Chapter 22: Brother and Sister

Days passed since Alexandra's explosive fit. Roland became a hermit and refused to come out of his room. I wouldn't disagree. He did, in fact, fall in love with Alexandra. Apparently, he never heeded my warnings, and therefore could not save himself from some of his pain. Mum and Dad, though, grew quite worried about their baby boy. Roland was acting incredibly stupid. He'd have his meals in his room, and he declined any meetings with anyone, even me. Normally, I would have gone mad with his behavior and barged into his room and slapped sense into him, but I kept my distance. For one, I assumed it would take a while for him to realize that Alexandra was not his lovely darling, and truly was a witch. And also, he probably was still recovering from the horrific image of Adam and me having a romp in his closet. To speak truthfully though, I feared the first reason was what made Roland so depressed.

As the number of days Roland had stayed confined in his room surpassed fourteen, I began to get extremely annoyed with him. Two weeks had passed and the boy could still not recover. After dinner one night, I decided to enter his room with no warning and give his head a good whack. I gripped the doorknob and turned it, only to find it locked. "Roland, bloody Roland," I murmured. Stepping back, I rammed into his door. "Open! Open the door!" He gave no answer. I kicked the door, pushed against it, cursed at it and still it would not give way. Roland had probably blockaded the door with his memories of Alexandra.

Suddenly, I remembered how Maggie got into my room although it was locked. Her tool was a hairpin. "Of course. Why didn't I remember that sooner?" I asked myself. I pulled one out of my hair, and a lock came loose from my bun. Squinting at the narrow hole in Roland's doorknob, I poked my hairpin through and tried to find the lock.

"Astrid?" said a voice. I froze and dropped my hairpin. Turning around, I faced the one who had startled me. It was Daddy.

"Hello," I said politely, as if I was not trying to break into my brother's room.

"What are you doing beside Roland's bedroom door?" he asked.

"Just… just… trying to get him out." Dad grinned and told me to stand up.

"If you want to get him out, you should ask him first. Honestly, out of the two of you, Roland is the weakest. That's one of the reasons why your mother and I made him go on that ship. Apparently, bringing Alexandra along only made him…"

"Worse?" I finished. Dad nodded weakly, afraid to admit that his son needed a stronger backbone.

"Did you ever have to go through something like that?" I asked. "Did you ever lose the person you admired?"

"Why?" he asked, smiling.

"Because you're my dad and you're supposed to have memories like that," I replied. He laughed and tousled my hair with his hand.

"Perhaps I'll tell you some other time. Let's decide what we are doing to do about Roland."

"Burn the house down and see if he runs out," I suggested. Daddy looked at me with raised eyebrows, wondering why his daughter was so daft.

"That could work, Astrid. Except we'd have no home afterwards."

"Exactly. So then we'll have to go on a ship that will take us to a place with a new home."

"Astrid," laughed Daddy. "You'll get your chance to go on a ship someday. Don't be so impatient or else you might miss it on your hunt for it. And then the chance will be gone." I paused and looked at the floor, realizing that I was getting impatient. Deciding to keep myself on a lighter feeling, I looked up at Dad, peering suspiciously at him.

"Can you pick a lock?" I asked.

"Why?" I pointed at Roland's doorknob, and he nodded in agreement. "In that case, yes, I can."

I watched with interest as Daddy began to poke the needle into the doorknob, strangely thinking that the skill might be of use to me one day. Of course, I would stay locked in this house for the rest of my life. The only person who needed to know how to pick locks was the person who would allow me freedom from this place. "Astrid," said Dad. I drifted away from my daydream and looked at him. "Can you go get a candle? I need more light shed on this."

"All right," I replied, leaving his side and venturing into my room. My first thought was to go into my room and retrieve the candlestick on my nightstand. The only problem was that it wasn't lit. Sadly for my dad, I was feeling rather lazy and decided not to search for a fire to light my candle. When I returned back to my father, his face was pinched in concentration, still trying to pick the doorknob's lock.

"No candle?" he asked, without stopping his work to look at me.

"No," I said cheerfully.

"Astrid," he moaned, irked by the fact that his daughter was not obedient. But he said no more, the door came free with a simple push from my father's hand.

