The Island, the Woman, and the Dragon

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A crow’s nest is an interesting contraption. On a pleasant evening, it can be the safest place on the ship. If the hull were to be punctured and the craft sent down to unknown depths of the darkest ocean, the crow’s nest would not only be the very last to sink, but, due to an ingenious modification, the round sort of half-barrel could be detached and made to float as a kind of primordial life raft. However, when the ship and its crew found itself plunged into a storm, the Acheron had no other alternative than to maintain its heading in south-easterly direction.

Wilhelm Kuch was powerless in the Acheron’s crow’s nest which, out of sheer bad luck, was one of the worst places to be when the ship began taking sixty-foot waves. Water battered him from every direction-- enormous pellets that struck him like rocks. The ship was rocking so furiously in a useless attempt at staying buoyant that Wilhelm constantly lost his sense of direction, feeling like he was floating in a space not connected to the ship at all. He managed to stumble drunkenly to the edge where he leaned over to witness an enormous commotion down below. Commands were being shouted through the rain to tighten things and let things over the edge. But most words were carried overboard by the wind.

In his three years of sailing, Wilhelm had succumbed to seasickness only one other time. Now an able seaman -- good looking with sandy-colored hair and a thin physique -- he believed he could withstand anything the ocean threw at him, but he acquired a new revelation as his insides fell victim to the raging storm. He ran to the side of the nest and heaved over it. Maybe a life at sea wasn’t the best idea after all, he thought, suddenly regretting his decision on his twenty first birthday.

Wilhelm had long since collapsed his copper looking glass and stuffed it into the folds of his jacket. Now the cool metal pressed against his skin and chilled him almost as much as the freezing rain.

The first crack of thunder was enough for Wilhelm to peel open his eyes, despite his natural instinct to protect them from rain and wind. The storm had come in the darkness of night, making the sky even blacker and blotting out the stars. The few lanterns still lit down below hardly made it through enough of the darkness to reach Wilhelm in his crow’s nest, so when the next flash of lightning came and caught the world in white brilliance, Wilhelm discovered himself momentarily blind. He clutched onto the mast that poked through the bottom of the nest and there he waited out the rest of the storm, squeezing his eyes tightly and trying to distract himself from the great turmoil that threatened to tear his existence apart by making out coiling shapes beneath his eyelids. He thought he saw a dragon.

 

Morning came. Wilhelm awoke to find himself on the floor still wrapped around the mast. Had he passed out? Had the storm simply been a dream? He scooped himself up into a kneeling position and had the strangest feeling. Where was the rocking? The sounds of a ship in the daylight? Surely the Captain would be giving out orders with his wild and gruff voice, storm or no storm. He pushed against the mast for support as he stood up and to his horror, the entire thing began to tip over. For a moment, Wilhelm was struck with vertigo as he pictured a hundred foot topple into the sea. However, Wilhelm was met with hot sand instead of air.

Where was the Acheron?

The ship and its crew was nowhere to be seen. The crow’s nest alone sat, a sentinel, on a beach. A few hundred yards of sand ended in a tree line of some strange tropical breed Wilhelm had never seen before. Beyond that, a mountain of sharp, craggy gray rock shot up into the sky. The air was warm and dry so Wilhelm removed most of his clothing except for his trousers, which he folded and placed by the decapitated crow’s nest, setting off to explore the island in the hope of finding his fellow crew members, or at least some remain of the Acheron. The looking glass dropped from inside the coat and fell with a muffled thump onto the sand.

He was sure shock would hit him soon. It had to. Wilhelm wandered through the scorching, dry sand, wondering when he would break down into tears, collapse to the ground and lay there, boiling, until the heat took him. As it was, his feet trailed through the sand as if they were too large and too heavy for him. His jaw hung slightly open and his hands rubbed his shoulders in a fruitless attempt at comforting himself.

The Acheron was in such an odd position that, at first, Wilhelm thought it might be a mirage and he was, at last, going insane. However, once he walked into the shadow of it and his head cleared somewhat, he was able to decipher reality.

The ship stuck straight out of the sand, bow first, towering upwards. It created an immense shadow that covered the beach and an indistinguishable distance beyond the trees. Even now, it groaned with the effort of staying upright. Enormous cracks and holes had formed along the hull from the force of impact, giving the whole thing an accordion-like appearance. One of the sails had ripped away and settled on the trees. It rippled feebly, marking the grave of the Acheron.

Wilhelm felt panic coming on. Was the crew dead? He looked around the site and noticed a crate covered in blood. A few patches of crimson were distinguishable from the dim yellow of the sand. It wasn’t exactly a massacre, but to Wilhelm, it might as well have been. He let loose a long and sad moan then fell to his knees.

“What’s with you?”

Wilhelm jumped to his feet, startled by the voice. It came from an old man with long white hair and an equally silvery beard. His clothes were in tatters and his face was slightly bruised, but what truly gave him a start was that the man had no left arm. His right sleeve ended in a bloody knot near the elbow. Wilhelm looked closer and squinted his eyes through the light. “Dodger. . . .” he whispered, realization dawning on him as he spoke the First Mate’s name.

“Wilhelm? Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. The rest of the crew figured you’d been carried off . . . by the storm, you see? Nasty one, wasn’t it?” his voice was gruff, and only through three years of acquaintance could Wilhelm distinguish Dodgers words.

“Have you seen the ship?” Wilhelm exclaimed. “Where is the crew? Do we at least know where we are?”

“Not a clue where we are . . . storm tossed us for miles. Could be east, could be west, could be up, could be down. Nobody has two cents worth of an idea where we are, hell, that storm could’ve launched us through time. Ha! We could be in the future! A time not of our own!” Dodger continued to ramble like that for some time, until another being stumbled out of the woods.

“Wilhelm!” Said a hopeful voice. It was a young boy, hair as blonde as the sand and face still pinkish with adolescence. He jogged over enthusiastically, an enormous grin stretching across his face and an armful of round yellow fruits.

“Jack, I see you survived as well. Good. Perhaps you can explain what’s going on.” Wilhelm said, shooting a glance at Dodger who was mumbling something about sea monsters.

“Well, we all sort of woke up on the beach, and . . . we didn’t know where we were or anything, so the Captain said we’d better pick up the wounded. We did, Dodger here had piece of metal lodged in his arm there, so the doctor had to remove it. We also think he may have suffered a head injury,” -- Jack looked quickly over at Dodger who had moved on to reciting the ingredients of a low-fat lasagna -- “Anyways, the crew took off for the jungle to get our bearings and see if there’re any materials we can use to rebuild the ship. It’s a fool’s errand, if you ask me, but the Captain was dead set on it. They left me here to look after Dodger. I went to grab some food for the two of us, I come back, and here you are, in the flesh.”

“More or less,” Wilhelm said.

They found a knife among the wreckage and began the arduous and experimental process of peeling through the thick skin of the fruit.

When they were finished, they sat back on one of the unsoiled crates and bit into it, enjoying the sensation of juice running down their chins. Wilhelm realized how long it had been since his last meal. After a few more bites, he went back to gather his belongings before they became starched in the blazing sunlight.

