infringe | Prompt - Something Lost, Something Found

When Joshua Archer arrived back in town again to serve out his appointment as the keeper of the newly built lighthouse, he found it significantly changed from his memories. This was unsurprising; while he'd spent several formative years of his life in this town, making friends with the other children close to his age and playing down by the shore where all the fishermen pulled in their catches of each day, learning to swim and sail, he'd been away for several years now, and things could change very quickly. The town was much less of a sleepy fishing village now, and had become a bustling trade port and a successful shipyard, with the sounds of repairs and new construction sounding out almost constantly, though not quite drowning out the cries of the fishmongers and their wives at the break and end of each day.

This success was one of the reasons the location had been chosen for the new lighthouse, one of the very first to be designed from the beginning to be installed with the Fresnel lens. While he'd done his training on several different versions of the apparatus, it never failed to thrill him how very brightly the beam of light cut through rain and fog and darkness, visible for miles and miles out to sea.

His tenure began almost simultaneously with a series of storms, and he spends a tense week and a half tending to the lamps almost without pause for food or sleep, soaked through to the skin, to maintain the lights as enough warning for ships to avoid being wrecked by wave and wind on the rocky shore. But finally a day dawns bright and clear, with not a hint of cloud or rain, and he takes the rare opportunity to make his way into town, walking the few miles along the inlet to the bustling docks, merchants and fishermen and shipbuilders all shouting past one another.

There's so much new to see, even taking into account his new vantage point and perspective as a working adult rather than a child helping his parents and siblings sort through the daily catch and repair the netting and sails. He can't say he recognizes many faces on sight, but a few recognize him - or at least, make the connection between a familiar family name and the announcement of the new lighthouse keeper - and so he reacquaints himself with some of the locals at market, to arrange for the pick up of needed supplies - some expenses for the lighthouse and some for himself - and then gives himself leave to wander.

Almost nothing looks the same anymore. Even the shape of the shoreline has changed, altered by the the building out of the docks and the dredging of sand to make more room for more ships. But there is a rocky outcropping, not conducive to other maritime activities, a little further out from town where he'd used to go and watch for whales out to sea and seals closer in, their spotted bodies well-hidden among the rocks and waves unless you knew exactly where to look. He remembers saving scraps from the daily catch in a large bucket and stopping out here to toss them to the birds and seals, laughing as the birds swooped down and the seals swam gracefully in spirals around where he'd toss in the fish heads and tails, looking for more.

He didn't have any fish with him - but then, there aren't any seals today either.

He can't stay too late - the visibility starts to drop as the afternoon advances, and he needed to prepare for the evening - so he heads back towards town again. The crowd has thinned somewhat, a changeover of shifts as the more successful fishermen head back to shore with nets and holds bursting. He recognizes a few people in this crowd - some old playmates, now grown with boats and spouses and even children of their own, exchanging a few exclamations of remembrance and acknowledgement as he purchases a few fresh fish to bring back with him, picks up the supplies he'd ordered earlier.

Something - someone? - familiar catches his eye, and he stops, glancing around in the middle of a recitation of 'where-are-they-now'. But he doesn't see anyone from the old crowd, just a small cluster of well-dressed society - they looked like merchants' wives, if he had to guess. But there is a pair of luminous eyes, fine dark hair, pale skin, dressed in warm, dove-grey hues - and he can't help but stare, briefly.

His current companion catches his distraction and follows his line of sight before laughing. "Ah, I see I can't keep your attention," she teases him, punching him lightly on the shoulder when he startles and apologizes reflexively, all good-humor. "That would be Alecto. He's the wife of Nathaniel, the head shipbuilder. They moved here a year or two ago, to oversee the building of the dry dock and their big house up on the hill." She shakes her head, still mostly in good-humor. "He's a strange one, that Alecto. Very quiet, but - well, his eyes look like they could see right through you."

Married and moved here a year ago. So there was no chance that Joshua could have met him here.

So why did he seem so familiar?

The rain continues to come down in sheets. Ribbons upon ribbons of dark, unforgiving water.

It’s been three days since his husband died. Drowned, they said. He had been working late into the evening and the black tides had risen too high in the storm, consuming him. His lifeless body was found washed up onto the wet sands, miles from home. What a pity, they said. I’m so sorry, they said.