As he gathered himself on his feet, he stepped inside the dark room, with me following. "Roland!" he shouted. No reply came. Of course, I found it already quite suspicious that Roland did not refrain from sulking when we trespassed into his room. But then I realized that I heard no sound of someone inside. There was no hint of sobbing, cursing, muttering or breathing. Nothing, and I always knew Roland breathed loudly. My own distrust of the whole situation moved me to examine Roland's desk and bed. Papers littered the wooden table, with one particularly having a large blot of black ink. "He's been writing," I thought. Carefully, I sifted through the papers, scanning them for any words, any hints that may tell us how he felt, or more importantly, where he was at the current moment.

Surprise came upon me when I found a page that actually contained writing. It was a letter addressed to a man by the name of Nicholas Collins, and apparently from the unsent letter, Collins was a sailor on board Roland's ship. The only problem with him, was that Roland had gone with him to the local tavern for a drink, or two, perhaps ten or more in Roland's condition, at least, that was how it seemed according to the letter. I wondered why he wrote what he was going to do with this Collins instead of just keeping them in his head. Did he want to be found and beaten? "Dad?" I squeaked, realizing that Roland was indeed a fragile and heartsick boy in great need of... a good and painful whipping and lecture.

"Yes, Astrid?" he replied. I turned around and saw that he leaned out of his son's open window, shaking his head. While I approached him, I recognized the tactic of tying bed sheets together for a rope to escape out of the window. The rope was left behind, tied to the heavy leg of Roland's bed. "He's gone," added Daddy as I stood beside him, still holding the letter Roland had never sent to Collins.

"I know," I said. "But I know where he's run off to." I took Dad's hand and placed the letter in it, and he looked at it with a shocked and bewildered face, the fine lines of age crossing his supposedly ageless face.

"Go to your mother," he ordered urgently. "We have a boy to find." As Dad ran out of Roland's room, fueled with new and most likely, angry hope, I stood leaning out of Roland's window, thinking why my brother would desert his family like this. Couldn't he have shared his feelings with us rather than this Collins?

I grinned, half out of mischief at the trouble Roland was in and half to know that he was still alive. Turning around, I sprinted out of his room, yelling for my mother.

When I told Mum that Roland was gone, she almost threw herself into a fit, but calmly controlled her anger in front of me. She told me to go along with Dad to find Roland, while she would follow after with the carriage to take their ill-disciplined boy home. She sent me off with a polite wave of her hand, and gratefully, I exited her room, ready to depart and hook Roland by the ear. Sliding down the banister of the staircase, I landed on the floor with a thud just as Dad was about to head out of the door. "Wait!" I shouted. "Mum told me to come too." Dad looked at me, and by his countenance, I wasn't sure if he thought I was insane or if he was glad for my company. His grin could have meant either one.

"Are you sure you want to help me find Roland, Astrid?"

"Yes," I replied earnestly. All I could think in my mind at that moment was, "There's nothing you can say to me that's true that will forbid me from going."

"Very well. We'll be checking all over the fort," he said.

"But he's not at the fort," I parried. "He's in a tavern. That's what it said in the letter." Daddy looked at me, uncertainty shining in his eyes mingled also with a slight annoyance because of my stubbornness. Just because we would be going to a tavern did not mean I had to stay behind.

"Does it say exactly where it is?" he finally asked.

"No. Just a tavern. It must be a place where the sailors all gather." As Dad thought in silence, looking back and forth from me to the streets.

"Astrid," he said seriously, almost as if he were chastising me for something I had not done yet. "I don't want to do this but... you are going to have to look for Roland by yourself. Mum will still follow you in the carriage."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I need to have a talk with Mister Westley and about what happened on the ship. Roland's told us his adventure but I fear he's left a large part of it out. If you find him, tell Mum to go to the Westley's residence. I will be there."

"All right," I agreed in reply. I folded the letter and hid it in a sleeve of my dress. A strange new excitement bubbled in me for some odd reason. All I was doing was finding Roland. How difficult and thrilling a task could it be?

"And Astrid," said Dad, once I had my foot out the door. "Keep a sharp eye." I returned a slightly irked expression.

"Why?" I asked meekly, hinting that Dad spoke of some hidden danger in town.

"Just be aware of your surroundings, Astrid. I ask of you to please focus on your task and your task alone, do you understand?"

