Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull Read online

  Disappointment fell over the party in the room and Jim’s shoulders slumped.

  “However,” Steele continued. “Perhaps there is another possibility. These stars are not stars used by modern men of the sea. They are old constellations, old as sailing itself - symbols used by the ancient folk. It is possible they lead to as ancient a place, or even a place somehow hidden by magic. If that is true, it is beyond even my knowledge. Yet I know of one who might have the answers we seek.”

  “Captain,” Cornelius said with a rather loathsome groan. “You can’t possibly mean who I think you might possibly mean, can you? That old loon is as likely to put us all to sleep for a hundred years or accidentally roast us where we stand with one of his blasted magical discoveries than do us any good. He nearly captured my voice in some Far Eastern jar the last time! Imagine the tragedy that would have been for us all!”

  George snorted a stifled laugh and was about to say something before Lacey elbowed him sharply in the ribs. But not even a trace of a smile crossed Dread Steele’s mouth, for he seemed lost in thoughts of plans and action.

  “Egidio knows more of magic than any of us here. We will need such wisdom, and not only for the map, I think. It may be that we still have some powerful enchantments on our side. Magic Count Cromier has no idea we yet possess, and that few know is tied to the very Treasure of the Ocean itself. Jim, bring forth your mother’s locket, the one given to you by your father.”

  Jim’s heart froze solid in his chest. His mind raced for an answer, for some solution to the tragic quandary he now knew he had caused. He’d always known the locket was special, if for no other reason than the fact that it reminded him of his father and of the mother he never knew. But how could he have known the locket was enchanted? How could he know that it possessed magic that could aid him in such a time as this?

  Jim looked around at the group about him, who were waiting for him to bring out a locket he no longer had. Jim wished a hole would break open in the floor beneath him and swallow him whole, rescuing him from the expectant eyes of his friends and Dread Steele. A great lump formed in his throat. For a brief moment he considered telling the truth, the entire story, but three words alone escaped his lips.

  “I…I lost it.”

  “Oh, Jim,” Lacey gasped. For a moment longer, not another word was spoken. Dread Steele’s face trembled. His dark eyes locked upon Jim. A prickling in Jim’s skin warned him a storm was about to break loose.

  “You…lost it?”

  “Y…yes, sir,” Jim let his eyes fall to the tops of his shoes, for it was too painful to meet Dread Steele’s gaze. Whether he meant to or not, he told yet another lie to escape the hurt. “When…when I ran off after we saw the burnt house and Aunt Margarita tonight. It…it must have…fallen out of my pocket in the sand.” Jim risked a glance at Steele, but wished he had not, for the dam broke and the pirate captain’s fury poured forth.

  “How could you lose it? It was your mother’s! It was a great gift and you could not keep even that one thing safe! A curse on all you Morgans and your confounded talent for losing or breaking all things precious in the world!” Jim’s shoulders slumped and the pain in his heart from all that day’s darkness redoubled in his heart.

  “Captain,” Cornelius cawed softly. “The boy has lost more than just that necklace this day, sir.”

  Steele noticed that all the children had taken two steps back from him, and that Jim stood completely crestfallen. He straightened his waistcoat and took a deep breath, burying his anger back into some hidden place within himself.

  “What’s done is done. It cannot be helped now,” the Captain said. “We are at a disadvantage, but we are not out of the race yet. We have at least a chance. Perhaps what we need now is rest. To bed with all of you, for we have much work to do in the days to come. Mister Gilley will show you to your quarters. Cornelius, fly to the quarterdeck and order our course altered. West by southwest - we sail for Spire Island and Shelltown this very night.”

  “Aye, Captain, aye, west by southwest,” Cornelius cawed. “Spire Island it is.” Mister Gilly led the way from the cabin, Cornelius flying out into the night over his shoulder. Jim shuffled behind his friends, anger and hurt and miserable shame rolling about in his chest.

  THIRTEEN

  im stood once more on the deck of his sailboat as it skipped across the waves toward the white sand shore. The sun shone on his face and the wind pushed at his back. When Jim looked to his hands, however, his wooden sword was gone. His fingers and palms were black, smudged with soot and ash. Jim looked everywhere in his boat for his lost plaything, but it was nowhere to be found.