It took quite awhile, but he eventually found his way back to the sad piece of mast that had kept him safe. He gathered his clothes and rifled through them, only to find that the one object in his possession had been misplaced. He searched every pocket, every fold, but the looking glass was nowhere to be seen. He searched the sand around the crow’s nest, but there wasn’t the faintest trace of it, not even a speckle of copper. He sighed. Perhaps it had gotten lost in the storm.

Wilhelm returned to the wreckage of the Acheron. It was just as breathtaking and depressing as it had been the first time he had stumbled across it. He found Jack in the same place he had been, Dodger had wandered towards the sea and was preaching religion to the fish. However, there was another there. A man Wilhelm did not recognize. He was certainly not part of the crew. A very elderly man, he carried himself with the wildness of someone who hasn’t seen civilized society in many years. When Wilhelm approached the man who had been having an apparent conversation with Jack, he looked up at him with a twinkle in his eye and grinned.

“Well, I had thought that the storm would deposit some trinkets on my beach, but I hadn’t expected it to dump an entire ship, and a crew along with it,” the man said. His tone was cheerful, almost youthful.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Wilhelm said.

“Oh, it’s no trouble. I haven’t had much company in years.” He turned to look up at the ship. “it’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is indeed.” Wilhelm faced the ship as well. Who in the name of god is this man? He thought. And what is to come of us now?

 

 

The Captain never came back. Neither did the rest of the crew. The old man, Alistair, found the situation neither as arbitrary nor dire as it actually was.

 When night came and the sun was chased behind the thick canopy of trees by a bright moon, Wilhelm and Jack found themselves casting nervous glances at each other. Dodger had set himself on making angels in the sand and humming a tune that vaguely resembled an old drinking song Wilhelm had heard once in a bar at the Port of England.

Alistair emerged from somewhere in the woods carrying a walking stick. He had previously offered the men to come join him at his camp, but they had refused and explained that they needed to wait for the Captain to return.

Several hours later, when no word or hint of the Captains whereabouts had come, Wilhelm gave up and decided that the crew may have gotten lost in the woods, and he would have a better chance encountering them if they stayed at Alistair’s camp. They gathered a few items: knives, a few pots and pans, and a crate of cheeses that had miraculously survived the crash. 

It turned out that none of those things were necessary. Wilhelm had expected some tribal fire with flames that danced wildly and a hut made of dried leaves, but when he approached Alistair’s camp his mouth dropped open.

In a large clearing, far from the trees and the monsters that no doubt lingered just beyond its lines, a hut sat in its quaint glory. It was constructed of sturdy wood that fit together uniformly and without the aid of jungle roots. It had a crudely fashioned chimney that churned out smoke like a blacksmith’s lodge and a few windows that let loose a worn, grimy glow were set into sides. There was no way on earth the old man had constructed this by himself.

As Wilhelm set his things down and gazed at it, hoping it would divulge its secrets to him, Jack moved alongside him.

“It looks . . . funny, doesn’t it?” Jack asked.

Wilhelm turned his head sideways and screwed his vision. Jack was right, the cottage did look odd. Upon closer inspection, there was a faint warping in the walls and the roof. It hit Wilhelm like a wrench from the darkness. The cottage had not been built by this man at all; merely fashioned from the remains of a ship. Pieces were intricately woven so that the ship (or at least whatever part of it had been used) appeared to be a square contraption.

“I see you’re admiring my work,” Alastair called from the deck which featured the same rail that must once have decorated the edge of the ship. “She took a few months but, as you can see, the end result was worth it.”

“It’s truly a marvel. . . .” Wilhelm whispered to himself.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, It’s truly a marvel,” he said, louder this time.

“That it is, lad. That it is. Well come inside! Quickly now.”

The inside was just as unusually lavish as the outside. Tables were well crafted and stood sturdy, supporting lamps that gave dull light to the places the fire could not reach. A rug was on the floor, and a few beds were set into the walls in small alcoves. They looked comfortable and warm. Wilhelm found himself trying to recall the last time he had had a decent night’s sleep in a bed.

“There’s plenty of room for you here, and food, as well. You need not worry about food, there’s more than enough for the two of us, so a few more mouths aught not be much trouble."

 Jack had set himself on the carpet in front of the fire and was rubbing his shoulders to get the cold out of them. Dodger had gone straight for a low bunk and fallen fast asleep, grumbling something even the maddest of men couldn’t have interpreted.

“You said the two of you . . . is there someone else here?” Wilhelm said.

“Aye, my wife, Celia. She headed off to the shore to look for Night Shells. We’ll need ‘em when the candle stubs finally run out.”

“Your wife . . . and Night Shells?”

Well, she’s not technically my wife. She came to this island as a little girl when her ship crashed up on the rocks at the north end. Survived for fourteen years before I fell victim to the same fate. We met, built this cottage together, and here we are today. You see, I was the carpenter on the merchant ship I was on.”

“And the shells?”

“Night Shells, well they’re -- come here, I’ll show ya.”

Alastair went to the far side of the cottage and threw open a trunk that contained a large amount of palm-sized white seashells.

“Here, cup it to your eye.”

Wilhelm did as he was told and to his amazement, the shell began to grow a bright blue in the darkness of his cupped hands.

“Wow . . . that’s . . . that’s remarkable.”

“Ain’t it?”

 

Outside, the sky began to get cloudy and the air humid. The moon was snuffed out, the soft white light replaced by distant shocks of lightning. Alastair explained that storms usually follow each other.

Before the wind had a chance to kick up, Alastair explained that the cottage needed to be tied down.

“It ain’t attached to the ground, see. She’s built to float in case there’s a flood. These storms don’t usually cause floods, so we shouldn’t have to worry about it floatin’ away. Just have to worry about it gettin’ sucked up in the wind.”

There were miles of thick rope stored in the cottage and it became a simple matter of wrapping it up and tethering it to the ground. It didn’t take too long, the process was pretty simple. Alastair showed Wilhelm how to tie the rope to a fist-sized rock, then toss it over the house to the other side. The roof was built with deep niches for the rope to fit into.

“Usually, Celia would help me, but I don’t know what’s takin’ her so long. She usually comes straight back at first sign of a storm.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Wilhelm, though he didn’t know what made him do so.

Once the cottage was secure, the three headed back inside just as the forced air began to scratch like a beast at the glass panes. Beyond, the trees started to bend and wave from wind. A few minutes after that, the rain started: a fine trickle that slowly got faster and steadier until the air was saturated with water falling in constant streams. Every minute, Alastair began to get more and more nervous. She never takes this long, he began to say, pacing about the room. Never.

Wilhelm considered his secret thought that perhaps this Celia was a figment of lonely madness that had developed and festered in the old man’s head after years of isolation.

Lightning began to streak across the sky in bold motions like an artist flicking bright paint onto a canvas. The image stuck for a few moments, purple and blue, on the insides of Wilhelm’s eyelids when he shut them.

“Blow out the lanterns, quick,” Alastair whispered hastily. “If the house starts to shake, it could knock one of ‘em over and the whole place’ll be up in flames.”

Wilhelm scrambled to the nearest one, licked his fingers, and snuffed it out just as Alastair threw a wool tarp over the fire. It smoldered pathetically beneath the tarp for a moment then went out.  Instantly, the cottage was thrown into complete darkness, the pale, worried faces of the companions only illuminated briefly by shocks of the brightest white.

