B008P7JX7Q EBOK by Usman Ijaz Read Free Book Online

“Jaime
Fahnen, sir, pleased to meet you.”
    “Alexis Marshall. A pleasure to meet you, young
master.”
    “Would it be too much to assume that you are one
of the three newcomers staying at the Golden Lilly?” Jaime inquired.
    “You would be correct in assuming that,” said
Alexis. His eyes drifted over the surrounding crowd, as though seeking
something. He immediately excused himself and left the boys.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Connor asked
Jaime. “Can’t you ever talk properly?”
    “Don’t blame me, gents, if my mother taught me
to behave graciously. Your mothers should have taught you the same manners.”
    The words caught Adrian’s attention and he
sensed Connor tense beside him. He wondered if Jaime had planted the barb on
purpose, fully knowing that both their mothers were dead, or if the boy was
simply ignorant. Nonetheless, it reminded him of why he had never quite grown
to like Jaime Fahnen.
    “I wonder if your mother taught you to fight, as
well,” Connor asked in a low voice.
    Jaime looked startled. He held his hands out
before him. “Come on, Connor, I was only joking.”
    Connor simply shook his head and stared past the
other boy. “The fireworks are about to start,” he said in a controlled voice.
    Adrian turned to look towards the center of the
harbor. He could barely make out the masts of the ship anchored there. Alexis
joined them as they waited, handing them each a roasted ear of corn flavored
with lemon and spices.
    “How do you celebrate the festival in
Carlstown?” Adrian asked him.
     “It’s not so grand as here, we hardly have a
large firework display, but everyone gets together to sing and dance. It’s
joyous, which I suppose is all that matters.”
    The crowd of watchers packed even more tightly
together as they waited for the first light to bloom in the night sky. Adrian
was glad that he and the others had chosen to stand farther back and apart from
the thick of the crowd; he didn’t want to feel trapped amidst all those people.
The folk crowding the docks hushed in anticipation, and the whoops from some of
the youths and the sound of firecrackers seemed oddly pervasive in that
silence.
    “There it goes,” Alexis said quietly.
    A moment later the sky lit up with bursts of
yellows, greens, and pinks. The crowd broke their silence and cheered, while
children sitting atop their parents’ shoulders exclaimed their awe at the
sight. As the first sparks began to rain down another explosion lit up the
night sky. White sparks shot out in every direction, blooming and exploding as
they descended, immediately joined by a brilliant burst of gold and then red.
The sparks alternated colors as they descended; the white turned blue while the
gold morphed into orange. Again the crowd cheered in approval, and Connor and
Jaime shouted in delight. Shouts for more came from all around them. Adrian
watched the people around him, their eyes turned to the sky above the harbor
where brilliant colors dominated the night, and once he opened himself to it,
he felttheir joy. It was not hard. All he had to do was watch them
delight in the Festival, and his own excitement returned. He was as incapable
of not sharing their mirth as he would have been unable to return someone’s
smile.
    For fifteen minutes the sky was filled with
blossoms of color drifting down like rain, forever stuck in the minds of the
watchers. The display ended with an extravagant burst, with five explosions
going off simultaneously, banishing the night above the harbor for the moment
of their duration. As the last sparks began to drift down folk began to applaud
and cheer so loudly that Adrian was certain even the men on the barge could
hear them.
    Adrian glanced to his right and he saw his
friends applauding as fiercely as anyone else, even Alexis resembled a child.
Adrian’s own lips cracked in a smile as he watched them.
    Why can’t I feel like this all the time?
     
    4
     
    “Did you ever see anything so