Davy Jones: the True, Untold Story

It was one cerulean sea day that Sinbad the Sailor, Blackbeard, Grace O’Malley and Davy Jones found themselves all aboard the same ship. Yes, against all the odds of fame, fortune, time and legend, they were all on said ship together. She was a beaut though, with massive sails billowing and caving to the four winds, a deck of cypress wood that shone in the sun as if never scuffed by the likes of boots and barrels.

How did all of these characters across time and space end up on the same floating vessel in the middle of the ocean, you may ask? Well, it all started with Poseidon. The King of the Ocean had landed himself into a bit of a pickled predicament. You see, one of his (lesser known) favorite daughters, the sea-nymph, Kymopoleia, was missing. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was also suffering the ill graces of his sister, Demeter, goddess of the earth and the harvest. It appeared that she was still quite sour about the whole ordeal of her daughter, Persephone being kidnapped by Hades. Though it had been a year since she had located her beloved daughter and she was now able to see her six months out of the year (during Spring and Summer when life returned to the Earth and Hades released Persephone from her duties as Queen of the Underworld), she was sore about a little rumor she had heard…Poseidon had spoken to her about it on his conch shell phone:

“Demi, my favorite sister! How’s it hanging? Lots of wheat this year, I hope?”

“Poseidon,” her tone going down at the end as she drew out the last syllable, “I got your horses by the way. Thank you so much,” Demeter said a little too emphatically for sincerity to be believed.

Poseidon chuckled uncomfortably. “Well good, anything for my favorite sister. How’s our Persy doing?”

Persephone, limbs spread out lazily on the warm grass, was presently braiding a flower crown of daisies for her mother.

“Oh she’s great, you know, absolutely loving her new husband, the Lord of Death.”

“So glad to hear it. She always did have a knack with lost souls, a true talent. Even as lil tyke, I rememb—“

Demeter cut him off mid sentence, “There’s just this one thing that keeps needling at me, you see. Our brother said that you knew where she was the whole time. When she was missing, that is. All those agonizing months. And you didn’t happen to think to mention that tiny, little detail to me?!” She roared.

Poseidon felt the conch phone rattle against his ear.

“Ouch! Demi, I promise I had no idea where she was at the time! You are going to believe a rumor from Hades over me, your favorite brother?! You know Hades has always had it out for me anyway, since Zeus gave me dominion over the seas and not him, with his stinky dark demon hole in the ground. I promise you I would never—”

The line went dead. Despite his continued protestations of innocence, he knew that soon his sister’s wrath would be made manifest, but in what form, he had no clue.

In the weeks to come it became clear. He was carrying a fish egg omelette to Kymopoleia’s bedchamber for breakfast (she liked to sleep in on Saturdays but he didn’t want her favorite fish eggs to get cold). Upon arriving, he discovered to his horror that the door was ajar and many of her possessions gone. He dropped the tray he was holding and yelled in frustration. There was a small tsunami off the coast of an uninhabited island of Japan that day. In the ensuing weeks, storms ravaged coastlines as he sent his waves further inland to search for her. She was nowhere in his realm to be found. Poseidon, though king of the seas, could still make land ho and walk around. Under normal circumstances. As of late, however, whenever he attempted to make landfall and step even one foot upon earth, he was swept violently back (as if by a gale) and plunked back into the sea. The funny thing about omnipotent beings such as gods/goddesses is that they can’t break the spells placed on them by other gods/goddesses. Best to just wait them out and hope that cooler heads prevail.

One day, after weeks of raging tempests encircled the globe, Poseidon had an idea. He called upon Hermes, messenger god (and god of travel, amongst other domains) to go forth in time to bring back some of the best sailors, explorers, discoverers and swashbucklers of the eras. So he did. Let’s face it though: Hermes did go far enough into the future to see modern feats of messaging, communication and technology but found that “honestly, it was too complicated to get Poseidon’s messages out in these times cause recipients would just think they were a type of meat called Spam? Honestly it was all much.” Plus, there was urgency afoot. So he made it as far as the 1700s. He delivered letters to Sinbad, Grace O’Malley and Blackbeard. He would have tried others but had to help prepare for the Pythian Games back home so figured he did well enough.

