Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day had been a relatively normal one, so far.

Dad was having a rough day. Nora had been able to tell, when she’d put him to bed that morning, that he must’ve passed a hard night. And when she’d put him to bed again a few minutes ago, he’d been adamant in convincing Nora as to the reality of this alleged dragon he’d seen.

Being a lighthouse keeper was a difficult job for a man his age. And he’d been heartily disappointed, as well, when it slowly became clear that their plans from last year—his imminent retirement and picking back up a hobby of whittling he’d developed while he was in the war – were now…not the plans. And dealing with confusion of how things lay now, and with the grief of having that dream pushed back….it hit him harder than either of them had expected.

Paul had told him in no uncertain terms that he was happy to take Lampie’s job from him, when he was finally able to settle his own affairs and actually marry Nora. And now…Paul wasn’t here.

Nora sat alone in the kitchen. There was chowder on the stove she was supposed to be making for her supper. She’d fed a cold leftover crab-cake to Dad before having to practically wrestle him into bed, twisted in fear and confusion and drink. He’d sleep it off. He always did. He’d do better in the morning with the food and water she’d gotten into his system, and she was already slotted for duty tonight. They usually alternated.

She’d debated changing out of her blouse, which still smelled like the tavern (read: beer. She smelled like beer), but ultimately decided against it, knowing she would want to change before her shift anyway. It was cold work, up in the lighthouse proper, and not suited to her billowing skirt.

Nora sighed, unwilling to commit to a course of action that would put her back in that prison of a lighthouse. Not while it was still light out. It was still dusk. She had time.

Time to just be Nora. Not the lightkeep.

She’d been having to parse out Nora for the past year. She’d never thought she’d have to. She’d been happy to be ‘Nora and Paul Roberts.’ Who was just Nora? Just Nora the lightkeeper’s daughter? Just Nora the lightkeep? 

Just Nora had grown up by the sea with her parents and her brother. She was a smart sailor, an expert swimmer, and her mother used to joke that she must be part mermaid, with seawater in her veins. The sea provides. It’s all a person needs. Saltwater cures any ailment. Sweat, tears, and the sea were the answers to life.

Just Nora had a bittersweet relationship with the sea, and of late, it had been hard on her, to be the lightkeep. The sea calmed her mind and filled her lungs with salt and life and purpose. It also had taken Paul away from her.

Nora stood. It had been a fairly normal day, which didn’t mean it had been a good one. And as much as she sometimes resented the ocean that separated her from the love of her life, she acknowledged the wisdom of her mother’s words, today. She had already done her fair share of sweat, after having to hunt Lampie down at the tavern. She had run out of tears to shed for Paul. Process of elimination: she could do with a walk on the beach.

So long as the sun hadn’t finished setting, yet, she wasn’t beholden to her duty.

She was still Just Nora.

Decided, she slipped on a headscarf and coat, shutting the door closed behind her. No lighthouse. Just for a moment.

She breathed in deeply, smiling, walking out of the house and toward the large foghorn. Despite everything, Nora knew she was one of the fortunate ones. She had lived all her life by the sea. Almost all her life by this very lighthouse.

She recalled a time in her youth when all she wanted to do was sit on the beach and breathe and watch breakers. Her mother and brother had sat with her for a time in the morning, and then grown restless, citing their need to run errands in the town. Nora reluctantly said she’d stay another few minutes and then join them.

The next thing she knew, along came John—then called Jackie, to avoid confusion with Dad—to fetch her for supper. “Have you moved since this morning?” he’d asked incredulously. And Nora realized: No, she hadn’t. And was suddenly struck with hunger and stiffness. All the while she marveled that, to her, at least, the time had seemed but minutes. And yet the evidence was against her in the position of the sun, the achy soreness of her body, held too still for too long, and a swath of sunburn baked into her arms.

The sun was hidden, presently, behind some cloud cover that often was present, this time of year, making the whole of the outcropping where the lighthouse sat seem enveloped in a sort of dusky, pre-evening light. Still bright enough to see boats out in the bay, and the breakers on the beach, but with a certain chill in the air that spoke of the sun not returning soon.

The outcropping offered a view of the beach from above, and so it was that, when Nora stood next to the foghorn and looked down, she could see an unfamiliar, dusty-haired boy running by the surf. Based on the spacing of the footprints he trailed behind him, he’d been running for a while, and he wasn’t wearing shoes. She stepped as close to the edge of the outcropping as she dared, all else forgotten in the sudden fear that he was in trouble; was there a wreck? A fire? Was he being chased?

She hesitated, unsure of whether to commit to the trip, picking her way down to the surf. She made the safe decision of going for the stairs Dad had built, instead, seeing first that he’d entered a cave, and knowing where to find him when she reached the beach.

She wasn’t sure what possessed her. A boy on the beach was none of her concern.

She sighed to herself. She’d at least let him know she was there. Maybe inform him that this cave wasn’t a safe place to play, with the tide coming in. If he was a stranger to the town, or a stranger to the ways of the sea, he might not know.

“Hello, in there!” she called as she approached, just to make sure she wasn’t scaring anyone.

A hope in vain, she saw. A young boy was appraising her with caution in his posture. He was sitting on a rock in the cave, holding a thin piece of driftwood.

“Hi,” she said, trying for a friendly tone. The boy couldn’t have been older than twelve. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, just playing tic-tac-toe,” he said in answer, hopping off the rock and standing before her properly.

He was polite, at least, even if he still looked wary of her. He stood up straight, not slouching or fidgeting; he’d been taught manners. Probably been to school. He was dressed like a vagrant, in filthy men’s clothes that had been cropped short so as to not drag. She confirmed that he wore no shoes.

“Well, this isn’t exactly the best place for tic-tac-toe,” Nora said good-naturedly, looking around to indicate their surroundings. “The tide’s coming in, and high water reaches this cave sometimes.”

The boy was the personification of a stoic audience, his expression not faltering.

“You better head for home,” Nora finished, and was somehow not surprised when the boy’s eyes dropped to his feet.

A stranger in town and nowhere to stay. That was unfortunate. “You’re not from Passamaquoddy, are you?” she found herself asking aloud. Not that it was her business.

 “Nope,” the boy answered eyes still downcast, almost…wistful. “Just sort of…traveling.”

A stranger in town with nowhere to stay…who had come here alone. That…was also unfortunate. “Where are your parents?” Nora asked then, expecting the shrug, though it nigh broke her heart. “Where are you staying?” she tried.

Another shrug.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly. Come on, kid. He had to give her something.

“Pete,” he said immediately. Like he’d maybe heard her thought.

“I’m Nora,” she said, inserting a little more brightness into her voice than necessary, “and I have to get back on watch, up in the lighthouse,” she pointed out the cave’s entrance, in the direction of the unseen lighthouse. “There’s chowder on the stove if you’d like some,” she found herself offering sincerely. She’d add some water, make it stretch to a few bowls.

She found herself genuinely hoping he’d say yes. Maybe she could offer to clean his clothes for him. Let him stay the night. She offered a hand to him, wondering as she did so if he would think it too babyish, to hold her hand. Maybe he was too old for that kind of thing.

To her surprise, he started to reach for the proffered hand…before snatching his hand back like it had been burned.

“What’s the matter?” she blurted in shock, “It’s a hand, not a shark!”

The boy – Pete – was looking at her with such…not suspicion. It was closer to fear.

A stranger in a town with nowhere to stay…who had come here alone…who was afraid to take her hand.

Oh.

“You can finish that chowder, if you’d like,” she repeated, offering the hand again, more slowly.

Pete’s grimy hand was still uncertain, but he slipped it into hers. It…was so much smaller than she’d thought. He looked at her hand, and his face darted up to hers in silent question; Is this all right?

Nora’s answer was a wide smile, and he walked beside her out of the cave, hand-in-hand, even offering her a tentative smile in return, before he suddenly let go.

“Oh! I forgot something. Be right back,” he blurted, turning and running back into the mouth of the cave.

