Anger and fear are close kin, even closer than my brother Danforth and me. As children, we were nearly inseparable. At least that’s what the surgeon said—though with skill and effort he eventually prevailed.

Jocelyn’s fear at the thought of losing Evie, both for the older girl’s sake and for her own, hardened to anger once everyone had been accounted for and gathered together safely aboard the same wrecked ship. When she saw Krueger and his men sailing away, taking both Calypso’s Nightmare and the Hook’s Revenge with them, that anger exploded.

Jocelyn whirled to face Evie. “What were you thinking, jumping into the sea like that? You could have been killed!”

The girl appeared to be caught off guard by Jocelyn’s verbal attack, but she rallied and reacted in kind. “He was going to push me anyway! I simply took away his opportunity. I’d rather choose poorly, of my own accord, than have someone choose for me.”

Guilt tugged at Jocelyn’s conscience, but she shoved it away. She placed her hands on her hips, affecting her captain stance. “That’s not the way it works on a pirate ship! You don’t choose. You wait for orders!”

Evie mimicked Jocelyn’s posture, looking down on the girl from a two-inch height advantage. “If I had waited for you to tell me what to do, Krueger would have taken your map!”

“Your brilliant plan failed! He took it anyway! If he hadn’t, do you think he would be leaving us alone?”

The two girls were full-on shouting now. Everyone else stood by, watching in uncomfortable silence.

“You let him take your map? Why would you do such a thing?” Anger colored Evie’s cheeks scarlet.

“Maybe, for some insane reason, I was more worried about you than it!” Jocelyn put her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Roger stepped forward. “Jocelyn, Evie, please, don’t fight.”

“Stay out of this!” they both yelled.

Roger put his hands up in a gesture of supplication. “I’m just trying to help,” he said.

“It’s not working,” Jocelyn snapped. “Stop trying to fix everything!”

He stepped back, a pained look on his face. Jocelyn immediately regretted her words, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. She was responsible for the crew. Everyone would be looking to her for what to do next. The only problem was, she had no idea.

“What are you all staring at?” she growled. “Go​…​swab the deck or something!”

Jocelyn stormed to the opposite side of the ship to give herself time to think of a way out of the mess they were in. She sat on the slick and rotting decking (which really could have used a good swabbing) and watched until the two ships Krueger now commanded disappeared on the horizon. The Hook’s Revenge was still seaworthy, but the damage made it move slowly. The ship remained in her sights for several long minutes, giving plenty of time for dampness and despair to settle in, chilling her to the core. Her hopes and dreams felt nearly as dead as the wreckage beneath her.

Above the chattering of her teeth, Jocelyn heard footsteps approach, but to her disappointment they were too heavy to belong to Roger. Mr. Smee groaned as he lowered himself to sit next to her. “Well now, Captain, things aren’t so bad, are they?”

“What do you mean, not so bad? They’re awful! I’m quarreling with my closest friends. Krueger has Meri, my ship, and the map. What have I got, other than this unsailable wreck?”

Smee looked at her over the top of his spectacles. His eyes were kind. “You’re not dead. Not even a little. That’s something, isn’t it?”

Jocelyn smiled a bit in spite of herself.

“And,” he continued, “you do have your friends.” He absentmindedly patted his sword. “No one can take them away. Though, I suppose, you can give ’em up, if you choose.”

He stood, brushed off his backside, and offered her a hand. Jocelyn took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. She felt shame wash over her. She had spoken far too harshly to both Evie and Roger, and she knew it. Then, to make matters worse, she had gone off on a sulk. With her ship or without, Jocelyn was still the captain. She needed to start acting like it.

The girl returned to find that her prior display of leadership had been a poor influence on the crew. Inspired by their captain’s outburst, contention had spread. Blind Bart clung to the stump of the ship’s broken mast, mumbling a blistering castigation of anyone and everyone, and most particularly the sea itself. Dirty Bob cursed him right back, not bothering to hold back his contempt regarding a pirate afraid of the sea. Jim McCraig and his parrot were loudly bickering (at least it sounded like bickering), and One-Armed Jack and Nubbins were engaged in a tussle of their own.

Jocelyn arrived just in time to see Jack take a swing at Nubbins with yet another prosthetic: a wooden-handled egg beater attached to the stump of his arm.

Nubbins sidestepped him. “How dare you try to beat me with me own whisk? I said give it back!”

“And I said it isn’t yours! It belongs to me!” Jack cried.

“Well, where did you get it?”

“I found it bobbling along in the sea.” He made a motion with the whisk, mimicking the way it had floated on the waves.

“Yeah. It were there after you dumped it overboard! Give it back!” Nubbins reached out as if to grab it.

“You can’t just go taking a man’s arm!” Jack waved it menacingly.

“You can’t go taking a man’s whisk!”

It was well past time Jocelyn took things in hand (no pun intended).

“Men!” the girl bellowed. “Stop that this instant! All of you!” She glared at each person in turn. When she looked at Roger and Evie, sitting quietly together apart from the others, she felt both a stab of jealousy and a prickle of guilt, but she stuffed them both down and doled out commands.

“Nubbins, you have no need of a whisk at the moment. Jack does need an arm, unsuitable as it may be—”

“Yeah!” Jack said.

“Quiet, you dog,” she growled. “I’m not finished. Once we get back to land, Jack will find something else and return your whisk to you.”

“How do you propose we get back, Captain?” Blind Bart asked.

That was the question, wasn’t it?

There would be no swimming back to the island. They were miles away at sea, with man-eating sharks, giant cephalopods, cruel mermaids, and who knew what else between them and the main island. And not a one of them could fly. All the fairy dust Jocelyn had been wearing had washed away, and there would be no more with Meriwether a captive of Krueger.