"Yes, Dad," I replied.

"Good. I'll see you and your mother at the Westley's, agreed?"

"Agreed."

The town was much less magnificent at night. The tall houses and shops squeezed together beside the dirt roads were silent and far from busy. The firelight that could be seen from the windows was fading into the abandoned and silent roads. For a second, I began to become faintly worried, but I swallowed any fear. After all, a breakable thought such as fear would not get me to a ship. Plus, I knew Mum was not far behind, at least, I hoped she was. She did say that if she could not see me anymore because I was too far ahead that she'd head for the Westley home. Nonetheless, I held my head high and marched on through the alley ways and dirty street, keeping my eyes open for any taverns or inns that Roland could possibly be getting drunk in.

Night had veiled the town in darkness, and my eyes were covered in the thick dim as well. I was such a fool for not even bringing a lantern. I depended on the lights inside the shops to find my way around. The sky was a lot darker than I had assumed, and I took it that clouds covered the light of the stars and moon. "Where are you Mum?" I wondered as I ventured forth deeper and deeper into the town. "You were supposed to be following me!" I growled and took another step forward, having nowhere else to go but onward. After the soft thud of my foot on the street, I thought I heard it echo, which was strange because it wasn't loud enough to bounce off the walls of the buildings sitting beside the street. I narrowed my eyes as I surveyed my surroundings. I was no simpleton. If there was a being following me other than Mum or Dad, I'd find them and kill them.

"Come out ya bastard," I muttered. When nothing happened, I crossed my arms tightly before my chest and stomped around the street, waiting for another echo to come. I didn't wait long. It came.

Whirling around on my heel, I stared fiercely in the darkness and gave a shout. "Whoever's followin' me, show your sorry face!" No reply. My voice echoed alone down the street, and I couldn't sense it bounce of any person trailing behind me. "That's it," I said to myself. Without wasting another second, I charged straight, hoping to ram into the bastard following me and giving them a good thrust in the face.

In less than a second, I collided into someone, or something. We both managed to fall to the ground, but I was so focused on beating up the person following me that I regained consciousness earlier and pounced on the mysterious stalker. "Who are you?" I yelled, raising a balled fist. "Speak!" My right hand gripped the man's collar tightly, while my left waited anxiously to throttle his face.

"Calm down," he said, and at his voice, I dropped my defenses, shaken and bewildered.

"Roland?" I asked, immediately getting off him. "Why the hell are you following me?" He stood up wearily and his hands moved quite lazily to dust himself off.

"I... dunno," he said. "One o' my mates wa' wi' me." He was slurring his words, which meant only one thing, he had gone with Collins and had gotten drunk.

"Collins, by chance?" I asked, planning on showing no mercy to Roland as soon as Mum and Dad found him. He grinned, while I could only look at him in shame.

"Yeah! Tha's him. You seen him? 'Cause he wa' here before. He left once you started runnin'"

"Roland, you idiot. Why did Collins start following me anyway? And why on earth did you go with him?" I was so angry with him that I wanted to cry. My brother was a drunk, he cursed like tomorrow, and he was losing his old self to become a bastard sailor.

"We were jus' walkin' back from the tavern, an' then he saw you walkin' and he told me you looked real pretty. He said he wanted to get you so we started followin' ya." He appeared to not have realized the stupidity in his confession because all he could do was laugh and smile.

"For God's sake, Roland!" I screamed. "You were going to let that damn sailor have me?" Roland didn't answer me thoroughly. All he did was shrug his shoulders and grin. Anger and pity burned in me, and all I could do was slap the side of his head hard, very hard. "I'm your own sister, and you agreed to help that Collins assault me?" Now I understood what Dad was talking about, and now I realized why having an escort was so important. If I hadn't charged back, Collins would have had me. But the bastard had fled, leaving Roland to suffer my wrath.

"It's not like he was gonna hurt you," he said simply, as if his friend's decision to follow me was the best idea ever.

"He wasn't going to hurt me?" I yelled, unleashing my rage. My arm flew out and I seized his neck, banging him against the wall in his pitiful drunken state. "His only intent was to violate purity tonight... more importantly, my purity! And you had the nerve to tell him it was all right!" I punched him, and he let out a terrible cry. I let go of him, crying, wondering why my brother was gone. Roland was gone. He had changed too much. The young man I had beaten did not share my dreams of going out to sea and having adventures. He was not the brother who I played pirates with. He was gone forever because of the damn voyage across the sea.