Nora slipped her hands in her coat pockets curiously, but waited. It was still dusk. The sun wouldn’t finish setting for another hour. She could afford to be patient; all who loved the sea could afford to be patient. The sea knew no restraint; no limits. Its patience could weather stones to beaches, given enough time.

She allowed herself a moment to breathe in deep, taking advantage of the proximity of the cave and the ocean, which amplified the usual smell of salt and brine. Five deep breaths, and then she let her doubts and worries come to her, so she could address them.

She was bringing this boy home with her to eat her dinner. Well. That wasn’t a worry. This was a boy who otherwise, she was certain, would have gotten no dinner, and had no bed waiting for him tonight. She had those things to offer. So she could hardly turn him away. He was a child.

She pulled her hand out of her pocket, rubbing her fingers together, inspecting it for residual grime. The boy needed a good scrub. He was the kind of filthy that came from more than one day of going without washing up. It was clear that he’d been hot, in the sun, and that the sweat had just dried and added to the grime on his face.

At length, the boy trotted back over to her from the cave, and she wondered how he’d come to be without shoes. She knew little boys notoriously hated “being shod” with shoes, but school was on. And what’s more, it wasn’t the heat of summer, anymore. It was well into September, and it felt it, most days. There was a bite to the breeze that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago, even if they were a coastal town.

“That chowder will be stone cold,” Nora said, to make conversation. “And it’ll have to be reheated. You don’t mind, do you? Are you terribly hungry?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t mind” Pete answered politely. “Chowder sounds real nice. I ain’t—I mean. I haven’t had a hot supper in a while.”

“Oh?” Nora noted his correction. He surely had been to school; no teacher would accept the so-called “rough speaking” that was the habit of children of farmers and tanners. “Well, I’m glad to help. Maybe while I’m re-heating the chowder, you can wash up? I have to show you our newfangled bathroom. We have a modern shower that pours the hot water right on you. No pump. And I could freshen up your clothes, if you’d like. I mean. If you don’t mind waiting.”

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a bother, ma’am,” Pete dried to demure, even as Nora practically saw him drooling with desire when she’d mentioned the shower.

“Oh, it’s no bother. I’m staying up all night with the light, tonight. I don’t mind doing some cleaning, first. And you’d have to wait for the chowder to re-heat, anyway.”

“Well, if you’re sure it’s all right,” Pete surrendered weakly. Not that he’d fought terribly hard.

They climbed the rough-hewn steps, Nora noting to Pete to watch for splinters, on the wooden rail, and were soon at the lighthouse, trudging up the hill and approaching the door; Nora was taking off her headscarf and coat, while Pete, conversely, was twisting his fingers anxiously.

In the light of the kitchen, Pete looked even worse than she’d thought. He was small. He stood uncertainly by the door and Nora offered him a bright smile.

“Now. You need to scrub up, young man, it won’t do to dine at my table without washing up, first, it’s against the rules. I’ll show you how that shower works.”

He followed her haltingly and was quick to nod his understanding as she explained how to control the temperature, and how to run water through the shower spigot, instead of through the bath tap.

She fetched a towel and robe, instructing him to leave his things by the door and she’d take care of freshening them up for him.

When she actually got her hands on the clothes, she faithfully brought out the scrubbing board and filled a basin to quickly wash his things. She had to empty it and refill it three times.

The shirt was almost worn to rags. It was threadbare in some places by the sleeves and underarms. And several sizes too big for him. When Nora wrung it through her clothespress a third time, she realized it was actually a printed fabric, with a pattern of stripes, and not a solid color like she initially thought. It was that dirty.

The overalls were a little hardier, no holes, but the bottoms of the cut-off legs were rags. Thin and caked with sand and with hard-packed dirt and blotched black stains underneath. Did the fabric get no rest from the elements? Had he been sleeping outside, too?

That thought was added to the list of concerns and clues that painted an ever more disturbing history. She was drawing conclusions she didn’t care for. A stranger in town with nowhere to stay, come alone. Runaway. Happy to be clean, and excited at the prospect of food. Neglected.

When the boy appeared in the kitchen, Nora made a show of inspecting his hands for cleanliness, which he submitted to with uncertainty. But not confusion. He hadn’t always been this way, Nora mentally confirmed, again. At some point in his story, he’d had someone to monitor his speech. To teach him how to respectfully address adults or ladies. At some point in his story, he’d had someone that made sure he was clean when he sat down to supper. He’d had someone teach him to appreciate being clean, if there was any evidence in how well he’d scrubbed up, with the skin she could see.

Nora made to guide him to a chair, hand on his back—and he shifted and stepped clear of the touch, out of range of her reach, his expression wary and guarded.

Afraid to be touched. Avoiding being within striking distance. Abused.

Nora bit back comment, smiling and letting the action pass as if it hadn’t been noticed. She ladled a generous portion of chowder into a bowl, setting it in front of him, but he stayed standing, keeping her in his sights. She bustled to the other side of the table, reaching for the sugar and cream for her coffee, clearly placing her teacup on the table.

“You are such a gentleman, waiting for the hostess to be seated,” she said brightly, “shall we bless the food?”

Something seemed to click into place, and the boy – Pete. He’d said his name was Pete – offered a tentative smile in return. Nora sat, and he followed suit, more carefully and slowly than Nora thought was usual for a boy of his seeming age—she pegged him at 11 or 12. He was so solemn and well-behaved.

Nora clasped her hands together and bowed her head in a simple, short prayer over the food. The boy crossed himself in rusty motions when she finished. Another interesting piece of the puzzle. Catholic? He had reddish hair; perhaps his parents were immigrants? Everyone Nora knew identified as Congregational Protestant, or maybe Methodist.

With eating things to fuss over, the boy – Pete! Pete!—seemed to relax. He politely asked for pepper as Nora steered the conversation to neutral topics, or else stuck to telling herself about him. She offered him oyster crackers and warmed milk, secretly hoping to segue into inviting him to stay the night if she could fill his belly with enough warm food to get him comfortable. She was loathe to turn him out-of-doors knowing he’d probably find a hogshead to sleep in.

She crossed in front of the table, going the long way to the stove and gave him another ladle of chowder as she told him about being in the lighthouse, and he tucked into the second helping just as readily as the first.

A thought occurred to her as she washed out the pan, the chowder gone. She slowly dried it before deciding to just run part of her thought process by Pete.

“So. Pete,” she said aloud, and Pete was more relaxed, now, and looked at her. “You’re travelling. You came here this morning from the west of town, and you’re not sure where your parents are, or where you’re staying,” she summarized what he’d actually told her.

“My parents are dead,” he admitted. “I was staying with the Gogans.”

“The Gogans,” Nora parroted, and she untied her apron, trying to appear busy, like they were still just chatting. Pete responded to it well.

“The Gogans own me, I guess,” he said matter-of-factly. Parroting something he’d been told often. “They said it was against the law for me to ever leave them.”

Timing it carefully, Nora passed behind him. She pulled gently at the collar of his robe as she passed, and saw enough. “Where did you get that bruise?” she asked.

It wasn’t a bruise. She’d seen a welt. Like the kind you get being hit with a switch, or maybe a belt.

“Mr. Gogan,” Pete answered, and didn’t look at her. “I was milking the cow and I missed the bucket.”

Nora sat again, and Pete glanced at her. “Had he done that before?” She knew. The pieces she’d guessed at had been spot on, and the picture was all too clear.

“All the time,” Pete said emphatically. “The first time I ran away, the orphan home sent me back. This time, I’ll just keep running.”

Nora didn’t wince like she kind of wanted to. He’d…admitted it to her. Admitted he was a runaway. Even admitted to being abused. She had been right. And she didn’t like that she’d been right. “Well, you’ll be safe here,” she found herself saying.

