Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull

by James Raney

  George’s words stung some hidden place within Jim - some deep chamber in the depths of his heart. But even then the black poison and the wretched cold that held Jim in their grasp refused to let him speak. The dark magic held his chattering teeth shut, and all Jim could do was look away from his best friend.

  “Come on, George,” Lacey said. “We have to go.”

  George lingered another moment longer, as if hoping Jim might still change his mind. But Jim refused to meet his friend’s eye. Yet it was that moment, as George sadly put his hat back on his head, that saved them all from complete disaster.

  Just as Lacey, Peter, and Paul began to search for a river crossing, a loud crack snapped from the forest edge. Leaves fluttered down from the braches into the thick mist. The clan froze where they stood. None of them dared draw a breath. For what seemed like an eternity, the five friends and the raven stood in complete silence. Four orbs, wide as boulders and glowing green, opened in the darkness beyond the trees.

  Lacey and the Ratts scurried away, but hardly fast enough. At the sound of another crack, the two pairs of flaming green orbs dropped down from the trees. With a hammering like thundering war drums the shadowy creatures burst into the moonlight to the beating of great wings.

  The mists curled away like parting curtains to reveal great owls - old feathers of brown and gray bristling like armor. Gnarled beaks and claws snapped and grabbed at the air. The owls rose up into the night, talons outstretched and their deep green eyes fixed upon the clan, who cowered like frightened mice beneath their claws.

  Lacey screamed and fell back toward the river, but the owl’s screech drowned out her cries. The winged hunters descended upon them. Jim watched in a trance as one of the mighty birds came for him. But before the owl’s outstretched claws seized him, George leapt and tackled them both into the wet mud at the River’s edge. The owl’s talons sliced through the air just above their heads.

  Sliding in the mud, George dragged Jim between two rocks, safe from the owl’s clutches. George screamed for Lacey and his brothers, but the others had not been nearly quick enough. It was only moments before the owls had them in their grasp. Lacey, still clinging to Cornelius in one arm, was taken by the first, Peter and Paul by the second, hanging on to each other for dear life. All three of their mouths were open wide as though they were screaming, but to Jim the world was silent and numb. He could no longer feel even the pain in his arm or the cold wracking his body. He watched the owls soar off into the moonlight. Lacey stretched her arm back to George and Jim, as though they could reach out and pull her back to safety.

  George screamed again for his brothers, but the silence entombing Jim would not be broken. He closed his eyes and let the darkness swallow him whole at last.

  ELEVEN

  im dreamt of a time long ago. He was racing his old pony, Destroyer, through the forbidden forest that stretched from the borders of Morgan Manor. In the dream, Jim was running for his life, but a danger worse than soldiers on horseback chased him this time.

  It was the Crimson Storm.

  It came quickly for Jim. Blood red rolled in the shadows of its dark crevices. Lightning burned white-hot eyes into the black skull within the storm clouds. The face shouted Jim’s name as it descended upon him, blasting trees from its path with fiery bolts. Fast through the forest Jim fled, as he had over a year ago. He pushed Destroyer harder and harder until he came to the river into which he had fallen during his first escape – but this time there would be no such fortune. The river’s waters had turned black as pitch, black as the poison tendrils in Jim’s arm.

  The poisonous river was alive.

  It reached out beyond the banks and seized Jim by the arm. The black water pulled him from Destroyer’s back and dragged him beneath the surface.

  Down the river Jim floated, whisked away by the dark rapids. He tried to escape, but again and again he was yanked beneath the waves. Rocks and branches bruised and battered his body along the way. The river refused to release Jim, and Jim failed to break its hold. Finally he surrendered and let the current take him where it would. Down Jim sank into the depths.

  But before Jim fell all the way to the riverbed, a flame bloomed to life above the surface. It was bright as the morning sun. Glowing tendrils broke through the waters. They reached out and surrounded Jim. They kept him from falling even deeper in the murk - but they did not pull him to the surface. A voice spoke to him from the light.

  “Jim Morgan, you have very nearly sunk beyond even my reach.”

