Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull Read online

  “Jim Morgan!” Lacey screamed, stomping one foot on the sandy beach as Jim picked himself up. The last cobweb traces of the spell finally fell from his head as he focused on the sound of Lacey’s voice. “Just what in the world do you think you were doing? If it weren’t for Mister Gilly and Cornelius you would have been killed!”

  “You just wandered off, mate,” added George, he and his brothers looking at Jim with concern on their faces. “For a second there we thought you was a goner!”

  “Apologies for tossing you down in the sand so rough, Mister Morgan, sir,” said Mister Gilly, smiling sleepily. “But there were some rather scurrilous cutthroats and villains about and we did need to move quite quickly, didn’t we?”

  “Ye should’ve dumped the fool on his head to knock some sense into ‘im, Gilly!” MacGuffy raged. “What in blazes were ye doin’ wanderin’ off in a fight that way, young Morgan?” With the eyes of all his friends so heavy upon him, for a moment Jim considered telling them of the rose and its magic. But when he opened his mouth, a little lie came out instead.

  “I don’t know what happened, really. I saw Dread Steele fighting Cromier and Splitbeard at the same time and I…I thought maybe I could help.”

  “Dread Steele needs no help, my boy!” squawked Cornelius. He flapped out of the fog and landed on Jim’s shoulder, delivering him a sharp peck on the side of the head in the process. “He is Lord of the Pirates, is he not? He came here to rescue you, not the other way around.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Jim. He did really mean his apology, for he had not entirely been himself for those few moments in the fog. He certainly had not meant to endanger any of his friends.

  “Well, no matter, now,” said Cornelius, ruffling his feathers and seeming to have taken all of his anger out in the one, fierce peck to Jim’s temple. His small bird smile appeared once more at the edges of his beak. “After all, what is a rescue without at least a little danger and excitement? Even better than that, we flee to no sloop moored to a London dock this time, my friends. We’ve brought another surprise along with us! Cornelius pointed toward the sea, and the sight there stole the guilt from Jim’s heart and swept wonder into the eyes of him and his friends.

  It sat on the white-capped waves, aglow in the moonlight, bobbing in the tide - the Spectre, mighty ship of the seas. Her mainmast rose higher than a tall tree. Her bowsprit reached for the horizon. Bold lettering glimmered her name proudly along the deep green hull. The sight of her drew a slow smile across Jim’s face that glowed with a light all its own

  Jim could have stared all night, but the small moment of quiet on the beach was quickly shattered. The Spectre’s pirate crew poured out of the fog, hollering to one another to make haste - Mufwalme, Murdoch, Wang-Chi, the Organ Grinder, and all the rest. Dread Steele came last, striding toward the ocean.

  “To the ship! Get to the ship you men! Hoist up anchor and bend every sheet to the wind for your lives depend upon it!” When Steele reached the place where Jim stood, he came to a sudden halt. He turned upon his heel and faced the fog once more. Holding up his hands toward the churning cloud, the Captain whispered a few quiet words into the air. At his magical command the billowing mist began to swirl. Faster and faster it turned until it became a misty cyclone, trapping the Cromiers and their bewildered men inside the cloudy whirlpool. The spell cast, Steele lowered his hands and turned to Jim and his friends.

  “The enchantment will not last long, young ones. The fighting for tonight is done. Now is the time for flight. Cornelius, take wing to the ship and command the men to set course for the open sea.”

  “Aye, Captain, aye!” Cornelius cawed, flapping off toward the Spectre. “To the sea, to the sea!”

  “Let us be off then, shall we?” Steele said. A half smile curled on his sun-darkened mouth and a dangerous gleam twinkled in his black eyes. “Bid farewell to England for the time being, my young friends. You now shall sail upon the Spectre, and our mighty ship is bound for the deep ocean and far-off adventure.”

