If anyone was looking for George Conley, I was unaware of it, until one fateful afternoon not so long into the spring. The cobbles were cold and wet with puddles, and the squire had gone out to meet with a buyer. The streets were deserted, save for a few souls hurrying through the misty rain in search of better accommodations. I stood at the counter, sorting through a pile of glass beads, when George poked his head around the doorframe of the shop, hissing softly to me. “Jamie…”
“What is it?” I asked, glad for a moment of respite as I stretched my neck out.
George had a piece of paper clutched tight in his hand, and I recognized the envelope it was in as having arrived earlier that day with our three-times-a-day post. When I turned to look at him, I found myself unsure of what I was seeing at first before realizing that he was staring sober at me, the expression of his face one of mortal sickness and terror.
George held up the paper which shook so badly in his hand that I had to grab his wrist to hold him still to take it. It was a scrap of parchment, with no adornments other than a large circle of black that had been drawn with ink onto the center of it. On the back, in a very good, clear hand, was written, “Dead men tell no tales. Nine tonight.” This caused me to glance up at our old clock to see that it was just now half-past four.
“What is this?” I asked George, for his face had gone paler than the paper, making his dark eyes flash with madness that did not come from rum.
“The black spot,” he rasped. “They’re coming for me. Tonight.”
“What is the black spot?” I asked, trying to break into the panic that seemed to be overriding him.
“A pirate’s death sentence,” George said, rushing forward to the shop door and flinging closed the lock, upsetting a table full of snuff boxes in the process. He rushed back to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. “Come on, lad!”
I found myself yanked after him as he hauled me toward the stairs with a strength I did not know he possessed. He took the stairs two at a time, and I raced to keep up with him. In his room, I could see he had already been at some manner of packing, his odds and ends strewn about, his sea chest open wide. On the bed sat a curved cutlass, with a rusted blade.
George flung himself to the chest and yanked something from it, holding it out to me. “’Ere, Jamie. This is what they’re afta. Take it, keep it safe!”
It was a packet of papers, wrapped in an oilskin covering to keep it protected from moisture. George waved it at me, and I hesitantly took it from him. I started to undo the straps that tied it closed, but George tossed his hand. “No time, no time!” he said. “They’ll be watchin’ me, lad. Take it, go ou’ the back like yeh are runnin’ an errand, and don’ come back!”
My mind was spinning as I tried to process George’s words. “Who is watching you?”
But George was frantically shoving things into his trunk with great haste before he suddenly sank to his knees, his face pressed against the bed as he struggled to breathe. In an instant, I was by his side. “George?” I asked, touching his shoulder.
He tried to shove me away, but it was as if his arm were an iron rod, and he turned his eyes to me in desperation. “Jamie,” he moaned softly, and the sound was like that of a mournful dog.
“Let me help you,” I said, trying to slide my arm under his shoulder, but he shook his head with great effort.
“No,” he said, then a little louder and firmer, “No!”
His eyes met mine, and I felt myself go rigid under his intense stare. “Jamie, lissen,” he said, and every breath sounded like it barely was able to escape his throat. “Lissen ta me, lad. Yeh’re a good lad, been a right decent sort ta ol’ Georgie.” He grasped my shoulder in his gnarled fingers as his hand shook. “Look here. They’re comin’ for me, an’ I ain’t in no form ta daddle ‘em again. But you… you and the squire been right ol’ mateys to the end wif me. I gave the squire meh word that he could have the map when I go, and this’ll rightly be the end o’ me. Go fin’ the squire. And neither of yeh come back, yeh hear me? Ol’ George won’t tell ‘em, I’ll take it to meh grave.” He let out a tremendous wheeze, the light in his eyes dimming a bit, and I could see that he already had one foot in said proverbial grave as he sat there. “You go. But be wary, boy, for where there’s gold there’ll always be blood to follow, you mark that.”
“I cannot leave you here if someone is coming for you,” I said as I tried to make sense of his ramblings, but George let out a harsh, rattling laugh.
