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Horizons Lost and Found

by Erin Rua
February 17, 2004

Will had known the end would come like this.

Down all the years that passed, when tall tales whispered from the taverns and the docks, he knew. When the stories grew fantastic and raucous voices fell silent to listen, he knew. Sometimes when he thought about it and frustration fanned to a quick flame, he could convince himself that he did not care what would become of one daft pirate, since the end was ever so predictable. However, pirate's son or not, Will Turner had never learned to lie convincingly, even to himself.

He cared.

At the instant he opened his door to see Norrington - now Vice Admiral Norrington - waiting in the morning sun, the weight of that caring smote like a brick. Strange, how the former commodore had looked almost apologetic, his hands clasped primly behind his back while he delivered the news Will had already read in his eyes.

"I thought you would want to know, Mister Turner," Norrington said. "There was a message in my morning dispatches. Jack Sparrow is gone."

Numbly Will heard the crisp military details of the Black Pearl's destruction. Sunk two days northwest of the Bahamas with all hands. It was over. He found himself distantly grateful that he knew neither of the two warships that had run Jack Sparrow down at last. Will could not hate the inevitable strangers who had merely writ the final page of a legend.

When Norrington left Will closed the door and went to find his wife in the garden. Elizabeth listened to the news as if she were carved ivory, standing with lovely eyes huge and slender fingers pressed to her lips. Only when those eyes flooded and she began to tremble did he think to take her in his arms. His shoulder was still damp with her tears. Oddly, her open grief seemed to have sealed his into some dry, airless place.

Finally he left her with the children, whose fumbling teenaged efforts at comfort at least brought her some measure of peace. Now he walked alone, sun bathing his shoulders while his footsteps rapped from cobblestones to dirt. Finally deep sand sucked at his shoes, as the rumbling rush of the sea grew in his hearing. Relentless and ceaseless it was, as if the pulse of the world sounded in the eternal waves against the shore.

Ranks of mangroves stood warmly green at one side, as Will turned towards the blaze of sunlight on water. Nor did he care that the glare struck him nearly blind. Pausing briefly, he pulled off his shoes to walk barefoot wherever the long, white ribbon of sand might lead. To his right the mass of land lay heavy and sullen beneath the weight of the sun. But to his left, ah, to his left swept the all the great sea, reaching forever blue beneath the bent dome of sky, all the way to a far, hazy horizon.

A horizon that never again would show the dark sails of a fabled ship, like wings rising up from the deep.

He stopped when there was nothing but sea and a broad, empty curve of beach. There he watched the rolling white tumble of the surf as it spilled racing upwards onto the shore, each retreating wave leaving swaths of polished sand.

"What did you expect, Jack?" he said in quiet bitterness. "That you could dodge the law forever? That your luck would always last? But it ran out, didn't it? Just like I knew it would. Why couldn't you have just …?"

But the question remained unfinished and the sea replied not. Will's legs gave way and he sat suddenly, dropping his shoes beside him. The sand and sun were warm, and while staring at the endless swells he felt the tears come. A mute, scalding wash of blue they were, pushed past a restriction in his throat that let neither sound nor sob pass. He could not even name what he grieved for, only that there was now a space, a silence, a hole in the world.

Will still remembered the astonishment of receiving Jack's first letter. Over the years they had come from strange, far places, arriving with random infrequency, usually battered and stained. Each was scribbled in Jack's visibly-hasty hand, but the pirate never signed them, save with a flourished scrawl that crudely represented a small bird in flight. Once he had sent Will a peculiar curved knife, richly inlaid in delicate gold wire. Another time he sent Elizabeth an Egyptian necklace, absurdly ponderous with silver beads and blue and red stones. Yet another letter had taken over a year to reach Jamaica from some coastal city in India. Will had never been sure how much of Sparrow's tales were truth and how much was the lavish exaggeration of a pirate's fertile imagination. However, each missive brought the textures and colors of lands the Turners would never see. Such times, in the shadows of their cozy parlor they could almost see the wink of a devious, gold-touched grin.

It had been the kind of death a pirate must expect. It was a better death than many got. At least Jack Sparrow went down with his beloved Pearl. And yet Will Turner grieved.

