About this story
The relic burns cold at your chest through years of searching, Amine stands trial for witchcraft at the Cape, and the one-eyed pilot Schriften shadows you from port to port. Thirty-eight chapters carry the oath from a locked room in Terneuse to the eye of a hurricane, where the phantom ship waits with your father at her wheel.
How it opens
Philip Vanderdecken's mother had kept one room sealed throughout his nineteen years.
Catherine VanderdeckenPromise me you will never go to sea, though poverty presses us both.
Catherine VanderdeckenYou know only that your father vanished at sea before your birth.
Uncle Van Brennen offered wages aboard his ship and a livelihood impossible in the decaying cottage.
Mynheer PootsI can stop the bleeding for a price; hope is a different medicine.
Treat her now, and I will sell every possession before leaving your bill unpaid.