And he would be. She could make sure of it. She didn’t know where any Catholic churches were. She didn’t know if Pete needed to see a doctor. Didn’t know if she should loop in Sheriff Brown, or if Pete would be protected by the law in what was clearly a terrible, abusive situation. Were there laws against it? To keep children safe? She didn’t know.

But there were things that she did know. She clearly knew how to make food he’d eat. She knew he must have been loved, once; he’d been raised healthy and educated and even given religion. And Nora knew she could love him, even if maybe she wasn’t sure if she could help him the way he needed.

“Nora…no one’s ever been this nice to me,” Pete said, then. “I’ll always remember it.”

A child reassuring an adult that things were fine, even when they weren’t.

Nora blinked back a rush of emotion at that. That wasn’t just him. That was her story, too. She cleared her throat. “Pete, why don’t you sleep here tonight? And then…we’ll figure out what to do tomorrow. Okay?”

Pete nodded. Smiled.

“Wonderful,” Nora sighed. “I’ve got work to do. Come on.”

She stood, indicating he follow her, which he did.

Chapter Text

Living on the premises of one of the United States Lighthouses meant that the structure had to be kept in good repair, and relatively tidy. Nora’s dad had always interpreted this to mean that they clean up any mess they made after making it, they tidied rooms seasonally to root out areas that had turned into sort of “driftwood” or “catch-all” piles, and they saved the allotted stipends given them for major upgrades and repairs.

The light in their lighthouse was due to be upgraded in their next bout of refurbishment, using the stipend that would arrive sometime in February. Their structure had been outfitted in the 1830s with a standard Fresnel lens, and upkeep in the past had usually meant replacing damaged lenses and prisms, and keeping the intact ones clean and free of any kind of impediment that would stop the light being able to refract as far.

The latest refurbishment would include two larger sized lenses being added, which would replace some of the other refraction lenses in the structure, allegedly increasing the distance that the light would be able to reach; the light would be dramatically more efficient and powerful than their current concentric wick lamp, and visible for 20 miles.

Until these upgrades took place, however, Nora was stuck with her wick-based oil lamp and handy clockwork mechanism and gear box attached to the base of the lens pedestal. The gears were attached to a cable that had to be wound by hand every two hours through the night, in order to achieve the horizontal rotation of the lens assembly, which was a column of weights and counter-weights suspended in mercury and able to rotate 1,500 pounds fast enough to produce a frequent signal.

It was still better than the lighthouses outfitted before the Fresnel lens: they had to rotate the entire light source, not just the lenses.

Nora didn’t even need a watch to track the time; she’d been a lighthouse keep for so long, her body naturally reminded her when two hours had elapsed, and that it was time to re-set the weights, which dropped through the hollow mast in the center of the tower using gravity, and made it so that Nora didn’t have to spend her entire shift rotating the light by hand.

When she stood to exit the kitchen, Pete followed her out and up the first flight of stairs, through the living area/office on that landing, and toward the next staircase, which she would ascend to reach the next landing, where she would find the gear box and its wheel crank.

“Are you anybody’s mother?” Pete asked, with the aplomb of a child who didn’t know better.

Nora found herself mentally re-evaluating her estimation of Pete’s age. He was younger than she’d thought. Asking after someone’s personal life was something older children didn’t tend to do. They’d have gotten instructions by that point of the propriety and impropriety of it, as they entered an age where they might start thinking about the rules of courtship and needing to know certain social graces and etiquette.

Pete had obviously been brought up properly, before his parents died. He had table manners and was well-spoken, which spoke of education. Just…not that kind.

Nora scoffed, smiling. “I’m not even anybody’s wife,” she said, and thought she managed to keep a lot of the bitterness out of the answer.

She was growing more comfortable with Just Nora. It didn’t mean she didn’t resent the absence of Nora and Paul.

“But you’re gonna get married, now, aren’t you?” Pete asked.

“I’m already married to this lighthouse,” Nora said by way of answer. Which was how she chose to answer impudent questions.

“Who’s that?” Pete asked, openly pointing at the portrait she’d made Paul sit for.

Nora started walking up the stairs. “Paul,” she admitted. She’d make allowances for him being impudent. She would, because she knew he probably hadn’t had leave to exercise impudence in a long time. Not with a family who beat him for missing the bucket while milking the cow. But he was a child! He was allowed a little cheekiness.

“Is he part of your family?” Pete asked, trailing behind her like a duck. Like a child following his mother.

Nora felt the familiar heartbreak come over her at the question. And she answered honestly. “He almost was.”

“How can someone almost be part of a family?” Pete responded immediately. All curious. Not meaning anything cruel by it. Just ignorant of the intimacy of his questions.

“We were going to be married,” Nora answered a little flatly. She hoped she wouldn’t get too grumpy. If she thought she’d snap at him, she might have to ask him to change subjects.

“How come you weren’t?” Nora reached the landing, moving toward the gear box with a casual certainty that spoke of having done this same thing many thousands of times in her life. She didn’t let herself get frustrated at Pete. He was just curious. He’d grow sick of the topic soon.

“Well, as far as we know, his ship was headed for a storm. They were never heard from again. That was a year ago,” she said resignedly in answer to his question. And every storm she saw, now, lacked the beauty it once held; the sea was always beautiful, perhaps more so when it was tempestuous than when it was calm…but it was that unpredictability that had taken Paul away from her. And what was beautiful about that?

“He’ll come back,” Pete said brightly, after a beat. Nora was surprised to see a genuine, wide smile on his face. He had dimples tucked into the corners of it, and it seemed to change his whole bearing. He looked…more childlike. The smile belonged there. Not that wary, skittish look of a boy expecting to get hit.

“I tell myself the same thing every day,” Nora found herself admitting, turning the crank and resetting the weights, “standing up there watching for ships on the horizon.” She waited a beat, unsure of how she felt about the things she’d just said aloud. “Time I should be thinking of other things, so they tell me,” she added, wondering bemusedly why she felt it to be an appropriate sort of conversation to have with this child. Perhaps because he was a stranger.

Perhaps because he’d expressed optimism and hope.

Perhaps because no one else ever really had.

“I’ll have to ask Elliott about Paul,” Pete said conversationally, stepping nimbly down the stairs. “He has a way of knowing things.” The robe had fallen open, revealing a pale, skinny chest. It was free of the kinds of marks Nora was watching for, and she filed the information away for later review.

“Who’s Elliott?” Nora asked in genuine curiosity.

“My dragon,” Pete answered immediately, reaching the bottom of the stairs and turning to look up at Nora.

“Dragon?” Nora frowned. And then gasped, as she realized. “So you’re the boy with the dragon!”

Pete seemed proud. “Yup.”

Dad had told her about encountering a dragon. And had vaguely said something about a boy, too, right as she’d put him to bed. A boy who’d been with the dragon.

“And you know…And you know what else? There was a boy with it. And he wasn’t afraid. This boy…”

“Where is he?” Nora asked, feeling like she was humoring a very young child with an imaginary friend, on one hand.

On the other, she wasn’t sure what she thought about Dad’s behavior when she’d gone to fish him out of the Tavern. It was one thing for him to have had some kind of drunken hallucination and for his buddies to go along with it.

It was strange, though, that it should be a dragon. That was a strange detail. He’d obviously spoken to Pete. And if Pete was willing to tell everyone about this dragon, it was worth thinking about.

“Down in the cave,” Pete answered her question readily enough, matter-of-factly.

“That’s interesting,” Nora said honestly. “I’ve never known anyone with a dragon. What does he look like?”

Nora wrote the time in the log that she’d re-set the weights as Pete chattered about his dragon, acting like the young child he actually was. She finished her thought, and then stood to find a nightshirt that might fit Pete. Dad’s things were in his bureau upstairs, and he was sleeping. So Nora reached into a different drawer. Things she’d kept of Paul’s.

She held up the shirt to Pete, measuring it against the length of his arms, and then reaching to the robe, starting to open it. Pete responded by taking a step back and bringing a hand up to hold the robe closed.

