Building Bones

I kicked at a bone. “Use the bones to get out. They aren’t holding you in…” I muttered under my breath. “Yeah, right.”

Edgar kicked a bone, too. He kicked it right into my leg, and I yelped. “Doggone it, Edgar, that’s gonna leave a bruise!”

He sighed noisily and replied, “Just look at the thing, will you?”

I looked. I picked it up, turned it over in my hands and scrutinized it. Then it occurred to me that it might fit with the bone I had just kicked. Intrigued now, I picked up that bone and held the two ends together. To my amazement, they stuck.

I turned to Edgar in surprise, but before I could say anything, he said, “Yes, yes, I know. Now find another one to go with them.”

So, still half reluctant, I set off on a treasure hunt for bones. Some of the bones that would fit I rejected; they didn’t do what I wanted them to do. Others didn’t look like they’d fit until I held them up to my growing creation and fiddled them around a bit. Then, suddenly, they worked and added themselves onto the whole.

I grew entranced by what I was doing, and before long I had a huge…something.

“Well, you’ve got the bones there. Guess you haven’t lost the knack for that, have you?” Edgar said, rather snarkily I thought. But I held my peace and fitted another bone into place.

“So what is it?” he asked, finally. “It’s hard to tell from just the bones.”

“Well, it must be a dinosaur, since these are dinosaur bones,” I replied, looking up and down at what I had created. “Except, well, it may not a real dinosaur. I mean, I kind of used whatever bone I wanted to, not necessarily the actual bone that was supposed to go there…”

“Since this isn’t a scientific exhibit, I don’t think it matters,” Edgar told me.

“True. Besides, even the early paleontologists used to do that, although it wasn’t generally on purpose. Remember what confusion there was with the Brontosaur and the Apatosaurus?” I snickered.

“Here’s the thing. Do you want it to be a dinosaur?” Edgar asked me.

“Well, I’d really prefer a dragon. Mostly, I like the things that are whimsical, or magical, or just not quite what you’d expect. Sometimes I want them to be dinosaurs, and sometimes I even want them to be dogs and cats and really ordinary, but not usually.”

Edgar nodded, as if he had expected as much. “Then make it so.”

“Excuse me?”

“Make it a dragon. If you want a dragon, then make it a dragon. You don’t have to have a dinosaur if you don’t want to.”

“But how?”

“You know how. Just like you knew how to put the bones together when you didn’t think you did.  Just think about what you want, and make it that way.”

 I looked at Edgar, and then at my bony structure. I opened my  mouth and then I closed it again. I looked back and forth again, and then my gaze stuck on the bones. “He’s red,” I muttered, “and he has wings that are lined with gold….And over there’s a scar from the time he made that donkey mad….” And as I spoke, the bones began to grow flesh. Red hide flowed over my creation, and wings with gold underneath. There was a scar, too, a bit bigger than I had thought, and still raw so that I knew it was a recent injury, with a story behind it – a story the dragon was probably going to tell me when he finished coming into being. Or maybe not; maybe there was another story waiting…

The dragon was fully fleshed now, and I knew all about him. I knew the story he had with him, and I knew what he liked and didn’t like – all the details that would make him an interesting character. I turned to Edgar, my face lit with delight.

“I can do it, Edgar! I can still do it!” My heart was pounding and I was shouting with excitement.

Just then I heard something rustling in my backpack. The pack rocked and then tipped over, and the top flopped open. A small, plain tin box rolled out of it and settled on the dry, sandy floor of the valley. The lid of the box moved upwards a little bit, with a tinking sound, as if something on the inside were hitting the lid and trying to open it. It moved again, and again. Edgar and I both stood there staring at it.

With one last tink, the lid popped off and landed upside down in the sand. And pouring out of the box came a Thing.

It looked a bit like an oversized earwig, but it wasn’t. It looked a bit like a millipede but it wasn’t. It looked like a lot of nasty, crawling insectile things, but it wasn’t any of them. My hair stood on end and I edged backward, away from the nasty Thing, my skin crawling.

But the Thing didn’t even look my way. It headed straight for my dragon, who was also watching it apprehensively. It swarmed up the dragon’s leg and began to gnaw on it, the flesh dissolving under the assault.

 ”It’s tearing up your creation,” Edgar whispered to me as I stood there gaping.

I stared at the destruction that was going on. Something about it mesemerized me.”Yes, well, it wasn’t all that good anyway…Look, that bit it’s going after now wasn’t quite what I wanted. And no one really would have liked that bit,” I continued as the Thing moved on to other parts of my dragon. The bared bones it left behind began to fall apart.

Edgar gave a great “HEE-HAW” and charged towards my dragon, knocking me to one side. I sprawled in the sand, a stray bone jabbing into my palm, as Edgar ran at the awful Thing and leapt into the air, grabbing it in his strong jaws. With a snap, he bit it in two and with a crunch he chewed up the pieces. Then with a shudder, he swallowed the Thing.

