“Hello, James,” said the woman in the mirror. “I am Lucinda, Circe’s mother. I see you have already betrayed my daughter and Blackbeard by opening the box.” She narrowed her eyes at him. He quickly gathered the things up, shoved them in the box, and slammed the lid closed again. A cacophony of laughter came from within, so loud James was afraid his crew would hear it.

“I didn’t open the box! You did by knocking it onto the floor. What do you want?” he asked, opening the box slowly and revealing the woman’s face in the mirror.

“That is my question to you, James. What is your heart’s desire?”

“As I told your daughter, I want to go to Never Land,” he said. He was certain he could hear two other voices screeching in the mirror aside from Lucinda’s, but he could not see them.

“And what of your poor mother, James? What of your ancestral home? What of the promise you made to yourself when you were in your watery grave? Have you forgotten your duty?” She smiled eerily, and then the image in the mirror shifted, showing his mother in mourning clothes, crying and alone in her sitting room.

“What’s happened to my mother? Who died?” he asked, grasping the mirror’s gilded frame.

“Your father has drifted beyond the veil, leaving her alone to fend for herself. She will soon lose her home if you don’t help her.”

James could not bear Lucinda’s insipid smile, and something about her eyes frightened him. There was something else stirring behind her eyes, and it seemed to him her smile was a contorted mask holding back madness. This woman frightened him.

“Surely things have not progressed so far in the short time I’ve been away,” James said. He felt frantic, helpless, regretting he was not there to help his mother. Even if he didn’t want the life she had planned for him, he wouldn’t go back on his word; he wouldn’t let her be ruined.