The Brightest Star in the North

by Meredith Rusu

  “Sharks?” asked Carina. Henry had been overboard for several minutes now. Why weren’t they hauling him up?

  “Shark off the bow!” Gibbs suddenly called.

  Jack shrugged. “I’d say swimming is no longer his primary concern.”

  Carina couldn’t help it: she was growing very worried. “We’re wasting time,” she snapped. “Bring him up!”

  “All of him?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “Because that might be a problem in a few minutes.”

  “The map is there!” Carina cried, pointing hastily straight up toward the sky.

  Everyone paused, looking at her.

  “On your finger?” Marty asked.

  “It’s in the heavens!” shouted Carina. “That diary will lead me to a map hidden in the stars.”

  Jack pondered that. “A treasure map hidden in the stars?”

  “Someone must have an enormous quill,” Scrum added.

  “Bring him up, and I will find it tonight!” Carina exclaimed.

  Jack smiled. “Sorry, can’t bring him up. Look for yourself.”

  Carina rushed to the rail and looked over. She couldn’t believe her eyes. There was Henry, safe and sound. He hadn’t been in the water at all. The pirates had dropped him to a rowboat tied to the side of the ship. Henry looked up at her, gag still stuffed in his mouth, hands bound behind his back.

  Without meaning to, Carina sighed in relief.

  Jack walked up to her side. “As I said…blushing.”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Carina stood at the bow of the ship, watching the sky. Waiting.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Henry, also staring out over the sea. He looked pensive. Troubled. In a way that Carina could tell was very real.

  She walked over to him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for him,” Henry answered. “Even when I know he’s not there. My father.”

  Carina studied Henry’s face. She had known him for only a few days. And yet there was no denying their paths were very similar. Carina hadn’t met many young men in her life. James and the other boys at the orphanage had just been childhood friends, and there had never been time or opportunity for socializing at Hanover Hall. But Carina felt drawn to Henry. It was as though Carina had finally found the right person to talk to about the things that mattered most to her.

  “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there,” she told him, using his own words of encouragement.

  Henry turned to her. “Like the map?”

  He does understand. Carina smiled. He knows how important it is.

  “I have to find it,” Carina said.

  “No one has ever found it,” Henry replied.

  Carina reached to take Henry’s hand. She was just about to say, “Together, we will,” when Henry finished his thought. “Maybe it doesn’t exist,” he said quietly.

  Carina gasped, taken aback. “What did you say?”

  Henry realized his mistake. “Nothing,” he lied.

  But Carina could feel her temper bubbling. Why does he keep doing this? Every time we have a nice moment, he ruins it by saying something foolish about legends or ghosts. And now he questions the map?

  “Doesn’t exist?” she asked angrily. She held up the diary and walked toward Henry, forcing him back against the rail. “This diary is the only truth I know. I kept it with me every day in that orphanage, studied the heavens when it was forbidden—when they called me a witch! I swore to know the sky as my father intended me to.”

  “Your father?” Henry asked, surprised.

  “My mother died as I was born,” Carina explained. “This diary was all that was left with me—”

  “I know what it is to grow up without a father, Carina,” Henry said, interrupting her.

  “Then you know I can never stop,” she said heatedly.

  To her surprise, Henry reached out to grasp her hands, sending an inexplicable electric charge through her. “Carina, you’re always looking to the sky. Perhaps the answer is right here.”

  Carina flushed. What did he mean by that?

  Then she noticed his hands were not on hers, but on the diary.

  “Show me,” Henry said.

  Carina took a deep breath and opened the book to the page with Galileo’s most important passage: Tutte le verità saranno comprese quando le stesse si saranno derectus.

  “Galileo wrote that ‘all truths will be understood once the stars align,’” Carina said.

  Henry furrowed his brow. “If the stars do not move, how can they align?”

  “He could be referring to the planets,” Carina suggested.

  “But he clearly drew stars.” Henry pointed to the cluster of five stars in the drawing.

