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Once there were two sisters, Morgan the eldest and Celia the youngest. Their parents doted on each like two rare pearls, guarding them as if worried they’d knicked. But another child was born between his two sisters and raised to brute all the hardship, from chore to lecture, allotted by his parents. Because that’s how, according to his father who smoked a long pipe and chewed raw turnips, a boy grew up to become a real man.

Languidly finishing his chores, which were all half-hearted but done well, the brother dove into his books each day. For between getting new lace at the fabric shop or chowder from the market, he’d duck into the library and get whatever adventures unraveled in places far from Amberjack. In those pages, worlds eclipsed his own with greater highs and lows than he ever imagined possible. But he often hid away his reading, because no one else much cared for it. His sisters betted on their charms as more amusing, but to carry on a conversation with them proved to be as shallow as a puddle. All their hours were spent dressing up like a pair of dolls, talking over matchmaking, and getting paraded around like a pair of groomed poodles.

Like many children, he longed for a way out of his household years long before it was ever possible. Unless he got asked questions, most days no one minded what he did so long as his duties were tip-top shape. He earned the name Swiftfoot that stuck like sap because he was able to flit here and there always in a hurry. But one day, nearly the age of thirteen, a snag got pulled in the fabric of the town by a door that opened at the end of Hamfrill Lane.

Not a door from the schoolhouse or the plucky neighbor, but the man who never was seen by anyone. It was an odd thing because this man happened to the be the heir of a fortune mysteriously passed down to him that bloomed every kind of juicy rumor for decades. On the nights when talking calmed and between glasses of ale and a little spark needed to breathe life back into the conversation, you’d count to no more than three before an argument broke out of how the rich Hermit came to be.

Some boasted the old Hermit was once the famed diver who got his wealth from the bottom of the Lonely Sea. Others, many of them, went on about him discovering the Spring of Endless Life hidden in Witch Back Peak. Many believed him the same man that founded Porttown a century ago. But all hushed when the last gossip surfaced: that the old Hermit would one day come out, and want something.

It recoiled boasting traders and catty chatters because the Hermit was the one that fixed the potholes that dared to twist ankles. He was the one who bought lumber for the docks after devastating storms. His very name, Hamfrill, passed by their eyes each time they walked by Hamfrill Lane. Down his lane. And like all of those who give, they townsfolk lamented, he’d come to claim back his wants one day, and they’d have to oblige.

So, when on a bright morning of fall the Hermit stepped outside, the town broke out in a flurry fast as a changing sea wind. The Hermit walked onto the cobblestone lane, dressed in a trailing cloak patched together from decades of wear, with a beard that grazed the top of his feet.

People in the town stilled, frozen at his sight. One look at him and the children got off the bicycles and stepped out of the way. Frosting dripped off a butter knife, as the pastry chef watched the Hermit pass from beyond the bakery window. Mothers dodged him, wheeling their buggies aside with babies that cried out at the otherworldliness fuming around. People wondered silently if the Hermit may return to the Neverwoods some claimed he’d crawled out from years ago.

But he stopped at one of the last homes high on the hillside, where everyone but Swiftfoot knew what was going on. Swiftfoot, absorbed into his books by late morning after weeding the garden, never even heard the footsteps rushing up the stairs. Bursting into this room, his mother snapped her fingers without a glance at him. Swiftfoot shut his book, got to his feet without a fuss, and followed her laced hemline down the staircase and into the living room where the Hermit sat on their finest chair, and drank from a teacup.

“He wants more hot water,” his mother said and smiled saccharine at the Hermit.

Swiftfoot nodded but stopped at the sight of his two pale sisters, gusseted up in bows, lace, and layers of silk. Both sisters eyed him, but with a look, he couldn’t place until his father cleared his throat and spoke.

“I assume you’ll have one of my daughters?” his father said and tapped his polished shoe onto the floor. “Both fine young ladies, as you can see.”

Swiftfoot, upon hearing of this, turned to recognize a pang of longing unsuited to Morgan and Celia, that made both look like chickens about to be plucked. And Swiftfoot, having hardly ever spoken up, not turn to the kitchen. By chance, he’d finished a rather inspiring story of knights and gallantry last night and knew a beast when he saw one. He stayed, crossed his arms, and raised up his head to reveal a pair of seaweed-green eyes.

“I’m sorry Mr. Hamfrill, but you cannot marry my sisters,” Swiftfoot said. “You’re far too old, and they’re too young, and haven’t even learned to toast bread. They can’t be wives!”

His mother and father turned around both shades of cherry, rubbernecking between the Hermit and Swiftfoot. The Hermit set down his teacup on the saucer, got to his feet and peered at Swiftfoot from bare toes to rustled up hair.

“I’ll be at the end of Hamfrill Lane, and if your best child can reach me before that-”

“You’ll marry one of them?” his father said, again, and stepped in front of his son.

“I’ll give them what they deserve,” the Hermit said, and made his way to and out the front door.