Unwept (11 page)

She found the beam upon the water and followed it back to the lighthouse and the brightly lit little cottage adjacent to it. To her surprise she saw a woman carrying a basket near the cottage. It was the same size as the one the baby had been in. She wondered about the nurse's mysterious little companion. The expanse of her vision widened. Ellis felt as though she were being pulled through the lens of the spyglass to the little scene. She was disappointed as the woman put the basket down at the foot of a wash line and began pulling in linens that had blown dry in the afternoon breeze. No baby. As the woman worked, a little boy tugged at her skirts and scampered about, his hair blowing in the ocean air. Ellis saw that he was chasing large pink moths that were attracted by the cottage lights and, no doubt, the beam of the lighthouse itself. He chattered and romped, trying to coax the flitting beauties into his hands. After the woman filled her basket the little fellow came to her. She swung him around high in the air. Ellis smiled, thinking she could hear the sound of his laughter as he flew in his mother's arms. Ellis felt as though she'd been drawn into their small scene and that she stood only a few feet from them. The woman then tucked the basket under one arm and took the boy's hand. Together they opened the cottage door. Light spilled out and was quickly gone.

Ellis ached to knock on the door and join them.

A sudden gust of wind whipped about her, pushing her slightly off balance. She recovered at once, lowering the spyglass as she gripped the rail and was once again on the porch at Summersend, alone.

A black storm was driving across the waters of Penobscot Bay. Lightning flashed behind the veil of dark and menacing clouds.

The little island in the bay seemed serene and untouchable by the outside world. Ellis collapsed the spyglass and felt renewed shame in being unable to get into the little boat that afternoon. The cottage at the lighthouse seemed to hold all that Ellis's heart desired. She longed for home, family, laughter, peace and the memory to go with it all. The evening air was chill, stirring into a gale as she went inside.

“The storm is coming,” she said as she latched tight the door behind her.

9

WRECK OF THE MARY CELESTE

Capt. Isaiah Walker staggered out of the woods to the shoreline. The storm had called him out of his hiding place like a siren. Through the driven rain and the roll of thunder somehow he sensed more than heard the banshee keening of the wind through the rigging of a ship in trouble at sea.

The beam of Curtis Light flashed through the gale on his right, the sweep of its brilliant rays cutting through the driving tempest. At first Isaiah saw nothing but the sheets of water cascading down from the angry darkness overhead and the lace-like spindrift whipped from the capping waves in the bay.

The captain tried to keep his feet under him in the driving rain. The ship was out there. He could feel her in his bones, struggling against the storm, desperate for the harbor and home.

He knew because he had been there, too.

Capt. Isaiah Walker was not actually a captain in any official capacity of the word, though everyone in the town called him that and, indeed, most of the inhabitants believed him to be of that rank. He had arrived in Gamin under circumstances that he had never fully explained. His dark, weary eyes with the glint of desperation looked with a piercing gaze from over his baggy lower eyelids and the drooping of his hound-dog face. He styled his narrow beard along the edge of his jaw and chin, an extension of his sideburns. His hair was always neatly trimmed—”too neat for a seaman,” those in the town murmured among themselves in disapproval of his affectation.

He did not care for or seek their approval or their company. He longed only to leave the mistakes of his past behind and think upon which wind he should follow next. He did not know where he was going, but he certainly knew the way by which he had come and dreaded that it might be happening once again.

The captain tried to steady his footing on the rocky shore, the soles of his boots shifting on the uncertain ground. His peacoat was soaked, as was the broad-brimmed hat both held and tied firmly to his head. He peered again out from the shore.

She was there. He knew it.

He could hear the scream of the wind through her rigging, cutting above the roar of the storm and the crashing waves against the shore. He had to do something. Had to somehow stop the calamity, although he realized in that moment he had no real means to do so. He reached up and wiped the pouring sheets of rain from his face and looked again into the darkness.

The beam of Curtis Light again swept over the water, its shaft cutting through the darkness in its path.

