In 2004, a cruise liner called the MS Koningsdam washed ashore with only three occupants aboard: a very harrowed pair of newlyweds named Rachel and Samuel Grist, and a third passenger, the name of which was never recorded and is rarely remembered. The papers recalled their accounts only briefly, for the Grists had only a few things to say: the cruise was meant to be a honeymoon. The ship had passed a number of extensive health and safety checks before it departed. Games and buffets and events were proceeding normally for the first two days. And then, on their third day out, almost every single one of the ship's passengers fell dead, their hearts having stopped without rhyme or reason.

The remember weeping. They do not remember how they survived, or why.

It was a freak stroke of luck, they say, that the wind and tides turned the Koningsdam back towards British shores before its fresh food and water could run out.

The ship was searched thoroughly, but there was no evidence of foul play. The black box and emergency alarms were left untouched, nothing appeared to be broken, and not a single thing was missing from the ship or the luggage aboard. Besides the deaths, the only thing unusual that the Grists had seen was a strange man in a very long jacket who they swore could not have been there when they boarded the cruise. Officials who rescued the Grists from the beached ship reported this man, too; but no one had been able to speak to him or learn his name.

Mysteries aside, the families of Mr. and Mrs. Grist soon came to swoop their traumatized relatives away, putting them through rigorous courses of physical exams, psychological tests, and therapies. It was obvious that the two were not who they were when they stepped aboard the ship. They were dull-eyed and cold, strangely motionless unless moved, as if drained of life; in time, their therapies saw them return to a daily routine - Rachel returned to work as an accountant and Samuel as an actuary, the two took up jogging, they were even assisted by a counselor to ensure that their usual marital activities were engaging as planned. (Grandmother Grist would not see this event rob her of grandchilden.) But they never returned to normal. Former friends of the couple would say that there was simply something changed about them; something gone.

It was only through a great deal of meddling that Grandmother Grist ensured that her son would sire a child. She was the one who took them to the fertility clinic; she was the one who insisted they keep seeing the marital therapist; and she was the one who cried and cradled the newborn child in her arms when he was born, while Rachel lay expressionless on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting to be discharged.

It was primarily Daniel's Grandmother who raised the child as he grew up; while their families went through day after day at the office, she cleaned him, fed him, scolded him, and loved him as best she could. She taught him his chores, though it was more work to teach him than to do it herself, and when he managed them, her smile was a greater reward than any the boy could name. If not for the illness which got her stuck in a nursing home in Green's fifth year of life, she may have continued to; and even so, persistent phone calls and letters kept the zombie-like Grists visiting on the weekends, and even if all she could do for the boy was sneak him her jello and ask after his kindergarten work, she did. She loved him. With all his small heart, Daniel knew that she loved him, and that he loved her back.

Unfortunately, that summer, Daniel's grandmother died.

Daniel had grown accustomed to the silence that had been left in his house since his Grandmother went to the nursing home. He tried to fill it with the business of kindergarten, concentrating on crayon letters and counting higher and macaroni pictures with more seriousness than any small child ought to do. But as assignment after assignment ended up in the trash unremarked upon, (Why are you showing me this?), Daniel went from quiet to snappish, quarreling with the other children, refusing to do his work. He became a Bad Child.

"We can't have him," the teacher said. "He bites."

The boy was removed from kindergarten, and the house became his prison.

He did more than bite.

As time went on, the quietness of the house began to erupt into something different. There was very little joy left in the Grists, but they still retained fear; so that when the smell of smoke began to fill the house, they raced towards the scent to find Daniel there, burning paper in hand. Books were scorched, carpets singed, walls ruined with trails of smoke and ash; they looked for matches or lighters, but none were ever found, and the fires couldn't be electrical.

The one that changed everything came the year after that.

Daniel didn't care about his birthday. His parents gave him socks and a Tesco's cake each year, and his grandmother was the one to decorate it with Oscar the Grouch or Green Lantern or whoever else it was Daniel liked that year. The year Daniel turned 6, he got his socks and cake. He didn't complain to see it blank this year. That was how things were.

He did complain when it was his Grandmother's birthday.

Where was her cake? She had gotten the same annual treatment, too. Where was the candle, the one that she told him would be too many if all the others were laid out, but was worth having because it counted out "one more?" What was he supposed to do with the bottle of perfume he bought with his pocket change for her? Why wouldn't they at least take him to her grave?

The date passed. He asked again. And he asked again after that.

Damn their silence. There would be candles.

The house burned.

(The following is reprinted from my profile page; if you've read that, you needn't read this.)

Four years ago, Rainier Green was not Rainier Green.

The real Rainier Green was another little boy, and if Anthony Green had not needed him alive, the real Rainier's name would have been buried with him.

But society being the unforgiving pit of snakes it is, Anthony recognized that he must meet certain expectations. So the alchemist very quietly went to the muggle orphanage, and chose a suitable replacement for his son. Visitors did so rarely come around these days, the Green name having receded from prominence. Who would notice? And children get so big so very fast, and of course a child's hair is expected to get a little darker as he ages. He was the right size, had the same shaped nose - and when the boy failed to show signs of magical talent within the year, Anthony could simply do the proper thing and disown the "squib."

But Rainier never became a squib.

5 years ago, the boy who would be Rainier Green's house burnt down. His parents could not find the matches, but he had been warned. When they left him, they explained - they simply could not afford to keep him.

But Anthony made certain he would earn his keep.

It is not an easy process to make gold - nor an easy process to bring forth a Green from mud. But the Greens had been practicing spagyric for centuries, and by hook or crook, the boy would be useful in their search for panacea.

And Rainier wanted to be a Green.

Cruel taskmaster or not, Anthony had fire, and Rainier had always been drawn to flames. Anthony readily taught him: fire had purgative qualities, and essences could be wrought through flames. So at first, when Anthony handed him potions, the little Green quaffed them at the same time Anthony did, no matter how his stomach churned to look at them. And at first, Anthony had claims for each: this one would make them faster (and it did!); that one would make them stronger. (It didn't.) This one would take away freckles, and, he swore, this next one would fix the gastroparesis that nothing seemed to fix.

Be brave. Be grateful. I could have left you in that place, but I didn't; I love you, Rainier.

But soon, every potion became the potion that would fix everything. Rainier could see that Anthony believed it. Rainier believes, it, too.

We will fix everything.

No matter the cost.

Rainier does not like the name Rainier, but he still wants to be a Green, and so that is what he asks friends to call him - just "Green."

But he did not learn the lesson the real Rainier learned too late: intentions aren't everything.