My father, Tam Saker, had two children. Hilda my elder sister and me. Our mother had passed away from a wasting sickness when we were young. I have little memory of her. It broke my father to watch her go. He was an apothecary and all his skills and knowledge were powerless before the great leveler. I remembered her as a frail woman even before the sickness. The Isles are a cold place, it lies in the center of the Sea of Ghosts. Far north from the greater continent it is a land of perpetual fog and rain.

We lived on the second story of our fathers shop at Lighthouse Keep. Whilst we never went hungry, we were modest in our means. Our father was quiet man, but I think our mother’s death put flint in his soul. He never raised a hand in anger to the either of us, but he was a hard man. He loved us in his own way, but he could never express it openly. Instead he pushed us ruthlessly in our education, for that was all that he could give us.

Ah forgive me, you are not natives of the Isles. Lighthouse Keep was the ancestral capital of house Averntide, its heads the Lord Protector of the Isles. The keep was built by the founders of the great house. They had discovered an ancient lighthouse of pale stone and had built their home around it. The city naturally grew around the keep and later became the largest settlement on the Isles. In my youth Earl Harold was patriarch of house Averntide. He and his father before him had been keen adopters of Old Imperial customs and continental advancements. It was the entrepôt of all foreign trade, we exported tin and wool for glass, ironwork, everything we didn’t have but wanted.

Where was I? Education, yes. I had learnt how to read and write from an early age. So had my sister and it had proven to be a useful skill. But more importantly we the art of reckoning numbers and geometry. Where our father had learnt those skills was a mystery. I admit I was a poor student of geometry, but my father managed to drive some numeracy into my thick skull. Few were those who could read and fewer still those who could write beyond simple communication. Literature is an art, but numbers are a necessity. Being literate could land you a job as a clerk, but numeracy opened up a world of counting houses, business, and administration.

I had quick wits and did well in my studies, but I was young and lazy. The life of a bookkeeper was unappealing to me. I saw the big clipped knives that the sailors wore about town and wanted to go to sea. Many families in Lighthouse Keep were whalers and fishermen. There was respect for a good sailor that entranced my younger self. Like all boys I wanted that respect, the status and adventure the life promised. My father disapproved of my juvenile fantasies. I was smaller and weaker than most boys my age. A life of academia over labor was a foregone conclusion in his eyes.

I stayed faithful to his wishes as I chafed under his tutelage. His way of life was unexciting, almost cowardly to my eyes. As the boys in my street moved on to learn their trades and went to taverns with their fathers, I yearned for that freedom. A life where I shaped my future with my own hands. Profound thoughts for a twelve-year-old. There was wisdom in my father’s wishes. How often do we children scoff at our parent’s advice? I am sure all of us at some point swore that we would be braver than them, wiser than them, stronger than them. Then only to be humbled by their achievements in the face of a life lived.

I digress. At the age of twelve I ran from home. I was promptly thwarted and returned before the day was out. Nobody in my family knew I had attempted to flee. I was spared the ear bending wrath of my father, but in a way, it was galling that my actions had no consequence. No, it would be wrong to say that nothing had changed. Because of my short-lived escapade I had made a friend.

I had attempted to stow away on an outbound ship, only to reveal myself once we were well beyond the shore. I had found empty barrels by the wharf of the largest vessel there. I climbed into one assuming that they would be loaded aboard and I with it. Let me tell you gentlemen, there are no empty barrels on an outbound ship. Even on a herring run they are filled with drinking water or packed with salt. Whilst the catch will eventually be cured and stored in those great casks, no space is wasted.

Hidden in my container I heard voices near my barrel. I soon felt myself being hauled into the air and I assumed I was being taken below the deck. After a while I felt a steady rocking motion and heard an odd clip clop. I ignored the latter part; I was already halfway between giddy and terrified with my current situation. At last I was away from my stifling father and at sea! I sat patiently and thought to wait a time until I was certain I was away from home.

In truth I had just been hauled on to the back of a cart and was hitching a ride through a main thoroughfare to a cooper’s shop. Several planks needed replacing and the iron bands needed realignment on the casks. On arrival I was rolled down a flight of stairs; I thought I was in the middle of a fierce storm. Fearing for my life I popped my lid open to at least have a chance should the ship capsize. Instead of a cargo hold I was laid on my side in some dark cellar. It took me a moment to realize it was not the hold of some ship. It was cramped and dark and I guess in that half-light I must have looked like some strange creature. Because the very last thing I remembered was a yelp of surprise and a boot to my face. That was how I met Winston, my first true friend and brother, I ate his boot leather.

My sister answered the back door to the apothecary, I did not want to face my father in front of his customers. Hilda found a very embarrassed teenager holding her younger brothers’ hand. Her sibling was bruised and conspicuously missing his front two teeth. She made an immediate conclusion and glared the responsible party. Winston visibly flinched and let go of my hand. It was something that he had insisted on during our way here. He genuinely felt bad for rolling me down the stairs and kicking my teeth in. He thought he was responsible for my current condition. He was not, it was mostly me, except the teeth part.

Hilda was well known on our street, or rather her voice was. If my father was stern in his anger, Hilda was explosive. Everybody knew that the apothecary’s daughter had a fury easily roused and hard to placate. My sister was thin and willowy, not from hunger but naturally so. Her features were angular, and her entire person was like a razor knife. She was going to flay Winston alive and, in that moment, I felt a pang of empathy for him. I made first smart decision day then, I interceded on his behalf.

“I was playing by the rock pools today. I slipped and fell.”

I quickly grasped Winston’s hand again for maximum effect.

“Winston picked me up and bought me home.”

I looked at Winston then my sister with wide eyes. I didn’t even need to try to make them water, everything hurt, and I was trying my best not to cry. Winston was quick on the uptake and tried his best. He was a terrible liar.

“Err, yes I found him on his face… I mean I found him smacking himself on the face… I found him rolling off some rocks and then smacking himself on the face.”

Despite the tears, I found myself trying hard not to roll my eyes. Thankfully, Hilda’s ire had been displaced by concern when she realized how scuffed I was. She took me into the house without so much as a goodbye or thank you for Winston. He was already forgotten and had the door slammed in his face. Considering this was my sister, he had just gotten off lightly.

The result of my little adventure was being locked in my room for a week. The bruises were gone in a few days and the teeth would regrow. But in the eyes of my family I had just become an idiot who was a danger to himself. I wasn’t explicitly punished by my father, but it sure came across that way. In a week they forgot why I was confined to my room in the first place. They were like that, swift to anger and ever swifter to forget.