"Astrid," he sobbed, leaning his back against the wall and looking sorry at the ground. "I'm... sorry." I wiped my face with the sleeve of my dress and approached him, still, somehow, caring about him because he had been my brother for so long. Gently, I took his arm and urged him to stand up, but he wouldn't. His ran his hand through his brown hair, hair so much like our Dad's, and he let out another sob. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was the first time I had seen him cry. He had always watched me ball my eyes out, and I couldn't believe that I saw tears leaving his eyes. I must have knocked the drunkenness out of him because he seemed so terribly serious. A mix of pity and the urge to help him consumed me.

"Come on, Roland. Get up. Mum and Dad are frightfully worried about you," I whispered, hoping to show him that his family still cared about him and never wanted him to drift away so easily. "Get up. Where's the strong and fearless midshipman who came home?"

"He's a stupid, worthless bastard," he murmured. "He couldn't even make the lass he loved stay with him, and he was a fool for having his bloody friend go after his sister."

"Roland, I forgive you. It's all right. Come on. We need to go home. It looks as if it's going to rain soon." I pulled harder on his arm, but he only snatched it away without even a simple glance at me. All he could do was stare at the ground.

"Then let it rain. I'm not going home," he said, his voice harsh and unrelenting. I had never taken 'no' for an answer, and I would not now.

"You're going home, Roland William Turner," I demanded, standing in front of him, my hands on my hips. Blood leaked out of his nose from the punch I sent to his face. His face was dotted with spots of dirt and grime, and to me, he looked very young, as if he was still a small boy waiting for his mother to take him home and tuck him into his warm bed. And I wondered if he really thought about going home or if he truly meant that he would never return.

"I'm not going with you, Astrid," he shot back, looking at me for the first time with his wide, hazel eyes. "I don't want to go home and have to face Mum and Dad. They'll hate me forever. They'll send me off on another ship, and if you can beat me up, how the hell am I supposed to take care of myself on a voyage without Mister Westley or his son?" I stood baffled at his words. I thought he loved his time at sea. He seemed so proud of it; why would he say it was impossible for him to take care of himself on a ship if had done it already?

"I don't understand," I said meekly, sitting down beside him. "I thought you had a wonderful time on the ship. Didn't you get upgraded to midshipman because of your honorable duties?"

"I had to beg Stephen, Alexandra's brother, to help me with life on that damn ship. I came on board thinking that the task would be so easy because I was brave and fearless and had waited for the day to go out to sea my whole life. And then..." He paused and looked at the ground again, with his fingers now pulling a loose string on his shirt.

"Because we were so young, we were assigned to be the cabin boys of the ship," he continued, never finishing his original thought. "We had to clean and follow the littlest of orders for our captain. I thought it'd be easy, but they really show you no mercy on a ship. The bosun was a big and strong man, with a temper to go with it. If we weren't out he'd whip us, give us a flogging, and other means of punishment. I tried to do my best obeying orders, but some old bastard said I was a fairy for being such a 'good lad.' Rumor spreads fast on a ship, and soon every sailor on there was lookin' at me funny. When one of my mates told me, I became determined to show them I was no fairy. I cursed and drank and ate like a monster, but that only led me into trouble and I was given a good lot of beatings for my misbehavior. I would always bite my lip until it bled when I was kicked around by the older midshipmen or crew members because I'd pick fights with them to show them I was no God damn fairy." At that, he pulled so hard on the loose string on his shirt that it broke and he tossed the thread onto the ground, stomping on it with his foot.

"Then how'd you get to be friends with so many of the sailors? And how did Alexandra become attached to you?" I asked, curious now at the truth behind Roland's sea voyage. The image he had given me was fresh in my mind, and I was beginning to question whether or not I wanted that life when I set out to sea myself.

