Prologue

More than anything, Elise d'Orsay wanted the war to be over. It had been raging for far too long, and it had taken far too great a toll on her family. Or, perhaps, what had been her family was a better way to phrase it. Her father was dead, killed in battle, and her mother's spirit had died along with him. Their tiny family was forced to move out of London and live with her grandparents in the country.

The country. According to the most recent census, the town of Whitford was home to around four hundred people, and it showed. In fact, she doubted there were even that many, as the census had been taken before the war had commenced.

It was horribly boring, here, with nothing at all to do. Aside from work, that is. And at eighteen years old, she had to pull her own weight; so, she had gotten a job at the local convenience store, "Todd's Apothecary." In her somewhat ridiculously self-proclaimed cosmopolitan opinion, everything was terribly backwards in this town – it was like a time capsule. But, to be fair, there were still horse-drawn carriages milling about. Oh, how she missed the city – her city. But it was not her city anymore. It was destroyed – unrecognizable. And it broke her heart.

It all broke her heart: her father's death, her younger brother's confusion and frustration, the burden they imposed on her aging grandparents. But what could she do? She couldn't very well stop the war – hell, she couldn't even fight in the war. Useless. She was utterly useless.

But Elise had to remind herself that however bad she felt, her mother felt ten times worse.

By all accounts, Elise's mother, Jane, had been an absolutely stunning woman in the bloom of her youth. At only seventeen, she'd wed a charming and charismatic Frenchman named Jacques d'Orsay, and rest, as they say, is history. But now, Mrs. d'Orsay's face was haggard and sallow; she was painfully thin, there were dark bags under her eyes, and her cheeks were hollowed. The poor woman looked much too old to be thirty-six, and she retained not even a glimmer of her former beauty. This saddened the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Finnegan, her parents, to no end; they had watched their only daughter disintegrate into a walking ghost of a woman before their very eyes. They did what they could by providing lodgings, but her condition seemed to deteriorate by the day.

That left Elise, then, to take care of her brother, Robert. He was a young lad, at only seven years old. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. His father, the person he'd loved most in the world, was dead. He didn't fully understand death, and it was perhaps better that way. Regardless, Robbie was strong and determined and, unlike his mother and he did not mourn his father, but rather yearned for revenge (as much as a seven year old could, anyway). His newest aspiration was becoming a fighter pilot – he was absolutely obsessed. Elise would drag him to the one-roomed schoolhouse each day, amongst with widowed mothers and fatherless children. It provided a depressing scene, to say the very least. But still, a loving smirk would remain plastered on her face. His naïve absurdity was a glimmer of light in the darkest of times.

"As soon as I'm old enough," he assured her, "I'm going after them. They can't get away with this! The good guys always win!"

"Yes, yes, Robbie. Come along."

"You're not listening, Ellie. I'm going to, I swear on it!"

"By the time you're old enough to fight, I hope the war's over," she said thoughtfully. "It's already gone on long enough, and you're a long ways away from being able to enlist."

He scowled at her stubbornly; he hated being young.

Once she'd dropped him off in the schoolyard, she headed to Todd's. Her shift began at eight, and if she were late again, Mrs. Todd would be furious. It seemed, for some reason, that Elise was late to everything. Perhaps she spent too much time talking to her brother, or too much time getting ready in the morning, or too much time staring at the clouds as she walked down the sidewalk. Whatever the case was, she'd earned herself the reputation of being quite the daydreamer.

But today, she was on time. Not that it really mattered, to be brutally honest; over the course of the day, only about twenty people came into the shop. When her shift ended at five, she collected her £ 5 salary and went home.

Oh, the monotony – every day, it was the same. She would say hello to Charlie, the handsome young bartender who swept the steps of the Red Fox as she walked by, preparing for the influx of nearly all the males left in the town. The pub never got too rowdy, though, seeing as all the men were past fighting age. Charlie had been discharged early because of a devastating injury to his leg. But, even though he would forever walk with a limp, he was jovial and optimistic. Elise couldn't fathom it, but perhaps she was just too cynical for her own good. After she passed the pub, she would wave to her their neighbor, Mrs. Everett, who could habitually be seen placing a freshly baked meat pie on the windowsill.

"Grandma, Grandpa, I'm home!" she announced once she'd walked through the door. Her mother wasn't there, she knew, because her job as a secretary didn't let out until seven.