  “Will you help me?” Jim asked. He reached for the cords of light, but they lay beyond his grasp.

  “Why should I rescue you? What cause of yours is so noble and true? Was it not by your own hand that you pricked your finger with the rose thorn and poisoned your blood?”

  “I’m looking for the shell, the shell my father left me. It leads to the Treasure of the Ocean.”

  “Many have sought the shell – and many more have sought the Treasure of the Ocean. Many have perished on their quests. I did not help any of them.”

  “But I never wanted the shell in the first place. I just wanted to go home. The Cromiers – they’re the ones! They burnt it to the ground. They killed my father and burnt my home to the ground. There’s nothing left now but the shell. I have to stop them. I have to beat them to the shell!”

  “It is true, the Cromiers burnt down your house. But your home was not wholly lost until this very day, nor was it truly destroyed by the Count or his son. If the only answer you have for destruction is more destruction, or pain for more pain, how will anything good ever grow in your life? Think about your home, Jim Morgan. What do you see?”

  “I see a blackened pile of ashes lying in ruins on the coast of England!” Jim cried.

  “Are bricks and beams all there is to a home for you?” The light replied, flashing brighter and hotter in the gloom of the river. “If so, then I shall leave you here and call it a mercy, for you shall never know joy in this life. Now, think of home. What do you see?”

  Jim closed his eyes and searched his memories. At first, he thought only of Morgan Manor, before it had been burned to nothing. But then he thought of the cellar beneath the shoe factory, the lighthouse by the sea, and even the cabin below the Spectre’s decks. Yet there was something more beneath the surface of those memories. It was his father’s strong hand on his shoulder, MacGuffy’s grumbling lessons, Lacey’s flashing blue eyes, Peter and Paul’s laughter, and George’s arm over his shoulder. Another thought occurred to Jim then. It cut him more deeply than all the other pains put together.

  “I burnt my home down,” Jim said. The image of Lacey reaching out to him from the clutches of the owl flashed in his thoughts and broke his heart through and through. “I burnt it down in just one day. Maybe you should let me go.”

  “What would you go through to rebuild that home, Jim Morgan? What would you endure?” Jim thought about it for a moment, but he found his answer inwardly, spoken by the most unlikely of teachers.

  “I would weather ten-thousand storms,” Jim said. There was quiet for a breath, but then the light flared so brightly it broke the darkness. The brilliant flash blinded Jim, even in the dream.

  “So be it, Jim Morgan! But know that you shall bear a scar, and there shall be great pain.” One tendril of light reached out and took Jim by his poisoned hand. It seared Jim’s arm to the bone. It burned so badly that Jim screamed aloud and wished he would die. But as it scorched his arm, the light also pulled Jim up through the pitch waters.

  “Now,” said the voice. “Wake up, Jim.”

  Jim broke the surface of the river. He gasped in the warm night air and the light enveloped his entire body.

  “Jim, you must wake up!”

  “Jim, wake up!”

  Jim sucked in the startled breath of a broken dream. He kicked and thrashed about until his eyes fluttered open. He shouted aloud and swung at the air as though still in danger of drowning. After a moment, though, Jim realized he
was free of the waters. He took a deep breath, his heart still pounding.

  Jim found himself beneath the branches of a great tree planted beside the river. A fine coat of spring flowers dressed the branches, red and white and bursting into bloom. The mist that had been crawling on the forest floor, grabbing at his ankles, was gone, replaced by a soft bed of grass. In that grass beside him sat George Ratt, and Jim realized it had been George calling for him to wake.

  “You’re awake,” George said. He was a bit pale in the moonlight and let out a long, slow breath, as though he had been holding it for a very long time. “Are you alright? Is your…is your arm alright?

  “My arm?” Jim asked. The cobwebs of the nightmare were still clearing from his mind, but it struck him suddenly. The pain, that gnawing agony that had been clawing at his arm from the inside ever since he’d pricked his thumb, was gone. The ice-cold chills that had wracked his body had disappeared as well. The evening air felt warm once again. Even the whispering voice at the back of his mind and the song of Philus Philonius’s flute were silent. In fact, the only sensation Jim felt on his hand was a gentle scratching, for his arm up to his elbow was wrapped in bandages.

