Swift raced through the house, away from his father.
“I’m not finished talking to you,” rang his father’s voice—merry, but full of serious intent.
“Did you think trapping him would be so easy?” asked Caius, Swift’s nearest brother, older by a decade.
Their father, Justus, chuckled. “Lad hardly gave me a chance to start.”
Swift snuck out the back door, and with a smack of its metal on wood, silenced everyone.
He sprinted over the green and ducked into the woods, pounding the leaf litter toward a thicket crowded with old English oaks.
“Stay,” Justus had pleaded. “Hear me.”
But was he willing to hear Swift? Didn’t seem he was. So why should Swift hear him?
Swift ran along a pathless course, dawn’s misty light shafting through old oaks. Soggy leaves stuck to his ankles, altogether casting him in a skin made of woods, lending him a taint of moss and damp earth.
If only he could vanish so easily into these Devonshire woods as a part of them, sly and invisible as the fox whose path he was beating, whose musk was all that remained from its secret trek through the shire sometime in the night.
He slipped behind an ancient tree and clung to its broad trunk as to the coat of one trusted and ready to defend. Justus didn’t seem to be following.
But Justus wouldn’t give up so easily.
He seemed to believe he perfectly understood all his sons. And as he’d spoken the six most dire words—“It’s time we had a talk”—he laid on Swift a gaze that seemed to blow him wide open, as a storm wind might part a glade to unmask a rabbit warren.
Those fearsome six words were the ozone-rich first breath of an encroaching summer storm—the dreaded ‘Justus Talk’ was upon him.
A Justus Talk was the dulling of the sunset. The unsalvageable shattering of a ship. A Justus Talk meant boyhood days were at an end.
All three Kingsley brothers who’d come before had failed to evade the Justus Talk, and so each had succumbed.
It was a Justus Talk that locked Trystan into clocking thousands of hours of cello practice while his friends grew up and moved away. A Justus Talk propelled Edric into rugby, which yielded a short, amateur career that a back injury had finished. It was a Justus Talk that rushed Caius through school and had him reading medicine before his friends had even graduated.
But Swift wasn’t anything like his brothers, and thirteen was too young for anyone to face the threat of a Justus Talk. The others had been years older before having to deal with this.
Caius, though, seemed to think it was coming. Swift didn’t believe him, couldn’t believe that a Justus Talk could be anywhere close—until last week.
Justus initiated a friendly conversation with Swift, in the guise of pretending to want to see a pirate history book he was reading. But Swift smelled the rat and flitted away faster than Justus could blink.
He’d slipped along a creek in the woods that day, following a path leading to a muddy bank where it was unlikely Justus would follow.
And Justus hadn’t followed. One would think he might’ve picked up the hint and given up the whole idea.
But today, Caius had been telling Swift about his med school rounds, and all Swift had done was show interest and ask one meager question—shouldn’t a specialist have been called in?
And Justus was on him, his eyes cobalt daggers, aiming to pin his final son and present a proof that he belonged on Caius’ path—on his own path—to read medicine.
“Who, at thirteen, could be accused of such a thing?” Swift whispered to the oak.
The oak seemed to look down on him sympathetically.
“Well, not me,” said Swift.
For as much born to medicine as Justus thought Swift was, Swift couldn’t see it. He knew, he just knew that he belonged to the wilds.
That he was meant for adventure.
But this, Justus wouldn’t see. He’d probably already made up his mind to be disappointed if Swift didn’t follow Caius. If he couldn’t follow him.
“Swift,” Justus called from the house. “I know you’re close enough to hear me.”
Cockle shards.
Swift flew deeper into the wilds.
These woods, backing up to Devon’s north coast, were haunted with history, with the ghosts of the games Swift had played. Games of maritime wars and piracy and archaic people living off the land. Its sandy, bronzed earth offered countless good places to hide.
This grove had been planted by Justus’ grandfather, who like Justus, like Caius, had been a doctor. But the stories he recorded in his journals—which Swift had read several times—made medicine sound more adventurous and less clinical than the anecdotes Justus told.
Justus insisted that Swift needed to work on his ‘maturity’ and ‘reserve.’ He called Swift’s interests—wonderful interests in things like sea adventures and stellar navigation and maritime myths and their legends of treasure—‘the dregs of juvenility.’
