Ghost Ship Part 1

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