  Jim’s smile widened at this thought, and he moved to follow George, Lacey, Peter, and Paul, who were already running pell-mell down the beach to three rowboats run upon the shore. Yet only a step or two toward the water, Jim stopped and turned back for his hat, fallen in the sand. As he leaned over to pick it up, he found beneath it his father’s box and the blackened rose protruding from the sand. For a whole heartbeat and a half Jim considered abandoning the magical item there, for he was ashamed of how recklessly he had abandoned his friends in the fog. But at the back of Jim’s mind the quiet sound of the flute song began to play once more. An image blazed to life in Jim’s thoughts of Count Cromier, Bartholomew, and Aunt Margarita laughing together as Morgan Manor burned to ash. A prickling heat burned to life in Jim’s heart.

  Jim seized the stem from the sand and set it in his box. He slid the box back into his pocket and finally dashed off to join his friends.

  ELEVEN

  hen the English coast had shrunk to a dark line in the distance, Dread Steele ushered the children and MacGuffy into his quarters aboard the Spectre. The Captain sat MacGuffy in his own chair and Mister Gilly tended to the old pirate’s injuries. As Jim and his friends gathered about the old salt, Jim could not help but sneak a look about the Captain’s quarters.

  An oak desk, battered and scarred from what appeared to be everything from knife gouges to shark bites, stood at the back of the room by the aft windows. Upon it sat a single quill, leaned within an inkwell, beside a tattered book, which Jim assumed was the Captain’s log. Jim wished he could steal but a single glance into those pages and the adventures of Dread Steele and his pirate crew kept within.

  An odd bell hung from a hook on the desk’s corner, though it seemed to Jim far too big and too old to serve as a simple dinner bell. He wondered what purpose it could possibly serve other than a useful perch for Cornelius. The raven sat on the hook at that very moment, pecking at his wings and ruffling his feathers. There was also a tall shelf, stuffed full of books so old that most of the covers had fallen off, and a modest bed with a dusty, wooden locker at its foot. Last of all the same map that had hung in the captain’s quarters onboard the little sloop in London was there on the portside wall. As before it was covered end to end with drawings of mythical creatures, mysterious landmarks, and arcane symbols.

  For all the legends and tales Jim had heard of Dread Steele, Lord of the Pirates, he had fully expected this room to be piled high with the spoils of battles and raids, jewels and riches from the world over. But the quarters were practically bare. Jim suddenly imagined that Dread Steele’s pockets were lined more with secrets than they were with silver and gold.

  “How do you feel, my friend?” Steele asked MacGuffy. He handed the old man a glass of brandy from a bottle kept within one of the desk drawers.

  “Old and useless as a sock with a hole in the toe, Cap’n,” MacGuffy grumbled. “In the old days MacGuffy the pirate would ne’er o’ ‘llowed himself to be taken unawares nor find hisself unable to defend his charges, neither.” The poor man hung his head. His lips fell into a deep frown upon his scarred face. But Lacey, who cared very much for the retired pirate, put a gentle hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

  “MacGuffy, please don’t say such things. You did your best. You’ve taken such good care of us for all this time, haven’t you? Besides, there were ten of them after all, and that’s not even figuring the Count, that horrible Bartholomew, and that wicked pirate, Splitbeard.”

  “Too right, Lacey,” George agreed. His brothers flanked him on either side and all three of them gave MacGuffy their winningest smiles. “And I say, you took that wallop to the back of the head like a true champion, MacGuffy! That blow would have killed a lesser man, no doubt about it!”

  “Your head is hard as a rock, MacGuffy!” Peter added.

  “Solid as an oak, sir,” Paul concluded. He clenched both fists before his face for added effect. “Solid as an oak!” Jim thought those might have been
the worst compliments he had ever heard, especially given the circumstances. But they were genuine and so even MacGuffy managed a laugh, which had him wincing with pain all the more.

  “Rascally sea pups! Ye have good hearts after all, don’t ye? I thank ye for it, I do. But I think that’ll be enough dawdlin’ o’er an old man’s bumps and bruises, Cap’n. I’ll live, I will. Per’aps we should be getting’ down to business and tellin’ the lad why ye was sailin’ to Morgan Manor this night in the first place.”

  “You are right, MacGuffy, for our arrival was not by chance.” Dread Steele said. The lantern light in the cabin cast a hard shadow on the Captain’s face, so much so that it seemed to Jim that darkness was drawn to the pirate lord.