About an hour into the storm, a knocking came upon the door; strong and quick with urgency. Alastair carefully removed the enormous wooden beam that held the door from ripping off the hinges and allowed the figure in. It was a woman, by the shape of her body. The door slammed against the wall and a few splatters of rain made their way inside just before Alistair shut it. Wilhelm guessed it was Celia (whom, he realized, was not a figment of Alastair’s crazed imagination).

She was immediately cast in shadows as lightning buzzed and crackled mercilessly outside. The door was pushed back into place and the beam thrown over it. Wilhelm watched the scene from the confines of one of the bunks. His mind somewhat at ease, he closed his eyes against the storm and rolled to face the bare wall.

It took Wilhelm a long time to get to sleep, not because of the noise and uneasy rocking of the cottage that made it seem as if it truly were a ship at sea, but because every time he closed his eyes, the patterns of lightning seared into the darkness swirled and contorted into the muzzle of a terrible dragon as it reared back to attack him. Even when he opened them, rubbed them, and closed them again, he could still see the dragon there, watching him, waiting for him.

Even so, the image of the frightening dragon was no match for Wilhelm’s overwhelming exhaustion and, after a while, he finally drifted off to sleep

 

 

Morning came swiftly and silently. A barely noticeable flood of soft light intruded through windows covered in thin white lace. At first, Wilhelm thought he might still be dreaming as his eyes slowly creaked open with the weariness that most often precedes a hundred-year slumber. A face loomed over his, with dark skin, almond-shaped eyes, and thick black hair that cascaded lightly over her shoulder and dangled over his chest.

I must still be dreaming, Wilhelm thought, sitting up quickly and stopping only to avoid slamming his head on the low rafters above him. He turned slowly to face the woman who stood up, satisfied that he was awake, and left out the now un-barred door, a flowing white gown trailing so lightly and silently behind her, she could have very well been a specter.

Wilhelm followed the woman out of the house and into greater light.

“Where’s Jack?” he asked immediately. Alastair came trundling up to him, carrying a bucket of water which he set down at the doorstep next to Wilhelm. The water sloshed about inside, crystal clear.

“He went off into the woods to explore a little -- don’t you worry, I gave him some warnings about the forest. He should be alright. I told him not to go too far, either.”

“Was that woman just now . . . Celia?”

“Yeah, that was her. Beauty, ain’t she?”

“I wasn’t expecting her to be so striking. I have to admit, at first I thought she might’ve been a ghost.”

Alastair began to chuckle. “I had the same thought myself when I first looked upon her, mind you, I was three days without food and water before she found me, I probably would’ve thought the coconuts were alive if I had seen one.”

The island, much to Wilhelm’s dismay, was not without work. Though he still thought of how the captain may be faring, he found his thoughts distracted as Alastair set him to work. He discovered that amongst the trees there was a fence erected to keep an amount of wildlife within close quarters, which made hunting plentiful, but no less difficult. Alastair showed Wilhelm how to catch the pigs that were too fat from feeding (another duty Wilhelm found he would need to perform many times over the course of his stay on the island) and could hardly run away. Even so, they thrashed about in their bindings and produced and blood-curling shriek that made their final endeavor that much harder. Once captured, Wilhelm was shown the ghastly art of bleeding the pig dry by a slit in the neck. He quickly retreated to vomit as piles of scarlet guts fell out in massive heaps.

Next, there was the practice of obtaining ‘good’ water. This ‘good’ water came from a basin deep in the forest. Alastair explained that the water was purified from the presence of limestone and other minerals amongst the rocks. A contraption was set up at the closest edge of the basin, where an enormous bucket could be hulled up through a series of pulleys.

Repairs on all systems of Alastair’s creations came infrequently and as necessary.  

When evening arrived and a freshly slaughtered pig laid skewered on a rack overhead a crackling fire, Wilhelm took the time to have a discussion on a matter that had lingered in the back of his head since he had met the man.

“Have you ever thought of getting off this island?” Wilhelm asked.

“I have,” replied Alastair matter-of-factly. “I have thought about it every day since I arrived here some odd years ago.”

“Then why don’t you do it? You have the materials, why not just leave?”

Alastair sighed and glanced at Celia, who had taken a delicate arm out of her wrap to adjust the angle of the pig.

“I’m too old,” he said at last. “Tell me, lad, what is the state of the world now?”

Wilhelm could already tell Alastair had only asked in order to prove a point. “England is at war with France, a diseased midget, Napoleon Bonaparte holds the thrown, and I’m not quite up to date with the comings and goings of other countries that have no interest in me, nor I with them.”

“Exactly. You see the life I lead here; simple. Easy. No war plagues me, no fear haunts my heart, and no darkness creeps into my dreams. This island is as holy to me as the bible I once coveted. I don’t want to hear about modern things, I’m quite content here. There’s no other place I would rather be.”

“But . . . there must be some things you miss? You had a family, right?”

“Yes . . . and no. I had blood relations, but a family? No, they were no family to me. It was one of the reasons I trained to be a carpenter and set out to sea. I held no place in my heart for those people. You stay here a while, and you’ll see. This island is perfect. Well, except for the dragon of course.”

Wilhelm’s heart leapt in his throat and he had a hard time getting his next words out. “D-d-dragon?”

By now, Celia had wandered over to where they sat. She stood in front of Alastair with her hands on her thin hips and her round face in a frown. “There’s no dragon on this island, Alastair. I won’t have you disturbing my peace of mind with your tales of monsters.”

“I know, I know,” Alastair whispered in tired frustration.

Celia put a hand on Wilhelm’s shoulder as Alastair leaned over to rub his eyes. “Don’t worry about the dragon. There isn’t anything on this island that will harm you.” She said in his ear. She stood up with a quick wink in his direction and walked away, her feet barely skimming the surface of the earth.

When she had left, Alistair stole a glance from between his fingers than grabbed Wilhelm in a tight hold. “I swear I saw it, that night we went adrift. A dragon as big as the ship, baring down at us through the thick of the clouds and the clap of the lightning. And then, I saw it once more, not a month ago. Just off the eastern end, the thing flew up and into the sky, slithery, like a serpent, only with wings. That’s the thing that I’d be wary of if I were you. I’d heard of dragons, read about ‘em as a boy. They like treasures; shiny things, you know. If it gleams in the sunlight, you can bet the dragon’ll snatch it up before you could even know it went missing. Then, it'll come for you.” Alistair paused for a moment, staring dead straight into Wilhelm’s eyes, then burst into a hearty chuckle. “I’m only pullin' your leg, boy. Just keep an eye out for the thing. Lord knows how deadly a dragon can be. Even if you don’t believe in it, who’s to say it cares?”

Wilhelm was about to ask what the dragon looked like when I cry of delight came from the edge of the forest.

“Look at it!” Jack cried as he stumbled out from amongst the trees, carrying some sort of lemur in his hands. The thing had a white stomach and a black back, with greens eyes that darted this way and that and limbs that scrambled in a fruitless attempt at escape. “Isn’t it great?”

