Pirates on Deck : The prophecy of the winter mermaid

chapter two

Chapter 2

            They were going to town to attend the festival. It was the first thing that made the hard journey less tedious. The would-be five year old little boy was shivering from the cold that this town was making and made it impossible for him to comprehend how they were able to engage in a festival in this cold. Perhaps, they were immune to it. After all, they grew up here in this place since they were born.

The little boy trembled not from the cold but from the excitement. It was a festival, his mama had said. He still wasn’t acquainted with the word but he thought it resembled to fun.

A man was going to take them to the festival. He said that there were rodeo rides, pirate shooting—of course, they weren’t real pirates but only made of cardboard, a contest for the best snow-scenery painting and many more. His mama found it amusing at the idea of his son riding on a pretend-rodeo ride, with his chin jutted sitting arrogantly feeling like a king riding on his best mount.

He waited patiently for his mama to come and get him to see the festival. She said to him to wait here because she was going to go to the bank and stack there their remaining money.

When he asked why she needs to do that and if money was important, she answered that yes, for the living purposes and banks keep the money safe. He wanted to go with her and wanted to know how the banks keep the money when his mama said that she didn’t know at all and wasn’t sure when he asked her.

He was extremely curious to what the banks look like. He imagined that the bank was a room that has a heaven-deep hole where they kept all the money, so that the men who had bad intentions would never find the money, because it would be buried beneath the soil.

The little boy considered himself smart to be able to figure out what the bank’s trick was. His only worry was that his mama wouldn’t be able to find money because the hole was so deep or that she would jump down the hole to get money so that they would live, but she couldn’t get back because of the height.

It would probably take months or years before she could even get out of the hole. Then, she wouldn’t she be able to feed him, then? Of course, he was an intelligent child, so he would figure out how, but the thought without his mama frightened him.

He nibbled on his lower lip, stating his obvious distress. As snow began to fall, he kept wishing his mama would come and get him now, so that they could already go to the festival and his worries would vanish. The thought of going to the festival isn’t as appealing as the idea of his mother coming back earlier.

 He felt someone seizes his arm tightly, that it hurt. He looked up and saw the man his mother introduced to hi. The man who said would take them to the festival. The man, he noticed had silver eyes. Eyes like that of an owl.

The man was taking long and hard strides; he was half-dragging him. He was obviously too intent on whatever he was thinking. “Where are we going?” the little boy yelled the question, for he didn’t seem to catch his breath at the pace they were taking. “Are you taking me to my mother?”

The man paid him no heed and keeps to stare ahead. He repeated his question in a much louder voice.

The man gruffly answered. “Aye that I will.” He didn’t like the man. Not at all. He thought he was kind when he handed him a candy, but when he saw the look he had in his eyes, he would totally believe that he wasn’t human, just like the creatures from the tales of the old woman selling vegetables at the market.

He wondered then, that if his mama wasn’t there, would he hurt him, then? Possibly not. Surely, he isn’t as bad as he thought he is. His mama would be appalled if he even thought even a little bad thing about a person without any sound proof. He doesn’t know what proof means, but from the sounds of it, it’s important