21A/N: All right, for you faithful readers who have been hanging on for so long... I have an apology to make.
I am, indeed, rewriting 'Red.' I wrote up to Chapter Eleven, but Scarlet was just getting on my nerves—she was turning into such a Mary-Sue that I couldn't stand it anymore! Besides, I felt a need to bring Maria and Thomas in a little sooner than I had before. I hope you'll all forgive me for doing this to you—but I hope you enjoy the new 'Red'! (That means you, American Drama! Forgive me, most loyal of all reviewers!)
Now, without any further ado, I give you... RED.
Notes on Names: Maria's name is pronounced mah-rye-ah, the way it would be pronounced in an Austen novel. Her last name, Bonny, is a reference to the famed piratess Anne Bonny.
Chapter One: Bedtime Stories and a Crisis of Conscience
Scarlet Hawkins carefully threaded her way through the raucous patrons of the Blue Dog Tavern, balancing a tray on her forearm and steadying it with the other hand. Empty glasses clinked as she ducked abruptly, dodging a drunk's arm as he swung it out, roaring vociferously along with whatever chanty he and his mates were bellowing. She bit her lip as she rose back to her full height, keeping a vigilant eye out for other sources of trouble. If she broke another glass, Mas'r Davey would kill her—literally.
"...we kindle an' char, inflame an' ignite—drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!"
She had never been a graceful child, but ever since her twelfth birthday a few months ago, she'd started shooting up like ragweed. The added height and the fact that her center of balance seemed to shift every few days as her limbs lengthened did her no favors. Now, more than ever, she was the clumsy bint that Mas'r Davey accused her of being. Frowning, Scarlet sidled past a table where the tavern's whore, Tabitha Bonny, was persuading a seedy-looking sailor into purchasing her services. Scarlet's lip curled up in a sneer; Tabby was nothing to look at, and the addition of a weeks' worth of makeup didn't help much. She needed that glib tongue and dirty talk to get her customers; and if she didn't get customers, then she and Maria were out of the Blue Dog forever.
"...we're rascals, scoundrels, villains, an' knaves! Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho!"
"Oi, you there!" growled a grizzled old man that Scarlet had just passed. She turned, feeling his tight grip close around her upper arm. "Gimme 'nother rum!"
"Yessir," she said, ducking her head and moving more swiftly towards what passed as a kitchen in this slum. Still, the Blue Dog wasn't the worst thing that could've happened to her.
It just wasn't much better than the worst, either.
"...we're devils an' black sheep, an' really bad eggs—drink up, me 'earties, you ho!"
Scarlet was barely five strides away from the kitchens when one of the Blue Dog's patrons roared out in a hoarse, deep voice, "AN' REALLY BAD EGGS!" She watched as he tumbled out of his chair towards her, but found herself unable to move in time. His flailing arm hit the tray in her hands and flipped it out of her grasp and onto the floor.
Life didn't stop because the glasses had all shattered. Singing still went on around them, singing and carousing and wenching of the worst kind. But Scarlet stared down aghast at the mess and the man who caused it, who blinked up at her in surprise, as though wondering how on earth he had gotten down there. Glass glittered in the two braids of his beard.
Cold fear sped through her veins as she looked around, fearing to see the bulky figure of her stepfather, his bald head and angry grimace. Not seeing him, she turned her emotion against the drunk still laying on the floor in front of her. She lifted her foot, teeth gritted in anger. "Bastard!" she hissed, bringing her foot down against his ribs, trying to kick him out of the way—
But before her foot made contact, she saw the one thing she feared more than any other.
Mas'r Davey was storming towards her, his face black with rage—and as he moved, he was removing his belt.
She whimpered, forgetting the bewildered man laying in front of her, and leapt over his prone body in an attempt to escape the whipping that she knew was coming.
"WENCH!" her stepfather roared, gaining on her with every step. She hadn't gone more than ten feet when a hand closed on the collar of her oversized, dirty tunic. She gagged and yelped as he jerked her backward; cloth dug into her throat, leaving her wheezing and gasping for breath.
While she was attempting to recover, he wrapped one strong arm around her thin abdomen and carried her bodily out of the dining room and into the kitchen. Scarlet struggled in his grasp, beating her fists against his arms and kicking her heels as hard as she could into the muscular, sweaty body she was pressed against, desperately seeking the soft pocket between his legs. No luck—he threw her onto the floor, strewn with sand and straw to absorb the mess that the cook made.
"OUT!"
The gray-headed woman cowered at this command and, without looking once at the victim of the owner of the Blue Dog, fled the room.
