Folks in the village were talking about it all the time lately. One old codger claimed to have seen the ghost ship in the harbor, just a few nights ago, with its tattered, blackened sails fluttering in the winter wind and St. Elmo’s fire hanging from what was left of her rigging. Folks said that whenever the ghost ship sailed into the harbor, it meant something bad was going to happen, and happen soon. Ever since then, they tried to turn every little tragedy and ordinary mishap into part of the ghost ship’s curse. “Just you wait,” they’d say. “This is just the beginning. It’s going to get much, much worse.”
When the Mary Barnham who ran the dry-goods store told me that one winter morning after relating the latest bit of bad news – someone’s herd of goats had busted out of the pen and got into the grain store and eaten themselves sick – I finally had enough of it. “Balderdash,” I stated. “Poppycock. This is nothing but a load of superstitious nonsense, and we both know it, Mary Barnham. All this going on about ghost ships and curses. It’s just plain foolery. That, and some old man drinking too much of his own brew and seeing things.” I’d have used stronger words than balderdash and poppycock, but my ma had had very set ideas about what was proper language and what wasn’t, and her lessons along that line had stuck. I couldn’t say anything stronger than shucks and darn without the seat of my pants starting to burn with the memory of her lessons.
I set my face in a stubborn scowl and dared her to contradict me.
Instead, she sniffed. “Fine. You just go ahead and think whatever you want, Will Thomas. But you just wait and see. Those of us who know it’s true, well, we’ll be prepared. And you won’t.” She nodded at the measure of dried beans in my hand. “And that’s the last thing you’re going to be able to buy on account here until you’ve paid up what you already owe. And the butcher, he told me the same thing about you this morning. So your luck’s already turning bad. Best watch out.” She turned, marked the price of the beans in the ledger, and bustled off, ignoring me.
I sighed and took my beans home to soak overnight. The news about my accounts wasn’t good, but I still had a bit of salt pork left to cook the beans with tomorrow. That, and an onion from my root cellar and some molasses would make a meal. I could eat on the beans for several days, and by then my luck might have turned around and I’d have lobsters in my traps again and luck in the oyster beds.
The next day there was new talk – and still they managed to link it to the ghost ship. The old folks with weather-wise joints said a big blow was coming. A nor’easter – a storm that would put the hurricanes of summer to shame, they said, and it was all because of the ghost ship. I held my tongue. Nor’easters came and went each winter, regardless of ghost ships. I just went about my business, checking my empty lobster traps and re-baiting them, because something was sure eating what I put in there to lure in the lobsters. And whatever it was wasn’t getting caught in the traps. I was really hoping for a few lobsters to sell at the market, so I could pay off my accounts with the butcher and the dry-goods store and get some food that wasn’t fish or winter root vegetables to round out my diet a little bit.
But still there was nothing in my traps. I couldn’t find any clams or oysters to gather, either.
I checked with the dry-goods store and the butcher, but neither one was relenting. “It’s not just you, Will,” they both said. “We’ve done the same thing to anyone with outstanding balances on their accounts. No one’s catching much of anything these days, and we need some cash ourselves to pay our bills.” I couldn’t fault them for that, but my belly sure wasn’t happy to hear it.
The next morning the blow hadn’t hit yet, and I decided to go out early to check my traps one last time before the storm began. Maybe there’d be a lobster there this time, and I could get enough money for a beef bone to stick in a stew – something to cook on the back of my stove throughout the storm. The sky was just starting to turn light as I got to the harbor and my boat, and the light was red. That was a bad weather sign, sure enough. “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” I repeated to myself as I jumped into my dory and untied it from the wharf. Every child learned that little ditty as soon as they could talk, and as near as I could figure, it was true.
I pulled on my heavy wool mittens, felted by salt water and hard work into a dense fabric of wool that would keep my hands warm even in the winter’s icy waters. The oars were old friends in my hands as I pulled out into the waters of the harbor.
There were a few other boats leaving the wharf when I did, but most of them remained silent and still. Their owners were too scared of the coming blow – that coupled with the sighting of the ghost ship – to leave the safety of their homes today. They’d go along the shore and look for clams and oysters, and do other things closer to home. Only a few of us were desperate enough to take to the water today.
The wind was already whipping up a bit, and the sky was hung with a heavy layer of dark clouds. The reddish light was eerie, sure enough. But eerie-looking didn’t fill my coin purse or larder, and I rowed purposefully for the buoy marking the first of my traps.
Once more, each of them was empty, even of the bait I had put in them. I bit my tongue on some words that my ma would have tanned me for, sure enough. There was one trap left. I hadn’t intended to check it, because it was farther out in the harbor than the others, all the way around a little headland, and the wind was picking up, but now I didn’t have a choice. I turned the boat and rowed around the headland for the last trap.
This one did have something in it. It was an undersized, runty little lobster that wouldn’t even make a child’s meal. I almost threw it back to grow up some more, but stopped. I had to eat something other than potatoes during the storm, and at least I could make a lobster bisque with that and the milk from my goat. It would have more flavor that nothing.
Sighing, I put the lobster away and re-baited the trap, then turned my boat towards shore. The light was dim as though the sun couldn’t find its way through the heavy layer of clouds, and the wind was stronger and cold as an icicle. I rowed as hard as I could, knowing I probably had little time left before the full fury of the storm hit. I had just rounded the headland when I rowed into something with a solid “THUNK.”
Slowly, I shipped my oars and turned to see what I could possibly have run into out here in the harbor on a day when only the desperate had boats out.
