"One day, a stranger came to his door. She said that she had been cast 
out by the cruel Kings and Queens of the Land Beyond and that she needed a 
place to sleep and would do any kind of work in exchange. At first she slept on 
the floor and cooked and cleaned for the fisherman all day long, but as Nell 
and Harv got bigger, she began to give them more and more chores, until by the 
time their father disappeared, they toiled from dawn until long after 
nightfall, while their stepmother never lifted a finger."