“Truth is, I blame myself for what happened to you. Like I coulda done more,” said Oyster.
Picaro only shook his head. “Ye didn’t do anything. You weren’t the one who stole from Mister Goffrey.”
“All the same, I feel responsible for you having lost a finger. I was the one looking after ye when you had no one else.”
“Look at me. Has it really slowed me down? It’s just a finger. Part of a finger. He didn’t even cut off the whole thing. If he did, I would they rather took the pinky, too.” Picaro waggled his left hand, and the nub wiggled slightly at his command.
Oyster did not smile. “That doesn’t change anything. I shoulda offered to take you in sooner. Maybe it coulda helped avoid all this trouble. But I waited, and waiting will always be an old man’s regret.”
Picaro felt his face heat with potential tears. He shook his head and fought them back. “Listen, you couldn’t have done anything, okay? I would have stolen from that man even if you tried to stop me.”
“But why lad? Ye got work here.”
“Because I hated him,” said Picaro. “He was a fat, lazy pig and he treated people badly. He didn’t deserve that money.”
“What ye mean?”
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“It was the only thing I could do to hurt him. I thought I would spend it better.”
With that, Oyster smiled. “And did ye?”
Picaro looked sheepish. “I got these new shoes,” he said, looking down at his feet. The shoes were already well worn from all his work on the dock, and errands into town. There was a slight tear on the side of one of them.
“Right ye did, and they’re a good pair, too,” said Oyster.
“And I bought myself a sword.”
“Oh yes, the sword. I remember the man talking about. Not a toy, was it? Worth a gold piece, I remember.”
“Aye, it was a good blade,” said Picaro fondly. He picked up a stick and practiced fake swordplay. Oyster walked beside him, carrying a length of rope about his shoulders, hauling a bag of supplies. The old man tried to laugh, but stopped in a coughing splutter. All of a sudden, Picaro thought Oyster looked even more hunched, more weathered than he had ever seen the man in the time Picaro had known him.
Picaro tried to take charge of more of the work, offering Oyster breaks to rest as often as he could. Even so, Oyster seemed like he was slowing down. Some months later, he contracted an illness of his age and lay feverish in bed. Picaro spent the last of their money on medicine to help him, but there was nothing the alchemist could do. No elixir could stop time, and Oyster succumbed to it on a brilliant sunny morning. He went out to meet the wind, that was blowing cold and sorrowful from the north that morning.
Picaro took his time to grieve until his belly told him he could not any longer. He had no money so he tried to work the skipper by himself the best he could. Oyster would have wanted it that way, he thought. But, in reality he was not the fisherman Oyster was. He had not the patience nor the skill to work the waters the way Oyster had, nor the strength to pull in the boat each and every day.
People in town also started treating him different. There was talk, no one wanted to point fingers but it was beginning to seem as though the boy was bad luck. He had always been trouble, even a thief, some said. He had stolen from Mister Goffrey after all and was missing part of a finger to prove it. Some cursed him, blaming him for the rich merchant's going.
By some foul fate, Mister Goffrey had forever marked him, the boy knew. He would always be a thief. So, Picaro had nothing else he could do but go back to what he knew best. That was how captain Valgur found him.
How it started:
- Samuel O. Ludescher