That wasn’t abnormal behavior; it was understandable for a boy of his age to not want to be dressed by a grown up, when he was big enough to manage himself. She honestly would have expected similar behavior from one even younger than her revised estimate of Pete’s age being 10 or 11. Nora offered him the nightshirt, and then turned away to let him dress in privacy.

She helped him adjust his sleeves, when he was ready for her to look, and showed him the bed he could sleep in, not necessarily surprised when he climbed in and lay on his side, and then settled on his stomach. The one welt that she’d seen was probably an indication of more. Pete probably had a mess on his back. Which explained him wanting to avoid sleeping on it.

Nora continued her paperwork to the surprisingly soothing sounds of Pete’s gentle breathing, and allowed herself to wonder what tomorrow might bring.

She already knew if the orphan home had really been so uncaring as to send him to people who hurt him, and then send him back there after he ran away, that she didn’t really want to inform them he’d been found. And she wouldn’t be able to, anyway, without his full name and without knowing where he’d been travelling from, other than the extremely vague “West of town.” There were dozens – if not hundreds – of orphan homes that fit that description, considering you couldn’t get much more east in the United States than a lighthouse on the coast of Maine.

She shuddered as she considered another choice she technically had: she could probably locate the adoptive family herself. She had their family name—not very common—that she could conduct a search by. Pay a call; try to get some information without outright asking if they were missing their indentured servant.

No. She would never do that. If she only were able to get more information from the orphan home…If she only had reassurance that disclosing Pete’s current whereabouts didn’t practically guarantee he would be taken from her and put with his abusers, if not a different family entirely.

Tomorrow would come, and there would be breakfast and discussions; maybe Nora would offer to buy Pete new clothes, since the ones he’d arrived in were awful. She’d have to set him up doing something with Dad so she could get some sleep, but other than that, they had no pressing plans. No reason why they shouldn’t keep a child here, for the time being. Maybe she’d pitch it to Dad as a temporary situation. A week or so.

She thought, then, about this…dragon.

It was so fascinating; Nora wanted almost to dismiss it out of hand as Pete’s…way of dealing with a family who’d been awful to him. Invent a friend who protected him. And that was the plausible interpretation of events…had she not also been hearing whispers of dragons and jinxes and a strange boy running around town causing trouble on her way to the tavern to find Dad.

Maybe it was more…a convenience? Pete had someone to blame if he got in trouble, in the form of a dragon. But… Pete really didn’t seem like that kind of boy. Not the boy Nora had practically coerced into staying the night. Not the boy who’d actually bowed his head as she said grace and then crossed himself after; a good boy being a good Catholic as he’d been raised.

Granted, she had known him all of 3 hours.

But what she’d seen…was a boy on the run. He had been getting hurt, and Nora lived in this society, too. Children had less of a say in things than women did.

Nora knew of instances of families separating, and judges granting custody of the children to the drunken father they were trying to escape. Because as a man, he would be able to meet the needs of the children better than a woman, who couldn’t even own property while her husband was alive to own it for her. Until the children were neglected or killed, of course.

There was a sound from where Pete slept. A rustle of bedclothes as Pete moved in his sleep.

A soft whimper.

Nora’s eyebrows furrowed, glancing back toward the boy, obviously still asleep.

Another, longer whimper, accompanied by noisy breaths that sounded like dry sobs.

Nora stood, walking quietly over to where he lay, concerned and sympathetic. “Pete?” she called gently. “It’s a dream, Pete. It’s not real.”

The comparison of the child she’d put to bed a little over an hour ago against the child she saw now was an exercise in stark contrast.

Gone was the peaceful sleep, the adorable yawns, the snuggling into the bedcovers.

This Pete’s face was red and tear streaked, breathing erratic, legs tangled in covers that no longer comforted.

And then, suddenly, Pete kicked the covers off his legs completely and sat up, blinking.

“Pete?” Nora tried again.

Pete didn’t respond. He turned his head, looking around, seemingly confused.

“You’re at the lighthouse, Pete. It’s Nora. Remember?”

“I’m mebbe a tarnal scalawag, but it’s a cussed sight better’n a randy redneck nancy, Willie Gogan,” Pete blurted, wobbling where he sat, blinking slowly, seemingly unaware he’d spoken.

Nora stilled, torn between wanting to be cross with him for using that kind of language and unsure he was even awake, right now.

And yet another part of her wondered what else Pete would reveal, in this state, and found herself curious, if morbidly so.

Soon enough, though, Pete slumped back to his mattress, and Nora came to smooth the covers over him, again.

Dad used to tell tales on Jackie, who’d ofttimes do things like this and never remember it, in the morning. “Never made a lick of sense, the things he’d say. And he denied he did it at all, until I had to wake him once, when he started to try and get up and wander around. Then he was just confused, and asked me a lot of questions the next morning.”

She knew he’d asked around about it, too, finding it to be, if not common, then not a rare thing, for this kind of behavior in children.

Nora was awake, anyway, and now knew to keep an ear out, for Pete. She checked the light, occasionally, but noting the calm stillness of tonight’s sea, the highest waves would probably come in at high tide and flood that cave from earlier, but there was little chance of any kind of breaker that would be concerning enough to douse the wick.

It was…largely boring to be a lighthouse keeper, in the middle of the night, with naught to do but re-set the weights every two hours. Dad liked to sit up with the light and watch the breakers. Nora usually did paperwork and tidying.

The only other Pete-related incident happened an hour or so before dawn.

Nora had been largely under the kitchen stove, stoking it so it would keep things warm. She’d gotten a splinter, and come back to the desk to retrieve a spare Barlow knife, and seen the tail end of this new nightmare.

This time, Pete appeared to have awakened himself, and the only speaking Nora heard was a low patter of mumbles too soft for her to understand. He rolled onto his side, pulled up the blanket, and seemed to curl back to sleep.

At or around 6:30, Nora ascended the stairs dutifully to wake Dad so they could start the process of daytime lighthouse duties. Hopefully, if Dad was of a mind, they could officially switch roles. That usually depended a lot on just how much the previous day’s activities were affecting him. (Read: just how hungover he was.)

When he sat up and started to move in the direction of the bathroom to freshen up for the day, she got out a large pot to set some potatoes on to boil. She procured four different kinds of meat from the icebox, eager to treat Pete to a proper New England breakfast. She left these things alone on the stove as they warmed, and set to finishing her pastry crust for sweet pies; she was confident she could turn out an apple and a peach both, and she had enough sugar and cinnamon for a lovely glaze.

Baking pies with fruit demanded more than a hand-raised affair that she turned out for her and Dad. She lined a tin with her dough, weighing it with dried beans so it could bake and firm up before she added filling.

She could distantly hear Dad, two floors up, once he got his boots on, and filled the kettle to put some coffee on. They’d have breakfast, she’d take Pete into town for some new clothes, and then maybe a lunch to bring home so Nora could get some sleep.

It was all going smoothly. Dad slipped in, pecking her on the cheek and wishing her good morning, asking about the weather and the tides. He reached for a cup for coffee, and then stopped himself.

“Where’s mine?” he asked, opening a few cupboards, looking for a specific cup. He usually preferred a small white one that had belonged to his late wife.

“Just take a new one, Dad,” Nora laughed, cutting up bits of butter to put in with the potatoes, recently liberated from their boil; the water was dumped into a special bucket; nutrient-rich water, like the kind that was left after boiling potatoes or vegetables, was good for lots of things, and wasn’t wasted.

“No, I left it up by the lens. That’s. That’s sloppy. The cup will get forgotten about if we leave it up there. That belonged to your mother. No, that doesn’t do. No, no,” Dad objected, and disappeared back up the stairs to fetch his cup.

It was a little after 7:00 when Nora pulled the pies from the oven and nearly dropped them in shock because—Dad was screaming.

What on earth?!

She hurried up the stairs, not sure what she’d find. Was he hurt? Had he fallen?

“Dad! Dad, what is it?” she called in fear, seeing him at the head of the stairs. He looked scared out of his mind.