“It’s certainly astounding that you managed to catch one, boy,” Alastair said, a look of mixed curiosity and pleasure on his face.

“I was chasing it all day,” Jack said, holding it up for everyone to see.

Alistair fashioned a collar of torn strips of leather and fitted it around the neck of the monkey so that Jack could hold onto it. The poor thing tried for an entire hour to get the collar off, but in the end, the lemur gave up and sat, with a plop, onto the dirt next to Jack.

As they ate, they all tried to come up with names for the beast.

“Paupers”

“Charlie”

“Irena”

“It’s a boy, you numskull.”

“Napoleon”

 “We’d have to shoot it right out.”

“I know,” Jack said. “How ‘bout Worley?”

Celia’s face darkened. In the glare of the fire, her eyes shimmered with something that closely resembled anger. “No, not Worley,” she said in a low voice.

“How about Ludwig then?” Wilhelm said quickly.

“I like it,” Alistair said heartily. “I used to know a dog named Ludwig. The beast was strong and dignified. I’m sure your new pet will be as well.”

“Ludwig . . .” Jack said in a hushed voice, as if testing it out. “Alright, Ludwig it is.”

His belly filled with pork and fruits, Wilhelm leaned back and yawned loudly. Celia had cleared the plates and was washing them in the bucket Alastair had brought earlier that day.

As the fire wore down to nothing but a few dying embers, Alastair leaned towards Wilhelm. “A wild one isn’t she?” he asked.

“I suppose so.”

I have to say, lad. There is nothing on this earth more comforting than a woman’s bosom. Not even all the ale in the can touch the sorrows she can cure. Sure, she’s a pain in the a*s sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade her for anything.”

Wilhelm grumbled in agreement. He knew of women. In his younger years, he and his friends had taken strolls down darkened streets lined with woman who gave up their bodies for hardly more than a day’s worth of wage. When he became a seaman, the women of faraway countries were almost eager for a night in bed with him.

“Do you have a woman back home, in England?” Alastair asked, clearly pressing the subject as any married man would.

“No. I can’t say I’ve ever been the type to settle down.”

“Well, give it time, lad. Give it time.”

They sat there until the last traces of warmth from the fire were gone and the cold began to settle in. All the while, Jack played with Ludwig who, understandably, did not want to be played with. He tried to bite and scratch at him, but Jack only rolled around and screeched with laughter.

“Well, I’m off to bed. You should be, too. Tomorrow we’ll check out the coast to see if anything’s washed ashore from the storm. There’s always something there, if you look hard enough. Hell, maybe we’ll find another ship, or that crew of yours.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Wilhelm mumbled. But Alastair had already turned and headed back inside. He and Jack followed soon after, along with a reluctant Ludwig who clearly wanted nothing to do with any of them.

Dodger was exactly where he had been the night before, mumbling and twitching in his sleep. Alastair removed his shirt and settled into his own bed, separate from the others and larger. Wilhelm started to do the same, but just as he had his shirt over his eyes, a cold hand pressed lightly against his chest. Wilhelm threw the shirt off to witness Celia walking away and casting a long, sensuous glance over her shoulder at him. Her penetrating dark eyes struck him dumb. He looked to Jack, but Jack had curled up in his bunk, clutching Ludwig who had given up all hope of escape and was now sleeping softly beside him. Celia settled down next to Alastair and closed her eyes to sleep, pausing once only to blow out the lamp on the nightstand, and casting the cottage into darkness once more.

Wilhelm laid down in his own bunk, unsure of himself. He could still feel the tinge of her skin on his as he closed his eyes to meet the dragon once more, but what scared him that night more than anything else, as he listened to the tiny noises of the inhabitants of the island cottage, was the unbearable fact the he had enjoyed it.

 

 

Wilhelm blinked the morning swelling from his eyes as he attempted to decipher what was wrong. He had woken up with an uncomfortable feeling in his lower extremities, and now he knew what it was.

He was stark naked.

Wilhelm lifted the covers to see that this was indeed the case. He looked around, head swimming with early fatigue, to find who the culprit was. However, the cottage was empty. Even Dodger had managed to rise and turn loose.

Wilhelm crept silently outside, like a pirate sneaking aboard a galley, clutching a pillow to his groin, in order to discover why the breeze was running rampant between his thighs. He was met with a disturbing sight.

Alastair stood in the clearing shoveling out the ash from last night’s fire. He was as bare as the day he was born.

“Have some dignity, man!” Wilhelm gasped. To his surprise, Alastair turned and chuckled.

“Got something to hide, do ya now?”

“N-no,” said Wilhelm, his face now turning a bright shade of red. “It’s just the principle of it.”

“The principal? You’re on a tropical island, lad! Principle’s got nothing to do with anything around here. You’ve got nothin’ to do but live now, so start living!” Alastair laughed some more then wiped his eye and returned to shoveling.

Celia returned an hour later with everyone’s clothes (except for Dodger, who refused to let anyone touch his ‘Greek battle armor’). Wilhelm quickly snatched his garments away and retreated into the woods to replace them.

Jack seemingly was not bothered by nudity and ran around for some time before Wilhelm grabbed him by the wrist and forced a shirt over his head and then thrust a pair of breeches at him.

With everyone fully clothed, Alastair explained the rules for their beach treasure hunt. With the even addition of two people (excluding Dodger who could not be trusted with his own safety), the parties would be two and two. Wilhelm quickly pulled Jack in close, but Alastair said “Wilhelm, lad, you go with Celia. She’ll show ya the ropes better than I would, and I’d like a man to man talk with the boy there.”

Jack frowned. Wilhelm gulped and shot a hesitant look towards Celia, who caught his eye and batted her lashes at him. Alastair didn’t notice.

They made their way through the forests thick brush, pausing only once in a while to pick fruit from the trees. Wilhelm found himself spellbound from time to time, as he gazed up at the fantastical light that fell down from the thick canopy above.

Carrying thick wicker baskets made of tangled branches, they strolled out onto the beach and separated, both groups heading off in a separate direction.

Wilhelm would have been perfectly content to have spent the day in awkward silence, but Celia, apparently, had other thoughts.

“So, what was your ship bound for before it crashed?”

Wilhelm’s heart immediately doubled its pace as he mustered the words and the courage to answer.

“We were a merchant ship. We brought paper and other manufactured goods from England to its colonies. As it were, the war with Napoleon had only escalated and even our small ship was the target of many French vessels. We were outfitted with guns but --”

“Oh, you must have been very brave, and very frightened.”

Wilhelm began to panic. Without meaning to, he had begun to woo her. If he denied her accusations now, he would only be playing along. Instead, he resigned himself to poking along the sand with a stick, turning over rocks and empty bottles in the hope that she would be convinced he wasn’t interested in her.

“Wilhelm,” she said softly. Wilhelm turned before he could stop himself and caught her peeling down the edges of her wrap, revealing her breast. He began to sweat in terrible places.

As Celia dropped her garments to the sand, revealing the most exquisite, supple body he had ever seen, Wilhelm could only watch and hope this day would end with his dignity still intact. However, there soon came rising warmth from just below his waist and in a split second, he knew it would not be so.                                   

