The Misfortune of Larks

“It’s cold for October,” Weston said, wiping the frost from his beard. His breath hovered bitterly in the pale light of his lantern. The island hadn’t seen snow in a long time, but he felt it looming in the air as the night set in. The boy following closely behind remained wordless, his gaze lost upon the expanse of headstones that sprawled out before them.

He’s hardly a boy anymore, Weston thought, watching the young man’s quick, curious breaths. Time had painted small lines in the corners of his copper eyes, which appeared as kind as they ever were. He couldn’t fathom how.

“I see it,” Sterling finally spoke.

Weston acknowledged him with a nod.

“Is this why you sent for me?”

“Not entirely,” Weston said, pulling his hat down to cover his ruddy ears. “There’s something else,” he continued, attempting to make eye contact.

Sterling frowned. It’s been twelve years, he anguished to himself, and I’ve come all this way for nothing. And yet, as he looked at the abomination that loomed in front of him, he could no longer deny there was a problem. It troubled him nonetheless to validate a madman’s very real concerns. “I suppose we should get on with it then.”

“Aye,” Weston nodded.

. . .

The tree, if one could call it that, had grown directly, almost indignantly, in the centre of the cemetery, the sacred grounds of which bordered a small stone house that Weston occupied. The unusual specimen appeared overnight, tarnishing the landscape with its decay.

As they walked towards it, the hair on the back of Sterling’s neck gave rise. He stared with unease at the sight of its oily bark, its massive, rotting trunk impaling the darkening sky. He'd never seen anything so repulsive. And then he began to notice the smell. It was sulphurous and vile, thickening the air around them.

Weston shifted his weight from one foot to the other, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “Nauseating, isn’t it?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Weston cleared his throat and shivered. “She’s dying.”

“The tree?”

“No, the island.”

. . .

Despite the heat from the fireplace, Weston’s house lacked the warmth of a home. His belongings, which were minimal but of very high quality, were organized neatly in every room, of which there were three: the main living area, a small adjacent kitchen, and a bedroom. Weston sat in his only chair in front of a meek fire glowing in the hearth, curling his body towards the heat. He pulled a small tin from his placket, opened it with great care and proceeded to pack some tobacco into his pipe. “I wish I had good news for you,” he said, placing the pipe and tin on his armrest. He reached back into his coat and retrieved something else, something more fragile. It was a scroll of papers, bound in a tattered strip of leather, the corners of it gently frayed. He held it cautiously.

“I’ve never expected as much from you,” Sterling said, pulling his wool gloves from his hands.

“Hah,” Weston barked with a cough, “just like your old man.”

Sterling looked at him flatly. “What is that about?” He asked, gesturing to the cluster of papers.

Weston furroowed his brow. “It’s a collection of diary entries I wrote about how I found this place, and of all of the unremarkable discoveries I’ve made here,” he said, handing the pages over. “Of course,” he added, “none of it is true.”

Sterling took them gently and passed the aging papers back and forth between his hands as though they might burst into flames at any moment. “I came all this way for a lie?” His tone began to sour.

“It’s only a lie to them,” he said, “and it’s for everyone’s own good. You already know the truth and that’s all that matters to me. You’ve seen it now with your own eyes,” he reiterated, pointing in the direction of the sick cedar.

“You’ve got some nerve,” Sterling interrupted, “to ask that of me. I went to extraordinay lengths to convince them to join me on this wild goose chase.” His neck began to flush red.

Weston looked at his son, the boy who’d become a man in his absence. “You are a Lark and a Captain. Your men will believe you when you tell them there’s nothing special about this place. Some of them may resent you for it, and for that, I am sorry. I suggest you tell them it’s Ankyrian land and none of you are welcome here, and if anyone returns, it will be to their death.”

Sterling inhaled sharply and turned away. He walked to the table in the kitchen where he filled two glass tumblers with a dark, sweet rum he’d brought with him from Tarquo Bay. He set one down on the table next to his old man and held the other, swirling the amber inside; the fragrance elicited memories of home. “You owe me a better explanation than what I’ve been given,” he said, breaking the void of silence between them.

“Aye,” Weston said, lifting the glass to his mouth. “The letters are evidence, if you will, of the claim you’ll make to your men that there’s nothing here for them.”

“They won’t fall for that ruse,” Sterling scoffed.

“Just listen, please!” Weston said, raising his voice. For a moment, nothing in that cold cabin moved. “Tell them that I’m as crazy as they suspected and you’re sorry for wasting their time coming here.”

“I will do no such thing,” Sterling assured him.

“You will, my boy. You will lie to them because they cannot know that Talafryn is real. It’s all real, Sterling. The Ankyrian folklore of Talafryn, the writings in the Frae, all of it! I didn’t leave you and your mother in vain. This is what I’ve needed to explain to you, but it had to be face to face."

Sterling rubbed his forehead and signed. “I had to ask a lot of favours from good men who don’t trust you.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Imagine my friends' horror when I told them my estranged father found the island of Talafryn and he needed my help charting it.”

Weston sipped lightly from his tumbler. “If they believe this voyage was all for nothing, they’re unlikely to return.”

“You’re wrong. They’ve seen the island now, they know it exists.”

“They know an island is here, yes. But they don’t know it exists.”

If it weren’t for that monstrosity growing outside only a few hundred yards away, Sterling wouldn’t have believed his father at all.

. . . .

The following morning marked the day that Sterling Lark’s men were to rendezvous with him in a peninsula on the southern end of the island. He woke in front of a cold hearth to find a cup of black tea and a hand-rolled cigarette on the table beside him. Through the small window in the kitchen, he could see Weston plucking something from the fence line that separated his house from the cemetery. He gathered his coat and tucked the cigarette carefully in his left pocket, drank a few mouthfuls of tea, and walked outside to say goodbye.

Weston stood up from his garden with a handful of weeds and tossed them into a growing heap of unwanted foliage. His face appeared more sunken than the night before, but not altogether unhappy. “Time to go home,” he said, motioning a calloused hand towards the sun-drenched horizon.

Sterling adjusted his eyes to the gleam of light on the water; in the distance, he saw the pale silhouette of ivory sails.

Though he’d never admit as much to anyone, Sterling would miss the desolation the island offered him. He inhaled deeply and clenched his fists quietly in his pockets in order to quell the cry rising in his throat. He walked past Weston, towards the end of the land where soaring silver cliffs rose up to meet the glossy acreage of grass flecked with graves. He reached for the cigarette in his coat and lit it carefully in his palm to shield it from the wind. He savoured it slowly in the unforgiving frost of the morning.

As he walked back to the house to gather the rest of his belongings, his thin face numbing in the breeze, the snow began to fall. He exhaled heavily into his freezing hands. It was cold. Too cold for October .