Cursed Seas Pt. 02: The Witch-Eye

It had been too long. Too damned long. Any second, the skies would turn gray-green and Davy Jones himself would come from beneath the waves to destroy them all and laugh while doing it. They were being taken into the open ocean, that great expanse of blue with nothing around and the water went down for miles. Perhaps that bitch of Shella's, that woman she called Lily, knew they were following the two and was hoping to lose them somehow. If Veradine ever got her hands on Lily, she would beat that woman until she couldn't walk, then string her up and gut her in front of Shella!

It hadn't been the first time Veradine had had that thought. She had something like them at least twice a day. Sometimes they worked into each other, the blood-thirst making her whip twitch. Her malevolence was pouring off of her like a fog and the crew didn't want to make her angry at all for fear of receiving her wrath. She wanted someone to slip up, just however slightly, while in her slight so she could exorcise her desires.

Veradine's gaze drifted up to the crow's nest, where Angela looked through a spyglass. Angela looked down briefly, caught Veradine's gaze, and went right back to looking through the spyglass. If she saw something, anything, she'd need give a holler. Veradine nor anyone else on this damned tub could wait any longer. They were all standing at the gallows waiting for the floor to drop.

She returned to pacing, left swimming in her own thoughts. Trembling because of Davy Jones, but too pugnacious to let it show and too wrathful for anyone to comment. It had been three months since Veradine killed the old witch who made her like this and a month since the dagger locked on to a place. It had been too long.

A new mood set over the air of the ship; something had changed. The crew were murmuring where they had been silent before. Veradine looked around. The sky was still storm-free and the waters did not churn. Her gaze turned to the crow's nest. Angela was trembling, her spyglass pointed straight ahead. She murmured something inaudible from her tower.

Veradine simmered in irritation and cracked her whip against the deck hard, the sound echoing like a thunderbolt. Everyone near her jumped back, and even Angela nearly lost her grip on her spyglass. "What is it?" Veradine yelled.

"A - a - an island!"

* * *

Shella lay on her back in a field of grass. Each feathery blade tickled her bare legs and broken leafs stained her dress green. The sky above was blanketed in cotton-like clouds. The wind was a bitter, nipping breeze. The Witch-Eye was in her hand.

She rolled onto her stomach and held the Witch-Eye up to her eye. In the circle, each blade of grass was like a tiny candle, barely visible in the sun. If she didn't know about them, she would've never seen their glow. She pushed her hand into the Witch-Eye's sight. Next to her, the lights of the grass flared like lanterns in the night.

Footsteps broke through the field of grass. Shella tore herself away from the Witch-Eye to look at Lily walking up to her. Lily kneeled down next to her and put a caring hand on her arm.

"'M all right, Lily," Shella said. She stood up and surveyed the island Lily found. It was more north than Shella was used to, and the cold crawled across her skin. Gray cliffs and gray sand rose from the sea, topped with messy patches of grass. Lily had made anchor at a gravelly beach, and the entire island was perhaps a day's walk across.

They had been there for over a month. They were waiting, biding their time and building their traps until the Harpy appeared over the horizon. Lily had come up with the idea after she gave her previous idea. The Harpy was out for Shella's blood, and sailing all over the world would only make it harder on them.

Shella began flipping the Witch-Eye on her fingers. Her fingertips passed over the absence in its center again and again. She couldn't let it go. Lily's hand caught hers, and the Witch-Eye stopped spinning. Lily took her chin and guided her into a kiss, soft, tender, caring. Again, the world seemed distant.

That sense faltered when Lily broke the kiss. She looked out across the ocean and Shella followed her gaze. At the very edge of vision, sails fluttered, aimed right at them.

* * *

The Harpy had turned into a hive of activity. Cannons were loaded and pushed against portholes, the chase cannons filled with chain shot, the pistols and rifles loaded, the blades sharpened. If Veradine found anyone slacking, her whip would snap across their back, tearing open clothes and skin.

She was so close! Veradine could feel the belts tightening on her body, crushing and twisting her flesh. Every moment was as rugged as her limping walk. If only Shella hadn't taken that wish away from her, she would never have had to feel every squeeze, every tightening pinch from these damned belts ever again! This time, perhaps, Shella wouldn't decide to become a senseless invalid and let Veradine cleanse with her agony. That was, if Davy Jones didn't decide to claim Shella early.