  “He wrote the word derectus,” Carina said. “So the stars must align.”

  Henry looked at the diary, then at Carina.

  “Galileo was Italian. But derectus is not Italian. It’s Latin.”

  Carina paused. “Latin?” she asked, uncertain. She’d never thought of the diary being in anything but Italian. And for all his ravings about the supernatural, Henry did seem impressively learned.

  “Derectus does not mean ‘align,’” Henry continued. “It means ‘a straight line.’”

  Carina considered that. “All truths will be understood once the stars are in a straight line,” she said slowly.

  Suddenly, her eyes grew wide.

  “What is it?” Henry asked.

  “It was right in front of me!” Carina exclaimed, hardly daring to believe that this might, at long last, be the final clue. “There is a straight line moving from Orion—the son of Poseidon!”

  “But how do you follow it?” Henry asked, confused.

  “It starts with the ruby.” Carina’s heart thumped. “A straight line from the ruby…”

  She took the ruby from the front cover and held it to the sky like a lens. Carefully, she looked through it, positioning the gem over the constellation Orion. Henry moved beside her so he might look as well.

  And then she saw it! A burning red line running straight across the sky.

  “Do you see that?” Henry gasped.

  Before their eyes, red lines visible only through the ruby lens charted a course across the heavens…a map!

  “A straight line starting in Orion,” Carina said excitedly. “The hunter’s arrow moving straight through Cassiopeia…heading across the sky toward the end of the Southern Cross! It ends there, Henry!”

  Carina pointed to the Southern Cross, blazing in the sky through the ruby.

  “So the map is inside the cross?” Henry asked.

  “No, because it’s not a cross, it’s an X!” Carina cried. “The Southern Cross is an X hidden in the sky since the beginning of time!”

  Carina looked at Henry, her eyes shining.

  “This is the Map No Man Can Read!”

  Henry grinned. “That map will lead us to the Trident. We just have to follow the X!”

  Suddenly, the sound of guns cocking broke their elation.

  Jack was standing behind them, along with his crew—a familiar scene. Except this time they were all pointing pistols.

  “And X always marks the spot,” Jack said.

  IMMEDIATELY, JACK ORDERED Carina to guide them to the X in the sky. Carina wasn’t keen on taking orders from pirates—at gunpoint. But seeing as how she needed a ship to reach the Southern Cross anyway, she didn’t have much choice but to work with them.

  The rest of that night, Jack, Gibbs, Scrum, and the rest of the crew watched as Carina studied the sky, a ticking chronometer in her hand.

  She continued to gaze upward well past sunrise, never saying a word. By midday, the pirates were extremely confused.

  “So she’s saying she has the map, but only she can follow it?” Gibbs asked the others.

  A pirate named Bollard frowned. “So…we should shoot her?” he suggested.

  “Leave her be,” Henry said, annoyed. “She’s f
inding it.”

  “You’ve been saying that for hours,” another man, named Cremble, said accusingly.

  “There are two things I know to be true,” Scrum whispered to Jack. “Stars do not shine by day, and she did not bring her donkey.”

  A crewman named Pike piped up. “Do any of you see this X?”

  Scrum shielded his eyes from the sun. “I see a bird…a cloud…my own hand…”

  Gibbs sighed, exasperated. “Jack, how are we to follow an X to a spot where no land could exist? An X which has disappeared with the sun?”

  “This may very well be the worst map I’ve ever seen,” Jack admitted. “Mainly because I can’t see it.” Without warning, Jack grabbed Carina. “For the last time, how do we find your X?”

  “This chronometer keeps the exact time in London,” Carina snapped. “I’m making an altitude measurement to the Southern Cross to determine longitude. Only then will we find that spot on the sea.”

  The pirates all looked at one another.

  “Witch!” cried Marty.

  “You expect to follow your X with a timepiece?” Gibbs asked, even more confused.

  Carina nodded. “My calculations are precise and true. I’m not just an astronomer. I’m also a horologist.”

