The Brightest Star in the North

by Meredith Rusu

  Outside, a cloud shifted and moonlight poured into the cell. The blood moon, Carina thought. And then another light caught her eye. Quickly turning the diary over, Carina saw that the ruby was glowing.

  “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Carina breathed. She plucked the ruby from the cover of the diary and angled it so the moon’s light shone directly through, illuminating the entire diary cover.

  She gasped.

  A message was written on the cover of the diary, visible only in the light of the blood moon!

  “‘To release the power of the sea, all must divide,’” Carina read. Her eyes grew wide. A tiny illustration of a landmass had also appeared beneath the constellation. “It’s an island!” she exclaimed, unable to stop the smile spreading across her face. “The stars lead to an island!”

  Carina laughed with relief. She finally had her clue! She was one step closer to finding her map, and the treasure—as long as Henry Turner kept up his end of the bargain.

  With their combined effort, as well as a ship, they could sail to the island and find the Trident.

  That is, Carina thought, if I’m not hanged first.

  MORNING ARRIVED, but Henry Turner did not. Carina awoke to a bright shaft of sunlight piercing the cell window—and the sound of heavy footsteps approaching down the prison hall.

  “Good morning, witch,” a soldier greeted her with a wicked smile. “Ready to die?”

  Carina and several other accused individuals were led, shackled, to a cage on wheels. Once they were locked securely inside, the cage rumbled to the town square.

  A large crowd had turned out again, this time to see the routine gallows executions.

  Lieutenant Scarfield walked up to the cage, a smug sneer on his face. He looked Carina up and down. “Finally where you belong, I see?” he said. “Don’t get too comfortable. I’ve personally seen to it that you’re up first.” He leaned in close. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  Carina’s face was grim as the guards came to open the cage door and drag her up to the gallows. It wasn’t looking good. She had placed all her hope in Henry Turner, but perhaps she had been mistaken.

  I wonder if word of my death will make it back to England, she thought as the hangman adjusted a noose around her neck. Would any of them—Mrs. Altwood, Sarah or James, Lady Devonshire—ever know her fate?

  Carina swallowed hard as she gazed out at the sea of jeering faces, cheering, laughing, enjoying the early-morning spectacle of death.

  No, she realized with a sinking heart. They will not.

  Across the square, a commotion caught her attention. The guards seemed to be having difficulty with another prisoner being led to the guillotine—a filthy man with long hair.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Carina rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not one to complain,” Jack Sparrow said loudly as he was strapped down to the guillotine, “but this basket is full of heads. Could I get a fresh one?”

  The hangman finished securing Carina’s noose and stepped back. “Any last words, witch?” he said.

  Carina breathed heavily and looked out again at the dimly lit eyes of the local revelers.

  If she was going to die, she would do so in honor of her father—as a woman of science to the bitter end.

  “The last words of Carina Smyth,” she began. “Good sirs, I am not a witch. But I forgive your dim-wittedness and feeble brains. In short, most of you have the mind of a goat—”

  “Is it not common practice for those being executed to be offered a last meal?” Jack cried out loudly from his guillotine, interrupting her.

  “I believe I was making a point,” Carina shouted in his direction. “If you could just be patient…”

  “My head is about to be lopped off, hence the urgency,” he retorted.

  “And my neck is about to be broken,” said Carina. Unbelievable, she thought. That pirate sends me to my fate, and now he interrupts my final words!

  “On occasion, the neck doesn’t break,” Jack quipped.

  Carina looked at him. “What?”

  “I’ve seen men swing for hours,” the pirate explained casually, “the life slowly choking out of them. Eyes bulging, tongue swelling, a revolting gurgling sound…”

  “May I finish?” Carina snapped.

  “The point is,” Jack continued, “it’s entirely possible you still have hours left to whisper your last words, whereas my head will soon be in this basket staring up at my lifeless body, which happens to be famished!”

  Carina huffed. “Kill the filthy pirate. I’ll wait.”

