Maggie and Captain Jack were among the many sailors ordered to follow Blackbeard, Angelica and Diego ashore. Whitecap Bay was said to be as mysterious as it was sinister. They say doom awaited any misguided souls who sought out it's perilous waters, because the bay was where mermaids have been known to gather for hundreds of years, thereby striking terror in the hearts of all sailors and pirates.

When Maggie was younger her Father had warned her that mermaids were not as friendly and helpful as they were depicted in story books. They were sly and evil she-creatures, who were capable of snatching humans off any ship or dock. Still Maggie was pretty excited about getting the chance to see a real live mermaid. They say mermaid's --although very dangerous-- we're also very pretty and always female.

If the world were full of pretty females who had the power to control men, the world might actually be on the right track for once! Maggie couldn't help but think.

As all several of the longboats made it to shore the men started to drag large, thick nets out of the boats and hold them up near an old abandoned pier.

"Lay 'em out flat!" Blackbeard ordered "No tangles! Make 'em look purty for our dainty guests!" He turned towards the lighthouse on the nearby cliff. "We're going to need light. Lots of light."

Blackbeard, Angelica and Diego followed by Jack, Maggie and Salaman climbed up the wooden stairs to the top of the abandoned lighthouse overlooking the bay. When they arrived at the door at the top of the lighthouse, they found it hanging off it's hinges.

In the top level of the lighthouse, there was the lighting mechanism. A huge candle wick on a rotating platform with a large mirror behind it. There was also a system of pressure-controlled pipes leading back to a very large tank up above their heads.

"Smell that?" Salaman sniffed the air "Whale oil. Stuff burns like a miracle from God!"

"Can you make it work?" Blackbeard asked.

"Made by the English" Salaman shrugged "Let's not get our hopes up..."

Captain Jack glanced down and saw Maggie staring at Diego with a dreamy look in her eye. At the same time, Diego was sneaking quick glances at Maggie and smiling. Jack narrowed his eyes at the vulgar boy, then smirked knowing exactly how to get Maggie's mind off boys.

He kneeled down beside Maggie and snaked his arms around her little frame, holding his little girl close.

"Did I ever tell you about the time I witnessed a mermaid up close?" He asked her.

"No, Dad" Maggie sighed under her breath.

"Oh! They're the most horrid she-creatures you could ever encounter on the sea. Horribly dangerous! More lethal than a hungry shark... with weapons! And they're all female!"

"Hmm..." Maggie said, not looking interested at all.

Captain Jack smirked. "And they're always after their next meal and in order to get it, they would snatch up any sailor they could get they're slimy hands on and... gobble them all up!"

With that said Jack tossed Maggie into his arms and tickled her sides as he nuzzled his face into her neck, pretending to eat her.

"Ha-ha-ha! Da-haha-Dad! Daddy!" Maggie squealed out as she giggled.

Maggie looked over at Diego who was snickering as he watched them. Maggie suddenly felt the heavy weight of embarrassment settle into the pit of her stomach.

"Daddy! No!" She pushed Jack's face away. "Dad! Let me go!" She said before squirming out of his grip.

Maggie quickly fixed her hair and walked over to Diego.

"C'mon Diego!" She said "Let's go see if we can spot some mermaids near the shallows."

"Alright" Diego said.

"Be careful!" Angelica called after them.

"We will!" Maggie assured her.

As Maggie turned her head to say it she only then noticed the saddened look on her Father's face. She suddenly felt guilt overtake the previous feeling of embarrassment. She didn't mean to hurt her Daddy's feelings, she just didn't want him to treat her like a baby in front of Diego.

Then she noticed Diego looking at her.

She laughed it off. "Parents" she shrugged. "Can't live with 'em, can't bury them alive... there's a lot of things you can't do without them chewing you out about it!"

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As Captain Jack watched them leave he looked up at the night sky and sighed heavily.

"Kids..." he muttered "Can't live with 'em, can't stop loving them if you tried..."

Jack sighed and stared out at the clear night sky though one of the lighthouse's archways. The silver crescent-shaped moon hung above the blue horizon with an earthshine giving a glow to the moon's dark area.

"The new moon in the old moon's arms" Angelica observed "The first of the summer... perfect for a mermaid hunt."

"How so?" Jack questioned.

Salaman managed to get the light house working as a long and bright beam of light flooded out the archway and onto the waters surface below.

