Shadows of Fire

Chapter I- Jenny (part II)

            “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” came the ear-shattering shout from the darkness. Jenny  half-strangled the cat in surprise, resulting in Icarus clawing his way out of her arms, over her back, and thundering out towards shelter, preferably away from the noise and the crazy humans. The lights flickered on, and all was revealed. Clinging to her legs, beaming up at her, was her little brother, Rory. Grinning apologetically, settled in her place at the table, was her mother, her delicate wire-rim glasses perched on the end of her nose, a faint wry half-smile on her face.

“Sorry ‘bout that”.

Jenny smiled wryly in return, winced, and then started laughing, thumping over with Rory still clinging to her legs to hug her mom. Her mother started laughing as well, and helped her settle down in a chair with as little pain as possible.

“Next birthday, could I have, oh, I don’t know, a little less drama, please mom?”

Her mother frowned in mock-thought, and then grinned at her.

“How about… no? You know you enjoy surprises, most of the time.”

Jenny grinned back at her, and peeled Rory off of her legs, plopping him in the chair beside him. He squirmed around in his baggy pajama pants, and handed her a small, rumpled and slightly torn package wrapped in tissue paper. He beamed proudly at her, as though he was presenting her with the riches of the world. She took it gently from him and ruffled his hair affectionately, as she slit it open with an ever-ready pencil from the table. A slithering cord slipped out from the package and into her lap, clanking against the hard wood of the chair.

 She reached down and examined it in her hands, her eyes narrowing.

“This... this can’t be…” started Jenny, before falling silent. Her mother reached across the table, and gently opened her hands. Nestled in Jenny’s hands was a bronze naval compass, on a sturdy chain. The body of the compass was faded and worn down around the edges, from years and years of wear and tear. Engraved into the case was a 5-part Jerusalem Cross, the single cross engulfing most of it, with four crosses etched into each of the four sectors cordoned off by the central cross. Opening it up, the four cardinal points of the compass were extremely old-fashioned in design, the north-most point touched in gold.

“This compass,” her mother began, “belonged to your father, when he was your age. He carried it all through the days of when we were courting, and told me the story of how he got it. You remember the story of the Tempest, yes?”

“The Shakespeare play?”

“No, but close. You see, your great-great-great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Steele Pond, was a captain of a merchant ship, the Tempest, near the start of the Revolutionary war. One evening, as he was making his way back to his home port, the mists parted before his ship, and before him lay the open ports of Baltimore harbor, but something was wrong. Something was desperately wrong, he could feel it.

“His ship slid into port with barely a shiver of a wave, but as his crew started to assemble on the middeck, to secure the main guns, the fog returned, bearing down fast on his ship from the open sea. Before they knew it, they were eclipsed in fog, drifting into a crowded harbor, with no visual guides, forcing him to turn back to open sea. And it was there that it happened. No history books can account this, save for the crew of the Tempest itself.”

Jen was entranced, her eyes intermittently switching from staring at her mother intently and looking down at the ancient compass in her hands.

“What happened next?” she asked, as she toyed with the compass’ chain. Her mother paused, and her expression was akin to a deer frozen in the headlights.