(This part of my life is not one that I like to talk about, frankly a lot of my early life I don't like talking about, but for all of you I will. I will be brief in some places and I can assure you that is only because it is too painful for me to speak of, either that or my memory lapses. )

      I had begun to feel ill for a while, simple things, small things suddenly seemed impossible. When Addie was unable to care for us we were put into an orphanage. Around this same time I was diagnosed with bone cancer by the medical "professionals" working alongside the orphanage's owner, Helda Crakenbury, a ridiculous name for a more horrible person could not possibly have been found. However because my aunt still had some legal rights to my brother and I (the orphanage didn't work like the modern ones here) she could refuse medical treatment, and as she didn't believe in modern medicine, I was in no situation to get better. 

      Jake and I acted as though things were normal. In truth I think we were both too young to believe that things wouldn't get better. Those pirate ships and hoards of buried treasure we read about when we were younger, we still believed in. 

     "Jake come on," I tug the front of his sweater, the fibers rough and scratchy in my hands. He mumbles and I don't understand why. I crouch, pressing my knees to the dirty floor. "Come on Jake, we gotta go down for dinner." He shakes his head, stubbornly crossing his arms and turning over to face the cracked and peeling paint on the old wooden slated wall. "Jake we'll get punishments" my mouth struggles to form the harder word but I stammer it out, determined to use the vocabulary I can. "Come on please." Jake just whines and I press my hand to his pale forehead. He is warm, overly warm. I groan inwardly. Sick, again. "Jake soup will make things feel better, remember the soup?" I lower myself next to our bed and sit crosslegged on the floor. "Remember the soup mom used to make us when we were sick?" I smile at the memory. Long dark hair brushing our shoulders as she tucked the covers around us, a smile on her face that we were too young to see was strained, blue eyes sparkling as she told us stories, hot bowls of soup perching precariously on our laps. 

          "The soup?"

     Jake's voice startles me out of my revere, "yea champ, the soup." I ruffle his hair as he turns towards me. "It smelled like broth, warm and comfortable, like onions, remember onions?" I tickle his stomach and he laughs, the sound sending a jolt through my heart. "And carrots, always carrots, mom loved carrots. And beef too, chunks of melting beef, maybe even chicken. You remember that?" Jake's stomach grumbles in answer and I laugh in return, my own gut tightening. He needs the protein, even if it's not much. "Think you can come down and eat some?"He starts to frown but I tickle him again, "I'll tell you a story afterwards yea?"

     "You promise?"

     His voice sounds weak and tired and it scares me. "Yea champ," I say and take his hand, helping his feverish body from the bed. "I promise." Jake clings to me as we make our way down the stairs and trips twice, which scares me more. As we take our seats Madame Crankenbury glares in our direction and I know whats coming. I won't be sleeping tonight. She never cares who she punishes, as long as its someone she's happy. I was right, dinner is soup, I look over at Jake and smile and he giggles back, earning another reproving glare but I ignore her. Tonight I want Jake to be happy, he's been in and out of sickness for weeks now, oftentimes too weak to leave our bed. 

     After dinner is silent. No one talks, just the sound of scraping spoons and chewing. Coran and Jevir are on clean up with me and as we make our way to the kitchen I know it will be a long night. The sound of coughing echoes behind us and I turn, a sinking feeling in my gut. Jake stands behind us, his arm covering his mouth, his body shaking with the force of his coughs. I share a look with my fellow clean up crew and they nod so I run to him, take his hand, and draw it away from his face. He is pale, his eyes unfocused, not good, I think, definitely not good. He wavers where he stands so I pick him up like I used to when he was younger and I carry him up the stairs, cradled in my arms like something precious, which he is. I set him down on the bed, tuck the covers around his too thin shoulders, grimace as a wave of pain and nausea hits me, place a cup of water by the bed, and then kiss his forehead gently before I stand and make my way back downstairs. The Vulture (which is what we call Madame Crankenbury when she's not around) stares down her long nose at me and opens her mouth to yell. 

     "I know" I say shortly, annoyed by the pain in my chest and the ache in my head, "I'll do double duty tonight no need to shout." She does anyways. 

          "YOU WILL REPORT FOR YOUR DUTIES ON TIME YOUNG MAN NOT A MINUTE LATE DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!" 

     I nod because that's the only thing I can do. And then I start work. It's a long night, one of the longest yet, which is saying something because I've had plenty of long night in my life so far. I finish at 4 in the morning, arms aching from cleaning just about anything that could be cleaned, and when I fall into bed beside Jake I fall asleep next to his small body, like a heater in his feverish state. "Goodnight champ," I murmur in his ear, hug him tightly to me, not caring now if I get sick or not, I'm sick anyway my brain whispers, and I tell it to shut and go to sleep. And it listens.