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A Spirit from the Vasty Deep

by Rennie
Written for Melusina's Halloween Challenge, October 2005

Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third
Part the Fourth
Part the Fifth
Part the Sixth
Part the Seventh
Part the Eighth

Part the Fourth

By the time the sun was at its zenith, Jack had had enough. He had taken over the helm from Cotton and banished the rest of the idle layabouts from the quarterdeck so he could think things through in relative peace. The Pearl felt lively under his hand and seemed to be playing games with the wind and the ocean, almost dancing as she swept along through the waves. At least someone was enjoying the present situation.

She apparently approved of the current ghostly presence aboard and he was confounded by her complacency. He would have believed any hint of another undead dead person should have put her back up and made life unpleasant for whatever had dared to haunt her. Instead, she seemed to have taken a liking to the once-Commodore in his new state. It was apparent even the blasted cat was enamoured of the Navy man’s shade. All it would take was winning Anamaria over to give Norrington a clean sweep of all the females on board, woman, feline and ship. Jack paused at that thought, maybe Gibbs had the right of it after all.

As was Jack’s custom, he was carrying on this private conversation in low tones, talking to his ship and himself in equal amounts, caressing the smooth wood of the oaken wheel as he felt the winds aloft and the sea below through his communion with her. It was a marvelous day, aside from the spectral nonsense, and he found himself relaxing and starting to softly hum as he made the small adjustments to keep his ship at her peak performance. It would be another hour before they had to change headings for the run into Tortuga, no ships were in sight and nothing was left to do other than enjoy himself.

Restored to good humour, Jack began to sing the words to the song running through his head, smiling as he remembered the night Elizabeth had taught it to him. She had not yet torched the rum for her rescue beacon and he had been quite the gentleman, abstaining pillaging what had been laid out for him so blatantly. Someday he might forgive and forget about the rum.

“Yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate’s life for me,”

Jack warbled away, perfectly happy to sing the same words over and over again. His crew had tired of the song long ago and only brought it out for special occasions nowadays but Jack had taken to the song and loved it. His tendency to repeat ad nauseum the same verse or two plus the refrain was useful in keeping the crew, namely Anamaria, at a distance so it was quite practical in addition to being properly piratical.

“That’s very well for you, Sparrow, but I am not a pirate nor do I have any plans to become one. Don’t you know any other songs?”

The voice was back, as snide and critical as it ever had been. Jack closed his eyes tightly and scrunched his face up in disgust before bothering to reply.

“I did not ask for your opinion, Norrington. If you don’t like my song, then go away somewheres where you can’t hear it.”

“Tsk, tsk, a bit touchy, are we? I was merely asking a simple question of you.”

“You’d be touchy too, if it was you on the Dauntless and I was the ghost haunting you on your quarterdeck. Besides which, I did not say you could be up here pestering me.”

“Perhaps that could be on account I neglected to ask your permission, do you think?”

Ye Gods, even as a ghost, the Commodore retained his smarmy tones and nobbish delivery. Jack could almost be impressed, had it been someone else being haunted. Norrington had had a fine voice in life, whether in ordinary circumstances or commanding his forces. Jack had noticed its intriguing ranges and nuances; when the Commodore spoke to Elizabeth that time, his heart was so obviously in his voice and eyes. Harder to hate the man when one saw something like that although the hemp rope around his neck had almost persuaded him otherwise. At least, that was before Norrington had chosen to come back from the dead and turn up on the Black Pearl. Jack still had difficulty understanding how the situation had come about; must have been that warm voice that had lured the Pearl and the cat into the man’s camp. Must have been.

Sighing, Jack knew he would not be able to fight his ship over this ghost business and it was not as if the Commodore had a corporeal body to get in the way any longer. He decided to see if the snotty Naval officer would condescend to come down to a pirate’s level and parley. He called down to Anamaria to come up and take over the helm as he had to go down to his cabin to check some headings. She looked up at him and scowled a bit before dropping the splicing she had almost finished back into its bucket and did as he asked. Jack frequently gauged her temper by the degree and style of scowl his bosun glared at him; this one wasn’t too bad, actually, so he just bowed her to the helm and made his escape below.