  Jim took another deep breath. He felt alive and refreshed, like waking up after a long sleep or climbing out of bed the first morning after a fever has broken. But it took only another moment for Jim to remember what he had lost. He had said things – awful things to his friends. He had cut them to the bone with his words. He could still see Lacey reaching for him from beneath the shadow of great wings, her mouth open in a silent scream.

  “Oh, George! Oh, George, they’re gone! It’s all my fault…it’s all my fault. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” A great knot tied itself in the center of Jim’s throat and his chin quivered uncontrollably. “Those things I said to you. If I were you I would have let those owls take me instead of your brothers.”

  “It wasn’t you, Jim,” George said softly. “It was that poison inside of you talkin’, not the real you. I know that.”

  “I think some of it was me, George,” Jim whispered. “Maybe the poison just let that part out. You should have just left me there, George. You should have left me for those owls.” George said nothing for a moment, as though thinking very hard about whether or not he wanted to say anything or not. Then he cleared his throat and told Jim something he’d never told him before.

  “I really did know my father, Jim.” George stared into the grass beneath them without blinking. “I don’t remember much of ‘im, you know, just one memory, really. I guess I’m actually more like a couple of years older than Peter and Paul, not just one – ‘cause I remember standin’ there, on the steps of St. Anne’s. Peter and Paul were sittin’ there at me feet, and they was cryin’ and everythin’ cause it was cold. And there was me da’ and me ma’. Me ma’ didn’t say nothin’, but me da’ patted me on the shoulder and he said to me, he said: “George, you’re the oldest, so take care of yer little brothers until me and your ma’ get back. But we’ll be back, he said. We’ll be back. But they never came back. They lied.

  “So I took care of me brothers the best I could. Was always makin’ up stories about things our father had said and things he’d done, just to make ‘em laugh. Then, one day, you come along.” Finally George looked at Jim. His eyes glistened in the gray light. “At first I had to look out fer ya, just like me brothers. You was an awful thief at first, Jim, if you remember the incident with the apples and all.” George snorted a snuffly laugh.

  “But then all the sudden you got good, as good as me and Lacey. And we was stuck, stuck in that cabin with Dread Steele. I though then, just like me da’, that’d be the last time I ever saw you. But you come back, didn’t you? That’s when I knew…that’s when I knew you was more than me friend. You was me brother, too.”

  Jim stared at George, his eyes and his nose and his throat all stinging and thick. Jim could hardly think of one thing to say, not one that was worth what his best friend had just told him. All he could say was: “You shouldn’t give credit to your father for all those things you say, George. They’re good sayings. They’re your sayings and they’re good all on their own.”

  Jim and George threw their arms over each other’s shoulders, slapping each other hard on the back. After that, they coughed and sniffed and slapped at their faces as though they had never even thought of shedding a tear in the first place.

  “I’m going to go back for them, George,” Jim said hoarsely. “Not really sure I can explain how I know they’re still alive, but I do. I’m going to go back and make it right. Even if I have to turn to stone to do it. I promise.”

  “You don’t have to explain how you know, Jim. ‘ Cause the person who told me they was all still alive is probably the same person who told you.” George looked over Jim’s shoulder. When Jim turned from the river, he had to shield his eyes with his arm. A great, gold light nearly blinded him. The golden glow spilled onto the grass and glittered on the river, warmer than a summer morning. Floating at the light’s heart, at its very source, was a young girl. When Jim dared to meet the girl’s eyes, they glimmered with wisdom as ancient as the gypsy witch’s who had once cursed Jim’s box. Dragonfly wings hummed behind her shoulders. Her hair, yellow as the sun, fluttered behind her, held in place by a silver circlet that must have been her crown.

  “Who are you?” Jim finally managed.

  “I am Tanaquill,” said the glowing girl. “Queen of the Faeries.”