“Wha…what WAS that Thing? Where did it come from?” I asked, climbing back to my feet, still feeling dazed by the sequence of events.

“You should know – you brought it with you. Didn’t it come out of you backpack?” asked Edgar, who seemed to be trying to get the nasty taste out of his mouth.

“Yes, but I don’t remember ever packing that box, and I know I’d never pack anything like that Thing,” I replied, stung by the accusation.

“Didn’t you? You really don’t know what that was?” Edgar asked me.

“No, I…”

“It was your inner critic.”

“THAT nasty Thing?”

“Yes, what did you think your inner critic would look like? The Good Fairy?” Edgar replied sarcastically.

“And you ate it for me?” I was torn between admiration for him and shame that he had eaten that disgusting Thing for me – something disgusting that I was responsible for.

“Yes, I ate it for you. Now are you going to put the flesh back on the poor creature or let another inner critic out of the box?” Edgar asked testily.

“First let me throw that box as far away as I can,” I said, reaching for the box and preparing to hurl it into the bones in the distance.

“Don’t bother,” Edgar told me. “Not only are you so bad at throwing that you’d be lucky to get it any distance at all, it won’t do any good. It will just end up back in your backpack, or pocket, or under a rock in the garden or in with the dog toys. It’s always there, always waiting, always around. What you do have to do,” he continued in a slightly kinder voice, “is be on guard for it, and be ready to slam the lid of the box back on as soon as you see it trying to get out. You usually have warning, don’t you?”

I hung my head. “Yes, I do,” I mumbled. I felt dreadful.

Edgar walked up to me and butted his head against me. “Just fix the dragon,” he said.

I looked up. The poor dragon was half gone. As quickly as I could, I put him back together and then looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “You’re a fine and wonderful dragon, and I’ll be pleased to tell your story.”

The dragon looked at me, then looked at the sky. He stretched and then, and with a huge gusting pump of his wings, he took off into the hot, blue sky. I watched until he became a dot in the distance.

“Well, that’s another story birthed and launched. Literally launched,” Edgar chuckled.

“I’m sorry about the critic, Edgar,” I started to say, but he cut me off.

“No, I knew it would come out. They always do, at some point.”

“But you ATE the thing. It must have tasted awful!’

“Well, it wasn’t a fine grain mixture, it’s true, but I AM a donkey. I mean, I eat thistles, for Pete’s sake. And you should see some of the bugs that come along with the grain!” he said. “Don’t worry about it. But try not to let those critics out of the box too often, okay?” He shuffled over to another pile of bones. “Now let’s see, what could you do with these?”

-She Wolf ©2009

Nothing But Bones

I sat in the middle of a field of bones. They jutted up from the sand, lay in piles, blended in with the rocks. I sat there on a large thigh-bone of some long extinct giant, head in my hands, while Edgar looked at me.

“It’s all bones. There’s nothing else. They’re everywhere, and I can’t get away from them. They’re trapping me, holding me, and I can’t get out,” I moaned. “Every time I think I’ve found the way out, they rise up again, like some evil, mindful labyrinth, and trap me again. I can’t even think any more, much less be creative. I don’t know what to do. They’ve grounded me completely and I’m lost.”

I rested my head on my knees. Edgar still said nothing. The bones lay there, still and silent and so – final. The air was silent too. Nothing lived here, no insects, no small mammals, no lizards or snakes. There was nothing but bones baking under a cruelly hot sun, and me sitting there amidst them, with Edgar looking on.

“You know, we can’t survive here, and you’re the one who has to get us out,” Edgar finally said.

“I’ve been lost here for so long that I don’t think I can get out,” I replied hopelessly. “I used to dream of dragons, and sprites, and cats with wings. They came to me and played with me and I wrote about them. Now I can’t even dredge up something so everyday and ordinary as a dinosaur. All I can do is sit among their bones. And they don’t talk to me anymore. They just hold me here and taunt me.”

“At least you can still see that these are dinosaur bones,” said Edgar. “They aren’t a nameless heap of calcified rubble. They aren’t even skeletons in the closet. They still have a chance. YOU still have a chance. You just have to stop letting the everyday things make traps for you.”

I cocked my head slightly and looked at him out of one eye, pushing back my hair so that I could see him better.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“These bones are the bones of your ideas, waiting for you to flesh them out. They are here, and still at least dinosaur bones, even if they aren’t dragon bones right now. You can still put them together and make them real again. These aren’t what’s grounded you. Other things have grounded you, made  you feel trapped. You need to use these bones to make a way out of the trap. Use them to free yourself.”

“I don’t think I know how anymore, Edgar. Maybe I should just go home. There’s plenty of stuff going on there to keep me busy. Stuff I need to deal with. I don’t really need to spend my time writing, do I?” The last was a bit choked because all of a sudden my throat seemed clogged. A bitter tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and splashed on the dry, dead bones underneath me.

