Luke hobbled slowly around the house, watching as fallen trees were chopped into firewood and debris was slowly cleared. The storm had ended at last, only two nights before. Jesse’s voice echoed over the crash of the surf below. “Get up there, you! That’s right, we need to patch this place up...” Luke glanced around for Anna, wondering if she had chosen to stay inside again. He had told her the night before that she could help with the rebuilding if she wanted to, the wives could handle the care-taking without her. Many of the injured had recovered, which was not unusual. Pirates were tough, accustomed to wounds and battle scars. Several of them were even hammering nails and lifting varying degrees of loads. Luke chuckled to himself. None of them would have stayed in bed any longer than 2 days, if not for the storm.

Lee had not seen Anna at all, since the night she ran off crying. He was sitting up, wondering if his legs would even function if he tried to stand, when she came down the staircase with an armful of laundry. He chose not to call her, knowing it would probably just upset her again.

It was strange, how his life had changed, how his goals had shifted. He had always thought his destiny was to kill pirates–that it was his fate, his role. And now that the dream had been fulfilled...he could not find a path to follow. He was lost. Lee sighed, winding and unwinding the ends of his bandages absently. Often he thought it would have been better, simpler, if he had died with the Pirate King. Then he wouldn’t be caught here, a prisoner and an invalid all at once. He wouldn’t have to re-consider practically everything he had ever stood for.

Lee was so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost missed the clamor rising outside. There were shouts and alarmed cries flying through the air, and someone was banging urgently on a makeshift gong they had made out of a piece of tin and a stick. Lee tried to catch snatches of what they were saying, but it was not necessary. In a minute, one of the pirates ran in, flinging the door open.

“Royal ships!” he cried. Anna dropped the laundry she had been carrying and leaped down the stairs, out the door after him. Lee could hardly believe it. Why would they return? How would anyone know he and the five men with him were still alive? Bracing himself, he slowly worked at standing up. He had to see what was going on for himself.

Anna slammed into Jesse as he was running to where Luke was. They both halted, panting, at their older brother’s side. Luke, who had been listening to the reports from the men set on sentry duty, motioned for them to pay attention.

“There be Royal ships, cap’n. Ain’t no mistakin’ ‘em.”

“How long, before they reach us?”

“Naught but a day, cap’n. They be sailin’ t’ward us at full speed.”

Luke scanned the horizon, though it would be impossible to see a thing through the fog that enveloped them. He sent the sentries back to their posts on jollyboats and Matanza’s crow’s nest, ordering reports every few hours and preparations to be made. Jesse interrupted, his face full of concern.

“Preparations? For what? We’re leaving the island?”

“Aye.”

“What about Reina? We haven’t even started repairs on her.”

“We’ll have to tow her, like we did before.” Luke turned back to giving his orders, while Jesse paced the damp grass in silence. Anna whirled around; from the corner of her eye, she had seen Lee lean heavily on the doorframe before venturing out on his weak legs.

“What are you doing?” she cried, momentarily forgetting her grudges against him. “You’re injured! You can’t just get up and walk around!” She was about to run to him, but Luke rested a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“He should know that the King has sent ships,” he said, and then he went out to meet Lee himself. Anna watched them and did not speak.

She did not return to the house. Instead, she ran down to the cove, which was shrouded in fog and somehow still smelled, faintly, of gunpowder. The air was chilly and the sea had calmed but was still dark and cold. Anna could barely see the tall mast of Matanza as it floated at anchor. From where she sat on the jetty rocks, only its flag betrayed its position as it fluttered and flapped in the wind. She had never seen a fog so thick.

Anna remembered another day, in another time. The sunny summer day when the pirates had returned, when she had jumped, giggling, from the plank of her father’s mightiest ship and thought nothing of it...it seemed so far away. It felt like a completely different life, lived by a completely different person. She had learned the truth...but it had left in its wake only the wreckage of who she once was. Anna did not know where to go, now. Her brothers had not spoken a word...but something had changed. The knowledge of who she was, and who she wasn’t, hung heavily in the air between them.

“Sis.” Anna snapped abruptly out of her thoughts and turned to find Jesse behind her. Capably, if less nimbly than before, he hopped from one rock to another until he reached her. “What are you doing out here? It’s cold. Even the men have gone in for dinner, at least.”

“Just thinking,” she said, turning her gaze back out into the fathomless fog.

Jesse sat down, threw a pebble into the silvery, damp expanse. The splash seemed hollow and far away. “Do you remember...how Father always used to laugh at the slightest thing, even if it wasn’t funny?” He chuckled to himself, and Anna wondered how he could address the issue so easily, how he could control his emotion with such diligence. “And how he used to thrash us, Luke and me, but he always let you off on peeling potatoes or polishing the brass? Father was always fondest of you, you know. That old sea dog.” Jesse turned to her, and she gave him a wan smile. He frowned, dropped the pebble he had been about to toss.

Anna shifted uncomfortably. How could she phrase it? He had never been her father.

“....look, Sis. He loved you just like he loved us, okay? Whatever the truth is, none of it matters. We’re still family. Nothing could ever change that. So don’t cry,” Jesse said, as Anna buried her head in her arms and sobbed. “We’re family,” he repeated. “Always.”

“I don’t...I don’t even know what family is, anymore...I don’t even know...where I belong.” She continued to cry, shaking with every sob. Jesse hugged her as tight as he could.

“How can you say that? How can you be afraid of that? This is where you belong. Here, right here, where we grew up. No matter where you go or who you are, whoever you might become...this is home. And home is a place where you will always belong. Even if you leave it.”

“You can’t take her with you!” Luke banged a fist against the worn wood of the table, glaring at Lee. Lee glared right back at him.

“She isn’t a pirate! It’s about time she was returned to her family!”

“We’re her family! Me, and Jesse! Hell, everyone here is her family!”

“Look. Sarah isn’t your sister–”

“ANNA. Her name is ANNA.” Luke was furious. The women, collecting the dinner dishes, made wide circles around the pair as they faced each other from across the table. They had been this way for nearly an hour now, and both had ignored their food altogether. They barely noticed when one of the braver wives snuck in and gingerly removed their untouched plates.

Lee sighed in exasperation. There was no reasoning with these people, apparently. But he knew one thing: he had to take Sarah with him. He had to bring her back to her true family. He couldn’t leave this place without her.

“She deserves to be with her family, and her family deserves to have their daughter back,” he said, quietly.

“Oh, and I suppose you mean her TRUE family, eh? Not her excommunicated family. Not her family of robbers and hooligans. Not the family who raised her, who gave her a life and a home. Of course,” Luke replied, sarcastically. “Of course. I get it. Aren’t you noble.”

“This isn’t about me, it’s about Sarah!”

“HER NAME IS ANNA!” Luke yelled, burying his dagger blade in the table’s surface. “You talk like you know everything about her, but you don’t! You don’t even know who her true family is! And she’s not going with you, never, I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you and the stupid Navy chase us from one sea to another, but I will never let her go with you!”

“It’s not even your decision!” Lee was standing up now, despite the pain slowly spreading through his sore limbs. “It’s–”

“It’s my decision,” said Anna, stepping into the room. Both men turned to her, speechless. Luke stepped toward her, but she held a hand out, gestured for him to stop. “It’s my decision, Luke. My life, until now, was never my life; it was guided, manipulated, decided by others. Now it’s my turn. Now I will decide.” She went to Luke and hugged him tight.

“We’re family...always...even if you leave...”

“I will go with him,” she whispered. “I will go with him.”