PART ONE

Chapter One: The Idea


Vieille Ville, Eau de Mer, Bosanozia
25 Maiesta 506
Debgetto Rounge:
Tonight was one of those nights─ nights that I hate, that make my stomach twist and knot.  As I stared at the wall across from, lying in the small bed in my room, I found my self recalling the events of the night and of times alike when I was younger.  I was about five years of age and my sister six, when our mother to whom I remember to be one of those remarkable people who are uncommonly kind and generous, died from what the doctors called “all system failure potentially due to M.O.L.”  What M.O.L. is, I don’t remember.  Naturally it was very upsetting to my sister, Debgett Renée, and I, but for my father it was all the worse.  He couldn’t quite handle it.  His method of handling his mourning for her was by drinking, until it consumed him and the joyful, playful father I once knew and loved, was gone.  He turned into an ill-tempered abusive person, I hardly knew, but had to live with for all these fifteen years.  
Cool air came in form the open window next to where I lay.  Looking up, flinching slightly at the pain that shot from the bruise above me eye, I saw that the fog was lying thick and was only going to get thicker as time went on.  It made me think of the horror stories Gett used to read aloud.  Stories, even the terrifying ones were our escape from our lives.  The stories acted like our safe harbor taking us to a place better than here.  My eyes were beginning to close, and I was fading into sleep.
Gett and I were on the wood floor of the living room coloring in pictures out of an activity book.  We were near the age of five.  A stray pencil had rolled away and as my father walked past he stepped upon the orange pencil, slipping, and nearly falling to the ground.  He caught his balance with the help of his cane, and glared down at us.  That’s all it took to set him off.  He had been drinking and now was that man I hardly new.
“How many times have I told you to keep your things picked up?” he yelled at us.  Gett looked up in fear, so scared of what was going to happen.  I on the other hand was glaring back at my father.  The unfairness of the situation irked me.  That thought, though did not stay long.  Next thing I knew I was smacked across the face with his cane, knocking me backwards and making my nose bleed.
Gett moved to grab my hand, and he swung at that.  She squealed in pain and darted forward again, successfully grabbing my hand and pulling me along, scattering the pencils everywhere, until I stood and we dashed up the stairs.  Our father could not go up there.  He had a bad leg, had done for a long, long time, and it was too painful to go up the stairs.  We had not money to fix the problem, which ended up being a good thing for me and my sister.  We had made it to the top of the stairs and Gett pulled me into the bathroom handing me a tissue for my nose.  She proceeded to take off my yellow and red trimmed shirt, making sure I still had a firm grip on my bleeding nose, and exchanging the blood stained shirt for a new one.  From there we knew the now normal routine.  Gett got a book of the shelf in the hall way and I headed for the fort we had made in my room.  It was our sweet serenity for nights like these, where we’d find ourselves beaten upon by the man our father became.  
We had tried many times to just stay there the whole day, but in the mornings our father was himself and sober and wished for us to be where he could watch us, but as the day went on he began to drink more and more until he was so inebriated that he would hit us over a trivial thing.  We’d escape to the upstairs and Debgett would get a book and we’d read under the shelter.  
I heard Get approached the fort and as she pulled back the sheet there was a loud thud and I awoke abruptly, shooting pain trough my eye again.  I stared into the maroon wall, in the direction I heard the noise come from, as if I could see right through it.  Sighing I got up and walked down the hall toward the stairs to Gett’s room, and peered.  She had dropped a box with Green colored clothes.  I knocked on the door frame.  “Gett?” I inquired.
“Rounge!” She said in shock, her head snapping up, making her long black silky hair swirl.  Gett had the same pretty face that my mother was known for.  Her eyes were like mine, an endless pool of grey.  She stood up holding the box of cloths.  She stood tall and straight.  All members of the Vingard family are tall.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m, um, I’ve got an idea.” She said straightening the clothes back up, and then glanced up at me, giving me here full attention.  She had the look she always had when she had something important to say.
“And that would be…”
“I know how to get out.”
“Out?” I was a little lost as to what she was talking about.
“Of here Rounge.  What else?”
“Oh, of course.” I said under my breath and walked toward her.  “So what’s the master plan?”
She leaned over to her night stand opening the draw and pulled out a purple velvet drawstring bag and handed it to me.  I opened it and inside was a stash of money.  More than I thought she even had.  I looked up at her scandalously.  
“With that I’ll be able to pay your way onto a boat to Irotel, pay for lodging, and some food.”
“Where in Irotel?”
“Most likely Dildry, Ceattel, or perhaps Irozlan.”
“The main shipping ports.” I murmured.
She then pulled back out the green clothes and opening another box took out a violet set.  Sitting on her little bed she held up a forest green coat for me to see.
“And this would be…”
“For you, I have a set too— cloak, coat, jacket.”  She picked up the violet pile of cloth.  
As she handed me my set I asked, “So we’re leaving Bosanozia, going along the Marietta Sea and to Irotel?”  She nodded.  “Want to tell me the finer details?”
“You’ll go for it?” she looked at me questioningly.
I sat next to her on the bed.  “Quite possibly...  I don’t know how it will work out…”
“Rounge, I’m sure it’ll work fine.  While the fog is thick and dad is still out cold tomorrow we will go to the docks and find the ships we want.  Most likely we’ll be on the old-style ones.  They tend to be cheaper.”
“Wait, ships… as in more than one?”
“Yes.”
“Why two, aren’t we…”
“In order to leave as soon as possible, I can only send you at first, then I’ll have enough to go on another ship and we’ll meet up.”
“Whoa now, Gett, its bad enough I’m going over on your money, but separate.  I don’t particularly like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because that leaves you here on your own.”
“I’d be fine.  And I’d meet you at the harbors not long after you.  You’d be leaving next month, the first of Juno.  Then I’d go in about a week.  I’d imagine we’d meet up there at the most by the fifteenth.”
“And what’s with these?”  I held up the green set of clothes.
“You know well as I do, that our dear father is a very inquisitive man when he’s sober.  He could find us very easily if he wished to.  So we just won’t be seen.  And our old cloaks needed replaced as it is.”
“Why don’t we just wait, and leave at the same time?”
“Rounge I know you’ve wanted to leave for so long.  Now you can.”
“Gett, I can—”
She cut me off, “Rounge,” and gave me a look that said that I was being ridiculous, “I’ll be fine, and you’ve wanted to get away for so long.  Here’s your chance, and you’re going.  I’m making you.” She said defiantly.
“Yes ma’am.” I murmured, and Gett ruffled my black scruffy hair that fell into my eyes, and pushed my head away.
I wore it longer so that the frequent bruises on my right eye wouldn’t so noticeable.  Gett kept her bangs on her right eye long as well, for much the same reason.  The thing about the way our father attacked was that it was always the same.  When he struck with his cane it was always from the left hitting us on the right.
“So you’ll do it?  You’ll go and then meet up with me later?”
I sat looking at the knees of my navy pajama pants for a while and then said, “Yeah, I’ll go.  But I‘m not using all your money I have some of my own.”
“Alright, well see you in the morning.”  She got up and led me to the door, and bayed me goodnight.
* * *