-She Wolf © 2009

Shaking Things Up

It had been a while since I went a-journeying with a donkey. It seemed to me that both times I hooked up George (we won’t discuss the small adventure with Shirley), I came out much the better for it; he really sparked my imagination somehow, and reminded me to send my inner critic on a long, dry hike. So when Enchanteur called for people interested in another donkey trip, I decided to sign up. Despite the fertile ground of the Vulcania, my inner critic was riding high, and I needed to put her in her place for a while.

It was almost midnight when I grabbed my pack, stuffed it with a few spare clothes, my writing supplies and my sock-knitting things. Then I put on my hiking boots  and rummaged in the closet for my wolfs-head walking staff – I couldn’t play itinerant story-teller without that, now could I? I checked my pocket to make sure I had my magic walnut with me this time, and then checked the other one for my pocket knife and black basalt worry stone. Everything was there, and I nodded and stepped outside into the night, making my way down the gangplank to the wharf. Overhead, the stars were twinkling and the moon hung just under the horizon, lending it a glow just at the edge where the sea and sky met.

The night was cool with just the barest hint of a breeze, and I thought to myself that it was a fine night to be starting on a trip. Just as midnight chimed in a nearby bell tower, I stepped around the corner of the pub and saw people and donkeys milling around in the stable yard. Most of them were already paired up, and I stood there  peering into the pool of light, looking for one donkey in particular.

I looked at each donkey’s face, the set of each stubborn rump, but I couldn’t see the donkey I was looking for. George, my good and able companion from other days, wasn’t here. For that matter, neither was Shirley of the bad luck, which was for the best, but I really had been hoping to see George again. I sagged a bit, disappointed. It just wouldn’t be the same without George.

A donkey detached himself from the throng and walked towards me with purpose. He was lighter in color than the other donkeys, and as he got closer, I saw that he was grey in places. “Like my hair,” I commented out loud, smiling at him. He brayed a laugh at me, catching my reference right away.

“George sends his regards, but he said you needed me this trip. I’m Edgar, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, She Wolf.” He bowed his head at me in a courtly manner. “Bit of writer’s block and inner critic lately, eh?” He snickered. “I’m a champion unblocker, and inner critics have been known to run in terror at the very mention of my name. We’ll have you set right in no time.” He nodded decisively. “First off, leave that staff.”

I looked at the walking staff in my hand. “But I always take my staff with me. It’s part of the whole story-teller gig,” I whined.

“Nope. You’ll be riding me at least for a while. You won’t need it. And when you do, you can make a new one. Good for your creativity. We need to shake things up a bit. Now give that staff to that fellow waiting over there, and he’ll take it back to the Vulcania for you. Hurry up!” he added as I stood looking back and forth between my beloved staff and the ship’s porter.

“Fine,” I sighed, and took the staff to the man, giving him my cabin number. With a smile, he added it to a few other things he was collecting to take back to the ship.

I plodded back over to Edgar, sulking. This was not going my way so far. I tied my pack to the saddle-bags already on his rump and then he and I joined the rest of the group waiting to start the journey.

-She Wolf ©2009

Why I Didn’t Go to the Carnival

I got lost on the way to the carnival. No, that’s not strictly true. I made it to the carnival, but somehow got shunted off on a side street almost immediately and never really made it back. After I wandered around lost for a bit, I finally made it to the wharf. I was almost back to the ship when I tripped over something and fell head first into a dingy that someone had tied up near the Vulcania.

I guess I knocked myself out – and pulled the rope loose when I fell into the boat, too,  because a little bit – or maybe quite a while – later I woke up with a headache, floating out in the middle of heaven-only-knows-where in a dingy that smelled strongly of fish. There was a set of oars in the boat, but since it was dark out and I couldn’t see lights anywhere, I decided it would be a really bad idea to start rowing in the wrong direction and end up even farther out at sea. Besides, my head really hurt.

So I sat there, bobbing along in the middle of a whole lot of water, watching the stars overhead and feeling the gentle breeze flow past me. At least it was calm and clear. I didn’t want to contemplate what it might be like otherwise.

I decided that when daylight came, I’d see what I could do in the way of finding land. Even if I didn’t, eventually, someone would notice I wasn’t where I was supposed to be and come looking for me. I just hoped one or the other would happen before I: a) died of thirst, b) starved to death, or c) baked to a crisp in the sun. None of those sounded good.

But when morning came, I could see land not too far off, so I started rowing. Several blisters and the start of a sunburn later, I ground ashore on a sandy beach. I hauled the boat up above the tide line – it wouldn’t do to lose the thing; not only was it not mine, I might need it to escape the island I was on should things here turn out to be, ah, less than hospitable.

The first thing I went looking for was a fresh-water stream. I didn’t find that, but I did find something better – a kiosk selling bottled water, ice cold. I seemed to have landed on an inhabited island. This was good news indeed. At first.