“Tell that to Great Grandfather, who served as a doctor on a Welsh ship,” said Swift to the trees he sped by.
Great Grandfather, perhaps, was like Stevenson’s doctor in Treasure Island.
If so, it seemed the track to medicine called less for maturity and reserve, and more a good heart for adventure.
Swift crouched at the base of the broadest tree in the whole wood, whose limbs he knew like the rooms in his house.
“What does Justus know?” He picked up an acorn. “What will you be?” He shook it to hear its nut rattle. “A tree, of course. You’re bound to be an oak tree.”
Swift longed for such true understanding from the father he loved. If only Justus would take the trouble to really look inside Swift, his identity would show just as clearly.
Natural places, like this—blowing woods and thrashing seas, windswept coasts, and starry shores, seemed a perfect fit.
“Isn’t it obvious? Why can’t Justus see?”
The acorn said nothing, though it did remove its cap.
“Swift?” echoed his father’s voice—from the back patio, now.
Swift glanced around his blind. It was good enough for the moment, well out of the sightline from the house and down a shallow hill. But it would be useless if Justus closed in.
He slipped further into the thicket.
It felt childish, literally running away from his father. But Swift had to be firm on the point. Caius and Trystan and Edric had all changed once Justus got his claws into them.
Well, Caius less than the others, but even he seemed to have lost some of his joy when he went to medical school.
“Maturity” and “reserve” and whatever other false skins Justus could bully Swift into might chase the life right out of him, pressing him into a mold that would cut out the truer parts.
Justus coughed as he did when he brought out his pipe.
Cockle shards.
He was in the yard now, at least, if not moving into the trees.
Swift edged deeper into a closer-grown copse and crept along its narrow trail—a trail leading north to a clearing behind the house of their closest neighbor.
There were some good hiding spots that way but trying them would be risky. Ash, Swift’s best friend—well, former best friend—lived there, and he ventured outside as much as Swift did.
Getting too close to Ash’s yard would be taking a chance. It was likely they’d run into each other.
“I know these woods better than you do,” called Justus.
Swift dropped to his stomach and stared through a crop of loose weeds.
A blur of motion told that Justus was standing at the edge of the woods, scanning the trees.
Swift slunk to the edge of their property, where a boxwoods lined the clearing behind Ash’s house.
He studied the clearing.
There was no one in Ash’s yard. And these boxwoods were obscured pretty well from Ash’s windows by a holly thicket.
Justus’ footsteps—crunching through leaves.
Justus knew Swift avoided Ash. He wouldn’t come looking this way.
Swift wedged himself into the green globes of bushes, their sharp branches scratching his hands and cheeks. He ducked low until he could barely see above their crests.
Lifting just his eyes above them, his position felt stealthy, as though he were a slick water monster, surmounting an agitated green sea.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Swift stood and spun.
There, right in the middle of the holly crop, holding a box of tackle and a fishing pole—Ash.
“You look a mess, all scratched up,” said Ash. “Why are you in the middle of our bushes?”
“These aren’t your bushes.” Swift felt a fool to be caught—by Ash of all people—bunkering. “My mum planted them.” He tried to slip out of them gingerly, but there isn’t really a graceful way to disembark from a bundle of bushes grown so tight that every move lays a mark.
“Yeah, she did plant those,” said Ash. “On our side of the property line.”
Justus’ footsteps sounded closer.
Swift tripped his way out of the bushes.
“Aren’t you wondering where I’m going?” Ash held up his tackle box.
Judging from the insulated wind jacket he wore, he must be headed for the Bristol Channel.
Cockle shards.
“My father and I are setting off to Lundy Island for some sailing practice,” said Ash.
In the old days, whatever Ash was up to, he would’ve wanted Swift to come. Now, he mainly looked for chances to gloat.
“Then it’s up the coast of Wales, around Pembrokeshire,” said Ash. “All this rain will move out quick, Father says. We’re in for some great sailing weather, for the rest of the weekend. It’s going to be so much fun.”
Swift narrowed his eyes. “Why the Welsh coast?”