"I'll get there," he muttered, still angry with me, but perhaps more to himself. "I went to Stephen, asking him to help me stop the rumor about me being a fairy and to help me adjust better to the brutal life on the sea, and he agreed to if I kept watch over his sister. Alexandra was full of fear when she stepped on board. Sailors are usually lonely, single men, who are bound too strongly to their duties to have a woman, and so with Alexandra on board, they were quite happy. Even though she was only twelve, she was in her prime years of turning into a woman. I was never too close to Alexandra, but when I had to spend all this time with her to make sure she was all right, I found myself utterly smitten by her." He looked at me, waiting for me to make some cynical remark about his deceased beloved. I didn't say anything, although I was so tempted to ask him why he could have found an awful young woman like her any bit appealing.

"I had fancied her before. I thought she was just pretty, but then after spending time with her, I found her not pretty, but beautiful. By then, because I had developed such a strong bond with her, rumors of me being a fairy ended." He smiled feebly and added, "I started to get along better with the sailors and the captain. And when Alexandra almost fell overboard during a storm; she was out on deck for some unknown reason, by the way, I saved her, and because of that I was upgraded to Midshipman." A carriage passed by us, and I feared it was Mum's but it wasn't, having had a young footman instead of our old and loyal footman. The sounds of its creaking wheels were all that we heard for some long time. Roland had fallen silent and he pursed his lips in thought.

At last, he turned to me, and for a second, I thought I saw the old, spirited Roland within him again and I smiled in return. "That's why Alexandra's so special to me, Astrid. Because of her I survived on the ship and because of her I became an honored midshipman, and because of her I felt loved."

"You still find her special even after what she said to you?" I asked, still wondering why he could not let go of her. She had hurt him and told him her love for him was all a lie, and if the person I loved had done that to me, I would have cut our relationship to an end in a flash.

"I don't find her special, but she's still affecting me in a way. Who would have thought that she admired Adam for all these years? And yet, here you are courting him."

"Adam is a charming, intelligent and very attractive young man, Roland," I said, surprised that I had defended he who I was so intimidated by. I was afraid of growing attached to Adam because if I did, I thought I'd forget the sea. "But I never meant to take him from Alexandra, nor did I want her to hurt you. I wanted you to hurt her. I knew just from the way she looked at you that she would never love you, and I was right, wasn't I?" I said, punching his shoulder gently. "I am, after all, your older sister. Wise beyond my years, aye?" He laughed and looked at me with a face that said, "I could never imagine you wise, Astrid."

"Do you think you'd still want to go out to sea after what I've told you?" he said, returning the playful punch to my own shoulder.

"Of course, because we'd have each other to keep things going smoothly. I'm sure you had friends on that ship to help you, but you've never had a relative on board a ship. I think I'd survive. It's a matter of how badly you want things, and if I want to go out to sea badly enough, I'll make it out there, and I'll make the experience worthwhile."

"You know," said Roland, finally standing up and stretching his arms. "I think you'd survive on a ship by yourself, Astrid. Judging by the way you never take no for an answer and your shocking lethal rage, I think that if you ever make it on a ship, you'd have the wit and strength to commandeer it all by yourself if you had to." I stood up and joined him by his side, slightly skeptical of his assumption.

"If there is one thing in the whole world that I want, Roland, it is to have my own ship and crew to order around. Wouldn't it be great to be in control and decide the adventures you want to take; to have your own ship to take you around the world? But currently, I'm still quite content with my life here in Port Royal. I mean, I'm even thankful for Adam."

"If he ever hurts you like the way Alexandra hurt me, tell him I'll give him such a hell of a beating that he'll never be able to walk again."

"And if you ever hurt Adam, I'll cut off your manliness and feed it to the dogs." Roland winced in pain just at the image and I laughed heartily. "Come on. Mum and Dad are probably worrying where I've run off to as well. I'll race you to the Westley's house."

"Why to the Westley's house? It's an awfully long way."

"And? We have raced before. Short distances they were, yes, but now that we're older, I think we can endure a longer race don't you think? And we need to go there because that is where Daddy is." With a short pause, Roland finally nodded in agreement.

"All right. Ready?"

"Of course!" We sped through the dim streets like blind bullets. Roland's long legs did him well, but I never trailed too far behind. We flew in the night, our minds bent on going to the Westley's home. It was a rather strange moment, for I never imagined myself ever running to the Westley's residence. Of course, it was just to see my dear old dad, but I couldn't help but wonder, ever since Roland told me the truth behind his voyage, why I still wanted to go out to sea and more importantly, why did I want to go out to sea just to find Jack?