Dad obligingly raised a hand, pointing. “The boy with the dragon.”

Pete, poor dear, looked confused and maybe a little closer to being asleep than being awake.

Nora laughed a little in relief. She’d thought he was hurt!

“I know, I know,” she said soothingly. “Now just take it easy.” She hadn’t had a chance to explain, yet. All that had passed in the night had passed while Dad was sleeping. She patted his arms reassuringly, and he jerked a little, turning to her suddenly, eyes wide and serious.

“You saw it. You saw it?” He grasped one of her hands in both of his.

“Well, I didn’t actually see it, but I know what it looks like,” Nora said, rubbing her free hand on his back, trying to encourage him to be calm.

Pete was watching them both carefully. His hands were at his sides, feet hanging off the bed, probably startled by Dad screaming.

“Well, but—” Dad shot Pete another look, this one…almost fearful.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Nora said firmly. She didn’t want to get into this before breakfast. She was tired and didn’t want to be cranky, too.

“Oh, well, but—o-one thing I-I must know,” Dad addressed Pete, now, stepping up to him, taking one of Pete’s wrists in his hand, but releasing it when Pete made a motion to free it. “It isn’t in the lighthouse, it it?” Dad pointed at the ground, eyes still on Pete, still very intent and fearful.

“No, Elliott’s down in the cave,” Pete assured him, pointing in the general direction he thought the cave was, and earning a relieved sigh from Dad.

“Oh, Elliott…” Dad nodded, and then did a double-take. “Elliott? It—It even has a name.” He offered a half-chuckle, looking at Nora, who’d moved to stand behind him again, ready to interfere if he got too agitated. Dad was harmless, he would never hurt anyone, but she knew his…boisterousness could be off-putting. And it was very different from the atmosphere she’d carefully cultivated for Pete, trying to encourage him that he was safe. Screaming bloody murder and demanding answers to questions wasn’t what she wanted Pete to be around.

“There’s nothing to get upset about,” she said firmly, trying to catch his eye.

Dad, however, only had eyes for Pete. She was relieved to note, though, that he no longer looked afraid. He sounded much calmer when he replied, finally looking at her.

“You’re right. Right, there’s nothing to get upset about. Nothing,” he smiled, looking back and forth between Nora and Pete. “No, why should I get upset? I should be happy,” he said quickly, and walked to the other side of the room; he was an active speaker, gesticulating with his hands. “I—I should be happy. I’ll go down to the saloon and I’ll tell the boys, I’ll say, “Boys, here it is.” And then hear the apologies,” he offered a theatrical chuckle, gesturing to Pete, still sitting in the bed.

“Elliott’ll be happy to do it for you, sir,” Pete said accommodatingly, as Nora scoffed. She’d had to walk Dad home because he’d been so drunk he couldn’t remember how to get home. And if he went to the saloon, she’d have to take his shift, tonight. She was not liking this plan.

“Good boy,” Dad said, coming back to Pete, taking his hands, gripping them enthusiastically. “Good lad. Just you and me and Elliott. We’ll go into the saloon.”

Pete nodded minutely, and then, almost as an afterthought, Dad pointed at him. “Oh. Elliott. He won’t—He won’t start to scratch, or—or fight or set anything on fire, will he?” Dad gesticulated with his hands, approximating first claws with his fingers, followed by fists that boxed in a fight, and finally wiggling his hands as if to imitate flames in the air.

“Well,” Pete said slowly, considering, “He’s sort of…”

“Sort of what?” Dad asked immediately, hanging on his words.

“Unpredictable,” Pete finished.

Dad seemed to consider that, opening and closing his mouth.

Nora saw her chance. “Now, don’t do anything with Elliott. Why—why don’t you leave him where he is? It’s too dangerous to take him into town.” She eyed Pete, trying to communicate her thoughts to him, and didn’t get any arguments.

“Dangerous,” Dad murmured.

“Now I don’t want either one of you to say a word about Elliott to anyone. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Dad answered, and Pete just looked at Nora, nodding minutely.

“Until we’ve talked this over,” Nora clarified. Then, gratefully changing the subject, “Now let’s all have breakfast. The lamp has to be polished, and the lens cleaned,” Dad took her hands in his, nodding, agreeing with her words. “And I want to take Pete to buy some new clothes,” she added.

“Yes, we’ll clean Elliott and eat the lamp,” Dad said agreeably. And then shook his head. “I mean, ah, we’ll clean—clean the lamp.”

Nora, seeing her victory at the successful redirection, led the way back downstairs to grab Pete’s things, which were awful, but cleaner, and drier, now that they’d been left overnight.

“Elliott!” Dad said again, as if in reminder. “The name’s Elliott. Did you hear that?”

Nora affirmed that, yes, she’d heard Pete’s Dragon’s name, and got him settled at the table, giving him a new cup to put his coffee in, assuring him she’d get Mom’s cup –the instigator of all of this – from where he’d dropped it, upstairs.

That was Dad, set.

More and more she was feeling the strain of being his caretaker, more than just his daughter, anymore. It was…wearying.

She took a deep breath, centering herself, and then fetched Pete’s clothes from where she’d pulled them off the lines a few hours ago, ready for her next task of getting Pete ready and downstairs to enjoy his New England breakfast feast.

She brought the clothes up to Pete, who had managed to make his bed, and stood next to it, twisting his fingers absently. The nightshirt dwarfed him ridiculously and made him look even younger than he was.

“Sorry about that, Pete,” she greeted him, holding out the clothes, which he took, hesitantly. “Good morning! How was your sleep?”

“I. Um. It was fine,” Pete stammered. “I didn’t mean. Um. I mean. I hope I didn’t upset him,” he continued, and Nora shook her head.

“You didn’t upset him, I promise. He’s not even really upset. Just…loud,” Nora smiled.

Pete offered a small smile in return, and looked at the clothes, the smile dropping. “I’ll. Um. I’ll just change, and I can. Um. I can go.”

“Nonsense!” Nora said, in the tone of one scandalized. “You can change, and then come down to breakfast! I cooked it just for you! I made an apple pie!”

“Oh,” Pete said, obviously surprised. “You. You didn’t have to go to so much trouble.”

“No trouble,” Nora insisted. “I love cooking for people besides my dad.”

Pete’s eyes widened. “Oh. I didn’t know he was your dad.”

Nora grinned mischievously. “Don’t we look alike?” Pete shook his head, which made Nora laugh outright. “Well, you’re right about that. Hurry up and change! I’m starving!”

Pete nodded vigorously. “All right!”

When Pete stepped quietly into the kitchen, feet bare, Nora indicated the empty place set for Pete, across from Dad and next to her, and he slid into it with murmured thanks. Nora eyed Dad and asked that they say grace. Pete crossed himself furtively, and Nora stared Dad down when he opened his mouth to say aught about it, and finally just put his cup down. Nora said a prayer over the food, asking blessings for the present company and a special blessing for “our friend in the cave,” which, when the prayer was over, earned her a strange look from Dad, and a wide smile from Pete, who performed the mechanics of crossing himself once again before tentatively reaching for the dish nearest him, full of scrambled eggs.

When no one moved to stop him, he served himself a meager spoonful, which Dad boisterously objected to. “No, m’boy. You’re too skinny, you need more than that! Eggs—they’re good for you!” He made a gesture, like ‘keep going,’ and Pete offered a small smile and added another small helping of eggs to his plate, which made a generous serving, when combined with the other small helping, and then Nora offered him sausages, and for a minute, they were all taking food, serving themselves, and asking for other things to be passed to them.

Nora watched Pete’s face for a moment, as he ate, and felt warm inside; pleased that he was enjoying her cooking.

Dad started telling a story; one of his fishing stories, if Nora wasn’t mistaken, and she ate in polite, quiet contemplation, making encouraging sounds in the correct places.

When the tale was over, Pete was appropriately amazed, and even clapped a little, which made Nora chuckle. “The story gets more outrageous each time he tells it, Pete, don’t encourage him.”