Swift had once owned the biggest collection of Welsh sea faring books of anyone in the whole school. Books of maritime histories and pirate tales and sea legends. Now, though, almost his entire trove lay hidden—lay stolen—someplace inside Ash’s house.
He denied that he had the books, but he certainly did.
Ash narrowed his eyes right back. “I just want to look into something I read.”
A crack rang in the forest—a twig breaking under a boot.
“I can’t talk more,” said Swift. “I have to scram.”
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
Swift checked the forest behind him.
Justus was moving into the trees—casually, slowly. As though he put no stock in Swift’s stealth or skill. Like catching him was no challenge. He was tending the wrong way, though.
Swift scanned the thicket for a better blind.
“Hey, there’s your father,” said Ash. “Whatever you’re afraid of, he could help, surely.”
“Will you be quiet?” Swift whispered. “He’s who I’m—”
“Mr. Kingsley,” Ash shouted, waving. “You looking for Swift? He’s right here.”
Swift threw Ash a look. “Thanks a lot.”
“Hey, it’s my pleasure.” Ash started back to his house, then turned. “I know your father hasn’t taken you out on the water lately. You must miss it.”
Though Justus loved sailing, he clearly loved his patients more. Several promises of going sailing had lately gone stale.
Swift avoided Ash’s gaze. “I don’t need my father to go sailing.”
Ash cocked a brow.
And maybe he could go sailing all on his own. The Clovelly coast was within walking distance. Maybe Caius would loan him some money for a dinghy to rent, or for sailing lessons.
If Swift was old enough for a Justus Talk, he was old enough to take on sailing. If Ash could sail, then Swift certainly could.
“I’ll bring you back a shell or something.” Ash’s large eyes harbored a growing satisfaction from the jealousy he must read on Swift’s face.
Swift tried to conceal it, of course—he always tried to conceal his thoughts from Ash. But some feelings are like driftwood, liable to burble to the surface no matter what you do.
And the truth was—as cruel as Ash tended, he was adventurous and so creative. Swift had never laughed harder with anyone. He missed the old Ash.
But the old Ash was gone.
Swift cast him a sharp grin. “Lots of luck to you.”
Ash, waving his rod, tossed back a satisfied smile. He trod back through the holly thicket toward his house.
What a numbskull. Ash might’ve appropriated Swift’s love for the sea, but he’d left alone Swift’s love for Norse mythology. He was oblivious that, in Old Norse, the word for “luck” and “hell” were the same.
Swift watched Ash until he was far gone, then muttered, “Son of a cock up.”
“Let’s watch that mouth, shall we?”
Swift spun.
Justus, biting his pipe.
Justus—completely relaxed, like a hunter who’s bettered his kill and aims to toy with it before sending the blade home.
“Shall we speak?” asked Justus.
“Do I have a choice?”
Justus grinned around his pipe. “No.”
Swift drifted down onto a boulder. “I thought not.”
“Well?” Justus leaned on a thick trunk and folded his arms. “What are your thoughts of one day venturing into medicine?”
But Justus wasn’t wanting Swift to just agree to “one day venture into medicine.” He envisioned Swift gaining a competitive seat in a medical internship program for youth; graduating at the pinnacle of his class, and early; and ultimately topping the class at the university he himself had conquered.
This was Justus’ one and only vision of Swift’s future.
“Why get after me now?” asked Swift. “You didn’t hunt Caius ‘til he was fifteen.”
“The program I’d like you to look at—for young lads aspiring to take on medicine—it didn’t exist when Caius was your age.”
Swift winked up into the strengthening sunlight. “And what if I just want to be a young lad, and not someone aspiring to take on medicine?”
“Then, I’d say you don’t know yourself.”
Swift drew breath to argue, but—the way Justus was watching him—
it was like he was measuring Swift and finding him exactly as expected.
Swift picked up an acorn and toyed with it. “I’d say I know myself.”
Justus didn’t ease up on the glare he was sending Swift.
He really believed he was right.
“That terrible morning”—Justus glanced at Ash’s house—“when Ash tumbled into the water—your instinct was to save his life. Not everyone carries that reflex.”
But it was that very tumble which Ash couldn’t forgive. It was that incident that ended their friendship. Though it happened five whole years ago, Ash would tell anyone that his near-death accident was Swift’s fault.
