Herbert's face was forlorn, wearing a strange look of guilt or regret as he looked up at Edward from his chair. Despite his life and limb being intact, something unpleasant happened during their discussion, and it set Edward on edge more than he had already been.
"You," Grace called. "Inside."
After one final look at Herbert and a deep but quiet breath, Edward entered Grace's cabin, and she closed the door behind him.
Edward sat down in the chair across from Grace's and waited for her to sit. The anger that had been there was now gone, and she was emotionless as she stared at him.
"What happened ta John?" she asked.
Edward was silent for a moment. He had foolishly thought about everything but how to answer her questions. He chose to be blunt. "We lost a few to the storm. He's probably dead."
Grace's jaw clenched. "He went down ta fetch ye and never came back. You two did." Grace paused to let her words sink in. "What happened ta John?" she repeated.
"After he found us, we went straight above deck," Edward said. "I thought he was right behind us."
Grace tapped her finger on her desk. Her body was tense, each muscle taut and ready to snap like a snake. She didn't seem to care about any of the other crewmates who lost their lives at Edward's hands. She was only asking about John. That meant at least that she hadn't seen him throwing people overboard.
"I was watching for him. He never came back to the weather deck." Her expression changed. Her jaw softened, and she looked away from Edward.
"It was a storm. You probably just missed him." Grace didn't respond to Edward's comment. She just had the same faraway look now as she gazed at nothing. "Why are you only concerned about John? He was nice to my brother and me when no one else was, and I would be saddened to lose him as well, but from what I saw, we lost a few crewmates."
Grace turned to look at Edward again. "John's different."
She seemed content to leave it at that, but Edward needed to keep the conversation away from him and Herbert being suspect. "Different… how?"
Grace stared into Edward's eyes for a moment, and then she let out a sigh. "I told yer brother, I suppose I may'swell tell you, else ye'll hear it from him." She shifted in her chair, relaxing a bit, and her expression turning sorrowful. "John wus me son," she said.
"Your son?" Edward blurted out.
Edward's heart seized in his chest. Killing several of her crewmates was wrong enough. She killed one herself since they've been there. Killing her son was another matter entirely. He wasn't sure he could use his real name to forestall his death if she concluded that they had killed John.
"Aye," Grace said, long and drawn out.
After a moment of silence, she reached into the drawer of her desk and pulled out the liquor from before. She poured only for herself this time and downed the drink in one shot. There was no seeking pleasure in that drink, as Edward knew all too well. She wanted the numbness that it brought.
"Pirates came to me village when I was not twelve, maybe fourteen," she said. "I remember the bodies piled up in a ditch, all they owned stripped. Even the rich family wasn't safe." Grace took another drink, this time slower, and then she looked at Edward again. "Have ye ever been near a house set afire when the people are trapped inside?" Edward shook his head. "At first smells like nothing more than a roast. Then you smell the hair. Smells like shit. Reminds you what's burning, and you never forget that smell."
Edward sat in silence. He could already tell where the story was headed, trace the inevitable path that led a young child to have a son not much younger than herself, and a life of piracy, and a hardness born of experience.
He began to feel sick at his killing John, presumably her only son. Beneath the anger and now her strange façade of calm, he could tell that she loved John. It may have been from afar, but she still loved him. And Edward had killed him.
Grace continued. "I envied the pirates. They killed everyone I cared about, but I envied them for what they did."
"What?" Edward asked, perplexed.
"They made everyone equal," she replied. "Rich, poor, everyone was thrown in tha same hole when the iron took their lives." Grace swirled her cup before downing the last bit of drink. "I wanted that control." She took another moment and seemed to regain focus. "I wasn't poor, wasn't rich neither, but I was smart. I knew what was goin' ta happen ta the girls they didn't kill. So, I figured out who the captain was and… I made sure that he wanted my exclusive attention. The other girls weren't so smart. The men took their turns before discarding 'em, but the captain kept me for himself."
Edward had guessed the story already, but Grace's mention of the captain turned something in his mind.
"Jack musta saw something in me worth keepin'. Then, after I had John, and he found out, he made me a permanent crewmate." Grace shook her head as she bit her lip. "He'll not be pleased about this. Not one bit."
Edward felt crushed under a sudden weight, and his vision went blurry.
John had been Edward's half-brother, and Edward had killed him.
'I heard what you were saying about Calico Jack, about him being your father, about how you're going to kill him. Edward, I'm your—'
John had been about to tell him. It was also not so much a secret that John held some hatred for Calico Jack. John probably would have told Edward that he was on his side, and Edward killed him before he could get the words
