Clouds moved in as the Tulip coursed the waves, high feathery wisps followed quickly by low dark clouds. Slowly, Robert picked his way past the foremast to the base of the prow and used two of the vertical stays to hold himself upright and safe at the edge of the ship. He tried to keep his thoughts from turning gloomy once more, but an underlying sense of the ominous nagged at Robert, giving him reason to worry. It was as if the island were a monster rising from the depths to claim unwilling victims.

It was the march north; the remnants of the hardships that made Robert think their fortunes had not changed, and they had only begun the test of their endurance.

The island revealed itself slowly; a low mass rising ponderously from the water; it’s very existence a struggle. Dark woods covered black stones in dense thickets, the land spreading out slowly until an island several miles long presented to Robert. A long ridge dominated the center of the island, appearing like jagged teeth peeking out of the trees, towering only one hundred feet above the water. Hints of green pasture seen through occasional gaps in the thicket, the only bright color of the drab island.

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Feet pounded on the deck of the Tulip as sailors hauled up sails to slow the vessel, Captain Marsh guiding the Tulip along the southwest shore of the island, taking no chance with an errant burst of wind.

Half a mile from the island, it still seemed desolate as Robert watched the thick forest pass by. What he had thought to be black rock was gray stone covered in moss. The granite seemed streaked with red where not overgrown.

Scrub trees near the shore of the island stood before fully grown ponderosa pine and white oak. The brush at the base of the trees seemed to be a combination of sumac and thorns. Tall prairie grass found what purchase it could where sunlight found its way through the canopy of trees; it was a wilderness island.

The view continued this way for an hour, as the Tulip worked her way west, before the first sign of humanity suggested a prison island.