  “I wouldn’t hear of it,” Jack said. “Witches first.”

  “I am not a witch!” Carina exploded. “Were you not listening?”

  “Hard to listen with the mind of a goat!” he yelled back.

  “Enough!” shouted Lieutenant Scarfield. “Kill them both!”

  The executioners stepped forward to throw the handles that would drop the guillotine blade and open Carina’s trapdoor at the same time. That was it. The end had come.

  And then, suddenly…

  A heroic figure swooped down on a rope! Carina’s eyes grew wide. It was Henry Turner! He was swinging down to help! The young man flew straight toward the executioner…and missed. Badly. He landed instead in the middle of the town square, tumbling in a cloud of dust while several soldiers quickly surrounded him. Henry struggled to fight them off as Lieutenant Scarfield stepped forward.

  “Get another noose!” Scarfield ordered. “He will die with the others.”

  Scarfield walked up to Henry as the soldiers pinned his arms. “Did you think you could defeat us, boy?”

  Henry smiled. “No, sir. I’m just the diversion. Fire!”

  Instantly, an explosion rocked the town square. Carina watched in disbelief. What was happening? A band of pirates was dragging a cannon into the middle of the square.

  Scarfield was furious. “Pirates!” he screamed.

  The town square erupted into chaos. People and horses stampeded as the cannon exploded again, rocketing dirt and debris in every direction. Out of the corner of her eye, Carina caught a glimpse of Jack’s guillotine just as it was hit by a cannonball. The entire platform began to spin. The blade whizzed down toward the pirate’s neck only to be whipped up again in the nick of time before whizzing back down. This continued—with Jack escaping death by a hairbreadth each time—until, suddenly, a runaway cart smashed into the platform and the whole thing tipped. Men and women trampled past, and Carina gasped as Jack Sparrow disappeared from sight in a cloud of commotion. Surely he was done for.

  Finally, the dust settled, and Carina couldn’t believe her eyes. The pirate had been set free in the crash, the guillotine blade lying harmless at his feet.

  “Gibbs!” Jack cried to one of the men fighting off the soldiers. “I knew you’d come crawling back!”

  “The Turner boy paid us ten pieces of silver to save your neck,” Gibbs replied.

  Henry found a pirate crew to help! Carina realized.

  At least, she hoped they would help her. She was still bound precariously by the noose. And if her platform shattered, it wouldn’t be the rope that snapped, but her neck.

  “Henry!” she heard Jack Sparrow call as he fought back three guards, using the guillotine blade as an impromptu weapon. “Find your witch!”

  Carina couldn’t believe that Henry knew such a nefarious man. But now was not the time to think about such things. Carina struggled to free herself as a scruffy pirate battled a soldier directly in front of her. She watched helplessly as they drew closer and closer to her.

  Then, to her surprise, the pirate bested the soldier, sending him off the gallows platform.

  “Thank you,” Carina said, relieved.

  “M’lady.” The pirate bowed, extending his arms out wide. Carina could see that one of his hands was headed straight for the gallows switch.

  “No—” she started, but it was too late. The p
irate hit the switch, and the floor dropped out from beneath her.

  Carina screamed. Her neck would snap any second!

  And then, miraculously, hands grabbed her.

  Carina looked down and saw Henry standing below her, his arms round her lower half and his face buried in her navel as he used all his strength to hold her up.

  Henry grinned. “From this moment on, we are to be allies,” he said.

  Relief washed over Carina. Henry had kept his promise—he had saved her.

  Then she realized exactly where his hands were: holding her…posterior.

  “Considering where your left hand is, I’d say we are more than that,” Carina said.

  An extremely embarrassed Henry tried to adjust his position while making sure the rope around her neck did not grow taut. “We find the Trident together,” Henry said, changing the subject. “Do I have your word?”

  “You’re holding everything but my word,” Carina replied. “Now cut me down!”

  “I don’t have a sword at the moment,” Henry said sheepishly.