Once Jack had safely shut and locked the doors behind him, he called out quietly to see if the spectre had taken the hint and come down from the upper deck with him.

“Commodore? You here yet?”

Silence.

“Norrington! Where are you?”

Why could not the man have the decency to at least show up when he was wanted? Jack felt the exasperation growing by the minute. He decided to engage some help in getting his nemesis here to talk.

“Pearl, my darlin’, would you please be asking your Commodore to join me here if he has nothing better to do with all that time he has on his hands, now that he’s dead?”

Jack could feel the quicksilver laughter of the Pearl ripple through the deck beneath his feet. Fine; how nice that someone found this entire situation humorous. He glowered out the stern window whilst he waited for the other to condescend to make his presence known to a mere mortal such as Jack.

The sound of footsteps slowly approaching him made his stomach churn but he refused to turn around just to see vacant space. Then the voice spoke as it seemed to come up behind him and then step around his port side. Its altitude seemed to lower a mite as well, almost as if someone had taken a seat upon the cushioned bench below the stern windows.

“I am here as you wished, Sparrow. The Pearl most kindly passed along your invitation.”

“Taking your ease in my cabin, are you, Norrington? Took you long enough to get here.”

“Your wish is my command, Jack. I merely obeyed.”

Jack huffed a lip at where he believed the Commodore to be sitting, before abruptly swinging around on his heel and stalking over to drag the nearest chair back to the windows. He adamantly refused to stand whilst Norrington lolled about. Jack was a captain too and, furthermore, he was the only one of the two of them still alive and breathing. He restrained himself from acknowledging the amused snort he heard from the region of the bench.

“I want to have a parley with you, Norrington. I don’t know what you’re going on about, haunting my ship and myself, so please be so good as to explain what you want of us.”

“I would if I could. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I was lost in these strange mists, quite unaware of things, and gradually pictures began to form. A large dark vessel appeared from time to time until the last time when she halted her journey and spoke to me. We had a conversation and the gist of it is that I became a passenger of sorts and continued with her on her travels.”

“That tells me how you got aboard but what are you doing here?”

“You could be a trifle clearer, you know, Sparrow. It’s not as if you are wholly incapable of forming a proper inquiry.”

“Again with the insults. It is Captain Sparrow, or just Jack, if you must be informal, and I’ll thank you to remember that little detail.”

“Well, I suppose I could call you just Jack, although that does seem a bit personal, you know. A trifle forward as well, as we have never been introduced formally.”

“You are a ghost haunting my ship and you’re worried about propriety, are you? I’m tired of this constant fight to get you to acknowledge my rank appropriately. After all, I did address you by your Navy rank, now, didn’t I, Commodore James L. Norrington?” Jack was aggrieved and it showed in his voice, a definite whine beginning to settle in.

Norrington almost felt a touch of guilt about deviling the man. Sparrow had done his best to help deal with his mutinous former undead crew and that Barbossa character. It had not even been Sparrow’s fault that Elizabeth had not seen fit to keep her vow to marry him, tossing him aside so publicly for young Turner. It had taken quite a bit of fortitude on his part to accept the young pair and to see them again as friend. Norrington was enough of a realist to see the writing on the wall and generous enough to want to keep his friends. They had all the faults and follies of youth but had the potential to outgrow all that and become interesting people. He truly did like both of them and admired them for some part, if not all, of their actions toward him.

“Very well, man, I could see my way to calling you something or other. Which appellation would you prefer that I use?”

For a moment, Jack held his tongue and merely looked at the bench where he thought the Commodore was sitting. This capitulation had been too easy but he had no idea what the fellow or ghost was up to. He decided for now to go for the simple answer and wait to see what happened next. No point in courting disaster just yet.

“Seeing as how you’re making yourself free with my ship and my cabin and my cat, I suppose you might as well call me Jack. You can save the Captain Sparrow for more formal occasions.” Jack figured this put matters squarely in Norrington’s court.

“As you wish. I suppose I can manage to do so, even though I am more accustomed to using Sparrow by itself when referring to you, Jack.”

