“I’m sorry, I thought I’d surprise you and wait out here ‘til morning for everyone to wake up…”

“Well you certainly got what you wanted! The entire town must be wide awake and waiting for the alarm bells right now, thinking it’s pirates!”

Lee sat somewhat awkwardly at the kitchen table, eyes following his father’s furious pacing across the wood floor. Jenna sat in the chair opposite, her heart still thudding slightly in her chest. She got up suddenly, remembering her mother might need help getting the coffee.

“I’ll help you fix it in the morning, Pa.”

And then the farrier turned on his heel and looked at Lee. “You’re damn right you will, and you’ll go over there and at least hug your mother, she’s been just about the only one left in this town still waiting on you to come home.”

Jenna stepped back as her father left the room, his stride brusque and his face contorted in an expression she had never seen. Something between incredibly frustrated and incredibly…relieved? Happy? And then she stepped to the side again as Lee came into the kitchen.

He had grown taller, that was for sure, and his hair a little lighter from hours under the sun. It was cut shorter than it had been. His clothes were worn but clean, and she was surprised to see that it wasn’t an ordinary soldier’s uniform, but that of…a general!

Sobs startled her from her thoughts. Jenna walked warily over to the corner between the stove and the cabinet, while her mother cried and cried, hugging Lee so tight that he turned, and made a silly face. Jenna stifled a smile. She pried her mother away as gently as she could, and led her to the table.

“Just rest, Ma. It’s okay. He’s home now.”

Returning to the kitchen, Jenna poured coffee for her mother, and then for Lee. She pressed the mug into her brother’s hands. He leaned against the cabinet door and called to her as she stepped away.

“How old are you, now?”

“Thirteen,” Jenna answered, looking up with a start.

“It’s been that long, eh? Felt like almost nothing, most of the time. I guess I was usually too tired to notice much. They worked us pretty hard out there.” Lee shrugged, turning the mug round and round in his hands. Jenna waited for him to reach for the sugar and cream, but he never did. Instead he tipped his head back and drank the entire mug’s worth of bitter black coffee, winking at her.

“You’ve changed.” She took the mug from him and set to washing it in the basin. The water was clear and cold.

“You think so?”

“You were always so…sullen. All the shouting, and slamming the door.”

“I wanted to get away. I needed to.”

“But why? Why did you have to go?” Jenna motioned to their mother sitting bowed over her untouched coffee. “She waited for you. She’s been lighting that candle every night, for five years now.”

Lee stood straight, but his eyes were focusing elsewhere. Jenna felt, suddenly, that he was nowhere near. He was far away, someplace else, where no one could reach him. He answered her, his voice very quiet, but filled with an anger she had always imagined having no name.

“…When I was five, the pirates came to Arholt. It was storming, and Pa hid me in the attic cabinet with Ma. But I ran out into the street and saw more than I should have. I saw the Pirate King himself.” Here, Lee seemed to withdraw even further away, and Jenna moved forward instinctively, almost reaching out to put a hand on his arm. But he turned to her, and began to speak again.

“Did you know the baker had a daughter?”

“A daughter? You mean Karen? She’s turning three in autumn, I think.”

“No…there was another daughter. And her name was Sarah. She was…she was my best friend.”

“I never knew…but then, where is she?”

“He took her. The Pirate King. I saw, she was…and he was carrying her away, and she must have seen me because I heard her call out, but…I was too young…and….”

Jenna was glad, then, that she had taken the mug from Lee. He turned, and pounded a fist against the kitchen wall.

“You weren’t even born yet, so you wouldn’t know, and it’s better for you. But that was a terrible night. So many people died, and more than half the fishing boats sank. There wasn’t a house or shop they didn’t raid. And this was the only family that didn’t lose a child.

I don’t remember anything after that, after seeing him take Sarah…but the next day, and the day after, when everything was in ruins…I was the only kid left around here. It was at least two years before any babies were born, and ever since that night the pirates began raiding the coasts. Now it’s just a common thing, for everyone to be afraid. But that bell never used to ring. It used to be safe.

That’s why I had to leave, Jenna. Because I hate them. I hate the pirates. And I won’t stop, I won’t rest, until it’s safe again. Until I sink every last ship and the Pirate King goes down with them, or else I kill him myself.”

Jenna stood, her eyes wide, her feet bare and cold on the stone tile floor. She looked up at Lee, as the intensity of his words and the rawness of emotion began to ebb.

“And…to find her?” she asked, her voice small and her hair falling across her face. Lee jumped slightly as he felt her hand on his arm, closing over his wrist. “To find…Sarah…?”

He didn’t answer. But Jenna saw, from the corner of her eye, that the hand hanging at his side curled slowly into a fist.