by Emby Press
Despite our time together, Vera still managed to befuddle me with some of the initial questions she asked our clients. Regardless, they frequently came to pertain directly to the heart of the haunting. In fact, this question clearly held particular meaning for Captain Lord. For the first time, he looked directly into Vera’s eyes.
“I know full well what ya’re asking, madam. I’m an old man, but surely ya don’t think me old enough to have imported slaves from Africa! I’d bet a month’s salary ya haven’t even a notion when such practice was deemed illegal!”
“1808,” Vera returned with a brittle tone. “Of course, smuggling followed after that. But I was referring to shipping slaves from, say, Virginia down to Louisiana, a practice that ended roughly forty years ago. Seamen generally begin their careers as young men, Mr. Lord—and you are clearly a man who’s seen at least seven decades go by.”
A sneer came to the captain’s grisly face. “Sure enough, back during my apprentice days, I bunked with those who had sailed on slavers. From the very start, though, I worked solely on fishing boats, madam!” His hand was rising and taking the form of a fist. “It’s a chain of trolling hooks I said fell from my wall—no chain of manacles, madam!” He struck his fist into his palm.
Though my breath stopped and my neck clenched, Vera remained calm. She merely stared back into Captain Lord’s glaring eyes.
“As such, we shall take your case, Mr. Lord,” she said at last. “Lucille and I will visit you this evening if you jot down the location for us. Come, we’ll find paper and pen inside the lobby.”
The captain complied with Vera’s instructions and departed without another word.
Vera and I lunched at the Granger Galley, a cozy eatery whose tablecloths and drapes were embroidered with seashells and sandpipers. The red-haired proprietress put down her newspaper with a smile, laughing at our being her only customers since the one at breakfast. The menu, which changed daily, was confined to a chalkboard. Vera ordered the cod, and I surrendered to the scent of chowder wafting from the kitchen.
I also surrendered to a nagging curiosity once our hostess left us alone. “1808,” I began, “I didn’t know that bringing slaves from Africa was outlawed at such an early date.”
“You wouldn’t have need to know such a thing,” Vera replied a bit snappishly.
“And you do?”
Vera looked back at the chalkboard before saying, “I should have asked if I could get lemon with my cod.”
I took a less personal approach. “Why did you ask Captain Lord if he had been involved in the slave trade?”
“Oh, the usual matter about guilt,” she replied, turning back in my general direction. “Guilt and ghosts swirl together in all of our cases. I wondered if our ancient mariner might be reflecting back over his life. What other past sins might stab at the conscience of a seaman of his generation?” She snatched the saltshaker to examine it more closely.
“I doubt that someone engaged in slavery is capable of feeling much guilt about it. Your question was so distinctive that I wonder if it might have sprung from your own concerns?” I watched my friend pour a small amount of salt into her palm and taste it. It was my turn to be snappish. “Come now, Vera, it’s a saltshaker. Tip it, and salt comes out.”
She inhaled deeply, returned the shaker to its place, and exhaled slowly. “There is a reason that I so seldom speak of my family. Yes. You are correct about the question having less to do with this sea captain. More to do with—with my own concerns.”
This was a side of Vera that I had rarely witnessed. I spoke with greater compassion than I think I had ever shown her previously. “Vera, you and I have been through quite a lot together. Don’t you know that I—”
She cut me off, confessing, “My grandfather was a sea captain, too. He shipped slaves on that route between Virginia and Louisiana. A shameful thing, and it seems to have clouded my questioning of this fellow. I’ve never been at ease around men of his profession, but he claims to be a different sort of sailor. A fisherman. So let us not be weepy women, and instead consider this business of ghostly ‘marauders’ with clear heads.”
Despite her quick evasion, I considered this one of the most intimate moments I had ever shared with Vera. Of course, I strongly suspected there was more to this family history than she was telling. However, as she once said, a crack in the egg today can, with time, become a roasted goose.
“He said something curious,” Vera continued. “He said he wished we could magically drive these ghosts back to the sea. Yet nothing else in his story suggested they would have come from there. Why does he fancy these to be briny ghosts?”