Grace O’Malley: “what in the blasted seven hells is this?” She sat on the poop deck of her ship and opened a letter given to her by a green-cloaked man with winged sandals who had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. The pearlescent paper stock shimmered under the grey skies—there was a message in phthalo blue that read simply, “May the winds carry you ever forward.” And below was the seal of Poseidon—a golden trident atop blue wax. She fingered the seal, looked up quizzically, only to find herself transported…

Grace landed with a thud onto the deck of another ship, The Trident. Aboard the deck there stood Sinbad and Blackbeard. Introductions were made and confusion expressed and exchanged. They all had received the letter and all by the same stranger. As they stood discussing, a muffled sound arose from a crate to their left. As it thrashed about, Blackbeard pulled out his pistol.

“Wait!” Sinbad cried. “Let us open it first.”

Inside the crate with the crumpled figure of a man in shabby clothes, looking a bit worse for wear. He tremulously held out his hand and said, “the name’s Davy Jones, charmed I’m sure.”

Before they had time to react, a giant wave crested the bow of the ship and Poseidon appeared in tow. They looked on, slack-jawed.

“Hello travelers! I see you got my letter. Welp, here is your mission.”

He went to explain that they must find his daughter and bring her back. How will we reach you when we do? They asked. He then produced a jar that glinted with the rainbows of a thousand abalone shells. Inside this jar was a tiny floating seahorse.

“Her name is Delades, my favorite seahorse. As long as you have hold of her, you will be able to breathe underwater and she will lead you to me. Once your mission is complete, you will be transported to your respective realms as though no time at all has passed.”

In the weeks to follow, the four of them sailed the seas and scoured the islands, all without sight of Kymopoleia. Until one day, Blackbeard was at the rudder and a strange wind pulled them into orbit of an island (somewhere off the coast of Mexico, we now think). Unable to fight it, they pulled in as close as possible and made landfall.

As they walked further inland, lush vegetation spilled out verdantly on every side and sweet bird song hung in the air. At the center of the island, there was a compound: a series of buildings low to the ground with thatched roofs and wooden beams. At the entrance of the walkway leading in was a hand-painted sign of deep violet that read “Plicopurpura University.”

They walked cautiously up the path to one of the dwellings and saw that the reed door was hanging open.

Inside there sat a woman wearing a dress of brillant green, abalone shells sewn into the fabric, so that it shimmered with her every breath and movement. She sat at a worktable. Splayed out across said work table moved thousands of snails? She spoke silently to them and laughed as if they all shared in a secret, all-encompassing joke. Without turning around, she then raised her voice and said,

“My father sent you, didn’t he?”

A pause. Davy’s voice quavered when he spoke, “Erm, yes ma’am he did. That is, if you might be Kymopoleia.”

The woman stood and turned to face them.

Her radiant beauty stole the breath from their lungs. More so than that, a power radiated from her whole being, a deep thrum that vibrated to the bone.

“Yes, I am she.”

With an awkward scrambling and rustling of hats, shirttails and petticoats they made bows as deeply as possible on such short notice.

After a short round of introductions, she boldly declared,

“Well tell him that I am not coming back. At least not until my studies are concluded. Or maybe for my birthday? I’m not sure, I haven’t decided on that yet.”

The group explained to them the situation, the spell that Demeter had placed on Poseidon, the whole kit and kaboodle.

“Be that as it may, you see I had been telling father for months that I wanted to study at this university, but he wouldn’t listen. You see, purple is one of my favorite colors but—”

Blackbeard interjected, “Ok, what is the deal with your family saying what is your favorite this and favorite that?”