"Captain," said Jenny Ivory besides her. She held up the dagger. Its eye-like gem gleamed dully like a sleeping beast, its blade clean and reflective as if that was an unnatural state.

Veradine wrapped her hands around the dagger's bone handle. A length of belt at her hip loosened. Beneath it, her body ached and gasped, a few scant inches free for a short while and wishing that the freedom would never end. Veradine slid the dagger into the hoop formed by the belts. She was handed a set of long pistols, and those slid into open lengths at her chest. A cutlass, with its edge wickedly sharp, slid into a hoop just above the dagger. Her curse knew her bloodthirst, and that was the only thing it would shift for.

In front of them, a gray island rose up from the grim ocean, topped with green-yellow grass wavering in the wind. Bobbing at a gray beach was a small ship that could barely be called such; Veradine would've called it a boat, or perhaps flotsam. Nobody would make such a small ship; it was just too bizarre. Then again, that woman that Shella always talked about turned out to be rather bizarre herself.

The Harpy sailed in close enough range to the little ship. Chase cannons were aimed at the vessel, and with a crack of Veradine's whip, they exploded. Weighted chains shrieked through the air. One missed the small vessel and hit the beach accompanied by a flare of blossoming sand. The other hit its mark, and the ship's single mast was torn right off of the deck and sent tumbling into the water.

Veradine cocked her head and snapped her whip again. The chase cannons were loaded once more, aimed, and fired. This time, the vessel was hit head-on and was replaced by a white, watery explosion. Only gray driftwood remained.

She had to admit, Veradine wanted more of a struggle. She wanted the burst of cannon-fire ripping into enemy ships, to see blackened smoke curl and rise from burning hulls and to hear the moans of the wounded, limbs torn apart by a cannonball. She was expecting more of a fight, too. She had all the cannons loaded below deck and nothing to use them on. If that Lily woman was so protective of Shella, then she should come at the Harpy with her own warship, not make a little dinghy of a ship and run away on it.

With a few more barked orders, they were lowering their boat on to the island, Veradine on board, with Jenny Ivory, a few tough women, and, after some debating, Gwen under the logic that maybe Gwen could distract Shella for a few key moments.

The boat hit the waters, then jerked towards the island as the crew began rowing the shore. Veradine watched the coast, her eye flicking from jagged coast to beach and around again, looking for movement. Nothing stood out to her the entire time. Were they at the right island after all? If they weren't, then Veradine would flay someone, she resolved.

The jolly boat nudged the gray shore. Veradine vaulted the side and limped up it. She scanned the slope up the island, only seeing the waving blades of grass. The other women pulled the jolly boat ashore and waited for her command. She pointed a finger upwards. "Scour the island. Find anybody that lives here," Veradine said.

Together, the landing party marched up the coast. Some with crustacean claws and tough skin, others with axes and pistols. Jenny Ivory drew a boarding axe, looking in her finery like a dead love come back from the grave. Gwen, though, resided near the back, lost in thought. She hadn't brought any weaponry.

"What's your problem?" Veradine hissed.

"Saltbeard's going to hurt her," Gwen said.

"Not after I do."

"You don't know her like I do. She's... she was lonely. You only hate her because she has what none of us have."

Veradine stepped up to Gwen and bent down to look her in the eye. Gwen looked miserable, perhaps only a few steps from tears. "Don't forget. She took our chance at happiness away from us. All for that woman," Veradine said. "I expect you to remember that."

Gwen nodded.

Satisfied, Veradine straightened and limped up the coast, her boots breaking green-yellow stalks of grass. She rounded the top of the hill and saw something surprising.

There was a village in front of her. She'd hesitate to call it that, but multiple buildings were placed neatly next to each other, as if people lived there. There were no official streets, not so much as a trampled path, and no sign of life aside from her crew, who were scouting the buildings carefully.

Each building was made out of shoddy driftwood nailed together combined with canvas from ship sails. Their windows were either empty or filled with dirty, broken glass. Their doors were plain as plain could be, and no sign marked any building. It was like an acting troupe had set up a stage.

"What is this?" Veradine hissed as she stomped towards the village.

"It's a... I don't know. Castaways?" Jenny offered. She opened a door and looked inside. Whatever was in there wasn't enough to get her attention, and she ducked back out.