And the first thing Alecto did when he heard the news was tear through the house. He ransacked the bedrooms in a manic frenzy, throwing furniture upside down and over, checking every corner, every trunk and chest, smashing locks with whatever blunt object he could find, desperate to look for that flowing, magical coat he knew could set him free from this landlocked curse. He trashed the closets, upended the kitchen and emptied out the pantry, the cupboard, the drawers. All around him, a mess of items, the echo of a home once made and sustained with care, now nothing but clutter and nonsense.

But after hours of this, his chest heaving and flushed with exertion, Alecto found he could only wail in frustration, having found no trace of his beloved coat anywhere, not a single glimpse of its bright diamond sheen. Could he even be convinced that Nathaniel kept it in the house? He did not know.

What he did know was that he was now a widow. With no human next of kin, no means to sustain himself, no promise of where his next meal might come from, no protector, and no guarantees. Nowhere to turn.

Except —

The idea comes to him suddenly, an uncertain warmth blooming in his chest at the thought. And it’s with bright desperation and deep sorrow that he finds himself now at the lighthouse, it’s golden beam swinging through the night in large, graceful arches.

He knocks - three tender raps of his knuckles - and when the door finally opens, Alecto breathes the man’s name like a prayer, his eyes wide and luminous as polished moonstones. “Joshua. Please. I - I need your help.”

Edited 2022-04-06 11:42 (UTC)

It's been over a year since Nathaniel's death.

Strictly speaking, the town has moved on. The estate is not yet fully settled, but work had started up again in the shipyards, overseen by trustees rather than any individual. Joshua had been able to enter and search the offices, but that had turned out to be mostly a dead end.

The only lead that had seemed promising - that he had been able to access - was a ledger of transactions. Buried within it was a receipt for a deposit at a bank in another state, where Nathaniel's family lived, dated a month or so after the date of his marriage license - a single box, with no other identification, but which Nathaniel had apparently taken great care with, arranging for it to be shipped with an accompanying attendant by train and then by carriage to the very doorstep of the bank; there was a letter of confirmation from the bank of the deposit, received two weeks after it had been sent out which had been filed away with the receipt. But while he'd sent an inquiry to the bank, they had no reason to respond to him, and while he had a few other avenues to work with, for the moment, he had no other ideas.

Meanwhile, the house and furniture that had been all Alecto had left from his previous marriage (other than the ring he had pawned) had eventually been settled upon Nathaniel's remaining family; fortunately, no one had looked too closely at the story of the robbery, simply examining the house and accepting it in its existing state before essentially turning Alecto out of doors with only what he could carry so they could sell off what was left. He'd more or less shrugged and followed the familiar path back to the lighthouse.

And to Joshua.

By this point, the gossip has mostly died down. Alecto had needed a protector, a provider, and had managed to find someone willing. Whatever else had happened, whatever whispered secrets the town passed around, the two of them were and remained part of the community. Nathaniel's family were outsiders, and there was even a sight but significant shift in perspective towards sympathy for Alecto for his treatment at their hands. So there was less disapproval than usual when Alecto more or less officially settled in the cottage assigned for the lighthouse keeper. As traffic had increased and the necessity for additional coverage had become apparent, Joshua had also arranged for the hiring of a first and second assistant keeper from within the town, to better distribute the duties. While the gesture had been appreciated - providing wages and job training to two of the local lads - the slightly more light-hearted gossip seemed to enjoy the narrative of their hard-working keeper, returned from an education and training elsewhere, being bewitched by a local beauty and wanting to spend more time at hearth and home.

Joshua comes home early on a sunny afternoon late in the spring, eyes bright with excitement.

Edited 2022-04-08 18:36 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, they get married by the sea.

It's a very small private exchange, the paperwork for the license and other legal formalities all done well ahead of time, sand slipping beneath their feet as they stood facing each other. Even if pressed, Joshua couldn't recall much about the day other than the sight of Alecto facing him, the smile on his face. He knows the weather had been cloudy but warm, that a crowd of seals had borne witness, watching from the rocks (that one very enterprising young seal had made a concerted effort to crawl close enough to almost be caught), that his younger brother and youngest sister had brought well-wishes from his parents and other siblings, too ill or too busy to travel; they were things he was told, that he had writings to support, including a log in his own hand on the entry for the lighthouse records of that very day.

But he remembers almost nothing else about it, other than the light of happiness in Alecto's eyes as he'd looked up at Joshua, apparently also seeing nothing else, even with the sea and shore all around them, their hands joined together, rings snug around their interlaced fingers, a mutual claiming.

