Summer, 1699
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

It was a sunny Tuesday morning, about two hours after Henry Thadwick had opened up his father’s bakery. His father Charles had headed out into the countryside to negotiate prices with farmers, leaving Henry in charge of the store by himself for the first time ever. It had been just Henry and his father for five years now; his mother had died in childbirth to his younger sister, Alia, who lived only two months longer. Henry also had a younger brother, Thomas, by two years, who had gone off to work as an apprentice for a blacksmith in New York three years ago.

It was a slow day, so far, with only three customers coming to the store since opening. Henry was sweeping the floor for the third time just for something to do. He turned around as he heard a clumping sound behind him. As his eyes came across the newcomer he was greeted by a foul stench unlike anything he had smelt before. In front of Henry was a man, about fifty years old, with a sharp black goatee and long curly hair. He had a monocle over his right eye and a patch over the other. He had a large scar running from the base of his right ear to his mouth. The clumping sound was originating from his left leg, which was a piece of wood, gnarled and rough as if it had just been cut off of a tree. The man coughed and came closer to Henry. Henry began to decipher the man’s scent as a mixture of alcohol, sweat, body odor, and a couple of things that he didn’t want to think about.

The man coughed again and, seemingly with much effort, rasped, “Do ye have any bread?”

“Aye,” answered Henry, “Only the best in the colonies. What kind of loaves are you looking for today?”

The stranger took a step closer to Henry, resting his right hand on the cutlass on his waist that Henry had not noticed on his first view of the man. Although Henry towered over the man by six or seven inches he still felt intimidated and smaller than the man.

“I’ll have yer rye,” the man said, rasping worse than the first time. He then pointed up to his face and said, “because ye can see that I’ve already lost one of mine.” He followed this comment by a harsh laugh, which quickly turned into coughing. The man had more gaps in his mouth than teeth, and spittle flew out as he coughed, landing on Henry’s boots and the floor.

Henry laughed nervously and said, “Yes sir, the rye is actually finishing baking right now, it will be a few more minutes.” Henry was always one for stories, especially war stories, so he found it all but impossible not to ask, “If you don’t mind sir, how did you lose your eye? Were you in a war?”

“So you like war stories, do ya boy?” He coughed some more and said, “If ye grab me a seat and something to parch my throat I’ll spin you a tale.”

Henry quickly acquiesced, grabbing a couple chairs and a mug of beer from the back. He sat down across from the man and sputtered out excitedly, “So where did you fight, sir?”

“Hah, where did I fight? The better question boy, is, where haven’t I fought?” The man coughed some more and took a long swig of beer. “For the past forty years I’ve been working on various ships doing everything from being first mate to deck boy. I’ve fought many a battle at sea and many more on land. But ye want to hear about my eye? Well that one is quite a story, so sit back.

“I was working on a ship as one of the regular crew, there to run the ropes in a storm, fight if we came across any hostile boats, and help protect the group on any land expeditions. We were sailing down in the south, in the waters of the Caribbean when we saw this beautiful island. When you saw this island you would think to yourself that you could live there happily for the rest of your natural life. Then we heard this irresistible singing, voices so angelic that we didn’t know what to do except follow them.”

The man paused then, looking intensely at Henry as if waiting for a response. The only one he got was Henry squirming uncomfortably and looking away.

“I guess ye’ve never heard of Homer’s Odyssey, boy? Fine then… You can ignore that part, there was no singing. But this island was so incredible that it didn’t need sirens singing to pull us in. We just went towards it, all secretly hoping that the ship would sink and be unable to be repaired so that we would never have to leave. Unfortunately, the natives of the island didn’t see it the same way. We were quickly met by arrows and spears and these nasty poison darts that would kill a man seconds after getting into his blood. During the battle one of those poison darts got me in the eye. I was lucky, I guess, because every other man I saw get hit by one of those darts died right away, but somehow with it being in my eye it didn’t kill me.”

Henry was enthralled, “That must have been scary, and hurt a lot… Can you tell me another story? Where did you get that scar?”

As he finished his sentence there was a loud crash behind him. Henry and the man looked towards the back of the store to see the ceiling begin to collapse and flames spewing from the oven and burning the wooden counter and walls.

“Father is going to kill me,” Henry moaned. “What are we going to do?”

TO BE CONTINUED…