 

Over the next few months, they conducted their affair in secret. They stole beneath the enormous canopies of the isolated woods where no one in the world could find them. When Alistair would leave to tend to his chores, she would lead him by the hand to dark recesses where they explored the far reaches of their flesh. When Wilhelm left to his duties, he would find her at his destination, naked and eating a fruit, allowing juice to roll down her chest, tracing a line to regions Wilhelm could not help but venture.

It all added to the illusion of paradise. Wilhelm stopped thinking about what may or may not have happened to the captain, and in time, he forgot there had been a captain at all.

 

 

One day, more than two months after their first meeting, Celia asked Wilhelm a question; something she had not done in a while.

“What was your life like, back in England?” She asked him, stroking his bare chest with a delicate finger.

“I . . .” he said, frowning at the realization that he needed to recall the events of his past life. “I was a printer. I printed books for people.”

“Did you write them yourself?”

“Sometimes . . . but usually it was things that others paid me to print. Ancient texts that had worn thin over the years needed to be reprinted. Some books simply needed to be rebound.”

“How did you end up on a ship then? A printer hardly seems to be an occupation that would warrant a sea voyage.”

“To tell you the truth, I despised my job. I had worked as a printer for ten years. The only thing I had to look forward to was writing my own stories. I loved them dearly, but they took up precious time and never sold well. Only one did. It was about a pirate who sailed the oceans stealing treasure, but was sunk by the French Navy and washed ashore on an island.”

“It sounds like a grand tale. I should like to read it sometime.”

“I doubt it would drift so far as to this place.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Lots of things end up on this island.”

“Maybe your right, I guess I would like to read it one last time. It is a bit ironic, after all.”

“How so?”

“The pirate who washed ashore met a woman on the island. They loved each other, and it ended with them sailing off into the sunset, bound for another place.”

 

The next morning, they set off with Alastair and Jack to search the beach for trinkets. Wilhelm went with Jack these days. They passed the broken crow’s nest, which had become bleached white from salt and exposure to the elements. Sometimes they would find clothing or gold. Others, they would find a limb, green and covered with signs of decay or rather a long and tragic sea voyage. Every once in a while, they would find a body intact but dead. Wilhelm would poke it with a stick, just to see if the body might stir a bit or give another declaration of life. But it never did, and they would continue on their way.

Ludwig, the lemur, had since become a respected member of the family. He had given up on escape and adjusted to life as Jack’s faithful companion. He trailed along after the boy, squeaking every once in a while and pulling something shiny up from the sand to show them. He didn’t even wear Alastair’s leather collar anymore.

Dodger had passed away some time ago. He went peacefully in the night after suffering from a fever -- most likely brought on by his head injury -- and everyone knew it before morning because his obnoxious grumblings had at last ceased and the cottage went unbearably quiet. He was now buried beneath the still-standing hull of the Acheron; A worthy tombstone.

Ludwig gave a raspy squeal of delight. Wilhelm rushed over and dug in the sand just beside him and pulled up a lantern. The glass was cracked, but otherwise in working condition.

“Good work, Ludwig.” Jack said, stroking the lemur on the head.

Wilhelm put the lantern in his leather rucksack and continued on with his search. For the next hour or so, all they managed to discover was driftwood, dark with water, and the grave remains of ships that had fallen to the storm.

During the night, as they sat around the fire, Alastair asked Wilhelm to tell one of his stories. Wilhelm needed to think for a moment. He had already told them of his expeditions to Egypt, where a great Pasha presented him with scrolls of rare papyrus in exchange for reprinting a text thought lost in the fire of Alexandria. He had also recounted the events where, for several months, he served as record keeper for a British Man-of-War, and the many battles in which he narrowly escaped death.

“Alright, I’ve got one,” he said at last.

“Do tell,” Alastair said.

The others listened intently as Wilhelm told the story of how he had come to arrive there.

 

The Story of Wilhelm

 

The sea had become a deadly place before the sun had even risen. The Acheron had come upon its prey in the middle of the night and stalked it like a beast until the first traces of sunlight peeked over the horizon. The men gathered at the stern of the ship, eager to look upon the one that would soon be their catch.

Wilhelm stood with them, only back a little way. He was too engrossed with the stoic image of the enemy ship as it became a silhouette against the orange sky. It was beautiful, in a strange way.

“Beat to quarters!” the shout echoed through the shallow breeze. Immediately, the calm tone of the ship changed in a brutal metamorphosis.

Drums sounded, fast and sharp. The men began to rush around in an organized chaos, climbing the ropes that led up to the mainmast and furling the sails. Most of the noise came from below Wilhelm’s feet, where men were dragging the heavy canons into firing positions; the sound of metal scraping wood coming up like a dull scream as the Acheron prepared for battle.

Wilhelm waited for the inevitable sound of the enemy’s drums to vibrate an alternate rhythm, but to his surprise, it never came. He headed back below deck to his room, where all manner of documents were held. There were secrets hidden amongst those pages: names of British spies and details to the whereabouts of other fleets. He took the most important of them and hid them beneath a loose plank in the floorboards. If the enemy boarded, he didn’t want to chance them finding these.

Wilhelm found the document he was originally looking for, scanned it, and frowned. The pages he held in his hands told that the one they were following was a French Privateer, but when he had seen it as the Acheron pulled closer, he noticed that the enemy ship flew no colors. During wartime, all ships, even at their own risk, flew colors.

He came up on deck and confirmed his suspicions. By now, the Acheron was within range of the rifles and the crew opposite him should be clearly visible . . . but they weren’t. It seemed like a split second, but his eye caught something: the one man on deck turned and glimpsed Wilhelm watching him just before ducking down below deck. He wore ragged clothes and his body was somewhat frail-looking. Wilhelm stood motionless, unable to understand what he was seeing.

The Acheron came up alongside them and, taking no fire, decided to jump straight to boarding parties.

The men made their way across, along with Wilhelm who had snuck alongside them, to the enemy ship. They moved silently and quickly, reverting to hand signals and gestures. A group of four men broke down the door to what would have been the captain’s stateroom, but it was empty except for a small wooden desk. Unsatisfied, they joined the party that had just smashed their way through a strange portcullis that had no business being on a ship.

Wilhelm, however, remained in the stateroom. He grabbed the revolver he kept in his pocket by the barrel and bashed at the locks on the drawers until they broke. Inside he found no plans, documents, or anything else -- except for a note wrapped around a looking glass. He placed the looking glass into his jacket pocket and began to read the note, his first inclination that something was horribly wrong.

 

My love,

 

I am so very sorry that I could not meet with you. I tried to, but I’m afraid I was being followed and I couldn’t bear seeing you, knowing that it might’ve cost us both our lives. It seems Britain will stop at nothing to see us dead. I hope you can except the apologies of a shattered man. I know the world has done horrible things to you, and that my abandonment might have cost me what little trust in me you had left, but understand that no matter what, I love you. This is my. . . .

 

Wilhelm looked up from the letter as someone entered the room.

“Wilhelm,” Jack said. “I wondered where you’d gone off.”

“Jack, you shouldn’t be here,” Wilhelm whispered forcefully. “Go back to the ship.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Damnit, this is no French Privateer!” Wilhelm burst out suddenly. “All of this is wrong. We shouldn’t be here!”