I saw a weathered, slimy green wall of boards going up and up. My eyes followed it and suddenly there was no spit left in my mouth at all. It was as dry as if I had stuffed it with cotton wool, and try as I might, I couldn’t even swallow. For what I saw was a ship, looking like it had just risen out of the depths of the sea, covered with sea weed and kelp and glowing with St. Elmo’s fire. It was the ghost ship.
To Be Continued…
-She Wolf (c)2009
Off Starboard
Still fuming from my unexpected encounter with Albion, I decided to take a few strong walking laps around the promenade deck to work off my head of steam. As I came around the starboard side, I noticed a group of a dozen or more passengers and crew standing at the railing. They were staring at something in the distance. One of the officers had field glasses.
As I approached I could pick up snippets of excited conversation.
“Unbelievable!” — “Where do you think it came from?” — “It looks so old!”
I slowed my stride and worked my way over to the group.
On the horizon, several miles away, I could make out what appeared to be a tall-masted ship, something from centuries ago. It sails were hoisted but I could make out no activity aboard.
“Excuse me.” Another officer worked his way to through the crowd. It was the First Officer known to us only as “H.J.”. He approached the officer with the field glasses and motioned for them. He took one look and said tersely to the officer. “Inform the Captain.”
“Uh, sir…. Captain Diabolito is away hunting shape-shifting werewolves on the lower decks. She won’t be back for a couple of days, sir….”
“Well,” he snapped, “inform the Admiral then! This is not good.” The other officer rushed off. H.J. continued to stare through the glasses. His jaw was clenched. ”Not good at all.”
“Commander,” I whispered. “May I take a look?” He handed me the glasses and I put them to my eyes.
I gasped. “It’s Cetea’s Revenge!”
Images and text: L. Gloyd © 2009
E’s Coracle
Heart Coracle
Visible here there should be a picture of me sitting happily in the walnut shell. Just wanted to warn people that just before I jumped into the little ship I was wearing black jeans and a t-shirt. So be prepared for a change of sorts. Still the craft is cool. With a single oar, one must stir the water in front in the shape of a figure 8. This way you draw yourself along. Its not fast. Its not stable. But it is pure joy. Perhaps this means that any emergency we meet on this cruise will not be escaped from in a hurry. There is a knack.
The View From My Window
By Celtic Sea
A curtain of fog lifts as the sun breaks onto the morning stage
Revealing sprite-like figures dancing on the crests of the waves.
Sensing intrusion into their covert recital,
The spirits flit beneath the waters,
Vanishing like a good dream.
Was this my imagination?
My muse incarnate?
Or, just wishful thinking?
Did anyone else witness this daybreak performance?
A Cabin Mate
A strange thing happened to me my first night on board the Vulcania. I had spent the day getting my cabin in order. I had unpacked my boarding trunk and hung my clothes neatly in the wardrobe. A deck steward who seemed magically to know that I was done came and whisked my now empty trunk into storage.
The compact bookcase/computer desk combination I had brought with me fitted well into the cabin décor. It was secured so that it wouldn’t move should we encounter rough seas. My books, several small volumes of Mary Oliver’s poetry, A Trail Through Leaves by Hannah Hinchman, WatercolorPencil Magic by Cathy Johnson, and Into your Digital Darkroom by Peter Cope, had been stowed and strapped in place so they would not come sliding out in the aforementioned heavy seas. My laptop fitted snugly into its compartment. To the right of it, there was room enough for my journal, colored pens and pencils, and other assorted paraphernalia.
I was tired after a full day of arrival and preparation so I slipped early into my bunk style bed. My body seemed to float beneath the colorful down quilt. The design was that of pale blue, tropical waters…a sea with silky wavelets where a myriad of small tropical fish left rainbows in their tiny wakes.
It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep. When I awakened it was dark, except for the moon spotlighting a path through the porthole and onto my pillow. I could not tell what had awakened me except that I thought I heard a voice, one that I could not identify. Out of habit, I looked for my watch but remembered that L’Enchanteur had suggested we leave all time pieces ashore. We would be sailing, she said, by Lemurian time; timeless time is the way she described it. An interesting concept to say the least.
I heard the voice again, or I thought I did. “Who is there?” Looking around, I saw nothing except a diffused green glow on the foot of my bed. I sat up quickly pulling the quilt with me and causing the glow to tumble off the bunk and onto the deck.
“Hey, watch out,” the voice said, “I’m not so young any more and my arthritis…well, it’s been a cold winter, even in Arizona.
What the heck? I was by this time getting a little nervous and beginning to question my sanity.
from Sail Away
Island of Temple People Prepare for Vulcania’s Arrival
This island of the Temple People is a part of the Lemurian Archipelago and, like the Isle of Ancestors is regularly visited by the SS Vulcania who brings a fascinating human cargo to its shores. The island is shrouded in mystery and the initiated are able to participate in special fertility rituals here. Carnival is celebrated on the Island of the Temple People regularly. The celebration continues to grow with the arrival of new pilgrims, some of whom choose to take up permanent residence on the island. Colourful artistic floats, grotesque masks and dance companies of all ages and sexes parade the streets of the town and the main villages throughout the five days. A spontaneous carnival is organised after sunset in the villages. Hundreds of people walk up and down the main street dressed in comically distorted figures and the most imaginative and creative costumes and masks to conceal their identity.
If you are planning disembark make sure to let le Enchanteur know and have yourself added to the Island of the Temple People blog so that you can post some of your impressions there.