"Oh, come in, love, come in. You're just in time to help me start dinner," her grandmother said.

It appeared that she was preparing some sort of chicken stew.

"Would you be a dear and peel the potatoes for me?"

"Of course, Grandma. Where are Grandpa and Robbie?"

"Robbie's in his room doing his schoolwork and your grandfather is in the living room listening to the radio, I believe."

Everything was just as it always was, then.

"Oh darling, I have a favor to ask – tomorrow, do you think you could take these eggs to Mrs. Greenbury on your way to work? I have to pay her back for that carton of milk she lent us."

"Sure, I'd be happy to."

"Thank you, Ellie. You're such a help to me, you remind me of your mother when she was your age."

Elise blushed and muttered, "Thanks."

At seven fifteen, Mrs. d'Orsay returned as expected. The patchwork family then dined together, and Elise's mother stepped outside for her ritual cigarette break while the other two females cleaned the dishes. Her grandfather entertained Robbie for a while, sitting him on his knee and recounting the horrors of the Great War. His oldest son – their mother's older brother – had perished in the trenches amid a cloud of mustard gas. It had been a truly horrible demise, and it was a reminder that their family was no stranger to the ravages of war.

Then, as usual, their mother went "out" (to the pub), leaving Elise to put her brother to bed.

"Tell me a story, Ellie," he whined.

"You know I don't like the kind of stories you do…"

"It doesn't have to be about war, then. Just no romance."

Elise chuckled, before sighing, "Fine. Once upon a time, there was a handsome, dashing, suave, rogue pirate named Captain Balthazar Bonham-Clarke. Despite his young age, he was the most fearsome pirate in the Indian Ocean – no, not just the Indian Ocean – he was the most fearsome pirate in all the land. He was as strong as an ox, but his only weakness was that he had a wooden leg. He and his crew sailed the seas on his ship, the Bonnie Lass. It was a magnificent ship, with red sails and a figurehead of a beautiful mermaid. One day, Balthazar was getting ready to pillage a town on the island of Madagascar, when another pirate ship, the Thunder, pulled up alongside him. The captain of this ship was the second-most fearsome pirate in all the land, Captain Romulus Renegadulus."

She paused, snickering slightly at the ridiculousness of the names she'd chosen, before continuing, "Unlike Balthazar, he was absolutely hideous. Every single one of his teeth was made of either gold and silver, and one of his eyes had been blinded and was therefore a pale, pale blue, while the other one was dark brown – some would even call it red. His hair was black, peppered with gray, and in thick knots. Oh yeah, and he also had a hook as his left hand. So, Romulus came up along side him and yelled out, 'Pull over ye ship, Balty! Surrender, and we won't gut every last one of ye!' Naturally, Balthazar was not at all intimidated by Romulus, so he cried out, 'Never, you grimy old coot! You surrender, and maybe I'll let you live!' With that, he signaled for his crew to begin firing the cannons."

Elise paused again and looked at her brother, who had since fallen asleep. She sighed once more – he always fell asleep before she got to finish her stories. Was she really thatboring? She'd particularly like this one, too. Oh well, she supposed there would be plenty of other opportunities to continue her tale.

She then put on her nightgown and slipped into the bed beside Robbie's, blowing out her candle and drifting to sleep…

(The next day…)

"Ellie! Ellie, wake up!"

"Huh, what? What is it? Is everything all right?" she asked, groggily sitting up.

"You've got to take me to school! You overslept – again!"

"Sorry," she muttered, quickly ushering him out of the room, changing, and running a comb through her hair. In record time (no, really, it was a new record – sometimes she liked to time herself. It was one of her… quirks), she was ready to go and pulling Robbie along to school.

She was just about to head to work, when she remembered – the eggs!

She sprinted back home, grabbed them, and rushed to Mrs. Greenbury's. It would be a miracle if she didn't drop any of them, but she had to go as fast as she could – she couldn't be late for work. If she got fired, they would be in deep trouble… The family needed her salary, meager as it was.

In the delivery process, however, something very unfortunate happened. When she was just in front her destination, a carriage came out of nowhere (not really, she just didn't see it). She stood in front of the rearing horses, paralyzed by fear. The last thing she remembered hearing was the splatter of eggs on cobblestones. Then, everything went black…