“That’s a longer story, for another day. As I was saying, these poor snails are harvested or scared out of their goo just so that the wealthy of the world can have their deep purple dyes that came from said goo. But I can hear their stories and here I have an opportunity to study alternative ways to get that coveted purple. Ways that won’t harm my precious friends.”

Granted, the four travelers could not speak “snail” but they would later swear that after she said that, the work table full of snail bodies erupted in hurrahs of agreement.

“I see. Such interesting specimens indeed,” Sinbad chorused.

“If you’d just give us a moment then,” Blackbeard chimed in.

Outside the door, the four travelers huddled together to discuss what to do next. “I’ll just throw her over my shoulder and haul her back!” Blackbeard decried.

“Whoa, check yourself, luv, I may have stolen a wee bit of cattle in my day but I’m not in the business of hauling lasses away, especially not when they seem to be liking where they are,” Grace put in.

“As a discoverer/explorer myself, I agree with her,” Sinbad nodded.

“Well what do we do then? Poseidon will have our heads at the end of his trident in no time if we don’t do as he asks” Davey queried.

In time they turned around and Grace stepped forward, “Say luv, you don’t happen to have a token you can give us that we can give your Da, just to prove we saw ye and that yer well? Oh and maybe, for good measure, maybe you could tell us something about ye maybe only he would know?”

She pulled an abalone shell from her dress and handed it to Grace. “Capillary action. That was my first spoken phrase as a babe. Now leave us be, we have much work to do.” Without another word, she turned back to work table and resumed the conversation with her snails.

In little time they were back aboard the ship sailing out from the island’s orbit and currents. As a final parting gift, however, Kymopoleia decided to toy with these emissaries of her father. Being the goddess of violent sea storms, she brought down a storm for the ages upon their exact trajectory. So high where the waves, the four of them held onto the top of the highest mast, shouting into the wind,

“Someone needs to jump in with Delades to tell Poseidon news of his daughter, else surely all our lives will be forfeit! Who will do it?”

“Who knows how long the journey will take and what Poseidon’s temper will be hearing the news! I’ve got my crew and family legacy to get back to sortin’” Grace shouted above the crash of waves against the keel.

“I still have one of the seven seas yet left to discover and explore!” Sinbad rejoined.

“I have a lead on some treasure on the coast of the Carolinas—best get to it before somebody else. Been dreaming of holding those pearls for years!” Blackbeard screamed wistfully.

There was a pregnant pause. Slowly everyone turned to look at Davy.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Well, now that you mention it there is a pub I’ve meaning to try out in Whitechapel.”

“You, lad, weren’t even supposed to be on this mission! Didn’t you even get a letter ?”

Davy slowly shook his head. “I fell asleep drunk in the pub and woke up in a barrel,” his voice trailing off at the end. It was settled then.

As he jumped overboard into the tempestuous waters below, clutching Delades’ jar in his arms, his thoughts in free fall—before hitting the water—were not of his past life flashing before his eyes. They were in fact, a vision, a prophecy of his future: Poseidon would give him a locker full of treasures in return for good tidings of his daughter and the proof of their meeting (“oh yes, she did mention that university in passing and that whole, ‘I’m going there whether you like it or not,’ business, but I thought she wouldn’t have actually gone through with it. Well I do hope she returns for her birthday.” At which point he would reply, “way to bury the lead there, Neptune!” Asking why it didn’t cross his mind to mention that clue as to her whereabouts when he introduced the mission etc.) Feeling a bit guilty and silly about the whole situation, Poseidon would then offer him a position as ambassador in his kingdom, where he could live under the sea with him, all his treasure, and all the sea mead he could drink. Davy would agree. Eventually the years would pass, and one day he would realize that he couldn’t remember where that he put that locker. It could be anywhere now. As time turned its pages Davy Jones would become a symbol for those lost at sea everywhere, like his lost locker; the place of ultimate safe keeping, the seas themselves. Hermes would spread his name and its legend through the ages.