Free The Caribbean by Rob Kidd Page A

pretensions to the so-called New World ‘aristocracy.’”
    Everyone in earshot stared at her, mouths agape. Jack wheeled toward Diego.
    “PRINCESS?” he demanded. “Didn’t think that was worth mentioning, mate?”
    “It doesn’t change anything,” Diego pleaded. “She still needed rescuing.”
    “I could have rescued myself,” Carolina objected.
    “You might have saved us some trouble if you had,” Jack pointed out. If New Orleans weren’t already fading to a speck behind them, he would have seriously considered going back and leaving her there. But he was on a bit of an urgent mission. Speaking of which…
    He nipped around behind Marcella and darted into his cabin.
    “Mine!” he yelled triumphantly and then closed the door on her startled face.
    Evidently Marcella had decided that her first order of business was to redecorate the cabin according to her tastes, which meant rearranging the furniture, dumping all the maps and papers in an untidy pile behind the couch, and redraping the curtains. It also looked like she’d adorned the arms of the upholstered couch with odd scratches. Odd indeed, this one.
    With a deep sigh, Jack set to putting things back the way they were. He was nearly finished when there was a knock on the door a few hours later.
    “Come in!” he called. “No, wait! Who is it? I’m not here! Go away!”
    “Jack,” Billy said, poking his head inside. “It’s been very nice to see you and Jean again, but I
    can’t help but notice that this is not the way to North Carolina !”
    Jack squinted out the window, where the setting sun was clearly to their right, proving that they were going south, not north.
    “Ah,” he said, “yes. Right. We just have to make one more stop. Not to worry, mate! One quick stop and then we’ll head right there!”
    “Jack,” Billy said warningly.
    “Tell me something,” Jack said, pulling out the quipu . “Do you have any idea what this is?”
    It worked; Billy was instantly distracted. Unfamiliar things always made him curious.
    “Looks like a bunch of knotted string,” he said, taking it in his hands. “There could be a pattern to the knots, but I don’t know what it means.”
    “Think it does anything supernatural?” Jack mused. “Tia Dalma gave it to me. So I’m guessing it’s a mystical mumbo-jumbo, stringiewingie thingie.”
    Billy handed it back quickly. “I don’t know,” he said, “but speaking of the mystic’s, er, gifts , I think that zombie might have left one of his fingers in the ratlines of the forward sail. None of the men will go near it.”
    “Well, tell Alex to go get it himself,” Jack said. “He’s very obedient, unlike most pirates. They could learn a lesson from him.”
    “He’s acting rather odd, actually,” Billy said. “He keeps shuffling along the edges of the deck, staring at the land and muttering. I heard him say ‘Shadow Army’ a few times.”
    That got Jack’s attention. “Hmmm. I’d better go see what’s ailing him, then, hadn’t I?” he said casually.
    Billy was right: Alex was shambling from one end of the rail to the other, staring at the land off to starboard. The other pirates on deck were trying very hard to stay away from him, scrambling to the opposite end of the ship in a giant pack every time he moved.
    From the grating over the hatchway came the voice of Marcella. She was stamping around the crew’s quarters down below and complaining at the top of her lungs.
    “It stinks down here! And it’s hot! And stuffy! And what is this hammock made of, canvas? How am I supposed to sleep on that? You better find me a curtain so I can have some privacy, Jean!”
    Jean answered in a patient, murmuring voice, but she carried on angrily. Near the main mast, Carolina, looking impatient, shook her head and started to climb the ratlines to the crow’s nest. Diego hurried after her.
    Somehow the Black P earl had gone from having too few pirates to being overrun with troublemakers. Jack