  As Jim searched, a bright glow flared up before him from the beach. When he looked to the shore, Morgan Manor was awash in flames and burning to the ground. The fire took the shape of Count Cromier’s face, and the smoke the likeness of his son, Bartholomew. The two faces floated into the sky and there they mocked Jim and all his pain with horrible laughter. Worse still, with no sword in hand, Jim had nothing with which to defend himself from the Cromiers’ vicious hate. He had no way to save his home.

  But the worst was yet to come. The Crimson Storm came again.

  The shadow man returned as well, waving his red sword over the sea in warning. But there was no escape. The black-skull face formed in the red-rimmed clouds. It called Jim’s name with a voice like a hundred firing cannons until Jim lurched from his sleep, gasping for air and wiping cold sweat from his brow.

  Midnight had long since come and gone. In the darkest hours before dawn, five hammocks in a little cabin below decks swung in time to the roll of the ship. There, Jim sat awake, slowly regaining his senses after the dream. When Jim finally calmed himself enough to attempt a return to sleep, he turned to find Lacey swinging in the hammock next to his, her blue eyes open and staring back at him.

  “Jim?” she whispered. “Are you alright? You were saying things in your sleep, groaning even. You were saying a storm was coming. A red storm. It sounded so frightening.”

  “It was nothing,” Jim said. “It was just a dream.” Lacey seemed less than convinced, but Jim felt too tired to argue. He wanted nothing more than to forget his nightmare and his lost locket, the stolen map and his burnt home, and all the other people and things he’d lost that day and all the days before. “Just go back to sleep, Lacey.” Jim lay back in his hammock and turned over, pulling his blanket up over his shoulders and wishing that Lacey might just leave it at that. But after a pause Jim heard her whisper to him again.

  “Jim?”

  “What?”

  “What really happened to your mother’s necklace?”

  A hot bite stung Jim in his chest. He curled up tighter in his hammock, sinking a little lower beneath his blanket.

  “What do you mean? I lost it on the beach when I ran away. I told you already, didn’t I?”

  Lacey was quiet for another moment, and Jim risked a little hope that she might let it go. Of course, he knew better because he knew Lacey. The maddeningly clever girl had probably been turning the whole thing over in her mind ever since Jim had told the story in the captain’s quarters.

  “There was something new in your box when you came back to the stables. You dropped it on the beach after we ran from the fog. You picked it back up and put it in your box again before we got on the boats. What was it, Jim?”

  Jim wished his hammock and blanket would just swallow him whole and spare him the merciless needling that pricked his insides. He sat up in his hammock and glared hotly at Lacey.

  “It was nothing! Alright? Nothing! I lost my house. I lost all that I own. Now I lost the necklace, too. It’s gone, so just let it go! Why do you always have to think so much about everything, Lacey? It’s so infuriating!” Jim had naturally expected Lacey to sit right up in her own hammock and shoot bolts from her eyes, as she often did when Jim or George was being particularly rash. But what happened instead was worse. Lacey’s face filled up with hurt. It passed over her cheeks and her mou
th and pooled up in her eyes. Jim realized Lacey knew he had just lied to her. He wanted to take it back, to say he was sorry, but there was no turning back from his lie. Worse still, Lacey knew that her hurt had showed, and to cover it up she obliged Jim with what he had first expected. She clenched her jaw and shot Jim a glare cold enough to freeze running water.

  “Well fine, Jim Morgan! Just be that way! But I know what I saw. Whatever it is, it’s going to lead to trouble for all of us, just like in that fog! It’s going to get us all into deep, deep trouble. You mark my words!”

  Jim felt so miserable then, that without so much as a word of explanation, he tossed off his blanket and rolled from his hammock to stomp out of the cabin and up the stairs to the main deck above. He threw but a single, angry retort over his shoulder as he went.

  “Consider them marked!”