“Crew members lost while hauling in the catch?” I offered.
“No guilt in that.”
“But if they served him well?”
“These men have a way of hardening to the risks involved. Even those on the Great Lakes are far from dainty tea cups, despite what Mr. Scully suggested. Or—what was his name?”
“Mr. Silva,” I answered. The image of this hefty, affable gentleman inspired an idea I knew Vera might not like. “It occurs to me that Mr. Silva knows this town—and probably Captain Lord—far better than we do. And the captain—did he strike you as a bit unsavory? Might it be wise—or warranted— to ask Mr. Silva to accompany—”
Vera again interrupted, “Mr. Silva strikes me as a man who would be game for some ghost hunting. It’s a small town. Quite likely, this woman fixing our meal would know how we can contact him and extend the invitation.”
“As our thank-you for the music last evening?” I added.
Vera winked. “Yes! Of course! For the music,” so she said.
Indeed, the restaurateur knew how we could reach Mr. Silva during the day. He promptly informed us he could easily find a substitute bartender and would be delighted to join us. The captain’s cottage was in a lonely spot, Mr. Silva explained, and the way to it was too rough for a buggy. He gave us the option of, in his words, “surf or saddle.” Vera and I both eagerly chose his rowing us rather than our riding horses. We met at the wharf an hour before dusk.
The sea was calm during our short voyage, but Vera and I huddled against one another for warmth. We distracted ourselves from the cold air by engaging our companion in conversation. Before long, Mr. Silva recounted a romance about the woman who convinced him to leave the sea behind. The story ended as a tragedy, though, when he spoke of her succumbing to diphtheria just a year or so before its antitoxin became widely known.
“I take comfort in the notion that she’s now an angel,” Mr. Silva concluded, letting the oars drift. He then resumed rowing more vigorously. “On the other hand, I refuse to think of her as a ghost. I confess, ladies, that I’m a bit of a skeptic when it come to the dead rattling chains or carrying their heads tucked underneath their arms.”
“Certainly, the woman you describe awaits you in heaven,” I said. “But the magnitude of the afterlife is very much a mystery—perhaps especially to those of us who investigate it! I’m inclined to think that there’s room enough there for both angels and ghosts.”
“Quite true,” Vera affirmed. “The sheer variety of ghosts we’ve encountered suggests almost unlimited possibilities in the spirit realm. For example, prior to this case, I’d never heard of ghosts that stampede! On this topic, Mr.—uhm, let’s say I call you Scully—what do you know about our client? Is there anything in Mr. Lord’s past that might plague him now with a guilty conscience?”
“I know nothing about his past. All I know is that doing business with him is like scraping barnacles. Takes determination! At times, he’ll tense his muscles as if he’s readying to throw a punch. Always walks off before he does so, though. That seems like a sign of a man trying to do the right thing.”
“Or hoping to not repeat a past crime?” Vera suggested.
I worried that Vera’s ill feelings toward sea captains might incline her to make unfair judgments. I attempted to change the subject. “The captain mentioned that he had tr
olling hooks draped above his mantle. This struck me as odd, but I’m a landlubber, as you say, Mr. Silva. Is that odd?”
He laughed. “Wish I could blame you landlubbers for that, Miss Parsell, but we do it ourselves, too. Funny thing, turning tools of the sailing trades into decorations. Buoys, anchors, even lighthouses. The old skipper is likely trying to put a smidgeon of beauty in his life by hanging that line of hooks in his parlor. Kind of like a strand of garland.”
“Well,” I said, “that somehow makes him seem even lonelier. More sympathetic.”
I feared Vera might disagree with this comment. However, she peacefully surveyed the passing shore for the rest of our ride. The town had given way to untamed coastline, and the few leaves remaining on the scattered trees blazed a bloody red as the sun was beginning to touch the treetops. In this ruddy and slanted light, I recognized Captain Lord’s lopsided figure waiting for us on a pier in the distance.
It was the very same moment that I felt the hard prod of my own foolishness. “Good heavens, Vera!” I cried. “The oboes! I forgot the oboes!”