“There!” the captain cried out with a start, his words swallowed immediately by the gale. “There she is!”

He had only glimpsed her in the swift beam from the lighthouse, but he took her all in at a glance. A schooner, three masted and gaff rigged. Her sails, however, were in tatters, their shreds flailing from the yards. She had heeled over, too, perhaps as far as twenty degrees on her starboard side. Her gunnels were close to the waterline and she rolled sluggishly with the waves.

“She's lost headway and her rudder,” the captain murmured to himself. “She'll founder for sure.”

Lightning cut across the sky just as the lighthouse beam flashed past the scene once more. The bow had shifted with the wind to starboard, rolling the ship heavily on her port side. The brilliance of the lightning flash blinded him for a moment. He reached up once more, wiping the water from his face, then stared again into the darkness.

The lighthouse beam again swung past.

The captain's eyes grew suddenly wide with fear.

The waves along the shore had caught the hull of the schooner, driving her toward shore in concert with the wind. In a moment the bow was surging with the waves directly toward the spot where the captain stood onshore. The bowsprit was already rushing over him, the masts towering above as lightning erupted in the clouds directly overhead.

The captain leaped aside, hurling his body out of the way of the onrushing bow. The bow smashed against the rocks, splintering and groaning as the waves caught the side of the hull, carrying it against the shore. Isaiah clawed at the wet sand, struggling to get his footing as the hull rolled menacingly toward him with the surf. The stern cracked against the jutting rocks, water pouring through the gaping hole into the stern bilge. The ship groaned again, the stern settling firmly into the sand just offshore as the aft hull filled with water. The hull settled backward, nearly righting itself for the last time as the schooner grounded, her keel broken.

Isaiah lay with his back against the sand, staring up at the awful scene. The tangle of masts, stays, ratlines and flapping canvas shreds now he could see only in silhouette against the turn of the lighthouse beam from the other side of the point. He perceived the vague outlines of the ship's name on the prow above him, but he could not make them out in the darkness. The wind shrieked through the taut rigging, an assault on his ears that was like a siren's call to death.

Isaiah pushed himself up off the sand quickly, peering through the driving storm. He cupped his hands to his mouth, calling out against the raging wail around him, “Ahoy! Ahoy there! Ahoy!”

Just like before,
he thought.
But there is something different this time … something has changed.

He glanced up and down the shore. The captain certainly did not expect to see anyone out on such a violent night. He had only come because something about the ship had called him. Yet he wished that someone was here—anyone—who might somehow take the burden of the captain's knowledge from him and let him sink back into obscurity.

That was when he saw the man.

He was lying facedown on the shore. He wore a long coat over wide shoulders and was struggling to push himself up from the sand. Even as the captain watched, the man collapsed back down, his boots milling in the silt without effect.

The captain rushed toward the man, kneeling at his side. He turned the figure over. In the darkness, however, it was impossible to see any details of the man's face beyond a frighteningly dark stain that could be seen covering his forehead and right eye. “Easy, mate! You're ashore now.”

“I … I made it,” the man coughed.

“Aye, you made it, though I don't rightly know how many others were as fortunate.” Isaiah nodded. He glanced up the black side of the hull toward the deck above him. The lines continued to shift and the ragged sail canvas snapped and flailed in the tempest, but he could see no movement of any crew. “I'll just take a look about for your mates and see how they be faring. You look to be in one piece after all. You stand fast right here until I get back.”

The man nodded his ascent, rolling away from Isaiah to face away from him lying on the sand.

The captain stood up and turned his attention back to the ship. The waves continued to crash about the hull, but the timbers were barely moving. Isaiah knew she was grounded solidly and would be going nowhere for quite some time—if ever again. Several of the ship's rigging lines had come loose and now hung over the side. Isaiah tested several and found them shifting free but on his fifth attempt discovered a line that was secured to the deck rail. With practiced ease he used the rope to clamber up the side of the hull. He swung his legs over the gunnel and set foot on the slanting deck.

