Smee frowned. “All right, Master James, this is what we’re going to do. Why don’t you let me smarten up your frock coat and polish those shoes and buckles. We’ll get you looking like the brave pirate I know you are. Come on now, off with them, and you take a nice nap.” James felt like he was a little boy again being bossed around by Mr. Smee, and told it was his time for a nap. Often when he was little, his nurse or governess would ring for Mr. Smee because he was the only person James would mind, especially when he wasn’t ready to take a nap, or do anything, really, that he didn’t want to. But James felt like he needed to be cherished, to be taken care of in this way. “You just lost a very good friend, James, and you’ve been through so much in a short space of time. You rest, and let Mr. Smee take care of you.”

James smiled and took off his coat and shoes as his friend had asked and handed them over, and in that moment he felt a tremendous weight lifted from him. He felt like he could breathe, and his fear slowly started to slip away. It was as if all his troubles and worry were magically gone once he handed them over, and he felt foolish for having felt the way he did. He shook his head, wondering if Blackbeard was right. He had always felt his coat was a coat for a captain, and the buckles, too, which had been given to him by Blackbeard, had always been a symbol of his duty to his crew and the Jolly Roger. Was all of this about being a captain, as Blackbeard had said? Whatever the case, all he wanted in that moment was to sleep like Smee suggested, and that is what he did, until later that evening, a few hours before the party.

He woke to his clothes laid out for him on a large wooden chest. Smee had cleaned his coat, polished his shoes, and made his buckles shine. He had even laid out a clean white shirt, and smartened up the white plume in his hat. James put everything on except the boot buckles, deciding at the last moment to slip them into his desk drawer along with Lucinda’s magic mirror. Thankfully this time when he opened it, her face was not looking back at him, but he closed the drawer quickly all the same for fear she might appear. He looked at himself in the long foggy mirror next to the wooden chest and liked what he saw, and he felt his nap had been exactly what he needed, and he was ready for the party, and what came next.