Wheeling Gull Isle razor sharp and ready to cut

they are gone. this discovery does not necessarily bring with it surprise for arturo remembers everything that had transpired during witchdoctor's second debut — though he has yet to discern whether he should be alarmed or relieved by this unwelcoming fact and thus is eager to brush it beneath the rug to never examine — and knows that hemlock and the kids had moved on from this place and that, for some reason or another, witchdoctor had decided not to follow. with his mother's death he disbanded quicksilver hollow ( for he was freshly recovered and in no state to lead though they had looked to him for it nevertheless ) and set off for teekons again. it is a place of much heartbreak for him, of open and festering wounds and regrets ...but it had brought him lotte. it had brought him hemlock. it had brought him his children with the two women. it wasn't all bad, he supposes, as he wanders the abandoned beach of the isle. as a man that seeks absolute control over everything he can exert it upon the utter loss of control in his life has driven him to extremes and even now makes him horribly uneasy and weary. the fearghal monarch needs control. he needs structure to fall back into. chaos and lawlessness has always been a poor bedfellow to arturo and he feels the frustration at his current situation ( though largely his own fault ) nag at him.

he isn't so sure that he truly wishes to find hemlock. he's embarrassed by witchdoctor and horrified that she had endured it. the consideration that they are better off without him does not elude the fallen gangster. doors had closed and those paths are no longer available to him and even if they are he decides in the here and now that he shall not attempt to re-open them. somethings are better left to move on. sometimes fresh starts are what is best for everyone. he is stuck on the isle until the broken sandbar rises as the tide recedes — he could swim but does not wish to risk the frigid sea water in eagerness to return to the mainland but he knows that his next stop will be his late wife's grave in the strath, saving what will be the hardest thing to move on from for last.

his nightingale was inarguably the love of his life and his world was so much darker without her light orbiting it. he refuses to forget her — for she must live in his memories — but fully and consciously accepting her death is a storm that he knows he can no longer continue to evade. arturo stares vacantly out to sea, the mainland looming in the distance as he waits for the sandbar to rise through the surf.