And the truth was—Swift hadn’t saved Ash’s life. Justus had.
“I’m no good with accidents and such things.” Swift lifted his bare, dirty foot, showcasing a scar on his heel from where a nail had punched in last winter—the ghost of the worst wound he’d ever suffered. “I went all black in the eyes and woozy. Remember?”
“Dealing with injuries on oneself is a far different matter than tending the bodies of others.”
What part of—I just want to be a young lad—could Justus not understand? Swift cracked the acorn in his fist.
“Lads your age can rarely see beyond their noses,” said Justus. “That’s where fathers come in handy. Will you not let me show you the lad I can see?”
The lad Justus saw was nothing more than some version of himself.
Caius admitted that he could make out in Swift what Justus saw. But Caius also said that, of all the brothers, Swift was the one most like Justus.
Caius was making the same mistake Justus always made, though—he was confusing similarity for sameness.
“After all, medicine runs in your blood.” Justus looked about them. “This very grove was planted by your great grandfather—a renowned physician in his day.”
Who knew but that Great Grandfather might’ve planted this grove out of some subconscious intuition that his someday-great-grandson would need his solutions—places to hide when chased by a domineering father who overrated him.
From what Swift had read of Great Grandfather’s notes, he seemed to be strongly interested in soothing, not just illness and injury, but pain.
And he never wrote of a case without critically adding what could’ve been done better—he called those parts, “healing the healer.”
It was like he viewed medicine itself as a puzzle to work at. A craft to refine.
Caius and Justus rarely talked about medicine so plainly in terms of its capacity to evolve. And they talked more of processes and standards than they did about the simple ambition of easing the problem of pain.
“Imagine,” said Justus, “what he might think of having a great grandson such as you, reaching the heights that you very well might.”
Swift glanced about them. Great Grandfather’s grove was divided from a vast woodland by a measly fence.
He could run. He could just run and keep running.
Justus could follow him, sure—but Swift could wear him out.
Justus moved in, as though sensing the flight on him. “There’s no future in scampering about, lost to wild games. You must choose a sound path. And sooner, rather than later.”
Swift rested his hand on his pocket. “I already have a sound path.”
Justus lifted a brow.
Swift’s cargo pants pocket, without fail, contained a wonderful, ancient book: The Star of Atlantis. It was an account—an authentic account—of a pirate from the seventeen hundreds who stowed a mysterious treasures somewhere along the Welsh coast.
This book also held the dignified office of being the sole remnant of his collection all but obliterated by Ash.
This book of sea legends—the best one Swift ever found—Ash hadn’t managed to get away with before he ended their friendship.
Justus tuned his eyes to Swift’s pocket. “Let’s have a look at that, shall we?”
Swift hesitated.
Justus held out his hand.
“Alright, then, have a look.” Swift drew out the book and gave it to his father. “Tell me if it’s even possible to hold that book and imagine a path more exciting.”
Justus opened it. He studied, for a moment, the hand-inked drawings of coasts and actual old seafarers’ notes on Celtic weather; the sea chanties and poems; the sketches of mythical sea monsters, haunting drawn waters; the cryptic strokes lining the top of each page, looking almost like letters of some ancient, lost language.
His eyes, as he turned pages, widened.
The expression was the same as what he once wore when he used to pretend with Swift. Seeing his face so bright, he looked a lot like Caius.
“How can anything—even medicine—compare?” asked Swift. “Those stories are thought to be true, you know, about treasure hidden along the Welsh Coast. And no one’s ever found the Star of Atlantis.”
Justus lowered to a knee before Swift. “Have I ever told you that I had a book similar to this when I was a lad?”
“About lost treasure? About the Star of Atlantis?”
“That’s right,” said Justus. “I, too, looked to these same legends that have you so entranced.”
“Where’s the book now? Do you still have it?”
“Probably not,” said Justus. “These things, you see… they do fade.”
Thunder rumbled from the edge of a low storm.
Justus handed him back The Star of Atlantis. “The path I can set you on is quite as full of adventure and reward as what lies there. And it’s steadier. You’ll need a sound path, and soon. University, for you, is likely just a few short years away. Will you not lean where I’d have you go?”