“Now that I’ve given you leave to use my name, I don’t see as how I should have to address you as Commodore all the time. Tit for tat, as they say, James.”

“Why would I object, Jack? It is, after all, my name and it is not as if I am still a Commodore in the Royal or any other Navy that I know of. At present I am merely another civilian going about his business.”

“And that’s another thing, James, you are not part of this crew nor do you have any say in the running of this ship. You are just along for a free ride and I expect you to keep out of the crew’s way. I don’t know why you’re suddenly making your presence known, or how you’re doing it, but I won’t stand for any interference from you. Mind your manners and I’ll allow you to stay aboard for the time being.”

“Fair enough. However, I would have said the Black Pearl was the more obvious creature to request permission from for me to stay, considering that she was the one who gave me leave to board in the first place.”

Jack scrunched his eyes shut in disgust. He could feel the vein in his forehead begin to throb as a massive headache began to develop. If it progressed in the manner he anticipated, he would have to find his bosun and see if she had any willow bark in her quarters. For the time being, he made do with massaging his temples and trying to regulate his breathing to calm himself. Norrington was going to be trouble with a capital “T,” he was convinced of it right down to his piratey little toes squirming in his boots.

“Your head troubling you, Jack?”

Even as a ghost, James could be condescending, if just for the fun of seeing Jack’s reactions. He wondered idly if he would become more substantial as time passed; if so, he might be able to have physical abilities to experiment with upon the hapless pirate captain. The cat certainly seemed to respond to his touch when he scratched her chin and she had had no hesitation in scraping along his leg.

“Why ever would my head be troubling me, eh? Can’t think of any reason for it to do so, the wind’s fair, the ship is sailing well and I have a ghost in my cabin.”

“Perhaps you should lie down for a little while, then, Jack. I hear that is often of use in settling a megrim.”

James was all solicitude and courtesy. His mother and childhood nurse would be pleased to know that he had not forgotten his early training; Jack would now be the beneficiary of their insistence upon proper manners, although James did not believe they could have had this situation in mind when he was a boy. They had never said so in his hearing, at any rate.

Jack almost snarled at that comment, or at least, he would have had his head not begun to throb mercilessly. He was ready to take the advice but was not willing to admit it to Norrington. With that in mind, he wanted to finish the conversation as quickly as possible and banish the spectre from his cabin so he could lie down without having a witness. To make matters worse, his belly was beginning to gripe from the pain in his head and his eyes hurt from the bright light reflecting in off the sea.

“For now, James, you shall mind your manners whilst you are aboard, nor will you interfere with the ship, the crew or the cat or anything else. You shall also mind your manners when referring to me, either using my rank of Captain or calling me by my Christian name of Jack. I will determine what other rules are needed as we go along. Until the time you remove yourself from this ship and my life, you will be a decently behaved ghost and not go about upsetting everyone. Do we have an accord, then?”

“An accord? I remember hearing about the Code pirates purport to live by. Is this part of it, then?”

“Of course, it is, man. Now do you agree or do you not?”

“I agree to the conditions as you have laid them out, Jack”

“Good. Now get out of my cabin and leave me in peace. I’ve had about enough of ghosts for a while.”

“Since you ask so nicely, I shall take my leave and go elsewhere.”

Suspicious, Jack wondered why Norrington was being so obliging but his head was now truly paining him to the point of nausea. He had to assume the late Commodore was a man, ah, a ghost, of his word and would do as he promised and clear out. Jack waited for a couple of minutes before asking the thin air if James was still in the cabin. He received no answer and decided that he most likely was alone for now.

He wet a cloth with water from the jug and tottered over to his bunk, scattering his coat, waistcoat and boots across the deck as he went. The hat he tossed at the table but missed his aim. He retained enough presence of mind to pull the sheathed knife out and place it on the side cabinet along with the heavy leather belt and sash before he crawled into bed, moaning most mournfully. The wet cloth he placed over his eyes and he concentrated on convincing his stomach that it really was much happier than it was making out. He had the nasty feeling that this megrim was only the first of a long line that would be heading his way, thanks to yet another undead whatsit deciding to make itself at home on the Pearl.

To Part the Fifth

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