I didn’t have any of the local currency on me to pay for the water, so the fellow running the stand wouldn’t sell me any. He also refused to point the way to a public drinking fountain, and made several rude remarks about people who drank too much. I really resented this, since I hadn’t had a chance to drink anything at all last night, much less something alcoholic. I tried to point this out, but he closed his shutters and locked his door and refused to answer when I pounded on the outside and shouted.

Fine. I would just go and find my own drinking fountain. Somebody here was bound to be more helpful than the man who sold water.

The kiosk was located at the end of a small, cobbled street. It was still early enough in the day that there weren’t a lot of people out, and the ones that were first looked at me as if I had two heads and then refused to make eye contact. I caught sight of my reflection in a store window and figured out why.

My hair was tangled and standing on end, I had an enormous bruise in the middle of my forehead, and I was smeared all over with the nameless gunk from the bottom of the dingy. I looked like I had been homeless for months and I smelled like the boat had – very, very fishy. I realized that I needed a whole lot more than a drinking fountain.

It took a while, but I finally got someone to listen to me, for all the good it did me. It seemed that water was in very short supply on this island, and there were no public drinking fountains, wash basins, or anything of that sort. They did suggest that I should take a long walk off a short pier, but I don’t think they were suggesting that I use it as a method of cleaning up. The people on this island certainly were an unfriendly lot.

When I reached the far side of the island, I could see another island off in the distance. I decided to take my chances, try to make it to the next island, and hope they were a nicer bunch there. I skirted the edge of the little town on my way back to the dingy. I was not in the mood to deal with the folks here anymore.

I did make sure to wash up in the sea before I shoved off again. I should be dry again by the time I made it to the next island.

Not only was I dry, but I was wet again, with sweat this time, by the time I made it around the island and across the channel. I landed right by a stream flowing into the sea. I heaved a great big sigh of relief – I was so thirsty I was ready to go face-down in a mud puddle.

I followed to the stream up a ways to make sure that there wasn’t something better to drink, like a fountain, and ran right into a crowd of people.  The people here were much friendlier than those in the town on the last island, and I was soon gulping down icy-cold water. The water was good, and I’m sure they had plenty of it. They definitely weren’t drinking it. They were clearly drinking something that was a whole lot stronger than water.

I was a little bit puzzled, though, when the people started talking about how they wanted their contestants to be in the best shape possible. When I finished with my water, several eager – and tipsy – people started pulling me after them. I tried asking what was going on, but no one was listening. They were all too excited, and kept telling me to stop being silly and hurry up or I’d miss my turn.

They tugged and pulled me up a slope to where an even larger crowd was gathered. They pushed me through the crowd and then I saw what sort of contest was going on. I stood at the edge of a very high cliff, with waves washing far below me and several people bobbing around in the water down there, looking a little too far away for my tastes. It was a cliff diving contest.

Now, if there’s one thing I am afraid of, it is heights. I can get weak-kneed and trembling on a small ladder.  Standing on the edge of this cliff, I felt like I was going to faint. I back-pedaled from the edge of that cliff so fast, I looked like a cartoon character. Several people grabbed at my arms and, laughing, tried to push me back. With a sudden burst of strength, I pulled loose from them and raced away, back down the path and across the little island to where I had left the dingy. My feet felt like they had wings on them, I ran so fast. Panting, I dragged the dingy out into the sea as quickly as I could, and began rowing.

 While I had been weaving back and forth on the lip of the cliff, I had seen another island in the distance. I set off for it.

By the time I made it around the island of the cliff divers and across the next channel, my blisters had blisters. The island I came to next had cliffs almost the whole way around it, so I just kept on rowing. Finally, on the far side, I saw an opening in the cliff wall and rowed up a small inlet. By the time I found a place I could beach my boat, it was getting dark, and I lay down on the sand above the high tide mark and watched the stars until I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I was thirstier than ever. The drink I had yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago, so I went poking around near the rocks and found a small stream bubbling up from the side of one of the cliffs. Then I hiked to the top, and, standing well back from the edge, had a look around. There had to be more islands somewhere, and some that were well inhabited – the cliff-diving people had to come from somewhere. I gazed around in all directions and finally I thought I could see a little bit of land far, far away. When I spotted what had to be a ship heading for it, I thought that finally, I might have a bit of luck. I made note of which direction the island was and climbed back down. I made sure I had a good long drink of water before I left, too.

Using the sun as a guide, I set off in the direction of the island. I soon found that I was heading in the right direction, because there was a shipping lane along the way. Apparently my dingy was too small to see easily. I had a close call with some sort of cargo ship. The crew stood on the deck, yelling at me to stay out of the way; I was rowing as hard as I could at the time and was desperately trying keep from getting run into. I muttered a few words that were not appropriate for polite company and followed in the ship’s wake, since it seemed to be heading for the island. I should be able to keep it in sight for a little while, at least.