Jack went wide eyed and opened his mouth to speak, but just then, an enormous blast from the bowls of the ship caused the entire hull to quake, crack, and finally snap in half like a toothpick. The center of the ship, just near the mainmast erupted in a massive storm of splinters and thick black smoke. Cries of the men could be heard down below. Wilhelm was blown back into the desk and Jack was launched over the rail and into the churning sea below. Wilhelm recovered enough to suck up his fears and dove in after him.

After he had found Jack floating amongst large splinters of wood, he scooped the boy's soaked body into his arms. Wilhelm found a rope that was lowered down to him from the bow of the Acheron. At the top he was met with a grumbling old man.

“Thank you, Dodger,” Wilhelm said, sputtering water.

“No worries, mate,” he said, moving past Wilhelm in order to help the next one up the rope.

When most of the confusion had settled and the wounded that could be saved were salvaged from the wreckage of the unnamed ship, it became understood that the phantom ship had had no crew, and was simply a floating bomb made by the French in order to take them by surprise. Had Wilhelm not witnessed the man and the note for himself, he might’ve believed it. As it were, the note had been lost when the explosion occurred and all other traces of the man had been wiped off the face of the earth, because of this, he had no proof to back his story that the ship was not a false target set up by the French. However, he did go to the captain’s quarters to argue that the ship did not belong to the French.

He left feeling miserable. The captain had dismissed his accusations under the notion that those loyal to Britain did not question its will. As if Britain was some sort of brilliant, all-knowing deity. Wilhelm spat over the edge of the ship in disgust.

That night, Wilhelm was placed up in the crow’s nest, as its usual occupant was below with an enormous wooden splinter running through his shoulder. And so he stood there, face illuminated only by the faint light from the lantern, as the stars disappeared to be replaced by black storm clouds.

 

As Wilhelm finished his story, he looked around to see the looks on everyone’s faces. Alastair and Jack were entranced. Surprisingly, Celia’s face was dark and pondering.

“Sounds like a romance between star-crossed lovers,” she said.

“Maybe, but it’s likely they were simply using code names and the note was nothing more than a sinister plot in disguise,” he mumbled, more to himself than anything. 

“Oh, come now.”

“Well, we’ll never know,” Alastair said. “The note is gone, and the man, too. No reason worrying about all that now.”

“It was still a cool story,” Jack said. “And I was in it, too.”

“Yeah,” Wilhelm said, ruffling the boy’s hair.

They returned to bed that night, all with the image of Wilhelm’s story in their heads. I wonder what the rest of that note said, he thought to himself. But alas, the note and its contents were probably lost to the sea forever. . . .

Probably.

 

 

Something occurred in Wilhelm’s mind that night. The recollection of his past events had settled somewhat like a rock in his head and it proceeded to mock him by forcing him to think about it: the note, the man, the crew that had disappeared. All the thoughts that Wilhelm had abandoned over the long months came rushing back at him, causing him to occasionally stop in the middle of his chores, absentmindedly, until someone shook him, or as was most often the case, he became stumped on a particular memory he couldn’t quite recall.

For a week he refused to see Celia, much to her disappointment, he failed to catch some of the easiest prey on the island, much to Alastair’s dissatisfaction, and he had stopped telling his stories by the fireside which had put them all off.

“What’s wrong, Wilhelm?” Jack asked one day as they poked at the sand along the beach to see if the tide had brought in anything of use. “You seem a bit . . . distracted.”

“I’m fine, really,” Wilhelm said, though his voice was miserable and even gullible Jack could tell something was wrong with the man.

“Wilhelm . . . I--” However, Jack forgot what he wanted to say, as Wilhelm forgot to listen. They gazed with blank stares across a stretch of beach toward an enormous contraption of wood and steel. The thing was covered in sand and all parts of wood were soaked.

“It’s a cannon,” Wilhelm said as he walked around it, checking out its features. He spotted an odd impression in the wood near the wheel; an odd coat of arms Wilhelm recognized immediately. “It’s the mark of the East India Company. They must have past near here on their way to America. Couldn’t have been a slave ship. . . .”

Jack dove into the sand and brought up a small tin box and brushed it off. “It’s a box of flints,” he said, opening it up.

After a few minutes of shuffling through the sand, they came up with the rest of the ingredients, including gunpowder and three cannonballs. Wilhelm was able to identify the cannon as a Canon de L’Empereur, or 12-pounder Napoleon. It was French-made. Wilhelm had to resist the urge to toss it back into the sea.

I didn’t know the East India Company traded with France, he thought. He walked around it, checking the sturdiness of the enormous wheels and found them in working condition, though the left one squeaked considerably when it rolled. Jack trained Ludwig on the gunpowder like a sniffing dog and the Lemur began to dash around, stopping every few yards to dig up sand before running off again.

Jack followed him, re-checking the sand pits that Ludwig had dug out, oblivious to Wilhelm who was now deep in thought once again. The cannon had reminded him of the outside world. For the first time since he could remember, he was concerned for the world. The war with France could be over, and a new one just beginning.

 

When Alastair arrived, the first thing he asked was how in the blazes did it manage to wash ashore?

Confused but accepting, they hulled the thing to the clearing and set it down beside the cottage.

“Where’s Celia?” Wilhelm asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

“Oh, she said she wanted to look for more Night Shells.” Alastair grumbled.

“Ah,” Wilhelm said, unsatisfied but unwilling to push the subject, lest Alastair became suspicious of their affair.

That night, Celia never returned to camp, and this time Alastair wasn’t the only one worried. A storm was brewing once again. The sky had already been overcome by a veil of darkness that scattered the stars to the far reaches of the night. Wilhelm sat, curled on his bunk, watching through a salt-encrusted window as the trees outside began to wave in their melancholic dance and the rain began to collect and run down the surface of the pane. All of it glared back at him, as the dim lamplight illuminated the worried look on his face.

He could picture the ocean’s waves rolling higher and higher as lighting reflected off their dark surfaces. A ship miles away that was about to suffer the same fate his had had. His captain, soaking wet and huddled in a mass with the other lost crew members, whether they were alive or dead, even he couldn’t bear to picture it.

And then there was Celia, performing her meager task in the most hostile of situations while he sat, warm and safe, in the protection of the cabin with its thick walls and warmth that slid down his back like a comforting hand. 

Without warning, Alastair threw open the door to the cottage, facing the fierce wind and ran out into the night. Wilhelm quickly closed the door tight, ashamed that he himself had not been brave enough to fight the storm for the woman he loved. He and Jack watched out the window as Alastair, trudging against the wind, disappeared into the brush . . . and was never seen again.

 

Celia returned the next morning, pale and weak. She explained she had gotten stuck in the storm and hid in a cave near the mountain, the same cave she usually hid in whenever a storm hit. Alastair didn’t know about the cave, and so had blindly run out into the storm, never to know that Celia had been reasonably safe the entire time.

After a few days past and there was no sign of Alastair anywhere, Wilhelm told fever-ridden Celia that her husband was gone -- lost. She wept for the next day and a half.

A week past where few words were spoken between any of them. It was strange, Wilhelm thought. He had usually gone about his routines under the impression that if he messed up, Alastair would be there to fix it. He had to remind himself to take extra precautions now.