Angelica grinned a shark-like grin. "Mating season" she answered.

☠💀☠

Meanwhile Maggie and Diego were sitting down near the pier, watching the men in the boat who were being used as bait for the mermaids. They had been at it for more than three hours now and still nothing. Maggie sat cross-legged on the dock with Diego leaning against one of the docks posts.

"You're so beautiful in the moonlight" Diego told her.

"Thank you, Diego" Maggie said "But you do realize you've said that three times now, don't you?"

"Oh... well, you do" Diego shrugged.

"I know" Maggie said "I know how pretty I am. I own a looking glass."

"My Grandfather says a female cannot tell if she is attractive or not without a man telling her so" Diego stated.

"Yes, your Grandfather. The man who takes pleasure in burning men alive at sea. He seems like such a romantic" Maggie said sarcastically.

"Well, what about your father?" Diego asked. "The man who decides to take another man's ship and cowers when faced with judgment for his mutinous ways."

"My Father isn't just a man, he's a pirate" Maggie told Diego "and a pirate has the right to mutiny when be and his crewmates see it fit. In case you haven't noticed Diego, it's not all that cozy below deck. You and your mother tricked my Father and I onto that ship and what's worse her and your Grandfather are treating your crew horribly. According to the Code we all deserve equal rights and your Grandfather has failed to show it."

"My Grandfather says this is what happens when females get too independent" Diego said "They start acting like know-it-all's."

"Someone has to know it all" Maggie told him. "At least some of what I know didn't come from my Grandfather or my Father. You should consider following in my footsteps, you might even get a mind of your own, if you play your cards right."

"Well, my Grandfather is a smart man" Diego said "And I am following I  his footsteps because I love him and I know he'd do anything for me."

"Well, I love my Daddy" Maggie told him. "He's just insane enough for people to see that we're related, but not insane enough that I'd have to have him committed to a looney bin!"

Diego sighed "Does everyone in your family suffer from insanity?"

"No, we tend to enjoy it!" Maggie smirked.

Diego rolled his eyes.

"I'm bored" He said after a pause. "Can I kiss you again?"

"No" Maggie gave him a sideways glance.

"Aww, c'mon!" He whined "Nobody would ever know!"

"I would know!" Maggie grinned.

Suddenly, the sounds of shrieks and screams could be heard in the distance. Maggie squinted through the darkness, the mermaids have begun to attack the pirates in the longboat.

More longboats came forward lighting barrels of gunpowder to coax the mermaids towards the other pirates on the dock

"Harden up!" Purser yelled to the men "Muster your courage! Drive 'em to shore!"

As the gunpowder barrels were thrown into the water, they went off sending columns of water into the air.

Blackbeard, Angelica and Captain Jack came walking down from the lighthouse.

"Out upon it!" Blackbeard ordered "It has begun!"

The crewman held the nets in the shallows, Angelica lit their way with a torch.

"Nets into the water!" She commanded "Quickly!"

The Queen Anne's Revenge soon came sailing closer to the shore with greek fire spilling from her bulkhead. The mermaids fled for their lives at the sight of it. They shrieked and wailed in fear as they swam towards the only safe place left, the shallows.

Maggie ran up beside her Father. Captain Jack looked around and he didn't like what he saw. The more the crew carried out Blackbeard orders, the more they were aggravating the mermaids and the mermaids were aggravated the more angry and violent they would be towards the pirates.

Soon all was unsettlingly quiet on shore, the pirates waited with nets in hand hoping to see some movement in the water. A head, a fin, a ripple anything!

"A gold doubloon to the man who spots the first mermaid!" Blackbeard ordered the men. "Do not be greedy! We need but a single one!"

Everyone waited on shore with heart thumping fear and a bit of excitement.

Suddenly one pirate holding the net was pulled under the waves, lighting quick! And another! And another!

The pirates swam for the rocks but the mermaids climbed after them.

"Retreat all to land!" Captain Jack yelled to the men.

"Run!" Maggie shouted "Run for your lives!"

"Cowards!" Blackbeard roared, shoving Jack aside. "Back in the water! There will be no refuge on land! On my word!"

Blackbeard wiped out his pistol, aimed and hit one of his own men as a warning to the rest of the crew.

Maggie glared up at Blackbeard. He's out of his bloody mind! She thought. He doesn't care how many people die, so long as he gets eternal life for himself!