As it turned out, the ship wasn’t heading for the island, but it did go close enough to it for me to see where I was going and veer off to the island myself. I got caught in a bit of a current that dragged me along most of the side of the island before I finally managed to get loose and row to shore.

This time, I was in luck. The island wasn’t inhabited, but there were some people fishing there – reasonable, sane people. When I told them where I was from and what had happened to me, they gave me food, water, sunburn lotion, band-aids for my blisters, and a place to sleep for the night. The next day, they tied the dingy to a bigger boat and took me back to the island of the Temple People.

Just at sunset, I tied the dingy back up to the wharf about where I thought it might have been originally. As I finished looping the rope, a fellow who looked as rough as I felt came stumbling up to me.

“Hey, m’dingy! Foun’ it as last…” He smiled beatifically at me, and fell into the boat, where he promptly started snoring.

I shook my head and headed back to the Vulcania. I had had enough carnival to last me for a while, and decided to spend the next little bit in my cabin. My nice, safe cabin.

I got a few stares from my fellow passengers as I made my way through the corridors and decks. I couldn’t blame them. My hair was tangled and stiff with salt. I was sunburnt, band-aided, and my clothing was rumpled and filthy. I still had a big purple bruise on my forehead.  I answered a few questions from my friends and then locked myself in my cabin with a jug of ice water and a bottle of nice-smelling bubble bath and promised myself that I wouldn’t come out for at least a day.

-She Wolf ©2009

Ghost Ship – Part 2

As I sat there gawping, a grappling hook winged down from the ship above me and hooked under one of my dory’s seats. Another one came down and hooked under a seat at the other end of the boat. Then, with my boat held fast, the ship above me sent down a rope ladder. I just stared at it. “I can jump overboard and swim for shore,” I thought, but I knew that in these seas, I’d probably drown even before I froze to death in the icy waters. Either way, death was inevitable.

When I didn’t climb the ladder immediately, the hooks on either end of my little vessel were jerked up and down, making it even more unstable than the rough waters  had made it. Clearly, the message was that either I could safely climb aboard or I could take my chances with being dumped into the sea when my dory was hauled aboard. I sucked in a deep breath, made sure my knife was in my pocket and my spare was in my boot, and climbed the slippery, half-rotten rope ladder. My boat was hauled up underneath me.

As I climbed over the railing, I took a good look around me. There was a crew aboard the rotting vessel, sure enough. And they all looked like drowned men – fish belly pale and cold, with straggling hair and tangled beards. Their clothing was made up of rags and tatters. They didn’t smell of rot as the ship did, and I was grateful for small blessings. One man, a big fellow with only two teeth showing in his ugly grin, grabbed me by my arm and dragged me away from the railing and towards the center of the ship without saying a word. My boots slipped and skidded on the slimy deck as I fought against his grasp, but I could not free myself. I found myself being dragged below decks and then into a cabin.

The crewman pushed me into a chair beside a table and then left. I could hear the door being bolted behind him. I could see that the cabin was stuffed with  myriad of items of all sorts – it was a regular treasure house, if you don’t mind your treasures being water-rotted and covered with barnacles.

Before I could even get up the nerve to leave my seat and look around, the door slammed opened again. The man who entered could be no one less than the captain, to judge from his dress.

“So this is what the crew dragged in, is it? A lobsterman. Out in a growing storm to check traps that have been empty for days. Surely this is a desperate man, and perhaps he even knows that he’s a dead one.” The man broke into a creaking laugh. “Don’t you know better than to put out to sea when there’s a storm brewing and the ghost ship has been seen? Or are you just suicidal?”

I worked to get enough spit in my mouth to answer him. Finally I croaked, “Desperate. You said it the first time. I’m a desperate man.”

“Well, you’re aboard the ghost ship now, Laddie-buck, and make no mistake, it must mean that you’re a dead man and cursed to sail with the rest of us cursed fools, mustn’t it?” He leered at me and walked around to the other side of the table, where he dropped into a chair. I could hear the wind rising outside and knew, with a sinking heart, that there was no way I could make it to shore safely now, even if I weren’t captive aboard this nightmare ship. As if to emphasize this, the ship pitched and rolled with the waves and wind. “What were you thinking? Even if the storm didn’t scare you ashore, wasn’t the thought of the ghost ship enough to keep you safe home?” He glared at me with dead eyes.

“I didn’t believe. I thought it was all superstitious nonsense and rot.” I was babbling. Part of me was saying that telling the captain of the ghost ship I though he was rot wasn’t such a good idea, but it seemed my tongue and my brain weren’t connected anymore.

“Well, now you know better, don’t you!?” He wheezed out another laugh. “I’ll leave you to cool your heels here for a bit. I’m needed on deck.” He made sure to bolt the door behind him again.