  “You were coming anyway?” Jim asked. But he quickly realized that Dread Steele could not possibly have known the evil goings on at Morgan Manor. Even if he had, the Spectre could hardly sail to the coast of England in a single night. “You were coming to talk to me about something. You were coming to ask me about the Treasure of the Ocean, weren’t you?”

  Steele nodded in reply to Jim’s question, his mouth drawn into a thin line. “Indeed, I was, Jim. For little more than a year now Cornelius and I have sailed the Spectre to the very world’s edge and back. At every port and isle did we lay a false trail of bread crumbs for Cromier and his dark son to follow.”

  “We did have some fun with it all along the way though, did we not Captain?” Cornelius said. He laughed with a caw and hopped down from the hook onto the desk, twisting his wings this way and that as he spoke. “Told old Shark-Tooth Tim we’d buried the entire treasure beneath the Inn of the Wet Rock. Largest overbite you’ve ever seen has old Shark-Tooth. Could very nearly nip the bottom edge of his own chin with his incisors, I’d wager. Ha! Anyway, never expected Tim to actually believe that one, really. Thought he caught the winks I was giving him the whole way, if you know what I mean. King’s men captured the poor bloke the next week breaking in after midnight. He was pulling up the floorboards, using his teeth to draw out the nails, no less. Had the fool in stockades for half a month. Left the most wicked splinters in his lips too, or so I heard.”

  “How awful!” Lacey said with a gasp. But Dread Steele cleared his throat loudly and frowned in Cornelius’s direction. Cornelius squawked irritably, tucking his wings down to his sides and keeping quiet.

  “Nevertheless,” Steele continued. “Certain were we that the Cromiers had set themselves upon our winding path. Thought we that finally you would be safe to return home, Jim. So we came to meet you in hopes of divining some clue as to the Treasure of the Ocean’s true whereabouts.”

  “You knew about the map, then?” Jim asked. A sudden pinprick of suspicion stuck him in his heart. It seemed that everyone wanted the Treasure. Though only the Count had given Jim any hint that the desires were for far more than simple wealth. “You were coming for the map?”

  “Map? What map?” Steele exclaimed. His dark face sparked with such surprise that Jim and his friends flinched at the growl in the pirate captain’s voice. Though Dread Steele had been Jim’s rescuer twice over, he was still the most dangerous of all pirates to sail the Seven Seas.

  “It was a magic map, sir. I never even knew I had it until tonight. When we arrived at Morgan Manor, the house was already burnt. Phineus was there, and the one thing he had been able to save from the fire was a vial of moonwater. We had only to shine light through the vial to see that something more than words were written on my father’s letter. When the Count poured the moonwater on the page, a map burned on the letter, as though it was writ with fire, blue fire. It lit up the entire room. The Count said it was a map to the Treasure of the Ocean.”

  For a long moment, Dread Steele said nothing. His eyes drifted from Jim’s face into nowhere, as though a thousand thoughts flew through his mind all at once. Finally Steele’s mouth twisted into a bitter frown and he swore aloud.

  “Confound Lindsay and his infernal cleverness! Did the man trust no one but himself? The loss of this map is a brutal blow indeed!”

  “Captain,” Cornelius cawed. “While I am no great master of the magical arts myself, it seems highly doubtful to me that Lindsay Morgan would have known exactly to where the Treasure of the Ocean would have disappeared from the Vault. Magic that powerful is unpredictable at best, unknowable at worst. For that matter, Lindsay could not have known for certain the Treasure’s fate at all after he left it in the Vault.”

  “Argh,” MacGuffy harrumphed from his chair. “Then what good be the map, Cornelius? Why draw it at’all?”

  Cornelius placed one feathered wing beneath his beak, as though thinking quite hard on the matter. “The map must lead to some other magical object, some talisman of a sort. Lindsay may have wanted to ensure Jim could find the Treasure at any time, if ever it was lost or wherever it might be hidden.”

  “You mean like a seeker?” Jim suddenly asked. “When the King of Thieves wanted to find the Pirate Vault, he used a silver dragonfly that could find any hidden or secret place, as long as the person looking knew the place to be there—”

  “But not the where of the there!” Lacey finished for Jim. A spark of excitement lit in her voice, for Lacey was a very clever girl indeed and enjoyed solving riddles and mysteries a great deal. Steele paced back and forth before his desk. He cast his dark eyes to the floor and rubbed his hand furiously along his unshaven jaw. When he spoke it was as much to himself as to the others gathered about him.

