"Why is Jack afraid of the open ocean?" Will spoke aloud the question that had been nagging at him the whole journey here. Jack had refused to let the Black pearl breach deep waters, insisting that they stick to the shallows. It was not hard to figure out this reason. Jack was suddenly wary of the depths. 

Gibbs glanced round at the jungle encircling them and leaned forwards. Above, birds called and leaved blocked out the sun. The island they had arrived at was heavily coated in vegetation. The pearl had been left in a the reef and three rowboats served to carry them up the river inland. Around the banks of the water were snarled roots of trees and vines. There was a dark magic to this place, despite the bright sunshine and humid weather. It felt like people were watching them, that the island knew that they were here. Every so often they would see a shape that looked humanoid peering through the trees. (Will hoped that they weren't more cannibalistic locals).

 Gibbs kept his voice low enough so that it wouldn't travel to the two boats ahead of them. "Some say that there's a beast that does the bidding of Davey Jones. A fearsome creature with giant tentacles that'll suction your face clean off and drag an entire ship down to the crushing darkness. The kraken". The last word was spoke with no small amount of dramatic tone. "They say the stench of it's breath is like"... He shuddered. "Unimaginable. They say that the last thing you remember of God's green earth is the roar of the kraken and the reeking odour of a thousand rotting corpses".  He paused for half a second to drop the dramatic dark tone. "If you believe such things". 

"And the key will spare him that?" Will's voice was quiet, unimpressed. 

"Well, that's the very question Jack wants answered. Bad enough even to go visit... Her".

 Will's eyebrows twitched at the return of the foreboding pause.  "Her?"

"Aye", Gibbs continued. "If you thought our friend Ben Jim was a dark creature, you should see his relatives". 

"She's a mermaid?" Will asked in surprise. 

"Worse", Gibbs muttered. "A witch". 

The sun had set and fireflies had crept from the jungle to dance over the water by the time their destination had come into view. Will had been expecting more than the little wooden house built over the water. But as he had come to realised, expectations were never correct when in the company of Jack Sparrow. It was lit warmly but orange lamps and at the base, where the supports sunk into the river and marsh, was a little jetty for the boats. The two row boats occupants were silent as they drifted closer. There were people in the trees. Dark forms that loomed in the dark, hair and skin matching the richness of the earth. It was hard for their eyes to pick them out in the gloom but there was a general feeling of being watched by more than they could see. The house looked simple, but Will was willing to bet that it was anything but. 

There was a light thud as the boats hit the jetty. Jack sprung out and grabbed for the ladder. "No worries mates", he spoke, turning back to them. "Tia Dalma and I go way back. Thick as thieves. Nigh inseparable we are". A pause. " Were. Have been. Before". 

Gibbs stood up. "I'll watch your back". 

"It's my front I'm worried about", Jack muttered back before he began to climb the ladder. 

"Mind the boat", Gibbs instructed Will, who had also climbed up onto the jetty. 

Will promptly turned round to the crewmate behind him. "Mind the boat". Then he was climbing the ladder up to the house. The man must have done the same thing as him, because when Will reached the front door, it was with five others following behind him. 

The inside of the house was meeting his expectations for witch's cottage. Jars of creepy, uncertain looking things hung from the ceiling. Candles, wax dripping over their bases and onto the floor, covered most of the flat surfaces. The light glittered off the glass and various lumps shrouded in cloth that seemed rather suspicious. Will didn't get much of a chance to see more before the witch was slinking up to him. Tia Dalma was a lithe woman with deep red brown skin and dreadlocks and braids hanging down her back. Her eyed were smudged black with charcoal and her dress was a stitched together thing of many different materials. When she smiled, fingers dancing at him, it was with ink stained black teeth and tongue. 

"You have a touch of destiny about you", her voice was an accented rasp. "William Turner". 

Will frowned. "You know me?" 

She smiled and leaned closer to him, voice coy and teasing. "I have heard many a thing about you.  Mr Turner. Do you want to know me?"

Jack stuck and arm between them and she stepped back. "There will be no knowing here", he stated. "We've come for help and we're not leaving without it". Then he paused and glanced between them. "Besides, Benji already laid claim to him". 

"He did", Tia Dalma remarked. "But forgive me for wanting to check the man my grandson has fallen for".