As the ship rolled in the heavy waves, I explored the cabin, hoping for a way out. Just as I had noted when I first saw the room, it was full of treasures of all sorts. There was furniture from the finest European cabinet makers, carved and once gilded. There were figurines from the Orient, and rotting bits of silk. I found a spice chest with no spice left in it, but it was heavily carved and a work of art in itself. Finally, lying abandoned on a desk bolted to the wall, I found the ship’s log.

I picked the book up and took it back to my chair to read it. Much of it was unreadable, the ink having run and the pages stuck together from its immersion. But the last few pages were still legible, the ink having been switched to a permanent sort.

“There’s a storm brewing,” read the first readable entry. “Don’t know if we will be able to weather it. We need to find a safe harbor.”

The next one read, “A fishing boat has signaled us. The captain indicated that he knows of a safe harbor…we will follow his sail.”

Then came another entry. The handwriting was staggering, as if the writer were having trouble holding on to the pen. “We have been tricked, and led astray. The fishing boat was a cover for wreckers, who led us onto a sandbar. We are exposed to the full fury of the storm – the ship will not last much longer. I fear that all is lost, and ask the Good Lord to take me, His humble servant, and my loyal crew, good men all, safely into his bosom. And I pray that the villains who have done this to us will rue this day.”

I pause a moment in my reading. But the log continued, so surely he must have survived?

But the next entry was in a different handwriting. “Have taken over the ship. For a wonder, she lasted the storm although the captain and crew did not. She is a prize indeed, and stuffed with goods for us to sell. I believe I’ll keep her. She’ll need a few repairs, but it will be nice to have such a fine ship as a base of operations.”

Then, later: “Taking on water. I don’t know where the leak is and if we can get it patched in time. To add to the trouble, another storm is coming. I don’t think we can make it to shore in time to save the ship and ourselves. Just desserts, I suppose. Fate seems to have dealt us an irony – we have killed by the sea will ourselves be killed by it.”

That was the last entry in the log. From the look of the ship, she had indeed gone down, with all hands – those pirates from the wrecker’s crew – aboard.

I put the book back and paused, thinking. The captain had called them cursed. They were a wrecker’s crew, sailing a stolen ship and had gone to the bottom in yet another storm. I was suddenly certain that I would not be left to perish aboard this ship to join these evil men who were certainly continuing their dreadful ways in their afterlife.

I raced around the cabin again and settled on a porthole, finally deciding to take my chances in the stormy sea. Better to perish cleanly that way than to lead a corrupted life after death.

I snatched my knife from my pocket and began prying at the swollen wood. It wasn’t budging, so I grabbed a chair and began to batter at the glass with it. It shattered on the first blow, but even then it was too small to allow me through. The wind and rain blew in with a vengeance, though.

As I continued to swing at the wooden frame, hoping to bash a larger hole, the door to the cabin flew open again. The captain stood there, bellowing, “What do you think you’re doing, you fool!”

I was across the room in one leap, pinning the captain against the wall. “You’re nothing but a bunch of wreckers and pirates  ! I’ll not spend eternity joining your crew! I’ll take my chances in the storm before I’ll join you in this hell, pirating and wrecking and plundering and killing!” I pushed my arm against the captain’s neck. His dead white eyes, cloudy and dim stared back at me. Then, with a strength that was no longer human, the strength of a man beyond injury, the captain of the ghost ship threw me across the room. I landed in the chair I had been sitting in earlier. It collapsed beneath me and I lay sprawled amidst the splintered wood. My nose was pouring blood where his arm had hit it and I could feel that several of my ribs were injured.

“Hell. You call this ship hell. Well, you’re not wrong there!” he spat. “It’s a hell sure enough, and I’d be glad to be shut of it myself. But the only plundering we do these days is on the bottom of the sea among vessels long since sent to the depths.” He took a small bag out of his jacket and flung it across the room at me. It landed square in my groin with a jingle and despite the pain in my ribs I curled up convulsively. “Take a look. There’s not a coin in there newer than a century old. Keep it. Riches mean nothing to a dead man.”

He stalked forward and grabbed me by my collar. His face inches from mine, he roared, “Hell. Hell is a ship we can’t be quit of, a rest we are cursed to never find. Hell is sinking to the bottom of the sea and then being hauled up again and told that we can’t find rest until was save enough lives to make up for the ones we took when we were wreckers. Hell is going from fishing village to fishing village and trying to scare the slack-witted fishermen into staying ashore when there’s danger at sea. Hell is taking their bloody lobsters and clams and fish to make them think they’re too jinxed be able to fish anymore so they’ll stay ashore. Hell is never knowing if we’ll EVER be able to do enough to make up for what we did wrong in life! You want Hell, Laddie-buck, I’ll give you hell!” He threw me back down again and turned to leave the cabin.

I don’t know where the strength came from, but I leapt to my feet and raced to the door, pushing past the dead man and rushing up towards the deck. As I came out into the full force of the wind, I heard a shout. Then something hit me on the back of the head, and there was blackness.