Everywhere Maggie and Captain Jack looked pirates were fighting off mermaids, but the pirates were losing regardless. The pirates had seaweed whips which they used to fight off the pirates and drag them away into the depths. Maggie peered out farther at the bay, the sea was churning as another wave of vicious mermaids came forward to help their sisters and finish the pirates off.

Captain Jack grabbed Maggie and ran to get her to a safe distance away from the shore.

Angelica was on one of the piers trying to get Diego to safety as well. She grabbed his hand and was leading him away from the pier, when all of a sudden a mermaid whipped her seaweed and caught Diego's boot. The mermaid yanked him down onto the docks pulling him towards the water.

"Mamá!" Diego screamed as Angelica grasped both his hands refusing to let go. The mermaid pulled harder and Angelica fell onto the dock digging her heels into the wood of the dock.

Maggie ran forward and slashed the seaweed from Diego's boot as Captain Jack helped them both up.

"Come on!" Jack told them.

They helped Diego and Angelica up and ran off the pier and towards the safety of the shore.

Captain Jack and Maggie looked around and the chaos around them. Maggie decided if Blackbeard wasn't going to put a stop to this madness, she would.

There's got to be a way to scare these fishy freaks off! Maggie thought But how?

That's when her eyes fell on the lighthouse above. She suddenly remembered what Salaman said earlier the evening:

Whale oil. Stuff burns like a miracle from God!

Oil! Maggie knew what to do! If light drew the mermaids into their midst now it was going to scare them off! She then ran up the stairs to the lighthouse.

"Maggie!" Her Father chased after her. "Where are you going? Come back!"

Maggie reached the top of the lighthouse and looked up at the tank of oil above her head. She took a hammer from one side of the room and hammered down on one of the oil valves above the fire pit in the center of the lighthouse.

"Maggie!" Jack cried, catching up to her. "What's wrong? What are you doing?"

"Just get ready to jump!" Maggie told him as whale oil began to spill uncontrollably from the broken valve.

She ran towards the archway window where her Father stood and looked back as the oil began to rush onto the open flame.

"JUMP!" Maggie shouted at the same moment Jack grabbed her hand and leaped out the window.

And not a moment too soon, as the lighthouse's entire oil tank caught fire and caused the lighthouse to explode!

Maggie and Jack landed into the water below. As they swam towards the surface they could see that Maggie's plan had worked! The frightened mermaids were swimming away in retreat.

As they surfaced coughing and sputtering, they turned and saw one last mermaid glaring angrily at Jack.

"Marina!" Captain Jack said, recognizing her.

The mermaid scowled and pulled back her hand.

"Please don't--" Jack began.

SMACK!

The mermaid slapped Jack and darted off with the rest of her fishy friends.

"What was that about?" Maggie asked.

"Well, I thought I loved Marina" Jack explained "But turns out I wasn't in love with her."

"Her tail posed a problem in the bedroom, didn't it?" Maggie guessed.

Captain Jack sighed heavily. "You know me so well..."

As Maggie and Jack soon joined the rest of the crew over by the tidal pools, where it seemed they had managed to catch one of the mermaids.

"Did everyone see that?" Captain Jack asked, gesturing to the burning lighthouse. "Because I will not be doing it again!"

"Yeah, cause it was all your idea, wasn't it Daddy?" Maggie said, sarcastically.

"Back to the ship!" Blackbeard ordered "We make for a protected cove!"

Maggie stared down at the mermaid with sympathy as she was pulled away in her net by two zombie officers. She turned to look at her Father to see he was a few feet away talking to Angelica.

"Daddy, do you think the mermaid's gonna be alright?" Maggie asked, walking up to him.

She already knew the answer she just wanted to keep her Father's attention away from Angelica.

"Why don't you ask Diego?" Jack said, giving her the briefest glance. "Since you're so chummy with him?"

Maggie took notice of what he was doing. Jack was getting back at her for what she pulled up on the lighthouse when he embarrassed her.

"Fine" Maggie said, turning on her heel to go find Diego.

If spitefulness is what you want, then it's spitefulness you'll get! Maggie thought bitterly.

AN: Looks like choppy waves between Captain Jack and Maggie! Hit that ☆ and be sure to comment! And let me know what you think about Maggie and Diego? Is Diego a jerk or are they mer-made for each other? 🤔😡🧜‍♀️💔 ❤☠