Fifty years earlier, The Noretta, owned by a rival trading company, had smashed into a tiny rock island during a storm. One of our ships was nearby and witnessed the accident. The tale, as it was passed down to me, was that my grandfather had been captaining our vessel and refused to look for survivors so as to keep on schedule. No one from The Noretta was ever seen again.
My grandfather never felt any shame from this, nor had my father. “Business is business,” he’d said to me. “You will understand when you are in charge one day.”
But I had always felt shame. And when the old man mentioned The Noretta, I could not keep that shame from my face.
“Yes,” he said. “I see you are aware of this stain on your family. But I also know, Thomas, that you are a good man. Unfortunately for you, just being good is not enough to atone for these crimes. The responsibility I am giving you will give your family the chance to do just that.”
“Understand, this is not just some idle task, or even a request. This is a curse. A true and powerful curse. You can either wear it as a heavy chain around your neck, or embrace it and let it transform your family’s destiny.”
He told me there was an evil power that walked the earth, destroying lives and claiming those who weren’t theirs. It would be my job to fight this force and stop it wherever I could.
“They are not people like you and me, but you will see them as people. You must not let that fool you. You must stop them, for to stop them is to keep them from growing in power.”
Finally, he told me I was to sell my business and make a home in the colonies, never to return to England again.
While I had listened carefully to all he said, I was now beginning to think him mad, perhaps even an escaped lunatic. Stay in the colonies and not return to England? I had no intention of doing that. But to keep him from knowing what I really thought, I told him, “I will consider your words but, as I’m sure you’ll understand, it would be unwise for me to say more at this point.”
I stood up, thinking doing so would encourage him to leave. But he continued to sit.
“My friend,” I said, “it is late. Perhaps we can talk more in the morning.”
I thought for a moment that he had fallen asleep. He did look so terribly ill and weak. But then he laughed, and stood very, very slowly.
“I know you do not believe me,” he said. “But what you do not understand is that you have no choice. Hear me. You do not have to do anything. Those needing your help will come to you. Children, for the most part, who need you to save them from these forces of trouble. That is your true responsibility, to keep this evil from taking the children. That’s the only way the evil can expand, but you’ll learn that in time.”
“Children, of course,” I said. “I’m always happy to help children.”
It was at this point that he grabbed my hand in his, gripping me tighter than I would have thought possible given his condition. His other hand he placed on my shoulder with a force that almost made me fall to the floor.
“Very soon you will see. So know this also. This responsibility does not end with you. Upon your death the curse will pass on to your oldest son, and upon his death to his oldest son. Your burden will not be released until these makers of trouble are no more.”
Then he uttered a series of words in a language I have never heard before or since. Nonsense words, I first thought, but as he spoke, his hands began to glow. Light filled my cabin until I was almost blind, like a thousand candles all burning at once directly in front of my eyes. And as the glow grew, heat rushed into my hand from his and filled my body with fire.
I wanted to yell out for help. I wanted to run and throw myself into the ocean. But my feet would not move and my lips would not part.
“I pass to you the power you need to fight them,” his voice thundered in my ears. “But be aware, it will never make you invincible.”
If at all possible, the glow grew even more intense. I don’t know how long it lasted but when it finally died, leaving only the flicker of a single candle on my table, the man was gone.
I tried to pretend that nothing had happen, that I had somehow had a dream. But the next morning, my crew could find the man nowhere. Even his things were gone. The only thing left was a letter addressed to me. I have included it in this envelope to you. As you will see, it was enough to convince me what had happened was not a dream.
Still, when we reached Boston, I had no intentions of staying. I wanted to finish my business and return home as quickly as possible. But I had only been there a day when the first child showed up. Then a week later, another, and ten days after him, a third.
I wondered how they found me, and when I asked each this, their stories were as wild as the one the old man had told me. They had received instruction on how they could locate me in ways that I found fantastic and impossible. But, at that point, I had already started to believe and could not deny that their stories might be true. Over the years, as you know, we have learned this curse we have been given — this responsibility — is the thing that guides these children to us.
The old man was right. I have never gone back. And now, my son, you must bear the responsibility that began with me. I only hope that someday these creatures of evil disappear from our world, and our family can be released from this heavy burden.
Thomas Leatherwood