"Where is our fishy friend anyway?" Jack asked, glancing around. Will glanced around too. The room wasn't large. On the end at the left was a ladder probably up into the attic space and on the right was a curtained off room. 

"You missed him by three days", Tia Dalma replied as she turned round and strode to the table in the centre of the room. "He went back to Tortuga. Come". Will tried not the let the sudden and rather surprising wave of disappointment show on his face as Tia Dalma steered him by the shoulders and gently pushed him into a wooden chair. "What service may I be to you? You know I demand payment". She looked at Jack expectantly. 

"I brought payment". Jack whistled and one of the crew members handed him a wooden cage. Inside, the familiar monkey from the Black pearl chittered. Jack pulled out his gun and shot it. The monkey screeched. "Look! An undead monkey". He set it down on the table. "Top that". 

Tia Dalma reached over and unhooked the cage door. The monkey scampered out and fled to the curtained off room. The crewmen all groaned. "You have no idea how long it took us to catch that". 

"The payment is fair". 

Will pulled the cloth from his pocket and unfolded it on the table so that the picture of the key was visible. "We're looking for this and what it goes too". Tia Dalma glanced up sharply. 

"The compass you bartered from me, it cannot lead you to this?" 

Jack paused from smelling one of the jars. "Maybe. Why?" 

Tia Dalma sat down in one of the wooden chairs with a wide grin. "I hear you. Jack sparrow does not know what he wants. Or do you know but are loathe to claim it as your own". She smirked then threw up her hands. "Your key go to a chest but what lay inside the chest is what you seek. Don't it?" 

"What is inside?" Gibbs asked. 

"Gold? jewels? Unclaimed properties of a valuable nature?" 

Tia Dalma sat forwards. "You know of Davey Jones? A man of the sea. A great sailor, Until he ran afoul of that which vex all men". 

"What vexes all men?" Will asked, leaning on the table. She grinned at him, black teeth in the candle light. 

"What indeed?"

"The sea?"

"Sums?"

"The dichotomy of good and evil?"

"Love", Jack interjected. "A man, or a woman". 

"Love", Tia Dalma repeated gleefully. "He fell in love". 

"I heard it was the sea he fell in love with", Gibbs protested. 

"Different versions, same story and all are true", Tia Dalma waved a hand. "See he fell in love with a woman, as changing and harsh and untameable as the sea. Him never stopped loving her. But the pain it caused him was too much to live with but not enough to cause him to die".

"What exactly did he put into the chest?" Will spoke up, words slow as his brain began to cotton on to where this story was taking them. 

Tia Dalma smiled slowly. "Him heart". 

"Literally or figuratively?" One of the crew members asked. 

"It was not worth feeling what small, fleeting joy life brings.  So him carve out him heart", her voice turned dark. "lock it away in a chest and hide the chest from the world. The key, he keep with him at all times". 

Will stood up. "You knew this", he accused. 

Jack blinked at him. "I did not know where the key was, and now we do. So all that's left to do is jump aboard the Flying Dutchman, steal the key. Then you can go back to port royal and rescue your bonnie lass. Aye". 

"Let me see your hand!" Tia Dalma declared. Jack paused then sighed and reluctantly held out his left hand to her. A bandage was wrapped round the palm. She unwound it to reveal a resting black pustule in the centre of his palm. 

"The black spot!" Gibbs squeaked. He turned round twice, rubbing his hands on his shirt then spat on the ground. Will watched in confusion as the rest of the crew followed the man's example. 

"My eyesight is as good as ever just so you know", Jack declared.

Tia Dalma frowned at the black spot then disappeared into her back room. They all peered after her as loud clattering sounds emanated. After a minute, she returned with a large glass jar and held it out. "Davy Jones cannot step on land but once every ten years. Land is where you are safe Jack Sparrow and so you will carry land with you".

 Jack took it with visible confusion.  "Dirt. This is a jar of dirt". 

"Yes". 

"Is the jar of dirt going to help?"

"If you don't want it. Give it back". 

"No". 

"Then it helps". 

Will ignored Jack now clutching the jar of dirt to his chest. "It seems", he stated. "We now have a need to find the Flying Dutchman". 

unedited