Willem

Willem was the First Captain of the Watch and the uncle of Peter Jaxon and Theo Jaxon. His place in the family and his leadership role brought him into the Long Rides with Demetrius Jaxon, journeys beyond the Colony that carried the riders farther than anyone had gone since the Day.

Role on the Long Rides

Willem and Demetrius led the Long Rides together, traveling east toward the morning sun and west beyond the horizon into the empty cities of the Time Before. Demetrius returned with accounts of what they had seen, including the ocean at Long Beach. For Peter and Theo, listening to their father recount these journeys made the distant world tangible; Willem was among the leaders who had gone out to encounter it firsthand.

Death near Milagro

When Peter was fourteen, a scouting party led by Demetrius was ambushed in the eastern deserts at Milagro. Three people died, including Willem. His death was part of the immediate cost of the expedition and brought the Long Rides to an end. The Colony had not heard from other Colonies for years, and the last known one, Taos Colony, had fallen decades earlier, leaving the purpose of further journeys open to doubt.

Family and the Mercy

Willem's death remained bound to the Jaxon family's grief. Peter understood that Demetrius had loved Willem more than anyone else in the family. After the party returned, Demetrius seemed weighed down by sorrow, stepped down from the Household, and began riding alone. The narrative links this change to the loss of Willem, while also showing that Demetrius's solitary departures became a separate and unexplained pattern.

Willem's role as First Captain also shaped what happened after Demetrius disappeared. Under the Colony's custom, a wife or mother could not stand for a missing family member at the Mercy, so fathers, brothers, and eldest sons performed the duty. When the expected return did not come, Theo stood for Demetrius; Peter later stood for Theo. Willem had once performed the same duty for a child whose family had been lost, showing how his office placed him within the Colony's practices of waiting for, and finally responding to, those taken outside the walls.

Significance

Willem is remembered through the consequences of his death: the end of the Long Rides, Demetrius's grief, and the succession of family members who must stand at the Mercy for one another. His death also belongs to the larger uncertainty of life beyond the Colony. Demetrius had claimed to see a solitary Walker near Milagro before the ambush, but the account was dismissed by those who opposed the rides. Willem's death thus stands at the point where an expedition's human cost and an uncredited report of a Walker meet.