While he'd gotten a week of leave from his duties at the lighthouse, he hadn't even known how to begin planning for travel or anything beyond the house that Alecto had made a home for both of them. He wants nothing more than to spend time with Alecto, just the two of them, without any interruption of duties or visitors, however well-meaning or otherwise welcome. In all honesty, Joshua could spend long, uninterrupted hours just looking at Alecto, heart full with the knowledge that inasmuch as such things mattered, they were joined together in the eyes of the law, that they'd made promises to belong to each other. Forever.

He'd never looked forward to anything as much as this implication of infinity awaiting them, of shared touch and warmth and life, whatever they decided to make of it, together.

In the summer, the days are so long and bright, and the sun sets so late in the evenings that Joshua Archer can spend a few glorious hours back home early in the afternoons before he has to climb back up to the lighthouse to light the lamps in the evenings. It's the best time of the year, really - fewer storms, short nights and long days, a golden stretch of time filled with laughter, a far cry from his earlier time on post, mostly keeping to himself.

There's no need to announce his arrival - he's greeted with an open door and a dark, exuberant streak of excitement before he's even managed to reach the neatly paved and swept pathway of flat stones. He catches Avery, already terrifyingly energetic at four years of age, up in his arms and tosses him, laughing and squirming, up into the air, his dark hair mussed by the wind, his eyes like Alecto's, moonstone bright and luminous in the golden sunlight, before catching him again.

"I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be helping your mother," Joshua says with solemnity, setting the swaying child back on his feet and taking his small hand in his, leading him back towards the house. "So both of us are going to have to make it up to him, right?"

"But, papa," Avery protests, his high voice a reedy lisp, "I don't want to help with cooking. It's so hot inside."

"Only with eating, hm?" Joshua says, as they step over the threshold into the cottage and Avery nods so earnestly that he can't help but laugh. "Well, if you help momma with the cooking, we'll finish eating dinner sooner, and then maybe we can go down to the water to see if your cousins want to play with you."

He trails off then, distracted, as Avery considers the logic of that train of events, because he can see Alecto, because - even after all these years - the sight of him never fails to make Joshua stop short, like the first sight of the sun after days of storms.

When he picks up the mail from the post office, among the official correspondence for the lighthouse and a few notes from friends and family with Alecto included in the address line, which makes him smile, he sees a letter in a strange hand, on unfamiliar stationery emblazoned with the name of a legal firm. He brings it back to the lighthouse and opens it with curiosity, some excitement (and, oddly an underlying trepidation), skipping the salutation and introduction (it was indeed a law firm, a name that had come up a few times when he'd still been following the inheritance dispute closely).

As the lawfully appointed executor of estate of the late Mr. Nathaniel Blackburn, I am given to understand that you, Joshua Archer, an employee in good standing of the Lighthouse Service, are the current husband of his spouse, formerly Alecto Blackburn, who from this point on will be referred to as Alecto Archer.

I am also writing to you to offer my belated apologies for the delay in response to your initial inquiry, dated six years ago, and the subsequent inquiries, the most recent dating back two years.

While untangling the legal ramifications of Mr. Blackburn's untimely death, some items identified as belonging to Alecto Blackburn were indeed discovered among the stored effects of the deceased. Please see an itemized inventory of those items enclosed herein.

As there is no identity record of an Alecto Blackburn/Archer (no maiden name was ever uncovered) beyond the two certificates on file for his first marriage to the late Mr. Nathaniel Blackburn and his second to yourself, I am writing to you in hopes that you can convey these final wishes of the deceased to his beloved wife.

If you and/or Alecto Archer should wish these items returned, we require a request in writing with physical proof of your identity; this proof can be provided in person at any of our offices listed on the subsequent pages, or by post. You may furnish an address for these items to be mailed; they will be shipped to the address you choose at the discretion of the estate.

If we do not receive a response from you by the end of the year, these items will be destroyed in accordance with the wishes of the deceased.

Sincerely...

Joshua flips through the pages, back and forth. He's not sure exactly how he feels, at the moment. There is no question in his mind that he would write back, that he would furnish whatever proof they demanded, that he would follow this seemingly final clue, one last thread to unravel, one last chance to solve the only mystery he cared about of all those left in the chaos of Nathaniel's death almost six years ago: Alecto's coat.