  “Indeed, this may be so. But if Cornelius is right, and if the Cromiers find whatever magical item is buried at the end of the map’s path, they shall be one step closer to possessing the Treasure of the Ocean. If Cromier finds that…if he and Bartholomew hold it in their grasp…”

  Steele never finished the thought. MacGuffy whistled long and low and shook his white-haired head in distress. Jim remembered the mad look in the Count’s eyes as he had spoken of the vast power to be his once he obtained the treasure. Jim’s stomach clenched in his gut and frosty tendrils climbed through his veins.

  “We must not allow Cromier and Bartholomew to take this prize. But we are at great risk of losing the race before it has even begun,” Steele continued, shaking his head. “Count Cromier has the map, and with it, the only clue as to this mystery’s hidden location.”

  Despair took hold of all in the cabin. Even Dread Steele ceased his pacing and stared hard at the wall in silence. But Lacey, whose eyes had been sparkling with adventure since Jim had reminded her of the seeker, suddenly spoke up.

  “There may be one clue, left, Captain Steele,” she said. “We could use the stars.”

  “Stars?” Cornelius squawked, flapping his wings and ruffling his feathers. “What know you of stars, fair Lacey?” Lacey reached into the handbag she had worn with her new dress and produced her tattered and faded volume.

  “Well, Mister Cornelius, I know about all the stars in this book. MacGuffy gave it to me. Even though it was only for a moment or two, I’m sure I saw some that I recognized on the ceiling at the stables. Somehow I think they can give us a clue!”

  “Oh no!” George said, shaking his head. “Not your stupid star book again!”

  “It’s not stupid, George!” Lacey snapped. George took a wise step backward for Lacey seemed quite ready to club him with the volume if he opened his mouth again. “It’s full of special constellations, ones that regular sailors don’t even use. And those were the ones on the map, I’m certain of it!”

  Dread Steele raised a curious eyebrow at this and stepped slowly over to Lacey. He held out his hand to take the book and leafed through the pages. After a moment the Captain furrowed his brow in ever deepening wrinkles of concentration.

  “Lacey,” he finally said, “show me the stars you saw.”

  TWELVE

  teele wasted no time and spun on his heel toward the desk. He shooed Cornelius from the hook with a swat of his hand and motioned everyone closer.

  “Lacey, is there a page in this book tha
t shows the full night sky in one picture?”

  “Yes,” Lacey said. Nervous excitement bubbled over in her voice. “On page number sixty-two, almost at the back of the book.”

  Steele flipped to the proper page and pulled it up from the book with two fingers. He held the single leaf before the lantern’s light. The slender flame shone through the page and onto the strange map on the wall. After a few adjustments the Captain lined it just perfectly, so that a sky full of lamp-lit stars hung over the painted world upon the map. Lacey and Jim, and even the Ratts, took quick startled glances at one another, squeezing a little closer to the wall to get a better look. Before them on the map was now a duller, yellower image of the magic blue shapes thrown on the stable walls and ceiling.

  “Show me the stars, Lacey,” Steele asked.

  Lacey stepped over to where the Captain held the page. Careful not to place her shadow between the lantern and the wall she used her small finger to trace the shapes of the constellations on the glowing map.

  “There were three that I remember for certain. The Sea Horse was here, and next to him was The Giant Squid. And last was The Mighty Hunter.” The three shapes faced one another in a triangle over the ocean.

  “Those stars lie o’er the deep ocean, me cap’n,” MacGuffy said from the chair, squinting his one good eye hard at the map. “There be monsters and merpeople beneath those waves, I fear.”

  “Merpeople?” Jim asked. “Monsters?”

  “Indeed, Mister Morgan. The deep ocean is full of old mysteries. But we are faced with a new one this day that is more puzzling still.” Captain Steele closed the book and rushed over to the map, placing his finger on the spot that lay beneath the center of the constellations. “No island lies in that spot upon the ocean.”