It was well into the night when William and his company boarded a boat from the creeks of Helmsfort to Salpool, the Borish Capital. William stood with his elbows resting on the wooden railing of the boat, his eyes fixed on the still water before him. He could hear the rippling noise made by the boat as it coursed through the smooth water.

 

It was a misty night, and though the fog around be light, it still felt as though some of the incense burning before the almighty had descended down to us mere mortals.

 

He pushed himself away from the railing, and returned to join his company. Ralph had his hands wrapped around Kat; Wat, Geoffrey, and Roland sat before the lantern, staring at the flickering flame. But he knew it was just a ruse; their bodies sat in the boat, but their souls were lost in the memories of the years lost and gone by. It was one of those moments when man is suddenly aware that so much time had slid by, and it was sometimes so scary the heart paused, suffocated, grew heavier, and altogether ceased to beat at times.

 

The boatman was missing a tooth, an eye, and two fingers; one on either hand. He was the only one who dared to move in that freeze of time; the moment was so ordinary for him that it gave them the strength to break free from their reveries.

 

“How long since any of you have been back home?” asked Geoffrey, raising his gaze from the lantern. “It’s been five years and a few months since I’ve been gone. You met me trudging to perdition a few weeks after that.”

 

“Seven years for us,” said Kate, snuggling up to Ralph.

 

“Eight years for me,” Wat replied, grinning.

 

“Ten years,” said Roland, “Ten long years.”

 

One person was yet to talk; his eyes were transfixed on the lantern before him, the words were heavy in his, and as bitter as bile.

 

“William?” Geoffrey called.

 

He swallowed. “Thirteen years.”

 

And it was strange to William that the time should indeed be thirteen years, considering the fact that he was only eight or thereabouts when he left home. No, he did not flee from home, William loved his father too much to do that to him, and his father loved him with the same immense love, so William would never have had the courage or reason to leave home.

 

It was on a night like this, misty and dark. And it was on a both like the very one he sailed in now, and William wouldn’t be surprised if the one-eyed man commandeering the boat was the same one-eyed man who sailed him and his father across the river that fateful night.

 

“He is to the apprenticed then?” the boat man had asked his father as he went about his business of steering.

 

William’s father had looked at the him then before nodding yes to the boatman.

 

The boatman must have understood that the questions he asked were heavy and bitter for he asked no more through the rest of the ride.

 

“We’re here,” the boatman announced as they neared dry land.

 

William and his father got off the boat onto the pier, but the boatman waited, almost as though there was an agreement between him and William’s father.

 

There was a small retinue standing by the pier, and a knight with his sword in one hand.

 

“Sir Hector?” William’s father had called.

 

“Yes,” replied Sir Hector.

 

William remembered that Sir Hector, he adored that sir Hector and worshiped him even. It was that sir Hector William had hoped to one day be like, not the fat drunk that died in his own shit.

 

“I am Thatcher,” said William’s father, pulling his son close to him. “I spoke to you by the Salpool bridge.”

 

“Yes, of course,” sir Hector replied brightly before allowing his stare fall on the frail looking kid with white blond hair. “This is the boy?”

 

Thatcher nodded, yes. This is my son.

 

William never heard the last part from his father, but he always imagined something like that did go on in his father’s mind.

 

“You’ve got most of your teeth?” Sir Hector asked William.

 

In response, he pulled back his lips in a grimace and flashed his dentition, all twenty-four of them.

 

“Good,” said Sir Hector, “Come over here.”

 

William looked at his father who nodded for him to go on. “It’s okay,” his father mouthed.

 

“I will show you a great wide world,” said Sir Hector, “If you can pack a horse, and lead it?”

 

His eyes went to the huge beast behind the knight and a shower of fear fell on him. But he nodded yes to Sir Hector anyways.

 

“Say goodbye to your father and get started,” the knight said.

 

William returned to his father, young, afraid, and teary. His father got down on one knee and pulled him into the warmest embrace; the last and single most loving embrace he ever received.

 

“It is all I can do for you son,” said Thatcher, sniffling. He broke the embrace and cupped William’s face with both hands. “Now you go out there and change your stars. Live a better life than I have.”

 

Thatcher stood up and returned to the both, staring his son.

 

“Father!” William cried out, his face twitching from the tears promising to fall. “I am afraid.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“That I won’t remember how to get home,” said William.

 

“Don’t be foolish, boy,” said Thatcher, “You just follow your feet!”

 

The boat began to float away from the shore, till it was engulfed in the same fog that swallowed them up that night. And thirteen years later, William found himself on the boat to the same shore he had departed from.

 

“He cries,” Kate said, nudging at Geoffrey.

 

“Up, down, up, down,” said Geoffrey, “he’s like a bucket in a well.”

 

They lodged at a tavern for the night, and each slept dreaming of glory. Save for William who saw the white bony hands of a man named Past grabbing his shoulders from behind.