Vera glanced rapidly around the boat before saying, “Well, this is unfortunate. But don’t let it upset you, my dear. We both forgot the oboes. Understandably so. We came to Cape Cod for leisure, not for work.”
“Oboes?” Mr. Silva inquired. “Should I have brought along my concertina?”
Vera explained, “The oboes help to confirm that we’re dealing with the supernatural. Nonetheless, should Mr. Lord’s ghosts come charging, no doubt that will serve as ample evidence. It is sad you didn’t bring your concertina, though. We might have to spend quite a while waiting for something to happen.”
My chagrin over the oboes had eased by the time we reached the pier, though being back in the company of Captain Lord produced a feeling worse still. All without uttering a word, he caught the rope thrown by Mr. Silva, secured the boat, and helped Vera and me out. The sandy slope up to the cottage was long, and I noticed that the path had been outlined with driftwood. Clearly, the reclusive captain did have a sense of décor, humble though it was.
The cottage was well-weathered but picturesque. The moment we stepped inside, Vera halted. She grasped my arm.
“The oboes are expendable,” she said, “but now we’ve lost our bartender!”
True enough, our escort was no longer with us. Vera shot a cold glance at the captain before she turned to check outside. I tilted my head and grinned at our host. He resumed his habit of examining his footwear. Pardoning myself, I quickly joined Vera.
Mr. Silva was a few yards off the path, standing in a patch of grassy sand beside the cottage. “Spotted something unusual over here!” he called to us. “It’s a fluke!”
“This entire case is the result of a fluke,” Vera said as she strolled to the spot.
“I mean a whale fluke! Well, the marks of one—or maybe of a few,” Mr. Silva said. “An easy way to tell whales from fish is the hind flippers. On fish, they go up-and-down like a rudder. On whales, they’re flat as a pancake, and they’re called flukes. They would leave a print looking very much like this.” He waved us closer and then squatted down.
Though the fading light made them difficult to discern, winding impressions were scattered in the sand. Mr. Silva used his hands and arms to show the lengths of each print, and there surely did seem to be a single pattern to each.
Captain Lord came toward us, revealing the difficulty he had walking in sand. He scolded, “The ghosts strike within the cottage!”
“Of course,” replied Mr. Silva. “But have you noticed these prints? I was just saying they resemble the marks beached whales would make. Same prints left by those blackfish that beached themselves.”
“Blackfish?” I asked.
“They’re a kind of whale, despite the name. A whole school of them were stranded on a beach not too far from here just last year.”
“Aw, ya’re talking like a lunatic!” returned the captain. “The tide don’t come this far for ’em to have left such marks. And where are the carcasses? Or the stench?”
“I’m not saying they are actual fluke prints,” Mr. Silva insisted. “I’m saying there’s a resemblance!”
Vera pressed two fingers against the side of her jaw. She wandered off a few steps, apparently to contemplate what this meant.
“Come help me build a fire, son,” said Captain Lord, assuming an unexpectedly congenial tone. “The night brings a mighty chill this time of year.”
As the gentlemen and I started for the door again, Vera remained where she was, gazing at the prints in the sand. I called to her, but it seemed as if my words flittered like moths. Finally, she turned to me. She dropped her fingers slowly from her jaw and then ambled back to the cottage door.
If Vera were theorizing in the direction that I suspected she might be, we were likely to have a difficult time ahead of us—not just in dealing with stampeding spirits—but also in convincing our companions of the origins of those spirits.
The interior of the captain’s cottage was spare but not uncomfortable. A patchwork of burlap squares did the work of a rug. A magazine illustration of a medieval castle was tacked to the wall, an ancient fortress curiously at odds with this nautical surrounding. A broken flowerpot on the single, small table revealed how the captain’s attempt to beautify the place had been dashed by his supernatural intruders. I noticed the chain of large fishhooks glimmering above the fire the men built. As the flames grew, the various signs of loneliness were cast into shadow as the four faces there now became highlighted.