When I came too, I could still hear and feel the wind and rain. The surface under me was rocking wildly, and there was a grating noise coming from underneath me. Something was pinching my ear. Hard. I batted at it and it pinched my finger hard enough to send me sitting bolt upright into the storm, yelling.

I found myself sitting up in my little dory, which was scraping against the sand of the harbor beach. My head hurt, my nose hurt, my ribs hurt and my groin hurt. My ear and finger didn’t feel too great, either. Still, I was alive and home and my dory – my livelihood – was intact.

My slowly awakening brain realized that I needed to get to shelter before I was swept back out to sea. I jumped out of the dory into knee-deep water and hauled her ashore and then as far up the beach as I could. Finally I looped her rope around a ring in the breakwater and turned to go ashore.

A movement in the boat caught my eye. Oh yes – the lobster. Well, he’d flavor my soup a bit. But when I reached into the boat I was in for a surprise. The small lobster was still there, but so were two huge, fat fellows. They were chasing each other around the bottom of the boat, snapping their claws at each other. Where they had come from, I had no idea.

I grabbed the small lobster and flung him back into the surf. “Grow up and you might make a good meal some day!” I called after him. Then I gathered up the two big lobsters and bound their claws with the twine I kept in my pocket for that purpose. They fought like champions; no wonder my ear and finger had been pinched so thoroughly.

Sticking one into each pocket of my coat, I fought the wind and headed for the butcher’s shop with a wiggling lobster tail sticking out of each pocket.

Inside the butcher’s shop, I found quite a few of my fellow villagers, including Mary Barnham from the dry-goods store. Everyone marveled that I was back alive; they had given me up for dead several hours ago. I told my tale as the butcher took my lobsters and handed me back a meaty beef bone and a handful of coins.

“It’s the truth, so help me, it is. The ghost ship is just trying to warn people to stay off the water for a while. It doesn’t cause the problems. It’s not a jinx. I’ve been there and heard their story and  I’ve the broken nose and cracked ribs to prove it. And the lobsters. Where else can the lobsters have come from?” My neighbors still looked askance at me. I thought again. “The grappling hooks left marks in my boat. I’ll show them to you.”

Mary put her hand on my arm gently. “Will, we’ll look after the storm. All that matters now is that you’re back safe.”

“Aye,” said one of the old men around the stove. “‘Tis quite a tale you tell, of being aboard the ghost ship and coming back to tell of it!” The old men snickered a bit.

I sagged, all my energy gone. I picked up my bone, now wrapped in brown paper for the trip home and into my stew pot, and swept my change into my hand. I reached into my trousers pocket to take out my coin purse to put them away, when my hand encountered something strange.

Slowly, I drew it out and put it on the counter in front of me. It was a bag, and it jingled when I put it down. I carefully opened the drawstring and spilled the contents out on the worn wood of the counter.

A small river of gold and glitters poured out. There were strange coins like none I had ever seen before, and bright red, green and blue stones. One of the old men from the stove leaned over and picked up a coin.

“As I live and breath,” he whispered, “it’s a piece of eight. And these others, some are old French coins…” he flipped it over. “This is well over a century old. Where did you get this, Will?”

“This must be the bag the captain threw at me. I thought I left it on the floor of the cabin. They must have put it in my pocket…”

Mary was touching the stones gently with a forefinger, “It’s a ruby, Will, and an emerald and a sapphire. You have a small fortune  in gems here.” She looked up at me. ” Your tale must be true. Will, I, I don’t know what to say.”

The old men clustering around me looked at me with a new respect.

Then one of them said, “So the ghost ship isn’t causing our troubles, or at least not permanently. But what about the bad things that have been happening on land?”

I shook my head, doubting Will Thomas back again. “Sometimes bad luck is just that. Bad luck.” I swept everything back into the little bag and started to leave.

Then an old codger half-hidden in the corner opened his eyes and said, “Don’t be too sure of that, me laddie. I heard the ghost-coach out on the Harbor Road the other night. They say it only appears to make trouble!” A malicious smile crossed his creased face.

Later on, after Mary Barnham patched me up a bit and bound my sore ribs, I fought the wind and rain and made my way home. And on the way, I could have sworn that over the howl of the wind, I could hear hoofbeats and jingling harness – and the rumble of coach wheels passing me on the Harbor Road.

 

-She Wolf ©2009

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

Daily Dose

I shut the screen door quietly behind me; letting it bang shut like the children did would wake everyone up and that was the last thing I wanted. The morning was still early, the sun not quite up yet. Then cricket song of the night had not yet given way to the buzz of cicadas that would fill the hot daylight hours. The dewy grass was cool on my bare feet as I walked down the front yard to the dock where the fishing boat was tied.

