grinned lasciviously at Jack. Her eyes landed on the younger Sparrow. "Ah... Maggie child..." she said.
Maggie smiled politely as Tia Dalma held her chin, inspecting her face.
"I can still see both of your parents in your eyes..." the voodoo priestess observed "... your eyes hold your mother's curiosity and your father's mischief. Two of your greatest traits, I'm sure."
"Have we met before?" Maggie asked her.
"You had the measles once when you were baby" Jack explained to Maggie "Tia Dalma was the one that cured you."
"Oh... thank you then" Maggie smiled at Tia Dalma.
"You're most welcome, child..." she said, returning the smile. Then her eyes landed on Will.
"You have a touch of destiny in you, William Turner..." She told him.
"You know me?" Will asked her.
"You want to know me..." she said, her voice laced with flirtation.
"There will be no knowing here!" Jack said, coming between them. "We've come for help and we're not leaving without it!"
"I thought I knew you?" Jack added in a whisper.
"Not so well as I had hoped" she said "come..."
"Come" Jack echoed.
"What service may I do you?" She asked Will sweetly. "You know I demand payment" she told Jack.
"I brought payment!" Jack said, grabbing a cage from Pintel. He took off the cage cover to reveal Jack the monkey.
"Look!" He pointed his pistol at the evil little primate and fired. "An undead monkey! Top that!"
Tia opened the cage door and let the monkey scamper away to the back of the shack.
"No..." Gibbs said, distressed "you've no idea how long it took us to catch that!"
Maggie glanced at the Monkey bite marks on her arm. "He's got some teeth" she said "I'm just warning you ahead of time."
"The payment is fair" Tia nodded.
Will spread out the imprint of a key on the table. "We're looking for this..." he tells Tia Dalma "... and what it goes to..."
Tia looked at Jack. "The compass you bartered from me? It cannot lead you to this?" she asked him.
"Maybe..." he answered "Why?"
"Jack Sparrow does not know what he wants?" Tia laughed "Or do you know, but are loathe to claim it as your own? Your key goes to a chest... and it is what lay inside the chest you seek, isn't it?"
"What is inside?" Gibbs inquired.
"Gold? Jewels? Unclaimed properties of a valuable nature?" Pintel drooled over the idea of an old-fashioned treasure hunt.
Regetti looked into a jar of eyeballs near his face and was more reluctant. "Nothing bad, I hope?" he said.
"You know of Davy Jones, yes?" Tia Dalma asked them "A man of the sea, a great sailor... until he ran afoul of that which vexes all men."
"What vexes all men?" Will asked.
Tia Dalma grinned widely "What indeed..."
"The sea?" Gibbs guessed.
"Sums?" Pintel guessed.
"Bathing?" Maggie guessed from the stench of crew.
"The dichotomy of good and evil?" Regetti guessed.
Everyone looked at him as if to say 'When did you grow a moral center?'
"A woman!" Jack said, like it was obvious.
"A woman" Tia echoed "He fell in love..."
"But I was right about the bathing thing, wasn't I?" Maggie asked "Everyone knows sailors stink to high heaven!"
All the men scowled at her.
"Don't give me that look!" Maggie told them "It's not that hard to jump into the sea with a bar of soap!"
"That one is a quick learner, isn't she?" Tia Dalma asked Jack.
"Too quick, if you ask me" Jack shook his head.
"But I heard it was the sea Davy Jones fell in love with?" Gibbs asked Tia Dalma.
"Same story, Different versions and all are true!" she told them "See it was a woman as changing and harsh and un-tamable as the sea! He never stopped loving her... but the pain it caused him was too much to live with... but not enough to cause him to die."
The men all nodded, they seemed to know the feeling all to well, even Will nodded faintly.
"What exactly did he put into the chest?" Will asked Tia.
The shadow woman placed a hand over her chest. "Him heart" she said.
"Literally or figuratively?" Regetti asked.
"He couldn't literally put his heart in a chest!" Pintel told him. "...could he?" he asked Tia Dalma to be certain.
"It was not worth what small, fleeting joy life brings" Tia Dalma explained "and so... him carve out him heart, lock it away in a chest and hide the chest from the world! The key... he keep with him at all times..."
"Boy, can you tell a story, Miss Dalma!" Maggie said from a distant corner of the room. Everyone turned to see her going through the mystic's spice rack "So... how much for the Eye of newt?"
"Maggie!" Jack said sternly.
"I'll put it back, I'll put it back..." Maggie rolled her eyes.
Will looked at Jack as he stood up from his seat. "You knew this" he told him.
"I did not!" Jack told him "I didn't know where the key was! But now we do! So all that's left to do is to slip aboard the Flying Dutchman, find the key and then you can go back to Port Royal and save your bonnie lass..." He grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and walked fast-paced towards the exit.
"Let me see you're hand!" Tia demanded of Jack.
Jack sighed and gave her his hand, she unraveled the rag from his hand and revealed the black spot.
"Black spot!" Gibbs gasped and did the ritual sailors used when they layed eyes on the black spot. Wipe the evil off your chest, spin around three times and spit at your feet to ward off evil.
Pintel and Regetti didn't even know the ritual, but did the same for no reason.
"My eye sights as gold as ever just so ye know!"Jack told them.
"And now you, Maggie child..." Tia Dalma said.
"Oh..." Maggie said, trying to sound relaxed. "Of course..." she held out her left hand, the hand without the scarf covering the black spot.
Tia gave a strict look, one that Maggie couldn't refuse.
She reluctantly gave the Mystic her right hand.
"Don't worry, Luv!" Jack told Tia, as she unraveled Maggie's hand. "Maggie just has a small splinter, she says it's healin-" He stopped short when he saw the dreaded black spot on his daughter's palm as well.
Jack's shocked expression turned to a disappointed and angry one as he looked at Maggie.
Maggie bit her lower lip and gave him a weak smile. Oh, was she was going to get it when they get back aboard the pearl!
Tia Dalma went to one of the back rooms of her shop and rummaged around for a bit.
"Davy Jones cannot make port, cannot step on land but once every ten years" she explained as she came back. "Land is where you are safe, Jack Sparrow and so you will carry land with you."
She handed Jack a large jar filled with brown stuff.
"Dirt." Jack identified the contents of the jar "This is a jar of dirt."
"Yes" Tia said, like she expected him to know that.
"Is the jar of dirt going to help?" Jack asked, a little hopeful.
"If ye don't want it, give it back" Tia Dalma said.
"No" Jack clutched the jar to his chest.
"Then it helps..." she said, smiling.
"What about me?" Maggie asked "What do I get?"
"The most important thing one person can give to another..." Tia Dalma told her, putting her hand on her shoulder and looking the young pirate in the eyes.
"A jar of of eye of newt?" Maggie guessed, grinning.
"...Advice" Tia Dalma told her.
Maggie's grin fell.
"You hold a strong bond with your Papa, Witty Jack" Tia told her, gently pushing Maggie and Jack together. "Your Papa cares for you, as you do for him and so together you shall both stay if you wish to stay safe."
"I hate to break up this moment" Will told Tia Dalma "But it seems we have a need to find the Flying Dutchman?"
Tia Dalma scooped up some crab claws and shook them in her hands.
"A touch..." she tossed the claws onto the table "...of destiny!"
The pirates looked at the crab claws on the table. They formed the shape of an archipelago that was in the Caribbean sea and wasn't too far from their location.
Looks like the Black Pearl was going to meet the Flying Dutchman and it's mysterious captain... Davy Jones...