“This be meh end, Jamie lad. As good an endin’ as I deserve. I’ll take ‘em ta Hell wif me if I can. Now go.” George pinned me with a hard stare, his eyes even more glassy now. “Go.” When I did not move, he summoned the last of his strength. “Go!” he bellowed with the ferocity of the pirate he once was, and I turned and ran from the room.
I tucked the packet absently into my shirt, mind racing as I tried to process what George had told me to do. Go out the back, find the squire. I grabbed a basket and a lantern from the kitchen before opening the back door of the shop, my heart thundering in my chest. I wondered if someone would come leaping out at me from the shadows, but nothing moved. I headed off down the alley, listening hard for the sound of breathing or footsteps, but I only sensed my own as I walked. Once I reached the main thoroughfare, with its flickering lamps, I felt a little better, for it would be harder for anyone to sneak up on me in the wider streets. I knew Squire Harrington had gone to meet with someone on Easter Lane, so I turned in that direction, trying to maintain my casual air, though all I wanted to do was sprint into the foggy darkness.
I ran into the squire as he was walking back from his client’s office. “Jamie!” he said, his eyes scanning over me with worry. “You look a fright, lad, what’s wrong?”
I tried to explain, but my words kept getting in my own way until Squire Harrington pulled us into a shop and had a pot of tea brought that warmed me and quieted my nerves.
In as calm a manner as I could, I explained to him about George receiving something called the black spot and how he had told me to run and not return. The squire waited until I had finished my breathless retelling. Then he patted my shoulder and told me I did well, and that we would have to return to the shop in the morning, for we could not just abandon our home without warning. But there was a worry in his eyes I had not seen before. I thought it then to be concern for George’s safety.
We stayed away from the antiquities shop, as George had instructed. If he feared the men as much as it seemed he did, we had good reason to not come under their scrutiny. We found a lodging house for the evening, and I tried to sleep, but it eluded me. I found myself wondering what happened to George. Was he all right? Had he rallied from his sudden fit? Had he died before the men even arrived?
The sky had barely started to show signs of the coming dawn when both Squire Harrington and I made our way back to the shop, neither of us having been able to sleep a wink. We were unsure what we would find, but that same thought drove us forward through the streets.
You cannot imagine a shop in such a state of smash. But for the sign over the door, you would not know what goods had once been hawked inside its walls. Countless trinkets scattered the floor in various states of ruin amongst the broken glass. Statues and sculptures had been decapitated or shattered entirely. The entire shop might have been picked up by a giant and shaken like a globe of water. There was no sign of habitation on the first floor.
Thoughts of self-preservation abandoned me, and I took the stairs two at a time, emerging onto the upper floor landing. The chaos from below had not prepared me for the nightmare that was above. While death was not uncommon in our lives, the level of violence that I knew had to have been enacted upon at least one person was entirely unfamiliar. Blood spattered the walls and even the hallway ceiling in great, streaked droplets, as if the artist had flung his brush of crimson madly about. The hallway furniture had been overturned in such a way that I had to clamber over it to make my way down the hall. I kicked something small as I walked in the dimness. I bent to pick it up, then dropped it with a ferocious cry as I realized it was a finger. Bony, the nail stained with dirt and blood, with a small tattoo of an anchor on it. I had no doubt it had belonged to George Conley.
A scrambling noise behind me made me jump, and I turned to see the squire making his precarious way over the makeshift barricade. He was carrying a lit lantern and had a pistol tucked into his belt, and he pulled it free once he was over the hall console. He examined the finger I had just dropped with a darkening frown. He gave me a nudge. “Stay behind me, Jamie,” he said softly, and I was more than happy to oblige that request as we made our way down the hall. The blood spatter grew thicker the further we went until we reached the door of George’s room, standing ominously ajar.
The squire pushed the door open and leveled his pistol, but there was not a living soul to be seen in the tiny room. There was, however, even more destruction, and what might have once been a man sprawled on the bed. The putrid smell of blood and rot hit us full in the face, and we both retched.
George Conley was most definitely dead. The fact that several pieces of his body had been separated from one another would have been enough indicator of that. Someone had tortured him, though why anyone would do such a thing was beyond my comprehension at the moment.