  Jim stormed across the Spectre’s main deck. He thrust his chin all the way down to his chest in an effort to avoid the eyes of the crew, working by moonlight to guide the ship over the waves. The ocean whispered to the ship as she passed, and the Spectre groaned in quiet reply.

  When Jim reached the prow he had not nearly walked off all his wretched feelings. He paced back and forth in the dark, muttering to himself about how Lacey didn’t understand and how he had every right to do what he wanted with his own things – what little of them remained. At the thought of the Count and Bartholomew’s sneering faces, Jim reared back and slammed his fist down on the ship’s railing. Of course, this left him with nothing but a nasty cut on the side of his hand, which gave him just one more thing about which to be miserable.

  “Why is this happening to me?” Jim asked the darkness, as though it would know. “What did I do to deserve this?” The darkness however, had a surprise in store, for it decided to answer back.

  “You could go round and round in circles for an age with that question, young sir. But if you’re looking for someone to blame, I might be able to point you in the right direction.” Jim took quite a start at this voice, for he thought he had been sulking all on his own at the prow. So he turned to tell whoever it was barging in on his pacing and muttering that he was perfectly fine, thank you, and that he preferred to perform such activities alone. But when Jim opened his mouth to give his little speech, he found only the night’s dark behind him.

  “Who’s there?” Jim demanded, searching for the owner of the voice in the shadows.

  “No one to fear, Mr. Jim Morgan – no, no, not little old me,” the voice continued, deep and throaty. It held each syllable upon its tongue as if to savor the taste of every word. “I’m simply an old sea traveler looking to make the acquaintance of the famous Jim Morgan.” With that, from the blackness above a barrel lashed to the starboard railing, two emerald orbs burned to life in the night.

  Jim strangled a gasp in his throat. He had seen such eyes in the dark before. The beast that had owned them had once hunted Jim and very nearly eaten him for dinner. But the voice belonging to this pair of floating eyes only laughed at Jim’s fear. The orbs bobbed and bounced lightly until the bushy-tailed frame of a large black cat slunk into the moon’s pale blue light.

  “Greetings,” purred the cat, dipping his black head low. He smiled with bright white teeth that all but shone against his midnight fur. “Janus Blacktail, at your service, Master Morgan.”

  “You’re a talking cat?” Jim asked, eyeing the dark feline with skeptical curiosity.

  “An astute observation, young sir,” said Janus, laughing again with a coughing purr. “Nothing gets past you, does it?” Even in his surprise at running into yet another talking animal, Jim still knew when he was being made fun of. He found himself in no mood for teasing.

  “It’s not very nice to make fun of someone you’ve just met, is it? And what are you doing lurking around here anyway? Cornelius never mentioned you. I thought he was the only talking animal on this ship.” At the sound of Cornelius’s name, the black cat scratched his claws on the barrel’s lid and rolled his green eyes.

  “Cornelius Darkfeather? That old stick in the mud and I have crossed paths many times. It comes as no great surprise he has not bothered to mention me. As I’m sure you know, Mr. Morgan, birds and cats do not exactly make best friends.” Janus ran his tongue over his sharp teeth, laughing aloud. He leapt from the barrel onto the railing and slowly slunk his way up beside Jim. “Besides all that, I’m not really what you might call an official member of the crew, if you know what I mean. I’m something of a stowaway, and I tend to stick to the shadows. I’m a homeless, lost soul, my boy - very much like yourself from what I hear.” That last part stung Jim. He bit his lip, forcing the image of his burning house from his mind. “But don’t think of me as a freeloader, please,” the cat continued. “Oh no, no, no, not in the least! The lads on the ships tolerate me hitching a ride every now and again because I provide the most valuable service of catching mice and rats.”

  “I see,” said Jim warily, taking a step or two back. He was not very sure he liked this Mr. Blacktail very much at all. In fact, he was thinking it wise to head back to bed, and be sure to let Dread Steele and Cornelius know they had a magical stowaway on board first thing in the morning.

  “Well, anyway, as I was saying in regards to your woeful query to the night sky,” Janus said, turning a slow circle on the railing and stretching his back into a high arch. “I, nor anyone else I know, has any idea at all why all the horrors you so lament have happened to you. But, as I said, if you’re looking for someone to blame, you could start with the Pirates of the Black Skull.”

