Not long after her father’s death, her mother met a young ship captain who offered to assist her. This developed into a romance and soon the young man was living in the family home. This was when it took a turn for the worse. Unbeknownst to her mother, the young captain had an addiction to the gambling tables and prostitutes in the underbelly of the city. The small estate was rapidly gambled away until the captain disappeared in the night, and the debt collectors came to take their livelihood. By ten years old, young Meg was taking odd street jobs to keep the pitiful inn room she and her mother shared.
This continued until her mother became incredibly weak, losing control of her nervous system and dying from syphilis; the final gift her vile lover left them. Meg spent the next five years begging on street corners with nothing but a family necklace and the clothes on her back until a young prioress found her drawing on a scrap of paper. She took the young girl in and taught her the technical skills of painting and mapmaking before petitioning her to be hired by some of the merchant families in the port.
This support from the priory skyrocketed her into a position of great renown as the child prodigy of the port. Not only was she creating portraits for the rich families of Port Royal but also adorning maps with artwork and trade routes. She made enough to afford her own small cottage just north of the city. It was a quiet life, allowing Meg to visit the city and do business like a proper member of society. She enjoyed the process of creation, and while she never forgot her family; the young woman was making something of herself.
This all changed one day when she visited the port. Amongst the docked ships, sat one whose name was eerily familiar. The Ruined Prince. For a moment, she thought her mind deceived her until she saw a familiar face at the helm. The captain looked down and they met eyes for but a moment before he looked away. He did not know her face. He did not remember. Meg was filled with a burning rage, her gut twisted as though she’d swallowed hot coals. She went home that evening and secured the necklace around her neck, packing her art supplies into a small trunk. Braiding up her hair, she tied a scarf tight around her head and bound down her chest. Riding into town, she purchased a hat and men’s clothing and signed onto the crew of a privateer vessel as one Michael O’Malley.
This is when her haphazard plan truly came to pass. Stealing aboard the Prince, she slipped into the captain’s quarters. There slept the man that ruined her life and killed her mother, five feet, then four, three, two… Meg stopped, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. This was not for her. This was for her mother, white knuckles gripping the dagger in her hand as she hesitated. Before she could talk herself out of the sin she was about to commit, the woman lunged forward. Straddling the sleeping form, she slid the blade of her knife into his throat. Make it slow. Make it hurt. Those were the only goals.
The captain knocked her away, gasping and gurgling as he tried to breathe through his own blood. Meg didn’t stop to watch, fleeing with her things she boarded her new ship and the crew set sail before her crime was discovered. On board, no one knew who she was; in fact, no one even knew she was a woman. This carried on for months, with her taking any free moments to continue working on her art. The captain discovered this one day, and requested a portrait of his own, to which she happily obliged. It quickly became a novelty to have a painting by the pirate-turned-artist.
When the ship made port again, she left the crew and took up residence in Tortuga for some time. There, she met a great many pirate lords. She offered her services and was soon being paid to create art of great pirate captains and their precious ships. She’d even met the likes of the Pirate King and Blackbeard. For a time, she thought she knew peace.
Such things never seem to last.
One night she came face to face with a ghost. A wicked captain with a scar across his neck, wielding a dagger that was all too familiar. The fight that ensued was brutal, ending with Meg splayed across the alleyway bleeding from her side. Above her, the man chuckled as he tucked away the dagger.
“I’ll be keeping this. Better leaving you alive knowing you failed.” The man was no longer young or charming with his twisted face and ragged voice. “Who’s brat were you? The woman in Cuba? One of the whores in Port Royal?” Meg screamed, lunging at him as he stepped back and kicked her across the face with his boot. The last she remembered of that night was the crunch of his boots as he walked away and her vision fading to black.
The road to recovery was a long one. She’d been saved by a charitable deckhand and brought to a hospital where they’d sewn her up good and allowed her to rest. Slowly but surely, Meg was back on her feet. Armed with her art supplies and a cutlass, she sought out the tales she’d heard of a crew governed by vengeance. A ship damned by its very name seemed a suitable place for a person such as herself. Meg no longer hid herself, presenting as what she was: a woman fueled by the desire to end the man that ruined her life.
That was all that mattered.
Written by Meghan W.