When at last Celia declared that she wished to make a trip down to the beach to look for supplies, it was simply because Alastair’s prediction had come true. The fuel for the lanterns had at last dwindled to nothing. The Night Shells were screwed onto the walls of the cabin to give light at night when the moon wasn’t enough. They caused a few minor problems, however. They continued to give light, even when it wasn’t needed, or wanted for that matter. The light it gave off wasn’t permanent. Most of the shells dimmed out after a few days and had to be replaced with fresh ones that had been lying out in the sun. They were also very fragile, and the act of nailing one to the wall became arduous, as only one in five shells managed to not shatter at the first blow. Because of this, expeditions to the beach became necessary and frequent.

A month passed. By now, Wilhelm was an expert fisherman and hunter. He brought back food for all of them while Celia was out gathering more shells and Jack cleaned and fixed up the cottage and went out to the quarry to get fresh water. Wilhelm and Celia’s relationship became intimate once again, as Alastair became little more than a fond memory they wanted to forget.

 

Wilhelm noticed that things tended to repeat themselves on this island, as if every event was bound to loop back on itself and reoccur. Wilhelm secretly dreaded the day when Celia would become lost in a storm again and when at last it came, his heart began to pound and he started to sweat. He knew she would be safe, but then again, she hadn’t been feeling well the past few days. What if she got a terrible fever and couldn’t return to the cottage? Wilhelm shook his head. He couldn’t jump to conclusions, or else he might become as mad as Dodger had been. Even though he had grown a scraggly beard and his body thin and toned, Wilhelm was still Wilhelm and he couldn’t help but dream up outrageous scenarios, all of which ended with Celia’s tragic death and his own lament.

Jack was rolling around and groaning in his sleep as rain pattered against the window. He had fallen ill as well and had been suffering from fever dreams that turned his skin clammy and wet.

Once lightning began to break the quiet, Wilhelm couldn’t contain himself anymore. He roused Ludwig in the same fashion he would a drunk and placed in the creatures paw a Night Shell. Ludwig groggily responded by sniffing the shell for a minute, turning it over in his tiny paws and making little squeaks as he breathed in the scent of it"the scent of Celia.

Into the storm Wilhelm delved, following boldly after the Lemur as it crawled through brush and over tree stumps with a mad quickness. Wilhelm found he could barely keep up. Soon he realized that they were slowly moving up a slope: the mountain. He had never truly visited this part of the island; it was out of the way of nearly everything.

The grass soon turned to earth and finally grey stone. Ludwig scrambled up a path in the side of the mountain that led all the way up to a cavern. Ludwig stopped just inside the mouth and would go no further.

Inside the cavern, a faint light illuminated the sharp walls studded with wet stalagmites and stalactites; he had never bothered to learn which was which. The illumination came from something Wilhelm couldn’t understand; no matter how close he inspected it or how long he squinted at it. He could swear it was the skin of some enormous beast, it’s hollowed scales resembled Night Shells, in fact, they were Night Shells. The entire skin was covered in overlapping shells, but then again they weren’t shells, were they? No, they were scales. This was a Dragon Skin. Wilhelm was sure of it.

In the darkness of the cave, he stepped on something soft and mushy. He pulled a scale from the dragon ski and used it to illuminate whatever it was he had stepped on.

Wilhelm gasped as the light glinted off a pair of dead eyes that stared back at him. It was the captain. The captain’s body was here, along with the crew. Even though it pulled at every heart string he had, Wilhelm checked the faces of all the bodies he could find, and to his horror, he recognized most of them.

The cave led in deeper. The howling of the wind vanished and with every step in the dark silence he took, his heart beat faster. There were more dragon skins, all as big as ships, just as Alastair had described, and all with glowing scales.

He stumbled over another body. Afraid to discover who it was, Wilhelm kept his distance as he pointed the light at it, as if the body would spring to live at a moment’s notice. With a frown, Wilhelm realized he knew this man as well, but he had not at all expected to see him here. The last time he had glimpsed this man was from the bow of the Acheron as it prepared to board his ship. It seems he managed to find land as well, but had not been nearly as fortunate as Wilhelm.

He continued on, desperate to discover what secret these men at his feet had discovered - and died for.    

When at last he came to the end of the passage, his jaw dropped and his body froze so much so that he couldn’t will his body to move.

Celia crouched at the end of the passage surrounded by a dazzling light. Something was trailing off her naked body, translucent and wispy at first but as it continued on it became a solid mass, the white hollow shell of a dragon tail. She had her back turned to him and he could see her body shaking with the effort of shedding something a hundred times the size of her own body. However, as he listened, he could make out the sound of sobbing. As much as he wanted to comfort her, the true realization of what she truly was had hit him too hard, and his legs continued to remain as stone.

The shed skin continued to grow as it left her body, becoming as large as the others. Wings sprouted, then claws and finally the head peeled off her body and sat emptily, glowing with amazing brilliance.

Celia stayed there for a moment, shuddering and sobbing. She then stood up and turned to face Wilhelm. It wasn’t surprise or anger that spread across her face, but sadness. An unbearable sadness that Wilhelm could imagine had existed within her for longer than he could have known her. She was a dragon, and for all he knew, she could have been as old as time itself.

“Now you know,” she whispered.

“But . . . why?” Wilhelm asked, amazed that he was even able to speak. “Why kill them?”

“It is the destiny of those who love me and those who fear me to die.”

“How could you do that to someone you loved?”

“I have no choice . . . I must. It is my nature to love.”

Celia held something up for Wilhelm to look at. It was his looking glass with the note wrapped around it. She pressed it into his hands and he began to read it in the light of iridescent dragon scales.

 

. . . . Message, as I have resigned myself to search for you, wherever you are. This message will probably never reach you, as it is the fate of dragons to have the worst of the world’s misfortune fall upon them. However, if you do receive it, then I am dead, otherwise I would have whispered these words of affection in your ear myself.

Now, I have dedicated my life to finding you, Celia. And with the world’s most secret forces marshaled against the last dragons it seems I shall never do so. I truly wish I could have told you how much I loved you, one last time.

 

With Love, Worley Foix

 

“Celia . . . I--”

“Please, don’t speak,” Celia whispered. “I want you - no, I need you to do me one last favor, Wilhelm.”

“But what would you have me do?” Wilhelm asked.

“Please . . . please, would you kill me?” she pleaded with tears in her eyes.

“Celia, no I can’t. Don’t ask that of me.”

“You must Wilhelm. Please, for me. End this cycle of hatred. I believe that was your destiny, when you brought me this.” She touched Wilhelm on the hand that held the copper looking glass.

“I can’t Celia. I won’t do it.”

A dark look came over Celia’s face and her beauty became slightly disfigured. “Then there is only one thing to do,” she said. “I will make you kill me.”

Celia’s body began to grow. It elongated and widened then shrunk and became scaly. Her transformation was terrifying and beautiful at the same time. Her head protruded forward and her teeth became enormous fangs. Her hands and arms thickened and sprouted deadly claws. A tail snaked out from behind her and wings erupted from her back.