Veradine felt the fires of rage flow through her veins at the prospect of her hunt interrupted. "If it is castaways, I will beat them to death!"

"Don' worry, it ain't. Lily made it," someone said in their very familiar accent.

It was as if Veradine's heart had curdled. She whipped her head around to follow the sound of the voice. Standing with her arms crossed on top of a two-story building, wearing a dress made of canvas tied with a rope belt, was Shella.

"You...," Veradine hissed. Her hand ripped a pistol off her chest and she fired it at Shella. Shella jerked back from the impact, but resumed standing firm and confident.

Veradine pointed the smoking barrel away from Shella and with and evil glare, yelled, "Get her!"

The crew surged forth with cacophonous yells and shrieks, but above them, Shella shouted, "Before ya do, I got somethin' yer gonna want t' hear!"

"So what?!" Jenny Ivory yelled back. "Last time you did this, you used us to get a wish! We could've all been happy, but you had to go ahead and be greedy, you fucking whore!"

"Jenny. Shaddup." Shella redirected her attention to the crowd, addressing Veradine's crew. "I know that yer souls are bound t' Davy Jones" - everybody except Shella flinched - "but I got a way t' free you from 'is grasp!"

The crew halted, souring Veradine's mood even further. Her whip snapped up, then across the backs of the women closest to her, making her crew stumble forth. "Get her! Drag her down!" Veradine yelled.

"All yer souls are bein' kept somewhere!" Shella said as the crew advanced on her building. "'n I know how t' find them! Trust in me jes' this once, please!"

Veradine let her whip snap again, and her crew marched on Shella's building. "How can you find them?" someone asked from the crowd. It was Gwen.

Veradine scowled beneath her straps, her hand reaching for her other pistol.

"Lily n' I got somethin' from a witch we visited," Shella announced, holding up what looked like a stone with a hole in it. "This 's a witch-eye! It lets ya see souls, n' with how Davy Jones has all yer souls, ye can follow th' trail it makes back t' where he hides 'em and claim yers right back!"

"Are you sure?" Gwen asked.

"We-ell, the witch said she was under Davy Jones fer a little bit back in her youth and said she was free now, jes' like how I said."

That witch was Jezebel. All these years, and Veradine never found out how that bitch escaped Davy Jones. She wanted to beat something to death, to take out her rage on something until nothing was left but blood and broken bones. She leveled her pistol at the stone in Shella's hand and pulled the trigger. Shella's hand jerked and the stone flew away from it, falling to the ground.

"Lies. Lies and deception again!" Veradine spat. "You want us to carry you to someplace else so you can reap the benefits at our expense! Just like last time. I want her before me, women! I want that little traitor, now!"

* * *

Things could be going better for Shella. She had a rapidly-healing hole in her hand, dropped the witch-stone, and now had an advancing mob of angry damned souls rushing at her. At least she talked Lily into letting her do the peaceful route first and seeing if that worked. She sighed and slammed her foot down on a raised plank. Below her, the plank knocked something aside, causing a rope to release, letting the building's facade fall down as barrels shot out and ran over the mob to a tide of shrieks and screams of surprise.

Lily had spent weeks on this. Shella often saw her frozen as planks sprouted from planks and rope grew like vines, all twisted and hammered into this shape. It was the same powers she had used to make their ship, but it left her very weak. Shella didn't think Lily was strong enough to defend herself if the crew of the Harpy Captain Lash found her. Whatever happened, Shella could not let them find Lily.

Shella turned away and slid down a rope to the ground before dashing behind another building and slipping through a secret door, picking up a pebble on the way. She gingerly picked her way across a board laid across a pit to an open window and chucked the rock at a cursed woman, one with four arms, the lower normal and the upper heavy and crab-like. When the four-armed woman looked at her, Shella whistled and beckoned at her. The woman bellowed and brandished a harpoon like a spear and charged at Shella. Shella scampered back the way she came just in time for the door to turn to splinters. She caught a glimpse of the crab-woman's eyes widen in surprise before disappearing into the pit. Another woman saw Shella and yelled at her, charging at her and stopping just before the pit. Shella slipped out the secret door and snuck to another building.

This one was made to look like a tavern - sort of. From the outside, it was no different from any other building. From the inside, a variety of tables and chairs were stuck fast to the floor. Shella entered via a back door and near by, there was a rope going from floor to ceiling. She didn't know what it did, nor why it was so far from every chair and table. Lily hadn't been able to give her a tour of the place; Shella was mostly guessing at what each building did.