When I stepped onto the dock, I paused a moment to enjoy the glassy-still water. The tide was high and almost ready to turn. There was no breeze to stir the surface into waves, and nothing moved in the water. I would be rowing this morning, then – I couldn’t bear to break this peaceful silence with the buzz of the outboard motor.

My family was under the impression that I was going fishing, and that I was a mighty poor fisherman since I never seemed to bring anything back. It was true that I slipped away in the early morning when the fish were biting and sought out the quiet spots that fishermen liked to  find, but I wasn’t fishing. The truth lay in the waterproof bag that I set in a safe place in the boat before I cast off from the dock.

I put the oars in the oarlocks and set off with the tide, which was now starting to ebb. It would be easier to row with it and then use the motor to come back against it, later on in the morning when the motor’s noise wouldn’t be so raw and harsh. That was fine; one of my favorite spots was only about ten minutes down river.

I enjoyed the exercise of rowing – stretching my body and feeling the boat slip through the water in response. Even though the early morning was relatively cool, I quickly worked up a sweat, and by the time I reached the entrance to the creek I was ready to take a break. But the sun was starting to rise now, the sky was colored a pale rose around the edges, and I needed to hurry if I were to get where I was going in time.

I rowed into the creek. It was narrow after the width of the river, but still a good fifteen feet across. I knew the water was still deep, too, especially with the high tide.  The tidal rivers here near the ocean were slow and silty but wide and deep and filled with life. Some of that life was what drew me out in the early part of the day.

I rowed up the creek, rounding several bends before I found the spot I was looking for. There was a buckeye bush just in the crook of the next bend, and a bed of water lilies on the far side of it. There were no other people here today, which meant I was in luck. I tied the boat to the bush and waited there, bobbing in the middle of the long skinny lily pads locally known as snake tongues.

The moment I was waiting for wasn’t long in coming. As the sun finally pushed over the horizon, the water around me began to stir. As I watched, something began to creep out of the water onto the lily pads. They were small, and looked a lot like dragonflies, red and green and blue, at first glance. But these were no dragonfly nymphs coming out of the water to dry themselves in the new day.

 I watched with delight as the first of the little creatures finished drying off from its swim from its creek side burrow and took flight, buzzing around my head. Another one took off from its lily pad and then landed on the handle of my oar. I dropped my head to look at the little creature up close. It was bright blue, only about three inches long. And it was a perfect little dragon. A mosquito drifted too close and with a quick snap, the tiny dragon trapped it in its jaws and ate it.

Another little dragon, its wings now dry, circled my head once and then landed in my hair. I sat there in the midst of a swirl of dragons no bigger than my thumb as they ate the mosquitoes and gnats that were trying to make breakfast out of me.

Once sated, they spent a few minutes investigating me and the journal that I had taken from my little waterproof bag. I made quick sketches of the tiny beasts as they lit here and there on and around me. One tried to attack my pencil and another tried to eat the marks I was making on the paper. Finally, as the day grew bright, they buzzed off into the heavily wooded swamp by the creek.  Once out of immediate view, they looked like the insects they mimicked, the dragonflies. Only these were far more dragon than fly.

My dose of magic for the day over with, I stowed my journal away once more. I would need a new one soon – this one was getting full the of wonder that I had found. I rowed back out of the creek and then cranked the motor on the boat to go home. I would get there just as everyone else was beginning to wake up and  I would take their ribbing about what a rotten fisherman I was with a smile. What I was catching was far, far better than fish.

-She Wolf ©2009

Hitting the Decks Running

I raced aboard just before they pulled the gangplank up. I was running late, as usual. The steward at the top told me what number my cabin was and a few minutes later, I was dropping my bags on the floor as I looked around in awe – and not the good kind. There had to be some mistake; this room looked like the designer was thinking about harems – in nightmares – when the cabin was decorated. There was a hint of opium den in the décor, too, or maybe Moorish pirate. There were bright and garish hangings covering the walls, all sizes of cushions in clashing colors scattered around the several carpets that covered the floor, and strange looking knick-knacks on low tables and shelves that I sincerely hoped were well secured in case of rough weather.  The bed was draped with a lot of neon-colored filmy cloth that looked like it had the potential to strangle me if I were too restless during the night, although it might be good to keep the bugs out when we reached warmer climes.

The cabin wasn’t precisely ugly, but it was, well, a little over done. At least it was cozy. Apparently, this was what I got for waiting until the last minute to book my room. Either that, or my friends found out which room would be mine and left me a little welcoming gift…no, Lori and Anita Marie would never do that, now would they?

Anyway, I left my bags in the middle of the room and went out to the railing to watch our departure. The fresh breeze spanked my face and the scent of salt in the air made me smile. The ship’s horn bellowed and as the tugs herded us away from the dock,  I sighed. I really needed a break right now, and was really glad that this opportunity had come up. And to think that I had almost missed the departure!

I stood there, lost in my thoughts, as we cut through the waters of the harbor and headed out to sea.

-She Wolf ©2009