Vera requested that a lantern be set beside the door, explaining it might prove useful should we need to flee the violent manifestation. With that in place, we gathered chairs by the hearth. Either out of deference or discomfort, Captain Lord sat on a stool several feet removed from the warmth of the fireplace. Leaning against the wall, he lit a pipe, which I suspected was his means to avoid conversation.
Vera also remained silent. Mr. Silva and I chatted about how whales, being mammals, suckle their young and surface in order to breathe. We meandered through other topics: oboes and concertinas, the novel that had disappointed me that morning, and the linguistic nuances distinguishing New England from the Middle West. As often occurs in such situations, there was a moment of quiet during which we all stared into the fire.
“Whales that beached themselves?”
Vera asked this as a casual rejoinder to some topic just discussed, but at least an hour had passed since Mr. Silva had mentioned the beached blackfish when describing those curious prints in the sand. It took a moment before our new friend grasped her meaning. Luckily, his sails caught wind, and he moved forward.
“Ah, yes! Last year! A whole school stranded itself onshore. The oddest thing, but there’s a long history of these beachings. The poor creatures come close to the shoals, probably to feed, and the tide goes out, leaving them to perish onshore. It’s almost as if they forget they belong in the sea.”
“And yet I once heard whales described as intelligent creatures,” Vera commented.
“Now, that’s the very thing of it!” Mr. Silva exclaimed.
Vera quickly raised a finger to her lips, bidding Mr. Silva to hush. She pointed to our host. Captain Lord had extinguished his pipe and was now dozing against the wall. As he had endured several restless nights, it seemed best that we let him sleep. Mr. Silva turned from that direction back to Vera with a smile and a nod.
“That’s the very thing of it,” he repeated in a whisper. “Whales are smart. I’ve heard tell of a crew who harpooned a bull, which then sounded. Once it resurfaced, they discovered that a cow alongside it had bitten on the rope to free her mate. And one of my regulars at the bar swears they’re clairvoyant! If one whale is under attack, others somehow know it and either flee or even come to its aid!”
“Might this response be the result of the attacked whale thrashing and splashing in the water?” Vera asked, keeping her own voice quiet.
Mr. Silva moved his head from
side to side. “The others will sometimes be too far away to hear any splashing. If it’s any sound at all, more likely it’s the singing of the whales.”
“Whales are very smart indeed if they’ve mastered the art of song,” I said, suspecting that Mr. Silva might be making sport of us.
“Not singing in that sense exactly,” he replied. “It’s more of a deep-base warble. I’ve heard it described it as the groan of Goliath as he fell.”
Exactly then, as if cued by a symphony conductor, the poker leaning against the fireplace began to clatter. We noticed that the bricks supporting it were vibrating. The rattling poker suddenly fell with a clang. The three of us could only look at one another dumbly.
Our attention was then pulled toward a new sound. Captain Lord began to mutter inarticulately, though every other sign told us he remained sleeping.
“As I had expected,” Vera said softly as she rose from her chair, “something haunts this old salt in his dreams as well as in his cottage. Something shameful enough to rupture the membrane between the physical and spirit dimensions. Lucille, would you light the lantern by the door? And wait there!”
As I stood, I felt the unsteady vibrations in my feet. Mr. Silva then rose, and he must have felt the tremors also. He steadied himself against the bricks of the fireplace. The chain of trolling hooks started to shudder and shake. All of a sudden, it slipped—but Mr. Silva managed to safely catch the chain before it struck the floor.
Obviously exhausted, Captain Lord continued in his disturbed slumber. He grumbled some words that sounded like a hound attempting to speak.
“You might stand by the door, too, Scully,” Vera said. She stepped gingerly to the captain and then glanced back at us both. “Lucille? The lantern? By the door?”
I had forgotten my task, mesmerized by the quaking cottage. With a gasp, I rushed to the door. Shaking from fear as much as the floor, I managed to lift the glass chimney, light the wick, and replace the chimney without dropping the lantern. Allowing a glass lantern—one lit and filled with oil—to break on the floor would, of course, be disastrous. Holding it firmly, I was now free to see that Vera was kneeling down beside Captain Lord.