The deck was littered with debris but deserted. A forward transom was completely dark inside. The main cargo hatch was tightly battened into place, although he could see the pronounced buckling of the deck on either side of the hatch where the ship's keel had snapped. Farther back Isaiah could see a flickering light swinging beyond the portholes of the cabin transom, but not a single crewman was on deck. The helm twisted eerily on its own on the poop deck.

“It's just the waves working the rudder,” Isaiah reminded himself, but the absence of a crew unnerved him. “It's just part of the game is all.”

“Hallo!” the captain yelled into the raging storm as he stepped back carefully along the deck toward the stern, feeling his booted footfalls beneath him. He was more cautious still where the deck planking was buckled. The bent and snapped planks were the surface sign of more mortal wounds to the ship beneath his feet and the deck was less certain here. At last he slipped past the hatch cover to the aft transom. There was a short gangway down to the closed doors of the cabin.

“Hallo!” he shouted again just as lightning tore the clouds overhead and the thunder drowned him out.

The deck suddenly shifted beneath his feet. A shiver ran up Isaiah's spine. He reached for the latch on the cabin doors and pulled them open. Yellow light spilled out from the hatch and he quickly stepped inside.

The howling was muted in the cabin. Isaiah recognized the salon at once. Hurricane lamps rocked back and forth in their suspended mounts, their wicks carefully trimmed and burning brightly. There was a long table mounted to the floor that ran almost the length of the compartment. Chairs were strewn about from the motion of the storm and the collision with the shore.

It was the smell that took him aback. He had never encountered such sensations before. Plates of food were strewn about the cabin, cooked meats, bread, cheese and fruits all tumbled to a mash on the floor. Isaiah reached down and touched a piece of ham on the floor. It was still warm to the touch.

“Hallo there!” Isaiah called out. “Anyone aboard?”

He straightened up and ran his hand down his face both to get the water away from his eyes and as an act of hesitation. He set his teeth and stepped quickly around the table to the darkened hallway beyond. Flashes from the storm came through the transom windows but did not penetrate the corridor well. Isaiah bit at his lip and then stepped into the dark passageway.

“I'm Isaiah Walker!” he called out, his own voice sounding muffled in his ears. He kept talking as much for his sake as for any other ears that might hear him. “You've run aground and I've come to help. Happened to meself once—so I know what you're facing.”

He paused in the passage. The kitchen to his left was warm and he could see the glow from behind the stove grating. The fire had been banked properly.

A dim glow to his left outlined the edges of a passageway door. He fumbled for a moment for the handle and opened it.

It was a passenger cabin, a single candle in its lantern shielding it. The space was typically cramped. There was a trunk and a pair of cases stacked on the floor. The upper case was open. Several dresses were carefully packed in the case, with a long print dress laid out on the bunk next to it.

In the corner of the bunk rested a porcelain doll, its head cracked and missing a piece from its forehead down over its left eye. A baby rattle sat next to it atop a crumpled soft blanket.

“Passengers, and women at that,” Isaiah muttered to himself. He took the candle from the lamp glass and stepped back into the corridor. Another door lay at the end of the hall. He felt a sudden urgency and stepped quickly to open the last door.

It was the captain's cabin in the style of the schooners, cramped and efficient. Captains of such vessels were meant to be on deck, not holed up in their cabins. Under the flickering candlelight Isaiah saw that the captain's cap was resting on his bunk along with his weather gear.

The logbook lay open on the small table, the quill dripping ink where it lay abandoned on the desk out of the inkpot. Isaiah moved the candle closer. Isaiah reached for the book with care and slowly flipped over the cover so that he could read its title.

LOG OF THE MARY CELESTE

Capt. Joseph Aarons Commanding

Isaiah laid the book flat again and peered down at the words written in a tight and precise hand on the page:

SEPTEMBER 6TH, 1917:
Set sail 8:45 am out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, bound for Moncton, N.B. Crew of six, passengers: Mr. and Mrs. Mont-Blanc and child; Miss Julia Carter; Miss Hepseba Lindt. With officers fourteen souls aboard.