  To Carina’s surprise, the pirates all stared at her sympathetically.

  “No shame in that, dear,” Jack finally said. “We all have to earn a living.”

  “No, I’m a horologist,” Carina repeated.

  “So was my mum,” Scrum admitted. “Although she didn’t crow about it quite as loud as you.”

  “Horology is the study of time!” Carina exclaimed.

  Jack frowned. “So nobody can find that X but you?” he asked.

  “And the donkey?” Scrum added.

  Carina was about to retort when Henry suddenly cried out behind her.

  “Salazar!”

  Everyone spun to see an enormous vessel bearing down on them a few miles back.

  “Ship to the aft!” Gibbs cried.

  The terrified crew all wheeled on Jack.

  “The dead were not part of this deal!” Gibbs exclaimed.

  “We should never have followed a luckless pirate and a witch to sea!” cried Pike.

  “Our own captain is leading us to slaughter!” shouted Cremble.

  Carina watched in disbelief as the pirate crew drew their swords and surrounded her, Henry, and Jack. Did those fools actually believe they were being chased by the dead? She wouldn’t have thought it possible if she hadn’t been able to see the dread clear in their eyes.

  “We’ve been fooled for the last time,” rasped Scrum.

  “Kill them all!” another cried.

  Carina and Henry drew close together. But Jack raised his hands to stop them.

  “Kill me, and the dead won’t have their revenge!” Jack pointed out.

  “Which will anger them even more,” Henry added.

  Carina looked from the pirates to Jack to Henry. “Are all pirates this stupid?” she whispered.

  Meanwhile, the crew was now terrified and confused. The dead would kill them all if they caught up to the Dying Gull. But if the crew killed Jack, then the dead would still kill them all as revenge for killing the man they were hunting.

  “Jack, what should we do?” Gibbs asked desperately.

  Jack shrugged. “As captain, might I suggest a mutiny?”

  * * *

  Jack, Carina, and Henry sat aboard a longboat, adrift at sea. The Dying Gull grew smaller and smaller on the horizon.

  “Mutiny?” Carina asked with annoyance. “You had to suggest a munity?”

  “Carina, they’re coming,” Henry warned, rowing feverishly with Jack.

  “Ghosts?” Carina asked, tired of the word. “You’re both afraid of ghosts?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “And lizards and Quakers.”

  “Well, I choose not to believe.” Carina crossed her arms.

  “Do you not see what’s behind us?” Henry insisted.

  Sighing, Carina turned in the boat and looked behind them. Not more than a mile back, Salazar’s ship, the Silent Mary, was gaining on them. Carina shielded her eyes. It was a ship at sea—nothing out of the ordinary about that. Though now that she could see it more closely, it did look odd. Ominous. The sails were torn, but it was sailing at an unholy speed. That was strange. And was the hull…rotted through? It seemed almost to resemble a large floating rib cage. Dark clouds gathered behind the ship, although the rest of the sky remained clear.

  Carina shook her head and shrugged. She couldn’t believe Henry’s ravings had started to get to her for a moment. “I see a very old ship,” she said to Henry. “Nothing more.”

  Suddenly, several more enormous sails unfurled from the Silent Mary’s mast. The ship picked up even more speed.

  Carina frowned. Now that was concerning. Regardless of who was aboard that ship, it was clear they were after them—more specifically, Jack.

  Carina looked ahead. She saw a small island not far from them.

  There was only one choice.

  She stood abruptly and began to unbutton her dress.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked in alarm.

  “Preparing to swim,” Carina said matter-of-factly. “Whoever those men are, they’re after Jack. And Jack is on this boat. So I am going to swim for it.”

  Jack pulled a face, offended. “How dare you do exactly what I would do if I were you.”

  Without further argument, Carina stripped off her dress so that she was down to her undergarments, which covered most of her body anyway. Then she dove into the bracing water.

  “Carina!” Henry cried as she swam hard and fast toward the shore. But she didn’t turn.