Jocelyn’s shoulder felt empty without the little fairy there, ringing in her ear. She hoped the toxin he had been sprayed with had no lasting effects and that the bottle that held him had enough air. She gripped her hands into fists. She was determined to rescue Meriwether—somehow. And while she was at it, she’d reclaim her ship and her treasure map. That map had been left to her by Captain Hook, the greatest pirate of all time. Krueger didn’t deserve to have it simply because he had been able to take it.

Krueger might be stronger. He might have a fierce crew and a fast ship. He might even be a better pirate. But he had no claim on her father’s treasure. Jocelyn would find him and take back what was hers. She would find a way to make him pay.

But first, they had to get back to land.

“We will have to salvage what we can from this wreck and build a raft. Jim McCraig, take One-Armed Jack and see what tools you can find: rope that hasn’t rotted through, mallets, nails, and bolts. Nubbins, you go see if there is any salvageable food in the galley. The rest of you”—she found she couldn’t quite look at Evie and Roger, so she made a rather broad gesture taking them in—“start pulling up planking. We’ll get as much done as we can before dark and finish up in the morning.”

Jocelyn, being young and inexperienced, didn’t know what a gift she had given the crew. In the absence of hope, work is a fitting stand-in. Keeps the despondencies away. In the absence of both hope and work, torture will do. At least, it always cheers me right up. But I digress.

While everyone else scurried off to follow her orders, Jocelyn sat to plan. It wasn’t enough for them to simply get back to the main island. She had to think about what would happen after that. She hadn’t made much headway, however, when Roger returned alone with an armful of planks.

He began to pile them carefully on the deck. “I got these from the driest place I could find below, but they are still rather rotten,” he said without looking at her. “I’m not sure a raft made from them would hold us. I thought in the morning I’d swim out to some of the other wrecks to see if I can get any better.”

That Roger always was an optimistic one, but the fact of the matter was, he would be unlikely to fare better elsewhere. They were lucky to have found refuge where they did. Though the wreck was fully unable to sail due to a large breach in the hull, it had settled on the reef in such a way that most of it was above water. The craft was a far cry from cozy, but at least it offered some measure of security out in the middle of the lonely sea.

Jocelyn felt it best not to discourage Roger so soon after their fight. Instead she asked, “Where’s Evie?”

“She’s with Jim McCraig and the parrot, searching the hold.”

Jocelyn cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

Roger turned and faced her, wearing his just-for-Jocelyn grin. “I know. And I’m sorry for trying to tell you what to do. I know none of this is easy, but you’ll figure things out. Let’s not argue anymore, all right, Captain?”

Jocelyn smiled back. “Deal. It’s too awful when we are cross with each other.”

She spit on her hand and held it out, ready to make it official, but Roger pushed her hand aside and threw his arms around her in a hug. It felt as warm as coming in out of the rain.

“Deal,” he said, squeezing her tight.

Over his shoulder Jocelyn saw Evie climb up from the lower deck, carrying a burlap bag and wearing an enormous straw bonnet. The hat was dripping in ribbons and decorated with an ostrich plume dyed a deep vermilion. Jocelyn quickly pulled back from Roger, sure her face must have been as red as the feather.

“Well, well, well. Don’t let me interrupt you two.” Evie laughed.

Jocelyn and Roger spoke at the same time.

“We weren’t—”

“It’s not—”

“Not to worry! I know an innocent, friendly embrace when I see one.” She pushed the bonnet back on her forehead. The brim must have stuck out at least a foot on all sides from her head. It was a wonder she fit through the hatch. “Not that I could see all that much wearing this.”

Making up with Roger had helped Jocelyn want to make things right with Evie, too, but she didn’t quite know how. She still thought that Evie’s dive into the sea had been foolish and dangerous. She would not apologize for that.

Jocelyn settled on changing the subject. “I like your hat,” she said.

Evie flashed her dimples and dumped her bundle at Jocelyn’s feet. “I was hoping you would feel that way about my hat,” she said, excitedly pulling something from the bag, “because I found some for you two in a trunk below. They aren’t likely to be very helpful to our current predicament, and they smell rather mildewed, but I couldn’t pass them up.”

She handed a white, curly wig and tricorn cap to Roger. “Now you can look like an aristocrat,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

When he placed them on his head, a cloud of wig powder billowed up, making him sneeze. “Just what I always wanted,” the boy said with a slight bow.

“And for you, Jocelyn. I knew this was yours as soon as I saw it.” She passed Jocelyn what was surely the most amazing and detailed hat ever created. It was modeled after a frigate, the high brim serving as the sides of the ship and the crown covered with masts and rigging. The ship hat was perfectly detailed right down to the last cannon.

Jocelyn couldn’t help wondering who might have worn such a wonderful, ridiculous thing, but when she saw the ship’s name, La Belle Poule, embroidered neatly at the aft, she shook her head at her own ignorance. Who else could it have been but the French?

The hat was incredibly heavy, but somehow, wearing it, Jocelyn felt a bit lighter. She hooked one arm through Roger’s and the other through Evie’s. “Let’s go show off our finery and see if Nubbins has come up with anything for us to dine upon this evening. Perhaps after dinner, we may even throw a ball.”

As they walked off together in search of the crew, one of the other vessels in the ships’ graveyard caught Jocelyn’s eye. It had been massive, at least a twenty-gunner. If only she had a ship like that—larger and better suited for battle than either the Hook’s Revenge or Calypso’s Nightmare—she would have a more than fighting chance of besting Krueger and taking back what was rightfully hers.

Now, more than ever, Jocelyn needed the Jolly Roger.