  “It was your voice,” Jim said, feeling the need to bow his head to the Queen. “It was your voice I heard in my dream. You saved us from the owls. You saved me from the poison.”

  “It was my voice that you heard,” Tanaquill replied. “And indeed, it was my magic that pulled you back from the brink, and not a moment too soon! The poison had nearly reached your heart. Then you would have been lost forever. But it was not I who saved you from the owls.” Tanaquill’s eyes flitted past Jim to George. “Your friend carried you to me in his arms, some miles from where you fell. His strength was all but gone when I found him. I first thought his efforts in vain, for the poison within your blood ran deep.” Tanaquill’s light illuminated the blossoms drifting from the tree like tumbling stars to where Jim and George sat in the grass. “It was for the love your friend showed you, Jim Morgan, that I entered into your dream. Such love should never go unrewarded. But there are greater reasons I chose to save you. The first is that you now have a promise to keep.” Tanaquill reached her finger to Jim’s hand. Without touching, she unspooled the white bandages from his arm and sent them floating off beyond the tree like a swirling ribbon into the night.

  From Jim’s thumb, where he’d first drawn his own blood on the cursed thorn, a scar like a white leaf curled onto his palm. It unfolded there into the perfect image of a rose in bloom, the stem and leaves trailing down his arm. Jim knew without looking that the scar ran all the way up his shoulder and onto his chest, where the black poison had once twisted like a dreadful vine. Jim let his hand sink back down into his lap and his chin settled on his chest.

  “Do not lose hope, Jim Morgan,” Tanaquill said. She floated down to where Jim sat in the grass and lifted his chin with her finger, which was warm and kind as the dawn. “There is more to you than your scars, Son of Earth and Son of Sea. There is goodness in your heart.” At that moment, another, golden light hovered over Tanaquill’s shoulder. At first Jim thought it was another fairy. But it was only a firefly. The firefly bobbed once before Jim’s face, and Jim knew then that it was the very firefly he’d freed from the spider’s web. “To take pity on the smallest and most insignificant creatures is the sign of a great heart indeed.”

  “Your friends yet live. You are charged with saving them, as I saved you. The owls were summoned by the dark pirate, Splitbeard, who is no stranger to evil magic. Even now the Cromiers have them and draw near to the cave beneath the mountain. But Jim Morgan, there is one more task you must accomplish. There is one more reason I spared you from the poison i
n your veins.” The faery queen’s face grew solemn. She suddenly seemed thousands of years older than her child-like face belied. “You must not allow the Treasure of the Ocean to fall into Count Cromier’s hands. The Treasure’s power is as old as the faeries. It is the power of the seas and the winds and the clouds themselves. Only a Son of Earth and Son of Sea may harness this power. But of these rare children, there are only two. One is the son of Lindsay Morgan.”

  “The other is Bartholomew,” Jim said. He was not sure how he knew, but somehow he was certain.

  “Yes,” Tanaquill said. “His heart has been blackened by his father.”

  “Can you help us?” Jim pleaded. “Can you use your magic against Splitbeard? Against the Cromiers?”

  The Faerie Queen shook her head no.

  “My power and the power of my people extend only as far as the edge of this field, to the river behind you. But there is a secret passage that leads to the Painted Cave beneath the mountain. It lies beyond a door lined in green and guarded by two white-blossomed trees. The passage may take you to the Hidden Chamber there within, masked behind a door of fangs, before the Cromiers and Splitbeard reach it. My people will take you there, but little time will you have to return before the fate of stone seals your doom. This you must do, Jim Morgan. Are you ready?”

  “I suppose I have to be,” Jim said. “Tanaquill, please take George back to the beach. If I’m able to free my friends, and if there’s time, will you then take them all back to the Devil’s Horns as well?”

  “No, Jim!” said George. He jumped to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes flashed with a passion that would have done Lacey proud. “You’re not goin’ into that cave alone. Not without me. Besides, if we are goin’ to turn to stone, I’ve been savin’ a special face to make at you when we go, just so everyone will know what a git you’ve been today!” A small smile flickered to life on Jim’s face and George returned it.