  Carina stared down at him. “You came to rescue me without a sword? What kind of soldier are you?”

  Henry moved Carina out of the way of a nearby brawl between a pirate and a soldier. “Perhaps we could discuss this later, as I am having trouble hoisting your port!”

  “You are far from port,” Carina said, correcting him. “That is my stern!”

  Henry looked up at her. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive!”

  “Well, look at this.” Carina and Henry both turned toward the new voice.

  Lieutenant Scarfield walked slowly toward them, sword drawn. “If I kill the coward, the witch hangs. Two for the price of one.”

  “Please do not let go!” Carina cried to Henry.

  Henry watched, defenseless, as the huge soldier bore down on him. “Might be difficult when he kills me,” he cried.

  And then—

  Whomp!

  Scarfield flopped to the ground like a limp fish. Behind him stood Jack Sparrow. He’d knocked the soldier out cold with the blunt end of the guillotine blade.

  Carina and Henry stared at Jack in disbelief. The pirate had saved them.

  All around them, the commotion had died down. The soldiers had retreated, defeated by the pirate crew and their cannon. Now Jack and his men surrounded Henry and Carina.

  To their surprise, the pirates all drew their swords.

  “Gentlemen.” Jack Sparrow smiled. “These two prisoners will lead us to the Trident.”

  CARINA SCOWLED AT HENRY as they stood side by side, tied to the mast of the pirate’s ship, the Dying Gull.

  “So this was your brilliant plan?” she asked. “To be tortured and killed by pirates?”

  “That is Captain Jack Sparrow,” Henry explained, nodding in the filthy pirate’s direction. “One of the greatest pirates to ever sail the Caribbean. And we have an accord—he and his crew will sail with us to find the Trident.”

  Carina looked down at the ropes binding them. “Will that be before or after they have us walk the plank?”

  “We needed a ship!” Henry said, defending himself.

  “You call this a ship?” Carina asked.

  As far as ships went, the Dying Gull was, well, dying. To Carina’s eye it appeared little more than a piecemeal raft with a lopsided mast and so many holes it was a wonder they hadn’t sunk. Just getting it in the water had been a challenge for Sparrow’s crew. The first mate’s cry of “Prepare to drown!” had not been reassuring.

  All the while, Jack had continually groaned that his true ship, the Black Pearl, was trapped in a glass bottle. Carina could only assume it was the rum talking.

  “These men are mad,” she said pointedly to Henry.

  “These men are pirates,” Henry said. “They know what they’re doing.” Then his face grew dark. “Carina, there’s something you need to know. The dead are sailing straight for us.”

  Carina scoffed. The pirates might not be the only mad ones on this “ship.” She wanted to trust Henry. Truly, she did. But the way he talked of ghosts and curses as though they were real greatly irritated her.

  “Is that so?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Henry insisted. “I’ve spoken with them. A sea captain named Salazar has returned from the dead to hunt Jack Sparrow. His ghost ship, the Silent Mary, and crew attacked the ship I was serving on and left me alone alive to tell the tale. Salazar is death itself. He will not rest until he has destroyed Jack and all pirates along with him.”

  There was a brief pause as Henry’s words sunk in. “Have you spoken to krakens and mermaids as well?” Carina asked ironically.

  “Krakens don’t speak—everyone knows that,” Henry said.

  That about did it. Carina had risked her neck to free Henry and had wound up in a noose and tied to the mast of a pirate ship because of it. And worse, the degenerate captain had taken Galileo’s diary while his men tied her up. “I never should have saved you!” Carina exclaimed.

  Henry paused, clearly realizing that Carina wasn’t going to believe him. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “Last night, there was a blood moon,” he said, “just as you described. Tell me what it revealed.”

  “And why should I trust you?” Carina snapped.

  “Tell me what you found,” Henry pleaded, trying to get her back on his side, “and I promise to help you.”

  Carina turned away. “I’ve been alone my entire life. I don’t need any help.” She realized the truth of those words as she said them. All her past allies had left her life in one way or another, and none of them had ever really understood the dreams she’d had for her future. She’d learned that she could rely only on herself to make them happen.