"P-p-please, M-mas'r—"
"Ye little bitch!" David hissed, ignoring her feeble protests. "I told ye," he cuffed her hard on one ear, "not to"—he matched the blow on the other side—"break anymore of my glasses!"
He hit her so hard this time that she fell, sprawled onto the dirty floor. Instinctively, Scarlet rolled up into a ball, arms over her head. "I b-be sorry, Mas'r—I d-d-didna mean to!" she wailed.
" 'I didna mean to!'" he mocked in a cruel falsetto, accompanying the words with a swift kick to her back. She shouted with pain, tears pricking in her eyes. "Bitch! After I'm kind enuff to bring yer filthy little ass inta my tavern, after ye break half me inventory, all ye can say is, 'I didna mean to!'"
Scarlet whimpered again. The blows fell harder, as did her stepfather's oaths, and after what seemed an eternity, reality began to blur into gray. Mum, she wailed internally—and perhaps she cried out loud, too. She wasn't sure. She only knew that she would have given anything, in that moment, to be in her mother's arms again, even if it meant that she was laying beneath the turf, as well.
"Mummy!" she shrieked as tears rolled down her face. "I'm sor..."
Gray subsided into black.
"Red?"
The world shifted agonizingly, making her stomach lurch. Scarlet moaned softly as bile rose in her throat.
"Can ye hear me?" came the small girl's lisping voice again.
Scarlet gave a choking cry and threw herself over, vomiting into the straw that had, moments before, pillowed her aching head. The child made a tiny squeal of disgust, but at that same moment Scarlet felt her small hands patting her friend's bony shoulder. "'S okay, Red. 'E's gone."
Scarlet retched until she was sure she'd bring up a few toenails, and then, with shaking arms, pushed herself up into a sitting position. She wiped her lips with the back of one hand, looking at the nine-year-old in front of her. Auburn curls framed a thin face; dark green eyes peered out at Scarlet from a face too solemn for its age. "M'ria," she said hoarsely. "Wha' time is't?"
"Past closin'," the child replied with a shrug. "Mus' be near two."
"What're ye doin' up an' about, then?" Scarlet demanded, frowning. "Where's Tabby?"
"Wif one o' her gen'leman friends," Maria replied, making a sour face. On nights that her older sister conducted business—which was most—Maria chose to sleep in the nook off the kitchen with Scarlet. Glancing around, Scarlet realized that she was laying half in bed. She looked sharply at Maria, who blushed. "You was bleedin' an' cryin' an' in Cook's way, an' Mas'r Davey kept kickin' ye when he passed, so I rolled ye over here. Sorry."
"'S okay," Scarlet said, taking a deep breath. Her entire body felt like one big bruise—that had been one of the worst beatings. Usually he wasn't nearly as hard on her as this. But at least no man in his right mind would want to spend a night with a girl covered in bruises; she'd escaped the fate of picking up Tabby's slack for at least a few nights. "Go ta sleep, Ry."
"En'tcha gonna tell me 'bout the sailor an' the surgeon?" the girl asked in a whisper as she curled up beside Scarlet. The older girl lay down as well, absorbing the heat from her friend's body. The blankets they had were of little to no use, and this was the best way to stay warm—another reason that Maria preferred Scarlet's company at night.
"I don' have the energy t'night, Ry..."
"Then I'll tell you," the little girl said determinedly, nestling closer to Scarlet. "Once 'pon a time, there lived two girls names Red and Ry. They was the prettiest girls'n all o' Port Royal. Red, who was really called Scarlet, had long black hair an' big blue eyes. Ry, who was really M'ria Bonny, had—had—what's the word, 'gain, Red?"
"Tawny."
"Like lions?"
"Yeah."
"Right. M'ria had tawny hair," she said, drawing the word out almost comically, "an' green eyes. They was like sisters, though they was on'y friends. Ry and Red were stuck slavin' 'way in a turrible place called th' Blue Dog for a evil man, Mas'r Davey, who liked ta whip 'em. He made Ry wash th' dishes and Red... do what Tabby does. They was awful unhappy.
"Then, one day, a sailor an' a surgeon came ta the Blue Dog. They was so handsome an' smart an' sweet tha' Ry and Red fell right in love wif em. O'course, the sailor and the surgeon didna know that—but they did know tha', no matter how turrible th' Blue Dog was, or how mean Mas'r Davey, the two prettiest girl's they'd ever laid eyes on worked there. So, they kept comin' back.
"For weeks they come back a'most ev'ry day, until finally," Maria paused to yawn, oblivious to the fact that her friend had already fallen into silent slumber. "'Til finally, the surgeon wen' up ta Red an' said that the coves on their ship were all rude an' rough an' needed a lady's han' to put to rights, an' would she come mother 'em?
