What if (ON HOLD)

Chapter 13: Hoist the Colors

Over the next few weeks, I am now almost four months pregnant, and my moods has changed drastically. I would cry for no reason at all and sometimes I snap at Gail and Victoria when they're helping me. They take no offence to it and tell me not to apologize because they understand my pregnancy hormones. I even started obeying Beckett's orders because in my heartbroken and depressive state, I don't really care what happens to me.

I've been thinking about how and what Will and Elizabeth are doing and if they're even alive. I've also been thinking a lot about Jack and how he has never left my mind. Every night I cry myself to sleep about how heartbroken and depressed I am over his death.

I've been spending some time with my father when he's not busy with work that Beckett gives to him.

I've heard Beckett ordered Davy Jones to kill the kraken and to destroy a lot of pirate ships. Beckett even got the chest from Davy Jones to store the heart in.

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We're now at the battlefront where Beckett has imprisoned a lot of people in Port Royal who have been convicted of piracy and they are now being hung for their crime.

Beckett forced me to come to the hanging so he could keep an eye on me. I look on in disgust and saw all the prisoners lined up in chains all waiting to be hung. I thought how wrong and disgusting this is and how wicked and evil Beckett is.

"In order to affect a timely halt to deteriorating conditions and to ensure the common good, a state of emergency is declared for these territories by decree of Lord Cutler Beckett, duly appointed representative of His Majesty, the king," Groves says reading off a parchment. "By decree, according to martial law, the following statues are temporarily amended: Right to assembly, suspended. Right to habeas corpus, suspended. Right to legal counsel, suspended. Right to verdict by a jury of peers, suspended," Groves continues as person after person is hanged. "By decree, all persons guilty of piracy, or aiding a person convicted of piracy, or associating with a person convicted of piracy... shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead."

I watched as the next group walked up to their noose and noticed a small boy in chains walking up to his noose and looked up and saw he was too small to reach up.

I thought how disgusting that even a child is going to be hanged for piracy. I then heard the boy start to sing.

"The king and his men stole the queen from her bed. And bound her in her bones. The seas be ours and by the powers. Where we will, we'll roam," the boy sings.

The executioner then put the boy on a barrel to stand on and put the noose around his neck.

"Yo ho. All hands. Hoist the colors high," the man next to the boy starts to sing.

The rest of the prisoners then start to sing. Even I start to sing along, but very quietly as I know the song and know it's a call to the Brethren Court.

"Heave-ho. Thieves and beggars. Never shall we die. Yo ho. Haul together. Hoist the colors high."

"Lord Beckett!" Groves says running up to him. "They've started to sing, sir."

"Finally," Beckett says with a sly grin as if he was waiting for this. Beckett looks over at me and sees me singing along and covers my mouth. "Maria," he warns. I move his hand from my mouth and huff in annoyance and roll my eyes at him.

"Heave-ho. Thieves and beggars. Never shall we die."

Once the prisoners finished singing, the executioner went on to finish his job and hung the rest of the prisoners.

After the hanging, Beckett brought me back to the house for me to rest a bit, so my body doesn't cause any distress.

I know Beckett sent some of his men and Mr. Mercer to Singapore to spy on the pirates. I don't even think Beckett even knows that I know that because I've been sneakily listening outside his study to his conversations with Mr. Mercer.