Edward learned that just after dawn, when the horizon looked wrong or not storm wrong, not wrong, but occupied. The water ahead was too calm in one narrow stretch, like something had smoothed it with a careful hand. He leaned on the rail of the Wayward Star, eyes narrowed, pretending to admire the sunrise.
The seagull was less subtle. It stood on the bowsprit, feathers puffed, head cocked toward the same stretch of water. It let out a low, suspicious squeak.
"I see it too," Edward murmured. "You don't need to announce it."
The bird squeaked again, louder, offended by the implication.
Edward didn't signal the crew. Not yet. Whoever or whatever was out there had been following them since before first light, never close enough to see, never far enough to lose. The sea rolled gently, deceptively peaceful, but Edward felt the awareness prickling at the back of his neck.
Then the water broke.
Not violently. Gracefully.
A shape surfaced for half a heartbeat, blonde hair slicked back, skin catching the sun like polished marble, and vanished again without a splash. Edward's breath caught despite himself. He had seen mermaids before.
She kept her distance after that. Always off the starboard quarter. Sometimes only a ripple. Sometimes, the briefest glimpse of a hand cutting through water with practiced ease. She never approached the hull. Never signaled. Just watched.
Mira noticed eventually. She followed Edward's gaze, then swore softly. "She's been there a while, hasn't she?"
"Long enough," Edward said. "
"That's comforting."
"Syrena, she brought me food once," he added, without looking at her.
Mira blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
Edward shrugged. "Long story. Involves drifting. And fish. And dignity I'd rather not discuss."
The seagull squawked sharply, as if correcting him.
"Yes," Edward said. "Some dignity."
Mira studied the water again, then nodded slowly. She's… curious."
"So am I," Edward said, and that, he realized, was the dangerous part.
Miles away, on a very different stretch of sea, Jack Sparrow was in an unusually foul mood.
This was notable because Jack Sparrow was always in a foul mood, just usually a cheerful one.
The deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge rolled beneath his boots as he paced, hands flapping as if conducting an invisible orchestra. "I'm just saying," Jack announced to no one in particular, "that if I were struck by a cannonball and I'm not saying I was, mind you, I would have the decency to either die properly or wash up somewhere interesting."
Gibbs frowned into his rum. "You saw him go overboard, Jack."
"I saw a splash," Jack corrected. "Big difference."
Will Turner stood at the rail, jaw tight, eyes scanning the horizon like he might glare Edward Swann back into existence through sheer stubbornness. "The cannon hit where he was standing," he said quietly. "No one survives that."
Jack stopped pacing. He looked at Will for a long moment, then leaned in slightly. "Ah. There it is."
"There's what?"
"That certainty," Jack said. "Very dangerous thing, certainty. Kills hope faster than bullets."
Will didn't answer.
Below deck, Elizabeth Swann sat alone, fingers curled tightly around a scrap of cloth she pretended not to recognize as part of Edward's old coat. She hadn't cried. Not yet. She had done something worse; she had gone quiet.
Elizabeth told herself Edward was dead. She told herself this the way one told oneself unpleasant truths: firmly, repeatedly, without believing a word of it.
The sea rolled on, indifferent.
Back aboard the Wayward Star, Edward leaned against the rail as the sun climbed higher. The mermaid surfaced again, closer this time, still far enough to flee, close enough that he could see her eyes.
She dipped under again, circled the ship once, then vanished completely.
Mira exhaled. "Well. That was unsettling."
Edward nodded. "She'll be back."
"You sound sure."
He watched the water where she had disappeared. "She's not done deciding."
The seagull fluttered down to the rail beside him, peering into the sea, then back at Edward. It squeaked, softly this time.
Edward smiled, just a little. "Yes," he said. "I noticed her too."
The Wayward Star sailed on, carrying a captain who was no longer running from the sea and a sea that had begun, quietly, to follow him back.