  “Pirates of the Black Skull?” Jim asked. In two quick flashes he remembered both the dark image on the back of his father’s painting and the terrifying face in the crimson cloud of his nightmares. “I’ve never heard of them before.”

  “Ah yes, it is a fascinating tale indeed! You know, I will say this about old Darkfeather and I - we both share an affinity for storytelling, though for entirely different reasons. Cornelius loves to make people laugh or teach young sailors important lessons. How dull! I like stories because stories hold secrets. You see, secrets are ever more decadent, ever more filling, and ever more satisfying than even rats and mice - and they leave no fur stuck in my teeth. I expect you understand the value of secrets at least a little, boy. After all, I doubt you’ve told anyone everything you saw and heard and did in the Pirate Vault of Treasures, when you so gallantly won the Amulet of Portunes.”

  “How do you know about that?” Jim asked, freezing where he stood and not intending his surprise to leap so obviously onto his face.

  “Haha!” Janus laughed. “You see? Secrets are so much fun! There are so many fools out there running around, digging in the sand for buried gold or diving beneath the waves for sunken treasure. A whispered secret is worth more than a thousand pieces of eight and can buy you more than a hundred crown jewels. The hint of a good secret gets at men’s minds. It tickles their souls and gets just under their skin like an itch that needs to be scratched.” As if to demonstrate his point, the black cat reached out with a deft paw and left a small claw scratch on the back of Jim’s hand.

  “Ouch!” Jim yelped. He drew back his hand as much from surprise as pain. The little cut was hardly deep enough to draw blood, but the urge to grab the stupid cat by the tail and hurl him overboard suddenly burned in Jim’s chest. But once again, the cat spoke before Jim could lose his temper

  “Fear not and be not offended – I but jest! I will give you the secret of the Pirates of the Black Skull in its entirety, and for my very best price, Jim Morgan. I will trade you a secret for a secret.”

  “I’m not giving you any sort of secret, cat,” Jim said. But Janus Blacktail only laughed his purring chuckle, sauntering back and forth along the railing. “Besides, I don’t have any that are any good to begin with.”

  “We shall see, my young friend, we shall see. I can be very purrrsua-sive, you know,” the cat laughed at his own pun and swished his tail back and forth. “I’m sure one of
these days you’ll know something worth knowing, and then we shall speak again. But for now, relax. You’ll see I’m not such a bad chap. Listen closely and I shall spin you a secret, Jim Morgan.” The cat turned from Jim and stared off to the moon, which hung low over the horizon. His green eyes sparkled like flames in the pale light. Slowly and lyrically, as a master storyteller should, the cat began his tale.

  “To begin this story, we travel back in time, when men who are now old were still young - young and brave…and foolish…”

  FOURTEEN

  nce there were four friends. They were young, gifted, and full of dreams to change the world. Each was a master of his own, unique set of skills. There was the Sailor, the Schemer, the Warrior, and the Thief. The four first met at university, though the Schemer and the Warrior were older than the Sailor and the Thief. But all four shared this in common: they all believed they would change the world and the world would be better for it.”

  “After the Schemer and the Warrior had left school, the Thief and the Sailor became the best of friends. They competed with each other in all things, but with no loss nor victory stronger than their bond. Over the course of the next few, happy years, the two of them all but forgot about their dreams to change the world. Instead they spoke of nothing but becoming captains of great ships and sailing the sea, finding wives, and growing rich and old. Time passed. The two friends left school to chase these new ambitions. But one night, under a full moon in autumn, when the air first turned cold, the Schemer and the Warrior returned. Together they sought out the Sailor and the Thief.”

  Immediately, the Thief, who was perhaps even more clever than the Schemer himself, knew some great change had come over his old friends.”

  “My friends,” said the Thief. “What has happened since last we met? You seem different. It shows in your very faces.”

  “Our eyes have been opened,” said the Schemer. “We have seen magic, old friend. Real magic, with the power to truly change the world.”