He could see them - big men with eye patches and tall boots, gleaming swords. 'Pirates?' Teddy liked the sound of that. 'Some places just get a name and it sticks. Back then, in the spring of '28, it had been left to itself in a riot of its own vegetation, and the fort that stretched along its highest point was strangled in vines and topped with great clouds of moss. Out past them all, the one they called Shutter lay like something tossed from a Spanish galleon. On Thompson, the high trees were filled with birds, and their chatter sounded like squalls of hail and glass. His father pointed out the prison on Deer Island and the stately fort on Georges. Teddy saw small, pastel-colored shacks lining the beach of one, a crumbling limestone estate on another. They'd left in the dark, and when the sun appeared, it was a cold ivory that pushed up from the edge of the sea, and the islands appeared out of the fading dusk, huddled together, as if they'd been caught at something. He'd cut himself a few times, and the blood dotted his fingertips and smeared his palms. All he'd been able to do was untangle the lines and tie off the hooks. He'd taken Teddy out to the islands when Teddy was still a small boy, too young to be much help on the boat. He lost his boat to the bank in '31 when Teddy was eleven, spent the rest of his life hiring onto other boats when they had the work, unloading freight along the docks when they didn't, going long stretches when he was back at the house by ten in the morning, sitting in an armchair, staring at his hands, whispering to himself occasionally, his eyes gone wide and dark. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.Teddy Daniel's father had been a fisherman. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more.

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Shutter island book cover