It's always hard to know where a novel begins. I think it begins in many places, and then they all come together in the written text. I used to teach Grade 5 music, and we had a week where we would pretend to be pirates for the whole week. They'd write pirate songs, I'd do the attendance like "Arrrr! You be here or you be not here?" and the whole bit. So that was part of it, but I was also thinking about Columbus, and there were these ideas like maybe Columbus was Jewish — which don't turn out to be true, but they're interesting. And one thing that is true is that he actually brought a Hebrew and Aramaic translator with him, because he thought maybe they'd find the lost tribes. So it was interesting to think about who might go with Columbus and what would they think of him.