" 'Not me,' says Red. 'I'd be no grown man's mum. But I'd be a damn'd good wife.'
" 'Then,' says the surgeon, 'ye'll have to come off an' marry me.'"
Maria sighed sleepily, letting her eyes drift closed as she continued to speak. " 'But I can' leave wifout me bes' friend, Ry,' says Red. 'Who'll she marry?'
" 'My bes' friend!' cried the surgeon, an' up come the most handsomest, cleverest, sweetest of all men and sailors, an' asked Ry ta be his wife. When they was all married, they sailed 'way from Port Royal, never ta come back. They all lived happ'ly on ta the end o' their days, wif big families an' rich houses an'... an'... oh, I'll finish th' story in th' mornin'," the little girl mumbled into her arm, which served her as a pillow, before drifting off to sleep.
Jack had no clue what had come over him. In fact, when young Will Turner asked him just that, he could only shrug and reply, "Haven't the foggiest, mate."
All he knew was that, for possibly the first time in his life, he felt guilty. He may have been drunk to almost a stupor last night, but that blow to the head had shaken him up—the floor connectin' with the skull has a way of doin' that to a man. Ever since he woke up this morning, he couldn't get the look of fear in the girl's face out of his mind. The screams that had erupted from the kitchen while she was beaten had woken him up exactly twenty-three times the night before. Never before in his life had such a thing happened to the pirate.
"Damn you, Will Turner," he muttered. "Damn you to a thousand lifetimes in hell!"
"Jack!" Elizabeth chastened him, nodding her head pointedly at the twelve-year-old boy across the table.
"Mum, he says worse all the time," Ben said.
"Boy!" Jack said in a menacing way. "You lookin' to get me into trouble?"
"Aye, aye, Cap'n," he said with a bright smirk.
Jack just narrowed his eyes at the boy. "Children."
"Now what exactly are you damning me for, Jack?" Will asked evenly.
"You damn well gave me a conscience, lad! An' now I'm payin' for it!"
"A conscience? Jack Sparrow? I don't believe I'd ever have thought to hear those two words used in a sentence together," Elizabeth smiled.
"Captain. For the last time, girl, it's Captain Jack Sparrow!" he sipped at the tea she'd made him, and grimaced. "Gack. Don't you have anythin' stronger? A bit of... rum, perhaps?"
"There'll be no drinking in this household, Captain Jack Sparrow," she said, her voice harsher. She relented as he looked dolefully down into his cup, though. "All right, I'll make you some stronger tea. With honey. Will that suffice?"
"It'll do in a pinch, luv."
"Now, why don't explain this crisis of conscience to us," Will said. "Maybe we can help."
Jack started to, then looked down at Ben, who was watching him eagerly. The boy loved his godfather's tales of high-seas adventures—but this was no fairy-tale, no story of swords and swashbuckling pirates. This was a story about the cruelties of life. That girl hadn't been much older than Ben. He gave Will a pointed glance.
"Ben, go wake up your brother."
"But Father—"
"Now, son."
Ben grimaced, shooting his father a dirty look, but trudged out of the kitchen. When he was safely out of ear shot, Jack leaned across the table and said in a low voice, "Well, there was this lass at the tavern last night—not much bigger'n Ben—and—"
"Oh, God, Jack!" Elizabeth said, looking horrified. "You didn't!"
"Dammit, woman, let me finish! You know very well I'm no ped—ped—podiatrist, psoriasis, philanthropist—" he muttered, searching for the right word.
"Pedophile?"
"Tha's the one!" he said pointing at Will and then leaning forward again. "Nah, but I'm thinkin' I got her a beating—or worse. See, there was this tray of glasses, and me bein' a bit tipsy, I—well—tipped over. And knocked the try right out of the lass's hand. An' she ran away when the tavernmas'r started yelling, but he caught her and—" he made a face. "I don't much like the sound of little lasses like that screaming," he finished.
"Oh," was all Elizabeth could say, looking pale.
Jack shot her what was meant to be a pitying glance. She'd grown up in a world above petty violence like this. For all her adventures on the Black Pearl with Will and him, she was as sheltered as her son in some ways.
"What are you going to do?" Will asked softly, frown lines etched into his forehead.
"Don't rightly know how, yet, but I'm going to make amends to that lass, if it's the last thing I do!"
"How?"
Jack just gave a Will a glance that clearly said, 'You poor, pathetic man.'
"Does it matter? I'll think it up as I go along. I'm Cap'n Jack Sparrow, savvy?"
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