The Kingdom Of The Emerald Sea

The Memory

I can still remember the last time I ever saw the lush rolling hillsides and tall volcanoes of Lesba, the smells of seaspray and palm trees.

It was almost ten years back yet I remember it so well.

Some nights after I have lied awake for hours I sneak away to the cliffsides and look out beyond the tumbling salty waves as if hoping I could see the tiny island off in the distance yet I see nothing.

Nothing but the memory flooding my mind as fresh as the salty sea.

I remember the night my father died how bitterly our mother wept as Yafo, our oldest sister tried to comfort the lot of us, our crying little sisters and myself.

Our father was not around often since he was a spice trader and his work took him all over the known world but he was kind to us in fact he spoiled us and our mother.

He taught us about all the wonderful places in the world he had traveled and he would bring back gifts for us each and every time he visited.

Blue pearls from the Kankinian sea for our mother to decorate her pale neck and bring out the shine in her big dark eyes and soft silks of pink and teal for my sister's and I.

My most favorite gifts were a ring made with ocean coral and all the books and maps my father gave to me for I too wished to do as my father did and travel across land and sea to see the world in all its wonder.

Never did I ever think that I would yearn to return to my little island home until that dreadful night that my father's ship was lost at sea in a great storm and his jealous brother Urstustis took up control of the estate since while I was my father's only son I was too young to take over my father's business and wealth so it all as well as my mother and sister's care was turned over the the only other man in the family, our uncle Urstustis who my mother as a woman even a prominent and wealthy one could not even accuse of his crime.

And per his right Urstustis took our mother as his second wife and ruled over our house as a wicked monster who beat our mother and threatened her with her children's lives when she did not obey and serve him as he thought a wife should.

He was an arms trader known for his love of parties and wine. It wasn't long before he blew through all of our family's money and landed the name of our father into debt with unsavory characters.

And it was not long until he too fell into debt and into madness from drinking, from then on he was twice as cruel to our mother and to us but our mother protected us with her life while Yafo hid us under the bed and used herself to bare the doors.

One night Urstustis threw another wild party where he became so drunk that he could not tell me and my mother apart.

He forced himself upon me and told me not to scream but the pain would not let me hold back my terrified screams for my mother and she the moment she heard them let all regard for the law fly away as she ran into my room and stabbed Urstustis through the eye with a kitchen knife.

In his rage he beat her as Yafo grabbed me and hid with the others in the hall closet and through the space under the door I saw blue pearls roll across the floors chased by blood as our mother's screams died out into silence.

Then suddenly there was more screaming this time from our uncle's guests downstairs and our uncle fled with his guards to his ship leaving the pirates that he owed money behind to terrorize the island and loot our home.

Yafo covered us in coats and blankets and told us to be quiet then left the closet and blocked it up with tapestry then ran across the hall to go and get our baby sister from her cradle in our mother's room and bring her to the safety of the closet but she was captured by the pirates.