  She just swam and swam. The ocean current fought strongly against her. It felt as though the closer she got to shore, the rougher the waves became. Odd—had someone called “Shark!” behind her?

  Still, Carina didn’t turn. Instead, she focused all her energy on reaching the shore. Her arms and lungs burned with effort. The island was so close she was certain she would feel the sandbar under her at any moment. She could be no more than twenty feet away…ten feet away…

  And then success! The water became shallow and Carina’s feet hit land. Gasping, she stumbled ashore, exhausted and out of breath. She collapsed to the sand. She had made it.

  FWOOM!

  Jack and Henry suddenly crashed up alongside her in the longboat, sending sand flying in her face.

  “What is wrong with you both?” Carina exclaimed angrily.

  But Henry didn’t even look at her; he just continued staring out to sea, his expression consumed with fear.

  “Carina, don’t turn around,” he warned.

  “Let me guess,” Carina said sarcastically. “You’ve seen another—”

  As she spoke, Carina finally turned around.

  And she froze in terror.

  WHAT SHE WAS SEEING WASN’T possible…wasn’t conceivable….

  Standing on the sea was an entire army of the dead.

  The dead!

  “Ah—ah—” Carina tried to speak, but her voice was reduced to a squeak.

  There was no denying it: the grotesque souls leering at them were definitely not members of the living. Some had deep gashes sliced across their chests: angry, ripped wounds rotting from the inside out. Others were missing their chests altogether, leaving gaping holes through which Carina could see tempestuous clouds opening up in the skies behind them.

  Their clothes were decrepit; their limbs hung at odd angles. And in front of this ghastly crew from beyond the grave stood a captain—proud, tall, and cruel—with half his skull gruesomely blasted off in the back.

  “Jack Sparrow,” rasped Captain Salazar through black teeth. He sneered and brandished a rotting sword.

  Carina clutched her mouth in horror as several ghosts rushed forward, reaching hungrily for Jack. But as soon as their tortured souls hit the border of the shore, they snapped back violen
tly as though shocked. With horrible shrieks, their spirits disintegrated, seeming to die a second death.

  “They can’t step on land!” Jack cried in relief. “And to think I was worried.”

  Carina recoiled. Her voice finally returned, and she screamed a single word….

  “Ghosts!”

  “Do you remember me, Jack?” Captain Salazar said in a low, fierce voice.

  Jack conceded. “You look the same. Other than that gaping hole in your skull. Are those new boots?”

  “You’ll soon pay the devil his due!” Salazar cried.

  Carina had had enough. She ran.

  “Ghosts!” she screamed again, taking off into the island jungle.

  “Carina!” Henry cried behind her. “Stop!”

  But Carina did not stop—she couldn’t stop. She could do only one thing at the moment, and that was run. Run as far away as possible from that horrific, dreadful, impossible scene at the shore.

  It’s not possible! she told herself over and over again, crashing through grasses and ducking under palm branches. Not possible, not possible, not possible!

  It was like a hole had been torn in the fabric of her reality, forcing her to get a glimpse of hell she never should have witnessed. Her entire life had been governed by the rational. All those years she’d clung to the truth. And now…how could she possibly rationalize this away?

  She couldn’t. That was why she needed to get away. As far away as—

  THWAP!

  “Ahhhhh!” Carina screamed.

  She swooped up toward the sky, her arms and legs tangled in a mesh of rope. Carina’s heart pounded so hard she could barely see.

  A net—she’d been caught in a hunter’s net.

  The grasses and palm branches and tree roots all swam dizzyingly far below her. She dangled precariously high above the ground, completely helpless.

  Unable to take any more, Carina blacked out.

  * * *

  When Carina’s vision returned, she didn’t remember what had happened. She seemed to be caught in a net, swaying some thirty feet off the ground.

  Suddenly, the events from the beach flooded back. An army of the dead—bloodthirsty and looking to kill—had been standing on the sea.