Pete laughed, and Dad gently pounded his fist on the table in mock outrage. “Dishonoring my character. Why it’s slander, I say. You ask anyone. You ask Sheriff Brown, he was there. He’ll say, “Oh, but Nora, Lampie’s right,” and then won’t you feel foolish?”

“Is. So, is Lampie your name, sir?” Pete asked, then, and Nora laughed.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been calling him ‘Dad,’ so of course you didn’t know his name, Pete. I’m so sorry, I’ve been remiss in my duties as a hostess. Dad, this is my good friend Pete. Pete, this is John Lambert, called ‘Lampie.’ Keeper of the Passamaquoddy Bay Lighthouse.”

Dad, bless him, offered a small bow from his seated position, the way he’d been taught when he was a boy, though bowing wasn’t really the social custom, anymore.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Pete returned with an uncertain nod.

“Y’know, I named my son—Nora’s brother—John, and we called him Jackie when he was small, but it really didn’t suit him. And we didn’t want any confusion, so I decided to change,” Dad said cheerfully, hands gesticulating with a piece of bacon. “I’d given him my name already, so we thought he should start using it, and I started going by my last name. But then John’s daughter, Olivia, started getting confused, calling me ‘Grampy’ when everyone else was calling me ‘Lambert,’ so she started. Started calling me ‘Lampie.’ And it just. It stuck,” Dad chuckled, not stretching the story any, just leaving it alone. 

Pete had cleared his plate, meanwhile, and was glancing at the pies, which hadn’t been cut into, yet. Nora wordlessly took up one in her hands; the dish was quite cool, now, and indicated the other with a nod of her head. “Dad, you open up that one, we can all have a slice of each.”

Nora’s turned out to be the apple, and the lovely scent of baked apples with cinnamon was just about the nicest thing that had happened that morning.

“I had apples for breakfast yesterday, too!” Pete said, smiling. Dad stood from the table and disappeared to the icebox, coming back with a pitcher of cream.

“Dad, are you sure? That was supposed to be whipped up for a special occasion,” Nora protested, but Dad just shook his head, pouring a little over his pies before offering to do the same for Pete, whose eyes were huge, and made no reply. Dad chuckled and offered his service at last to Nora, who nodded eagerly.

Nora was about to ask which was better: the apple or the peach pie, and then had to swallow her words in a laugh at the delighted expression on Pete’s face, decorum abandoned in the face of two pieces of pie.

It was perhaps 7:30 in the morning, and it had been a long night, for Nora, but…

It was looking to be a wonderful day.

Chapter Text

They certainly made an odd party as they walked together into town, and Nora took deep breaths, savoring and breathing in the sea as they did so. Being out in the open air by the sea had always been something that Nora found especially calming and centering. She and John had talked about it the last time he’d visited with his brood; John was content to visit the seaside town of his youth with his family from time to time. For Nora, the sea was like part of her family. She wouldn’t think of moving further inland. She didn’t know what she’d do without the constancy of breakers on the beach, or the sounds of the gulls.

John, meanwhile, was perfectly content with his life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, working for the transportation company and letting Cecelia teach their girls at home. (Aside from Olivia, proud Papa had Josephine, Alice, and now Charlotte—all named for women in literature, and Nora would expect no less from John’s charming wife, who had once been a schoolteacher.)

Dad was fidgety as they passed the tavern, and finally mumbled his excuse that he’d meet them at the general store later.

Nora protested half-heartedly as he darted off, and Pete glanced at her and then back in the direction he’d gone, looking uncertain.

“Should I…ask him to come back? Tell him you need him?” Pete asked, trying to be helpful.

Nora shook her head. “He’s fine. It’s how he is. If he’s two or three sheets in the wind, though, I’m going to be too tired to watch, tonight. He’d better take it easy.”

Pete frowned. “Sheets?”

Nora smiled. “It’s a nautical term. ‘Sheets’ means ropes for the sails. If too many are gone, or ‘in the wind,’ it’s going to be harder to use the sails.”

“Are…we going sailing?” Pete asked, still confused.

“He’s going to the saloon, honey,” Nora explained, patiently. “‘Three sheets in the wind’ is just a way to say he’s drunk, is all.”

 Pete’s expression showed dawning comprehension, and then worry. “Is. Is he all right?”

Nora sighed. “He’s…harmless, even with enough drinks in him,” she shrugged. And then wondered belatedly if this weren’t another conversation that danced on the line of propriety. Pete was a child.  

Then again, seeing the kind of…grim understanding on Pete’s face…perhaps he understood more than was appropriate. Which was its own kind of tragedy. He was a child. Bad enough he’d lost his parents, and now he had to lose that innocence that came with childhood, too?

Nora made a promise to herself that she’d do better by him. Bear up, sailor!

First order of business: Pete needed to be out of those awful, awful ragged clothes. Even freshly cleaned they were obviously torn, frayed, and dirty, and entirely too big for him, besides.

She was modestly prepared. She knew everyone in town. The storeowner and his wife had been only a little older than Nora in school, and boasted living quarters upstairs. Nora vouched for Pete, who looked more like a child drowned in rags than some unseemly urchin, since Nora had helped clean him up, and the result was Pete being shown to a private room to change in, once Nora had picked out an appropriate suit.

It was more formal than necessary; the suit was better-suited to a nice Sunday school service, not everyday wear. But Nora wanted the effect to be as dramatic as possible when he descended, again. And so it was.

The shopkeeper’s wife, Francis Timmerman, offered a smile as Pete fussed with the tie Nora had picked out for him, and without being asked, she bent in front of him, kind and gentle, taking the ends and tying it smartly. Pete rewarded her with a tentative smile of his own, and she murmured something in low tones that Nora couldn’t hear, but which must have been of a more sensitive nature, for Pete flushed and nodded.

Mrs. Timmerman ushered him back up the stairs, catching Nora’s eye with her own and beckoning her closer.

“Poor thing. He told me he doesn’t have the right underthings for those breeches,” she intoned, voice pitched low, telling only Nora, making sure other patrons or her husband didn’t hear. Keeping Pete’s confidence. She was the picture of discretion and poise, and Nora’s estimation of her rose, for that.

“I’d like to get him a few things. I’ll ask your husband for help with shoes and notions. Could you find him other underthings?”

“’Course, Miss Lambert,” Nora’s new confidant answered, rising to the occasion. “And what should be done about the…the old clothes?”

“Burn ‘em,” Nora said, perhaps a little strongly.

Mrs. Timmerman’s eyebrows rose, and then she smiled. “I’d love to, but we had our burn day only last week. We have a good sturdy rubbish bin outside, though.”

Nora smiled in return. “I’ll take it.”

They exchanged mischievous smirks, and then Mrs. Timmerman excused herself to go about her errand. Nora took her cue to ask Mr. Timmerman about shoes for Pete.

Pete’s eyes were wide and surprised at the sheer amount of clothing Nora ended up leaving the store with, including the items Mrs. Timmerman had discretely added to the packages, and a voucher to the cobbler, George Rhodes, for a brand new pair of shoes in Pete’s size; Mr. Timmerman had, at the behest of his wife, gone to put in the order himself, so that the shoes would be ready later that afternoon.

“Here are the old things, Miss Lambert,” indicated Mrs. Timmerman, handing over the terrible wreck of clothes. She’d even folded them.

“I know just what to do with these, thank you Mrs. Timmerman,” Nora said, graciously accepting the things and winking conspiratorially at Pete.

Mrs. Timmerman interjected before they went through the door. “It was so nice to see you again, Miss Lambert. Please won’t you call again? You can. You can bring your young man around and we can acquaint him with our Margaret Ellen. And. And you wouldn’t object, would you, if I asked you to please call me ‘Francie?’ Like all my school friends do,” Mrs. Timmerman smiled wide, and Nora hid her surprise behind a ready grin.

