Page 68 | Chapter 3 | The Ghost Ship | A Free Serialized Online Novel by Scott Telek

With the birth, a shadow fell over the house. His father’s white hair and beard had almost completely replaced the deep brown of his youth. His mother had raven-black hair and equally dark eyes. The child was born: a brilliant, shining blond with bright blue eyes. None of John’s family, nor distant relations, displayed anything but darkness of feature. But Mister Adams, the carpenter who had built the shed behind their cottage, having finished his work just a few months before the baby was delivered, was as blond as the hair of corn, eyes pale blue as the noon sky. These details were not lost on John’s father, who stood, glaring over the cradle, eyes as recessed black coals, as the mother raised her voice in protection.

“They will change!” she pleaded.

“They must,” his father had said lowly. He raised his finger and pointed it at her. “For if that child’s hair and eyes have not changed color in one year….” He let his raised eyebrows and furious glare finish the sentence. John, watching from the door, saw his mother’s skin pale to white, saw the skin beneath her eye twitch, as she swallowed quickly and nodded. The man stalked out to his church.

A chill invaded the rooms of his home. Stony silence permeated the cold walls. Conversation between mother and father ceased, and long, frozen stillnesses dominated the evening hours. John watched the fair child at his mother’s breast, stiff arms holding the baby away from her, eyes staring straight out. John himself attended to the child’s cries more often than she. Kneeling cradleside, he enjoyed long hours of uninterrupted communion with the baby, the infant sucking at his fingers, gazing up at him through the deep water blue irises of his wide eyes, squeezing the fat of John’s cheek in chubby fingers. John’s mother would watch from where she sat reading a few yards away, a look an adult would recognize as despair sunken into her still eyes, but that young John could only feel across the distance of abandonment. He clung closer to the child, whose hair, week after week, grew only lighter.