  “Then why did you come to me, Carina?” Henry asked, pressing her. “Why are we tied together in the middle of the sea, chasing the same treasure? Maybe you don’t see it, but our destiny is undeniable.”

  Carina pulled a face. “I don’t believe in destiny,” she muttered.

  “Then believe in me,” Henry said, “as I believe in you.”

  Carina sighed. He was looking at her so earnestly, with so much hope and conviction. Deep down, she wanted to believe in Henry, to believe in all this: that somehow, fate had led her on the right course toward discovering her birthright and honoring her father. But everything in the past few days had happened so quickly and, worse, was out of her control. She hated that feeling. She wanted to be on course again—in line with the stars.

  “The moon revealed a clue,” Carina admitted. “‘To release the power of the sea, all must divide.’” She told him about the illustration of the island.

  “Divide?” asked Henry. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Carina said. It didn’t make sense. And she was now starting to second-guess everything.

  Henry offered her a reassuring look. “Then we’ll just have to find out.”

  Just then, Jack Sparrow sauntered up, brandishing Galileo’s diary.

  “There is no map in this map,” he said.

  “Give me that diary!” Carina exclaimed.

  “Give me the Map No Man Can Read,” said Jack.

  “If you could read it, then it wouldn’t be called the Map No Man Can Read,” Carina replied.

  “I beg you not to argue with her,” Henry said with a sigh.

  “Most of the men on this ship can’t read,” Jack told Carina. “That makes all maps the Map No Man Can Read.”

  Carina huffed. “If no one can read it, then you have no use for it or me.”

  Jack frowned. “Let me start again. Show me the map!”

  “I can’t, as it does not yet exist!” Carina exclaimed.

  A pirate named Marty leaned over to one of the other crewmen on deck. “She’s a witch,” he whispered.

  “No, I’m an astronomer,” Carina said, correcting him, sick and tired of the witch nonsense.

  “So…you breed donkeys?” another pirate, named Scrum,
asked.

  “What?” Carina asked. “No—an astronomer contemplates the sky.”

  “On a donkey?” asked Scrum.

  “There is no donkey!” Carina shouted.

  “Then how do you breed them?” a third pirate asked.

  Carina felt like her head was about to explode.

  “She’s a witch!” exclaimed Marty. “We should throw her overboard!”

  The pirates all stepped forward; none of them wanted dark magic sailing aboard their vessel.

  Jack moved between them and Carina. “Allow me to simplify the equation,” he said, pacifying his men. Jack turned to Carina. “Give me the map, or I’ll kill him.”

  Jack drew a pistol and aimed it at Henry. Carina’s stomach lurched inexplicably, but she kept her face calm.

  “Go ahead and kill him,” Carina said, challenging him. “You’re bluffing.”

  “And you’re blushing.” Jack smirked. “Throw him over!”

  Abruptly, the pirates untied Henry and Carina from the mast and rebound Henry’s hands. They shoved him toward the rail of the ship.

  “He doesn’t appear to be bluffing!” Henry called to Carina.

  “We call this keelhauling,” Jack explained. “Young Henry will be tossed over and dragged under the ship.”

  Carina made sure to appear unfazed. “Go on. What are you waiting for?”

  Henry shot Carina a look before the pirates gagged him—and tossed him over the edge of the ship.

  Carina used all her willpower to act like she didn’t care. These filthy pirates wouldn’t really kill Henry, not after he’d helped them rescue their captain from the chopping block.

  Would they?

  “Not a very strong swimmer,” Jack noted casually, peering over.

  “Just went under the ship!” Gibbs observed. “If he’s lucky, he’ll drown before the barnacles slice him to bits.”

  “Barnacles?” Carina asked, feeling dread starting to creep in.

  Jack walked to her and leaned close by her face. “Like a thousand knives across your back,” he said. “And of course, the blood attracts sharks.”