“No objections, Francie, and you should call me ‘Nora,’ of course,” she said quickly, making a mess of a half-curtsey she hadn’t had need of performing in longer than she cared admitting to.

“Of course,” Mrs. Timmerman – Francie – echoed, flushing prettily – clearly delighted. “I feel just awful, not being able to call on you before now. I wasn’t sure when an appropriate time would be, what with poor Mr. Roberts and the hours you keep over there – I must have Margaret Ellen abed by 6:00 most nights, seeing as we open so early and…Oh, Miss—Nora. I’m just awfully glad you stopped by, today.”

Grief, Nora decided, once they’d dumped the filthy Gogan’s clothes into the large bin outside the Timmerman’s dry goods store, was a strange beast. Nora had known it before, embraced it with her father when her mother had passed. Acknowledged it as her fellow when the weeks since Paul’s departure dragged into months with no word except for when the word ‘departure’ had changed into ‘disappearance.’ Grief had tainted her love of the sea, grief had robbed her days of joy and laughter. Grief had isolated her in that lighthouse and convinced her, like the mariner of old, of the illusion of a cursed albatross ‘round her neck.

And all it took to shake that illusion was a kind word from an acquaintance.

Nora would never have thought to count Francie Timmerman her friend. Just Nora had no friends. Friendships had disappeared with Paul.

Except…apparently they hadn’t.

“Miss…Nora?” Pete had an odd look on his face, and his fingertips kept reaching for the cuff of his new shirt. Nora wondered if he were uncomfortable.

“Just Nora, Pete,” she said firmly. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Oh. Y-Yes’m,” Pete answered quickly, flustered. “I just. This. It’s a-awful expensive…isn’t it? I don’t…” he trailed off, clearly at odds with himself.

Nora didn’t blame him. It was hard to just accept charity, wasn’t it? Nora had thought if she got any more apologies about Paul she’d strangle someone…but Francie had been so earnest. And Nora knew she herself wasn’t trying to give Pete clothes so that she could look the part of the pious Christian, or anything like that.

“We made the right choice with that gingham,” Nora said decisively, bringing her hand forward to Pete’s collar, pinching the bit of fabric between her fingers and rubbing it, as though in appraisal. “It’s a nice pattern, so it’s not boring. And it brings out the texture of the suitcoat, don’t you think?”

Pete nodded. “Y-Yes’m. It’s very smart. I like it a lot! I just –”

“And the socks aren’t too thick, are they? I was afraid they’d be hot,” Nora continued. She had to put a good spin on this. To help Pete accept her help without him thinking she was coming from a place of judgement. He was a child, but he was still a person with a perhaps damaged semblance of some kind of dignity. Nora could be considerate in her dealings with him. No one liked to be condescended to.

“No, ma’am! It’s getting colder anyhow! And new shoes might pinch, so it’s good to have a nice, thick pair,” Pete assured her.

“Good! Because I’d hate to think that I got you something you didn’t like. Or something you didn’t need,” Nora smiled. Then continued, “…and you needed new things to wear. It’s into October, now, Pete, so I’m grateful you let me take care of this for you. I like taking care of the people I care about. Especially since you don’t have a way to take care of yourself, right now. Do…you understand?”

Pete nodded—a small nod, it was, but Nora saw it and was relieved.

“Pete! Nora!”

They turned, seeing Dad coming toward them. “There you are! Let’s go to the general store! Ho! What would you say, Pete, to a nice set of marbles? Hmm? I saw–I saw ol’ Logan Callum at the saloon, and he said he owes me a dozen mibs and a taw. Huh? What—What d’you say?”

Pete looked the most excited Nora had yet seen him. “Gee! Really? A whole dozen and a taw? Do they have cat’s eyes? I bet I—” Pete stopped himself, and Nora saw him almost physically deflate. “I mean—I used to have a. Just a real bully set with cat’s eyes. A. A blue one, and a green. A yellow devil’s eye, too, but I lost it.”

Dad whistled appreciatively. “Well, that’s certainly a huckleberry above a persimmon to any I ever had as a boy. I just had regular aggies and alleys. I had a grandfather, once. Big clay one.” Dad held his hands out, approximating the size of his “grandfather,” and Pete’s eyebrows rose. “Honor bright. No stretchers. It was just so,” Dad emphasized, preening at Pete’s impressed expression.

“Why don’t we all go take a look? See what they have,” Nora suggested, and Pete nodded excitedly. “How about you run along ahead, Pete? The general store’s just there,” she pointed a ways up the road, and Pete craned his neck, and then nodded again. “You tell Mr. Orne you’d like to look through his barrel of marbles, and that Lampie and I will be along shortly.”

Pete brokered no arguments, and was soon away like a shot, and Nora took another deep, centering breath of salt and sea. (And the stink of fish, this close to the canal.)

“So what’s the story, Nora? What are we doing?” Dad asked her, offering his arm like a gentleman, escorting her, and she took it as they strolled leisurely toward the general store, at maybe a twentieth of the pace Pete had set.

He was sharp, her dad. Sharp as a tack.

Well. He could be sharp. If his brain wasn’t befuddled with too much drink.

He knew she wanted to talk with him alone, and he’d deduced the subject matter was Pete.

Not far off.

“Today, I was thinking we’d get him set up with clothes that weren’t terrible and a pair of shoes, if George Rhodes can finish them before the workday is done,” Nora said, taking him at his literal word. “And if not, we can come back in when they’re ready, and while we wait, I can get some much-needed sleep.”

“Nora, where are his parents? Why—why aren’t they getting him the—the clothes that aren’t terrible and the new –the new shoes?” Dad clarified. “Why—why is he here with us?”

Another deep breath. And when she spoke, she dropped her voice lower; this was still Pete’s private business, and she didn’t want to be overheard by a town that was already suspicious of him. “His parents are dead. He aged out of his orphanage and he ran away from the family he’s with because they beat him.”

Dad scowled. “That’s. That’s not right.”

“I know,” Nora started to agree, but then Dad kept going.

“He has a dragon. A big, fire-breathing dragon. Those people shouldn’t dare lay a finger on him,” Dad continued, and Nora scoffed.

“There is no dragon, Dad! Listen to what you’re saying!”

Dad frowned. “There. There most certainly is a dragon. You. You saw it. You. You said –”

“I said I knew what it looked like. Because Pete described it to me,” Nora said firmly. “I didn’t say I’d seen it because I haven’t, because it’s not real, Dad.” She saw the protests on his lips and forestalled them, “And I don’t want to argue about it. I wanted to ask you what you think we should do about Pete. Not Pete’s imaginary dragon. I’m talking about Pete. The very real little boy who told me he’d been whipped for missing the bucket when he milked the cow.”

Nora had stopped walking, and was sure to keep her voice pitched low, trying to make sure Dad understood what she was saying.

Dad’s face was a whirl of expressions Nora couldn’t read. Frustration and confusion and anger and hurt. He heaved a big sigh. “I want another drink.”

Nora shut her mouth, frustrated, but not saying anything. Waiting him out, because he was a slow, deliberate man. Their relationship usually worked better when neither of them popped off with a quick retort. And she was glad, this time.

“I want another drink,” he said again, but looked up at her, and his expression had settled on sad. “But I always want another drink. You. You need to sleep tonight, I think. Yes. I. I. I had better not. Let’s. Let’s go to Pete. I need. I think I need to think about this, some more.”

Nora nodded. “All right.”

“I just. I just have one. One question,” he said, taking her arm back into his, indicating they resume their walk. “If he’s here, he’s not. He’s not wherever he usually is. With that family. What.” Dad looked up at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What are we supposed to do if they. The family, I mean. If they come around here, looking? Looking for him? I mean to say…we. We have no claim to him. We. We can’t. We can’t stop them taking him back. Even if he. Even if he doesn’t want to go…he belongs to them, doesn’t he? It’s. It’s a tarnal…It’s a shame, is what. Stuck with. With people who. Who hurt him…”

Nora nodded. All of this and more had been circling her thoughts all night. “I don’t know if it’s the. The legal thing. But we’re in the right, here, Dad. Morally. Ethically. We’d be doing wrong by him to put him back with those awful people. Endangering him. And you know Sheriff Brown, does that give us a leg to stand on? D’you think?”