Finally the warm Caribbean sun and the perpetual rumble of the waves pressed him down to rest. There he lay on his back, spent and still. He closed his eyes to a burning crimson glare and let himself drift beyond anything but the sounds of the sea. An empty peace it was, but he welcomed the rocking descent towards dreams.

Then because this was dreams he did not open his eyes to the soft pad of footsteps in the sand. He did not look up when the steps stopped beside him, and after a brief pause, someone plopped down with careless lack of grace.

In the dream a familiar voice slurred, "You really could use some rum, mate."

Will's dream-voice replied with weary repetition. "You know I don't touch it."

"Bloody shame, that. The son of Bootstrap Bill, finest pirate on the Spanish Main - make that the second-finest pirate - being led around by the nose by a hellion in petticoats."

"She's my wife, Jack."

"So? Men the world over 'ave wives and they drink rum."

"Jack, it would be difficult to tell my children to behave, if their father is stumbling around in his cups."

"Oh, I don't know. They crawl, you'd crawl; it could be a family thing."

"You're an infuriating man, Jack."

"Pirate."

From a vast distance the slow rhythm of the surf rose and fell, and Will lay heavily, comfortably in the sand.

"Did it hurt, Jack?"

"Did wot hurt?"

"Being … getting … at the end."

"Oh. That. Long drop, sudden stop, as they say. In a manner of speakin'. Of course, since it involved things blowin' up and lots of water, it wasn't exactly a drop, more of a plunge. But it all 'ad to do with goin' from one place to another precipitously and without my prior consent. Are you sure you don't 'ave any rum?"

"Not a drop."

"Pity. Must look into that."

"You're dead, Jack."

"Am I? Well, fancy that. Puts to rest a whole lot of worry and bother, now doesn't it?"

Eyes closed, Will swayed gently a moment between waking and sleeping, drifting upon the surging sound of the sea. If he did not look, he could see a familiar figure sitting cross-legged on the sand, in white dingy shirtsleeves with untidy dark locks bound by a faded scarf and glinting baubles. The dark angular face would be narrow-eyed in a study of distance, the expressiveness of high cheekbones and beaded goatee briefly still, although undoubtedly the be-ringed fingers would be twiddling to some unspoken thought.

Through a lethargic haze Will's own thoughts swam into words only at great effort. "If you're here, what of the others? I mean … they're pirates. What becomes of them?"

"To each man comes 'is own, Will."

"But they were …"

"Felons? Brigands? Outlaws?" The familiar tones deepened to rare seriousness. "This world is not the final law, mate."

"Then what of you?" A plunging sharp pang nearly shoved him to wakefulness, but Will resisted, clinging stubbornly to that sudden thought. "You shouldn't be here. You should be … somewhere else."

"Son, you ask too many questions."

"But … what of you?"

"William, me boy, there's somethin' you should be rememberin'." He heard a whisper of cloth as that other bent closer, felt agile fingers briskly tap his collar bone. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!"

Behind that was dancing ink-black eyes and a golden fox grin that promised everything and nothing, and dared it all.

"They'll never catch me, now!"

To that Will sat bolt upright in a muddle of confusion, blinking gummy eyes as sand trickled tickling down his shirt. Before him the waves still plunged face-down to surge upwards onto the beach, while the horizon lay brilliantly empty. Clearly, lying in the sun was neither a wise nor healthy thing to do. So, he got to his feet, dusted himself off and collected his shoes. At least he felt … quieter, now. He could face Elizabeth and his children and muster the courage to be the strength they wanted him to be.

As dreams went, it had been a peculiar but not altogether bad dream. He hesitated a moment more, simply letting the warm breeze wash him with the pungent aromas of salt and sea. Perhaps Jack Sparrow had finally caught that horizon he chased for so long. Perhaps he sailed beyond it, even now. Will smiled wearily, wryly. That would vex the Royal Navy to no end, if a ghostly Black Pearl came sliding across their bows.

He turned away, back towards his family. Towards life and all he had yet to do in it. He glanced back once - and stopped to stare. From where he had lain in the sand, a second set of tracks led away. Down the beach. Into the reaching, washing rush of the waves.

A truer smile warmed Will's face. "Fair winds and following seas, Jack," he said softly.

Then he turned and walked back the way he had come. Out where the world curved far away in realms between day and night, black sails unfurled and a tall black ship set sail to adventure once more.

~ FIN ~

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