Vermilion

Chapter 5

"Papa, if I jump will I drown?" the chatty five year-old boy, who wagged his feet on the water of the river, asked after sending another splash forward. If he kept on kicking that hard, Peter thought, he was afraid that the child would slide off to the water.

"That depends, do you know how to swim?" he asked and looked askance at the little child who pulled himself to stand on his feet and tapped hard on his rear to shake off the leaves and sand.

"No," then scratched the tip of his nose. "But you can tie me then pull me up if I drown."

"That could be, but you will scare the fishes from the bait," a violent tug on his rod followed, "please open the basket so we could go home."

Obediently, he removed the woven lid of the basket in which another fish have already taken abode. He poked the captive with little finger thrice and even shook the basket. A squeak sounded from him when the fish wriggled its tail.

"It's moving!" he exclaimed and watched the new prisoner being put in.

"You forced it to move," he said conversationally and replaced the lid himself. As he straightened to his feet, a pair of bright red eyes watched him wound the string around the rod. Noticing his son's watch, he wound the string slower and considered the upturned face. He elicited a sigh. Though he knew what precisely what brought such a look on that pursed lips, he pretended not to notice and waited for him to speak his mind.

"Papa, can you catch another one?"

"Why? Two fishes are enough for us," he eyed him suspiciously from the corner of his eye as he turned and feigned the need to brush his shoulder. The child just wanted more time outside.

"To have more time, I don't want to have lessons," he succinctly replied.

As he expected.

"That, you cannot avoid but I believe the reprieve was more than enough, hm," he said then reached to tousle the black locks of his son. The child giggled then caught his hand and clung on it until he had lifted him from the ground.

Setting him on his feet, he looked up and asked. "What is reprieve?"

"It is keeping anyone from doing what they supposed to do for a short time."

He received a pensive nod from him and knew that the gesture meant that the word would be added to his growing stock of words. Elated from the child's constant absorption of details, he removed his hat and put it on the little head, then hoisted him up to his shoulders with legs dangling from his either sides. He walked up the path that led to their home with the basket on the crook of his arm, the rod on the other, and a child on the top of his shoulders.

This was more than he had expected from living the life he thought he could never fit in.

After a number of questions from the people that concerned Mary, they had married and it was one of the most blissful thing that ever happened to him. Meeting Mary was another. And the most recent, and probably the most unimaginable, her giving birth to an offspring. As she had pointed out, a child from him. A child belonging to him.

Zachary James Price inherited Mary's exuberance, warmth, laugh, and good nature. Physically, Zachary has black hair, pale complexion, and his eyes – the most evident mark of his forebear – are red. However, Zachary's air of mischief was rather alarming for Mary. Compared to the other children in his age that he had seen in his existence, Zachary was more mature in some aspect of understanding.