As the dragon loomed over Wilhelm, he managed to break free of his invisible bonds by sheer terror and made a mad dash for the escape. In a mess of confusing twists and turns, Wilhelm finally came upon the cave mouth. Ludwig was gone, replaced by a wall of rain so thick, Wilhelm at first thought he was running through a waterfall. Outside, he slid more than ran down the cliff side as water turned the earth to mud.

With a great roar, the dragon burst out of the cave mouth and into the sky, snaking and looping with grace as its body glowed brightly from the scales. As he glanced up at it nervously, Wilhelm had a hard time distinguishing it from the lightning that danced around it in a terrifyingly wonderful dance.

Back through the trees and the muck, Wilhelm tried to remember the impossible route Ludwig had shown him through. It was no use. Wilhelm exploded onto the beach, dazed and confused. Maybe if he could find one of the landmarks on the beach he could find his way back to the cottage, which, now that he thought about it, wouldn’t provide much protection from a dragon twice the size of it. But then again it did have a cannon.

Wilhelm made his way down the beach but was stopped as the great beast landed in front of him. It beat its wings in great gust of wind that sent ever more water into his eyes. He dove back into the tree line and began plowing his way through the underbrush, smacking tree limbs out of way left and right.

Celia was above him, assaulting him with shrill screams of anguish that penetrated Wilhelm down to his very soul. He hoped that the creature Celia had become couldn’t speak. He feared that if he heard her quiet voice come from that monster, he might go completely insane.

Through everything, Wilhelm glimpsed a flash of pale blue light that wasn’t coming from above him. He ran for it and crashed into the clearing where the cottage stood against the rain.

Celia came upon him, beating her wings and driving him to the ground. Wilhelm looked up desperately towards the place where the cannon was, but it wasn’t there. The patch of grass at the side of the house was empty. Wilhelm looked up just in time to see Celia shove her enormous foot on top of him, pinning him to the ground. She reared back like a snake ready to strike.

“Wilhelm!”

Jack’s cry came just as an enormous blast sounded louder than the lightning, the wind, and the rain combined. In an instant, Celia was gone. A swirling streak of light shot up into the sky, disintegrating into tiny fragments, scales, as it slowly disappeared into oblivion. Celia had gotten her wish.

 

The cottage was destroyed. When the cannon had gone of inside of it (to protect the powder from becoming wet) it had made splinters of the wall and the entire contraption had fallen apart. It seemed Alastair’s greatest creation had decided to accompany him in death.

In the week that followed, Wilhelm and Jack constructed a raft from the salvageable remains of Alastair’s cottage. It turned out more like a misshapen boat. In the center of it, carrying the unfurled sails made of the curtains from the cottage stood the crow’s nest.

They set sail the week after that, once Wilhelm had carved out a legible list of all the men who had fallen victim to the island’s charm. The Acheron had finally toppled with a great crash that had shaken the island.

As the boat rolled smoothly over waves into deeper waters, Wilhelm tended to the sail while Jack teased Ludwig with a nut.

“So, where are we off to now?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know, Jack but then again, it doesn't quite matter. We’re headed away from this island, and that’s all that matters.

“What’ll you do when we get back to England?”

Wilhelm answered Jack’s question as he peered through the looking glass at the sunrise that had already begun covering the world in fresh golden light and the island he had named Exilium became little more than a misty blue spectre in the distance.

 

Maybe I’ll write a story about this. . . .

 

--A crow’s nest is an interesting contraption, he began, because if you’re lucky it could one day save you from an island, a woman, and perhaps even a dragon.

Author's Note

It's finally finished. Final count is twenty pages and 11,500 words.
What I was going for most in this story was character depth. I'd like to know what you think about it.
It's been somewhat edited, but any suggestions would still be welcomed.

Reviews

[JelliFyshKissUs]

Okay, finally finished reading this story and I must say I'm quite impressed. The odd wording I had met with millenniums before are corrected to perfection. And as far as Wilhelm goes--his character is very easy to grasp. You describe what he sees, what he feels--even give us background information on him. There is no way we don't join ourselves to his character. I'm very proud.

[Miss Coral]

So, generally, I have a difficult time reading longer pieces on the internet, which is probably the reason I started on poetry in the first place, haha.
This held my attention to the very end. A feat.
The description and character development were fantastic... I could vividly picture everything in my mind, as if it were a tv show or movie (but with an actually interesting plot, and no bad actors). You seem to float from time to time, whenever you pass over long periods of time, you do it smoothly, when it is generally jarring.
Each time I read one of your stories, I'm in awe. It seems that after reading enough of them, I'll be used to it.
But, as of now, my jealousy for your writing abilities has been renewed. :)
100/100 from me, as usual. Sorry I can't offer anything constructive.
-Coral-

[dissidia]

I'm so in awe, Its rediculous. I fee like I know wilhelm. You definatly got characterization down with this one, and I died for the descriptiveness of it. My favorite part was when wlhelm told his story, it made the plot so deep. Grahg! I'm jealous. I wish I could write like ths.

[Hello, Elle]

This was amazing. Oh my God, you have talent, man. I loved this. Loved it. Beautifully written.

[Myrcei]

Oooh you're good. You're talent just makes me smile. I'm short on time right now so I didn't get far, but I'll be back with a better review than "I liked it."....but you really are so frickin' good. I'm kind of awestruck. :D

[JelliFyshKissUs]

Oh, and did you know a sailor who is stationed at the crow's nest is called a Barrelman? I thought you might appreciate that bit of information, but you probably use it later on in this story. Still Reading. Can't stop.

[JelliFyshKissUs]

I only read several paragraphs, but, my God, I am so jealous. Your vivid imagery is to die for. I hate you and love you at the same time.

I do have a few suggestions(If I may):
Italicize 'Maybe a life at sea wasn't the best idea after all' since it is an internal thought of the character.
Change to '...regretting the decision he made on his twenty-first birthday.' and leave out 'three years ago' since you mentioned that at the beginning of the paragraph.
Maybe 'flounder' instead of 'stumble drunkenly'
'...words were carried overboard by the wind'
'...able-bodied seaman(--)good-looking...thin physique(--)he believed..' Just my preference. Thought you might like it.
'brass telescope' instead of 'looking glass'
'chilled him as much' instead of 'almost as much' (if you like it)
'The lanterns still lit below him, could not stretch through the darkness to reach the nest...'
'...squeezing his (lids) tightly...'

This is not criticism, this is tweaking. Your story is amazing. You can do without the things I said if you want to. Some other reviewers come to the writer's defense when I make these suggestions, but I feel that's what we're here for--to enhance each other.
I'll be reading more. I can't help it. It's oh so good.

[Aggie Skeleton]

OMG!!! That was totally awsome... just, wow. If I end up on a ship I shall stay in the crow's nest. That was great man, just... wow.

[Skelasoldier]

I read the whole twenty pages and I have to say you have a real talent for this genre, I saw no errors to report, Awsome work

[Katie Louise Hughes]

Well, I read to the part of Wilhelm blinked lol. (I'll for sure come back for the rest!!) And it's so far extremely intriguing and fun to read!! I do think you have talent, as mentioned in a previous review. I like your attention to detail, and how you use humor throughout the story! Thanks!! :D