They reached the steps of the general store, taking them in tandem, Nora’s face breaking into a laugh, charmed at the sight of Pete, up to his elbows in the marble barrel, hat clutched in one hand, being used as an ersatz marble sack as he sorted through the colors and patterns, just like any of the dozens of boys she’d seen over the years. And something inside her…relaxed, a little. At the sight of Pete acting like the boy he was. The boy he was supposed to be.

“It’s fifty for a penny, Carrots, ‘ceptin the ones in the glass dish, there, and mind don’t be mixing ‘em up, hear?” William Orne was a little younger than Lampie, with hair just as white, but kept much shorter, and so fastidious about keeping a clean shave that Nora wondered if he’d scheduled out his barber appointments in advance of his whiskers being able to show. He wore a green apron over his neat clothes, clutched a broom in his thick-fingered hands, and a stern-faced expression on his face, lips curved around the stub of a cigar as he surveyed Pete.

(Pete, for his part, acknowledged the statement with a polite, “Yessir, I’ll be careful, sir,” before re-engrossing himself wholly in the process of choosing the best marbles, using an unspoken ranking system known only to little boys.)

Lampie moved forward to explain the deal he’d struck with Logan Callum to Mr. Orne, and Nora snuck a peak into Pete’s hat to see the kinds of marbles and patterns he favored. A pretty assortment of glass, metal, and clay forming aggies, alleys, steelies, mibs, and whatever else the youngsters were coming up with as nicknames for their hoard. Nora had never understood the draw of marbles, even as a girl, though she would politely watch the special, fiddly way her brother drew the circles with his Barlow knife with the appropriate solemnity required of her.

“Logan Callum. Logan Callum, don’t talk to me ‘bout Logan Callum, I’m getting boys in here thinking I won’t notice. It’s just marbles, en’t it? Thinking I won’t keep track. Marbles’re cheap enough, thousand for twenty cents is more’n any boy could use in his lifetime, Logan Callum running up a tab for that special coffee is bad enough—here, Carrots. Hey. Yes, you,” Mr. Orne said grouchily toward Pete, who looked up again. “You make sure’n take a grand ol’ taw from that glass dish. Mebbe two. See what ol’ Logan Callum says ‘bout that, yeah, mmm.”

“Y-yessir,” Pete said uncertainly, looking into the glass dish and catching his breath with a whispered, “Golly,” as he examined the larger, more intricate designs of the slightly more expensive marbles—the ‘taws’ or the ‘shooters.’  

“And a bag,” Mr. Orne grumbled. “Boys think they can stuff it all in their shirts ‘n hats n’ pockets, no common sense in the lot of ‘em. See what Logan Callum says here, one marble bag, drawstring, fer two cents. Ha!” For all his gruffness and thick fingers, Nora saw he kept a list under the sales counter, neat as any newsprint, tallying various boys and their marbles, all under the larger heading of Logan Callum’s name.

“What d’you call yerself, Carrots? Hm? What’s yer name?” he asked then, pulling a short pencil from behind his ear to add Pete to his generous list of boys who bought marbles under Logan Callum’s tab.

“Pete Ham—uh. P-Pete.”

Nora saw him straighten in alarm at his slip, glancing at herself and Lampie. And she was surprised. He…he was keeping his family name secret on purpose. That was…very smart.

“Pete Hamm? Yes? Speak up!” Mr. Orne was a quick one. “Pete yer Christian name, then?”

“Um. Pete—P-Peter, sir,” Pete bit out unwillingly, ducking back to his task of examining the barrel, and it worked well enough – Mr. Orne made a dismissive motion at him.

“Well, no matter. Boys ‘r boys, n’ it’s you two what cleaned him up, anyhow. What’s the story, Lampie? New charity project?” Mr. Orne replaced his list under the counter and his pencil behind his ear, pulling at the stub of his cigar and eyeballing it before replacing it between his teeth.

“Just lending the boy a—a helping hand, William,” Dad said lightly, looking at Nora and then back to the shopkeep. “Keeping him out of harm’s way.”

“That’s the lay of things, is it?” Mr. Orne muttered, shooting another look at Pete. “Kid’s twitchy. Like a beat dog. I see up’ards o’ seventy boys causin’ chaos through my store iff’n they’re not bein’ minded. This’n hadda try a few times afore I heard a word come outt’ve his mouth,” he jerked his head in Pete’s direction, again. “Sirr’in me like he’ll get points for it. Figure he’s gettin’ striped with ‘is Hick’ry ‘less he minds his Ps ‘n Qs, ent it? Told Jacob yet?”

Jacob Brown. Sheriff Brown. Nora frowned. “Not yet. We don’t…have all the information, yet.”

Mr. Orne now waved a dismissive hand at her, turning to Lampie. “Needs more information, bah. Y’know ‘nuff, don’tcha?”

Dad looked at Nora again, lowering his voice. “Situation’s…rough,” he said vaguely. “Last thing we. We want is to. Ah. Get him sent back to. To people who hurt him. Say, William…What was. What was the story a few years back—d’you remember? With. With Jacob? And that. That boy of his?”

“Who? Matthew? He’s. He’s graduating next year, isn’t he?” Mr. Orne was successfully distracted, and Nora chanced a glance back in Pete’s direction.

Pete was gamely focusing on the marbles in his hat, counting them, trying hard to look busy, and not like he’d been eavesdropping.

“I…I don’t wanna…be a bother,” Pete said softly, after seeing that Nora was looking at him.

Nora shook her head. “No bother, Pete. Just answering questions. Sometimes it’s better to satisfy some curious minds. Especially if they have hearts in the right place.”

They both looked back up to tune into Mr. Orne and Dad’s conversation.

“No, that’s not how it happened,” Dad was saying insistently. “It was the older brother—”

“Yes, yes, I’ll own you’re right,” Mr. Orne said grumpily. “Slipped my mind.”

Dad, seeing that Pete and Nora were looking on, now, too, assumed his ‘teller of tales’ voice, gesticulating with his hands. “I heard it like this: when Matthew was on about Pete’s age – I’d say 10 or 11 – his folks died, leavin’ just him and his brother, Luke. Now, Luke stuck Matthew in an orphan home to wait it out while Luke worked and set some money aside for them to live on. Only Luke ended up getting into trouble with a gang of outlaws; they would carry on like highwaymen, and Luke was shot and killed during a robbery gone sour.”

Nora gritted her teeth in sympathy. She remembered pieces of the story, and it was still heart wrenching, even knowing everything turned out all right, in the end.

“Now, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that it’d be up for Matthew, mm?” Dad turned expectantly to Pete, who nodded, eyebrows working into a worried frown.

“Not so,” Mr. Orne cut it. “Matthew’s a fine boy. Good lad. Helpful.”

“So it comes that Jacob—that’s Sheriff Brown, you know—had been working, but so had his wife. Well Hetty’d half-adopted Matthew already; you know they had land needed farming. And Matthew was a willing to help. I’m not sure, now, how things were. Y’know. Legally. But Matthew’s still here. And Sheriff’s still the Sheriff. No one. No one voted him out.”

“An’ why would we? Jacob’s a good man, and as good a Sheriff we’ve had ‘round here,” Mr. Orne rapped his knuckles on his countertop. “You don’t treat good people as bad as all that.”

“What did the orphan home end up doing?” Nora asked carefully, looking significantly at Pete.

“Well, they didn’t cause trouble,” Mr. Orne said quickly. “Made it just easy as pie for ‘em. They’re good people, they want things to go smooth jest like th’ rest’ve us. Mm? En’t it what the good book says, anyhow? Treat people right?”

“Aye,” Dad nodded stoutly, and Nora was pleased to see Pete smile at her with big dimples.