Cheese Pyrates: Curse of the Black Cheddar

Part One — The Witch of Percé

Avast ye, lubbers and listen to me sad story, a supernatural tale of revenge, piracy and savage bowel obstructions.

The year were 2012, and I’d plumbed new depths in my quest to best the dread pyrate Capt’n Jacques LaBung.

He were the scurvy dog what kilt me father when I was a snip of a lad. LaBung had me Da executed fer some minor offense such as eatin’ the last of the brie. They strapped him to the wheel — a great stinky brown water-aged cheddar too infested with pollution to eat — and pushed him into the deep.

So, I’d been chasin’ LaBung and his Parmesan picaroons since I were old enough to go to sea. But LaBung and his ship, Le Fromage de Satan, had escaped me lo, these many years.

I’d lost an eye, me prospects and me youth in quest of me revenge. But finally, I’d hit on a way to achieve it — and not just on LaBung, but the whole crew of plugged-up sea-dogs. (The bilge rats were infamous for their cruelty, their love of Quebec water-aged cheddar, and their cripplin’ constipation.)

I’d heard tell of an old sea-witch who was on intimate terms with the Devil hisself, Ol’ Jack Sulfur; and you may not credit it, but Ol’ Jack knows something about yer Quebec water-aged cheddar — the favourite booty of LaBung and his filbustiers.

But Ol’ Jack’s water-aged cheddar turns not the gold of the Quebec Coast, but a deep ebony, darker than a Black Spot, and a sight tastier too, by the legend.

To taste but a sliver would cost a man his soul. And it were such I’d feed to LaBung and his hornswagglers.

The witch lived in a decrepit ol’ shack on the outskirts of Percé, and she greeted me at the door, as though she knew I was comin’. Probably got me email.

She were missin’ most of her teeth, no doubt a victim of the rovin’ gangs of sadistic dentists known throughout the Gaspé — either that or she didn’t like to floss.

She showed me into her abode, which were dark with smoke (yes, yer Gaspé Gold), incense, and a musk of which I’ll speak no more, so powerful were it.

“So, you want to get your hands on the Black Cheddar, do ye?” she asked me in a cackling voice. (In addition to her vocation as an eldritch sea-witch, she was a part-time chicken mascot at the local St. Huberts’s.)

I nodded without a word, struck dumb by her otherworldly powers and incredible stench.

“Then I’ll work a spell for ye, young Jim. But it will cost ye.”

I croaked out, “what be the price.”

She swept her hand back, and in the dimness of that black, black place, I could just make out the soiled sheets of her feculent bed. I was prepared to lose my soul, but to … I couldn’t think of it.

“I want you to do me laundry.”

Arrrrrr!

Part Two: The Spell Works