It wasn’t that the thought of leaning toward medicine wasn’t intriguing. It truly was. Some of the stories that Caius and Justus came home with were mesmerizing. The idea of all that work did seem daunting, but even that wasn’t too off-putting.
The truth was—medicine was riddled with suffering. And death. Swift couldn’t bear those dark places that Justus and Caius seemed to handle so effortlessly.
If Justus forced him in, Swift would just end up disappointing him. And Caius.
Swift backed away, toward a darkening, tangly stretch of woods.
If he ran now, Justus might feel he’d said plenty and decide not to follow.
“Come. The sky’s bent on storming,” said Justus. “Shall we go explore a legitimate pursuit?”
A large raindrop splashed on Swift’s cheek.
“Come,” said Justus. “Before we’re soaked.”
“You don’t understand,” said Swift. “Treasure hunting, sea histories, sailing adventures—these are legitimate, too.” What he wanted to say but could not—I’m legitimate.
“It’s not that you can’t cultivate the interest,” said Justus. “Many doctors I know harbor quaint hobbies. Think of my buddy, Elias. He loves to be out on the water.”
Quaint hobbies.
Justus watched Swift, one brow raised, as though he were reading plain text on Swift’s face. “Edric and Trystan will’ve arrived from the station by now—they’re both looking forward to seeing you.”
Swift glanced at Ash’s house. “You keep telling me you’ll take me sailing. You say you’ll teach me all about it.”
The sky let down more drops. They were coming in slow, stuttering bursts, but they were big. This would soon be a hard downpour. Good.
Justus studied Ash’s house. “Is that what all this resistance is about? Are you jealous of Ash?”
Jealous?
Jealousy was exactly what Ash wanted from Swift. How could Justus even say that?
“I’m not jealous of anyone.” Raising his voice never helped his case, but he couldn’t help it.
“Let’s move this discussion inside,” said Justus. “Perhaps you’d value what your brothers have to say on the subject.”
His brothers would no doubt join Justus in his campaign.
Edric, out of all of them, would get Swift’s predicament. Edric wasn’t anything close to straight-laced. In the end, he’d abandoned Justus’ aspirations to make a star athlete of him—and not just because of the injury.
Now he was free as a kite, spending his time however he liked and running his own microbrewery.
But Edric had always enjoyed seeing Swift suffer. If Justus brought Edric into this, he’d only make everything worse.
Trystan always said he wouldn’t trade Justus’ guidance for anything, so he’d be no help. And Caius, though he understood Swift, would say, just like always, that in Swift he saw Justus.
“Even if they agree with you, it doesn’t mean I could follow you,” said Swift. “I’m not like them.”
“Perhaps today you can’t see it,” said Justus. “But I wager, you soon will.”
“Caius calls treasure hunting ‘great sport,’” said Swift. “Though I doubt he’d admit that to you. Trystan always agrees with whatever you say. And Edric would just tell me to get lost.”
“That’s not fair, not to any of them,” said Justus. “Caius thinks my plan for you is splendid. He’s a bit envious, actually, of your chance to compete to get into a medical internship, so young.”
“That’s easy talk when the threat of all that work, all that gore, isn’t before him.”
The wind drove in a sheet of rain.
“We’ll not stand out in this downspout bickering like children on a subject so vital.” Rain coursed off Justus’ short beard. “It’s time we explore together the pathway to that program.”
Swift already knew all about the program—he’d stolen a look at the application on Justus’ desk.
If Swift bought in, he’d be taking on a schedule that would smother out every inch of free time. He’d have no hope of cultivating ‘quaint hobbies’ of any kind, much less of finding time to explore what he liked and discover for himself what he wanted.
“It’s a smashing internship,” said Justus. “Once you consider all it includes, I fancy you’ll be quite entranced.”
His mouth curled in a patronizing smile.
“Perhaps,” said Justus, “you’ll grow as spellbound with it as you are with that trifle of a book.”
The storm broke. Water fell in sheets, drenching them.
Swift laid his hand on his pocket, keeping safe there The Star of Atlantis—a symbol, a guide, maybe—to the only venture he could imagine himself in; the venture that might be his if Justus could understand him.
“Lad,” said Justus, letting the water strike and roll off him. “It’s time we move forward.”
Swift launched into a sprint through the dark, pathless woods.