It's listed, right there in the inventory, as: A seal fur coat, very fine, of unusual color and luster

Easy as that.

~~~

Joshua is quieter than usual that afternoon, responding almost immediately to Avery and Alecto when they address him, bouncing Avery on his knee at his insistence, but otherwise falling into silence, staring off into the distance. He kisses Alecto with his usual attentive tenderness before he heads back up to the lighthouse, wrapping his arms around him just a little bit tighter, more securely, feeling strangely reluctant to pull away.

As he sits in the lantern room gallery, watching the light flash out into the darkness, he realizes what it is.

He's afraid.

Alecto has entwined himself into every aspect of his life, his work; there were parts of the lighthouse itself that held his mark, some small consideration or decision that indicated his care for Joshua and his comfort. There was literally nowhere he could look without being reminded of Alecto. They had a child together, a home together.

For as long as he had the reality of him, those mementos would be sweet, the scattering of light and magic over every single step he took.

Joshua has no idea if he could recover, ever, from losing that.

Edited 2022-04-10 02:11 (UTC)

It's difficult, without Alecto. He's everywhere Joshua cares to look, far beyond the cold circlet of gold he'd left behind and the sight of his moonstone eyes in Avery's face. He's in every square inch of their home, in the way he'd arranged their belongings, in the hidden stitches of mending in all his well-worn and lovingly maintained clothes. He's in the confused greetings of the two assistant keepers, the polite inquiries of the stallowners at market, the other wives and husbands calling greetings and asking after him.

He's gone to visit his family, he says, as Avery waves enthusiastic greetings to the other children his age. It's a long journey, he explains, when he goes to pick their clothing up from the local laundress. I'll let him know you asked after him, he offers with a smile, gently tugging Avery away from the bakery window before he burns his hands on a just-made pie.

Avery asks, of course. But whether through some selkie instinct that Joshua didn't have access to, or the innocence of childhood, or his interpretation of that gentle admonishment to 'help take care of your father for me' he doesn't linger overmuch, though he still throws tantrums now and again, yelling 'but momma says,' in the face of Joshua's best efforts. But he settles sooner than might have been expected, as Joshua works hard to establish a predictable, reliable routine, leaning on intermittent help from town and his own efforts, keeping the house tidy and neat (if not up to Alecto's exacting standard), a sufficient amount of healthy, if simple (and repetitive), food on their table, and Avery clothed warmly as he shoots up another two or three inches almost overnight.

Summer wends its way to a chilly, brisk autumn, and then the storms come, battering the shore and the lighthouse for days at a time. He brings Avery with him up to the lighthouse when he's working almost every day now, makes a bed for him there, watches over him and the lamps, counting the shadows of ships out at sea while humming half-remembered lullabies. It's been a few weeks since they had last gone down by the water, the ocean cold and too rough for him to trust his own abilities, even if was entirely likely that Avery would do just fine. He hasn't caught hide nor hair of any seals or selkies near the shore since summer ended - not even Pippa or her children, though he's always thinking that perhaps he'd caught a familiar flicker of movement in the distance - other than Avery in his sealskin, who's always swimming just a little farther than Joshua is entirely comfortable with, but obediently returns (eventually) when he calls.

It's...tolerable, with Avery there. He can stay alert, can stay aware, can smile and sing and play with him with all the energy he has to spare when he's done working. He knows Avery misses his mother, but at least he doesn't lack for companionship. He's writing with a surer hand now - though with very little grasp of spelling - able to read short sentences and clamor for specific stories.

(He asks, one night, for a poem, with the oddest look on his face. Joshua is never sure, exactly, how much he understands when he looks like that. So he picks, at random, from one of the books he'd recently found in town, allows Avery to pick a page. But when he gets to the lines:

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

he stops short, and Avery doesn't complain, simply takes the book and closes it, setting it aside again before he nestles against Joshua, pressing his smooth cheek against his far more weathered one, and says nothing about the dampness between them.)

The days continue to slip by - alternately slow and fast, frantic storms and quiet haze, but marching ever onward - and before he quite realizes it the seasons have turned again, from autumn to winter.

Edited 2022-04-11 23:13 (UTC)

The next few years pass in a happy blur, golden beads on a string of time, the four of them together. Avery grows up wild and happy and fierce in defense of his little sister, Daphne, whether against the imagined slights of curious acquaintances in town or the teasing of their mutual ocean cousins. For her part, Daphne is sweet and unassumingly charming, if perhaps overly trusting of just about everyone she meets, golden ringlets and long eyelashes like the platonic ideal of a china doll, drawing smiles of approval whenever they walk together as a family. They are thoroughly integrated into the town at this point, the growing young family living up at the lighthouse, with two young children and - perhaps, the neighbors insinuate, with teasing smiles - another one on the way?