From outside the building, Shella heard, "She went this way!" The door slammed open, and five women in various states of decay and mutation swarmed the building. Shella quickly pulled on the rope. To her surprise, every table and chair shot up to the ceiling on poles. One woman was decked by a flying table with a crack and another tripped on top of a chair as it rose, becoming its prisoner as it hit the ceiling. The room became a forest of pillars, but it wasn't enough to stop them and the remaining three women began to thread their way through the posts.

Shella let go of the rope. Even faster than they had rose, the chairs and tables fell. With a hearty thunk, every other woman left standing was knocked on the head by furniture and left low.

"Huh," Shella muttered to herself as she turned to leave. Lily had a hell of a mind. Just another of her fine qualities.

Before she could leave, Shella heard a snarl behind her. Shella turned around and found a blossoming, burning pain in her stomach and the haunted red eyes of the woman who had been the chair's prisoner. Shella looked down and saw a sword in her stomach. She wrapped her hand around it and pulled it out, her wound writhing shut.

"Ya wanna get me, yer gonna need more 'n that," Shella said. She grabbed the woman's oily hair and pulled her head down, then slammed on the back of her skull with the sword's pommel. The woman crumpled with a defeated gurgle. Now with a sword, Shella left the 'tavern' and crept off to a new building.

She hadn't gone a few steps before Jenny Ivory said behind her, "Hello, slut."

"Hello to you, too," Shella said with a fake smile as she turned around.

Jenny was alone, a boarding axe in her bony clutches.

"So, what's yer bright idea?" Shella asked.

"To cut off your head and bring it to Captain Lash. You're tough. You'll survive."

"Y'know, I weren't kiddin' 'bout that witch-eye thing," Shella said. "If ya find it, look through it. Ye'll see someone's soul. I saw the crew's, just like torches in a breeze, flame pointin' as a compass t' the rest o' yer souls. Ain't too late."

Jenny didn't even pause to think before she replied, saying, "It's too late for you. You lost your chance when you stole that wish from us!" Jenny jumped forward, swinging an axe fast and loose.

Shella jumped to the side and jabbed her sword into Jenny's body. It slid between ribs, catching nothing except blood-stained cloth.

With flexibility borne of fleshlessness, Jenny Ivory twisted her arm around and buried her axe into Shella's back, pain biting deep into Shella and forcing itself out as a scream. Jenny ripped the axe out of Shella's back, letting her body writhe back together, and said, "You're going to scream a lot more once I bring you back."

Jenny spun her arm around and brought the axe down on Shella's skull. A dull thump combined with a sick splitting sensation, and Shella's world became fuzzy and dizzy. Pink fluid - her blood, flowed down her face, getting into her eyes. Yet Shella could already feel her body trying to heal itself, crawling and writhing and scrabbling to reunite itself like it had with her back and stomach. What would've killed a man couldn't even hope of killing Shella. In an odd moment brought on by the spinning, she wondered if that had to do with not having a soul.

Shella pulled away from Jenny, axe still buried in her head, and tried pulling it out. "Y'know, Jenny, whasis - what's it fer ya? Whatcha get?"

"I get to see a whore and a slut get what's due to her. That's enough for me," Jenny said, her bones clacking as she advanced on Shella.

"'N ya don't wanna go back t' yer family? I betcha you could find a way t' not be a bag o' bones anymore if'n ye weren't in his slavery," Shella said.

A boney hand, its grip stronger than a human's, grabbed the axe handle and jerked it up. Shella couldn't see Jenny with her blood in her eyes, but she was there, within arm's reach.

"I don't know about you, but I'm liking what they did to me. It took me time, but now, the terror in humans' eyes as I come for them is exquisite," Jenny said, a disgusting sneer in her voice.

Shella scowled and made a mad swipe with her hands. Her hand gripped something cool and smooth and was rewarded with a startled shriek. She pulled straight up, and after a moment's resistance, lifted Jenny's skull straight off of her neck.

Jenny's jaw clacked wildly as she sputtered, her claws scratching at Shella. Shella shoved Jenny's body away from her and threw the head in the opposite direction. Wiping the blood from her eyes, Shella finally got a good gripe on the axe and pulled it out of her skull. "Sick bitch," Shella muttered.