Generally speaking, Josh is too pleased and dazed with renewed happiness to even think of pursuing anything additional. But he's learning to ask, more and more, without fear of loss, and he looks up one evening from a laborious hour working through some of the finer points of grammar with Avery and the alphabet with Daphne - just about three years old and the furthest thing from precocious, though she was happy enough to be spending time with her father, however difficult it was for her to grasp the finer points of penmanship with her small unsteady hands - and meets Alecto's eyes across the room. He thinks about their small house, already filled with light and laughter and so much love he can barely remember what it was to ever be without it; he thinks about Avery's first stumbling steps and the musical gurgle of Daphne's chiming laughter, and the way the two of them cling to each other and play with each other, whether with hands or fins, and the way the two of them served as reflections and meditations on him and Alecto both, in appearance and behavior and little gestures and turns of phrase.

He smiles, automatic and helpless, as he sees Alecto looking back at him - that had never changed between them, from the moment they had met, only transmuted when given more latitude, more opportunity for expression - and he allows himself to imagine, for a moment, another child, or two, or three, lets his mind drift past the practicalities and the inconveniences, as he watches Avery and Daphne curl together in front of the fire, having been set free from the tyranny of letters and writing, at least for another night, and he knows for a fact his gaze warms more than a little, before he pulls himself away to pack away slate and chalk and the papers they'd been practicing with, setting everything back into place and out of the way for the evening.

When everything and everyone is in harmony like this, it's hard to envision making a change. But that familiar desire is there, a quiet thrum of thought in his mind and through his veins, the stirring of a potential melodic variation in counterpoint to the current arrangement.

Some coaxing and a story (or three) later, the children are dozed off in bed in the other room, and it's just him and Alecto still conscious, sitting together and enjoying the rare moment of quiet and ease and privacy.

Edited 2022-05-16 05:44 (UTC)

The baby is crying so much. He is sobbing, red in the face, and wailing and grabbing at the air, full of indescribable wants and discomforts. Alecto stares out at the sea, blankly, one pale hand against the edge of the crib, rocking it slowly and hopelessly. It does nothing. He is exhausted. However, the baby only wails louder the more he's ignored and Alecto’s heart clenches, feeling a sudden burst of too many things all at once: confusion, anger, apathy, affection, worry, terror, guilt.

His other two children were nothing like this, he laments. Then again, Avery and Daphne were born of magic, with the song of the sea in their veins. They were born as selkies, as part of this ancient tribe and species, wise beyond their years, amidst the seafoam and the crashing tides.

But Percy? Percy was human. And just that. Nothing more, nothing less.

There were a lot of firsts with him in fact. Unlike his siblings, Percy took a full 9 months in the womb instead of the usual 3-4 for most selkie pups. He also made Alecto so violently ill while pregnant with him, causing him to throw up every morning since he first started to show, straight into the marigolds outside the house. The constant kicking and turning of the stubborn infant also made Alecto woozy and useless for hours while simultaneously giving him an absolutely crazed craving for almonds at all times.

When Percy was finally born, it took nearly a full day of agony and once he was finally out, Alecto immediately knew there was something missing, something wrong: he had no sealskin. He was just a wriggling, screaming, messy, pink skinned little boy, completely naked and plain. No magic, no blessings. He had only one form, one body, locked to the land. Alecto had stared, unbelievingly, hair damp and stuck to his face, all color having left his cheeks in shock.

Immediately, tragically, Alecto was struck with this thought as the infant was placed in his numb arms: that isn’t my child. It can’t be. And the sour taste of such a terrible idea, that he would even consider that to be true, hammered an open wound into his very heart.

(It must have been his fault, Alecto thinks, irrationally, and daily. How could his magic have skipped his new son but not the others? How could his body not have known what to do after all this time? How -)

When he hears the front door open in the middle of his musing, he finally realizes what time it is and he starts. His husband is back home and there is, for the first time in a long time, no dinner waiting for him, no delicately clean home: just a tired, mournful wife and an unhappy baby he didn’t know how to connect to that was howling. Alecto panics, scooping up the miserable infant into his arms and desperately tries to soothe him to no avail while he rushes into the kitchen, frantically trying to think of what to do. A mixture of shame and terror fly over his face. How could he have forgotten?

Percy is shrieking in his ear and Alecto is pleading quietly in his mind for a moment’s peace so that he could think. The laundry hadn’t been done either, he realizes, now that he was taking full inventory of the home around him, and the floors were still dirty from when Avery chased his sister in from outside, dragging mud from his boots all over the ground. And oh, there had been a jacket he was mending for Joshua, for the coming autumn, that he still hasn’t touched and now there was so very little time left -

(He remembers when he first came on land and was taught by the women in the Blackburn family what a man expects of his wife. He remembers doing it all wrong at first, how annoyed Nathanial had been - “What even do you do all day here, then?” He had sighed, shoving Alecto aside to get himself a drink and annoyed at having to do so - and how Alecto had eventually found a rhythm of tasks and activities and duties that he was then determined to never faltered from.

But that was so very long ago.)

“I’m so sorry,” are the first words out of his mouth when he sees his husband walk in, wondering if he’s disappointed - god forbid, angry - at all for having to come home after a hard day’s work (and he does, he works so hard to provide for them) to an empty table and a weepy wife and nothing but problems. He wants to go over and help Joshua with his things, help get him settled, but he’s frozen in place, his hands feeling both empty and full at the same time.

Edited 2022-05-18 17:05 (UTC)

For the past three years, their little family had been six, all crammed together into the cottage next to the lighthouse by the sea. Kate adopts readily to their dynamic, even if she had clashed now and again with Alecto at the beginning, two strong personalities that had developed set ways of doing things when it came to the household tasks (after all, Kate had kept house for their aging parents for almost fifteen years at this point, and been primarily responsible for successfully raising up the three youngest siblings), but after those early hiccups, things had smoothed out between them. She was quickly becoming a familiar face in town and, most importantly, got along very well with all the children. In fact, Joshua thought Avery was a little intimidated by Kate, far more than he was of Alecto; she never yelled or raised her voice, but she had a way of speaking and reminding Avery of his assigned chores and duties that was almost terrifyingly effective ("Where on earth did you pick that up from, Katydid?" "When was the last time you looked in a mirror?"). Daphne, on the other hand, utterly adored her other aunt and was often seen trailing after her on errands, helping to carry packages or the shopping and being cooed over by passersby. When it came to Percy, she made it a point to direct or guide Alecto, rather than taking over care of him herself, and on those occasions when she did have to travel out of town - on other visits, or to check on their parents - things continued to run smoothly even in her absence.

She'd taken the revelation of who exactly Joshua had married entirely in stride, a hint of amusement in her eyes at the fairy tale he'd found himself in. Kate was a romantic, but only in the abstract, in story and song; she had no real expectation of falling in love or being whisked off her feet personally, being quite content to live out as comfortable a spinsterhood as she could manage with friends and family, or perhaps looking for opportunities to teach - as a nanny or a governess, or a school teacher. Joshua knew she had some degree of wanderlust and interest in traveling, and was conscious of coming to depend on her too much.

Percy, for his part, after a rough start, made leaps and bounds in progress well in advance of most human children, though Joshua could tell Alecto was anxious for his progress, without having anything to compare him to. He started walking early - at around nine months of age - and took to swimming just as easily a few months later, if not to the same level of expertise as his elder siblings. Daphne loved carrying him - once he was old enough to be carried without fear of accidental injury - and after he started walking they could often be seen together, her larger hand linked with his smaller one as they wandered around outside, picking seashells, wildflowers, blueberries as the season dictated, bringing back basketsfull in accordance with their ability.

Perhaps due to his tumultuous start, while his physical development seemed to grow by leaps and bounds ahead of his peers, he started speaking quite late. But once he did begin to talk, they were mostly full sentences, complete thoughts, and there was no doubting that he was taking in almost everything he saw and heard. By now, at age three and a half, he was generally a quiet, preternaturally polite child, with Joshua's eyes and Alecto's coloring, following after his older siblings, his aunt, or his parents without making much of a fuss, saying 'please' and 'thank you' even to acquaintances and strangers without being prompted, or throwing tantrums.

On this particular evening, a waxing half moon hung bright in the sky. Joshua was up tending to the lamps. Avery and Daphne were visiting their other cousins, loud barking and splashing carried up to the windows by the wind, while Percy, with a solemn expression on his round, childish face, constructed a circular tower out of blocks on the rug in front of the hearth. Kate was stitching ribbon trim onto a hat for Daphne and keeping half an eye on Percy, lest he stray too close to the flames.

[Somewhere, Waiting for Me]

[Those Left Behind]

[On Golden Sands]

[With Silver Reflections]

[and a song of love - the Sea]

[and watches the ships]

[the sea and the summer sky confounds]

[I know we'll meet beyond the shore]

[we'll kiss just as before]

[it's just love nobody dies]