Finn's Rock

by Briggs, Laura

  Finn’s Rock

  By Laura Briggs

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Laura Briggs

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  Prologue

  1826

  In the early light of dawn, along the foggy shores of a New England village, a sailor strolled along the sand with a bundle hoisted on his shoulder. The bundle was his meager possessions carried from one ship's voyage to the next. Along the shore in the silence, he walked onwards towards the lighthouse's glimmer, faint in its last light with the dawn.

  The mists cleared for a moment, allowing him a glimpse of the vast sea stretching towards the sunrise. A large rock protruded from the water as if an island, a figure seated on its shores.

  Green and grey and glistening. The sheen of fish scale, of human hair slick and flowing beneath the slime of seaweed and saltwater. Pale and present for a moment before sliding below to vanish beneath the waves.

  He blinked, his breath rattling slightly as he opened his mouth. But there was nothing to be seen.

  2005

  In the quiet of a New England morning, an old man swung from the hull of a ship onto the docks below with a bundle of fish nets over his shoulder. Humming a tune beneath his breath, he continued along the worn plank path.

  The rock protruding from the water was unchanged, an island in the waves. Without fog, the water is green and grey, washing against the crags with bits of shell and tangled seaweeds.

  There is a movement like a bird, only it isn't one. A pale arm extending upwards in the light from a human figure. A curve like a fish's fin flickering in the light. A glint like mica beneath the sun's first rays, the translucent scales of a fish.

  The old man halts at the sight; then a smile curves across his face. For a moment, he watches until it slips down the rocks and into the water again. Then he continues on his way as if nothing extraordinary happened at all.

  There were mementoes of strange events pasted all over the walls of Landen Grantham's office, as if a recorded history of the unexplained. A dumping ground for souvenirs, if you will, that most tourists tend to abandon after unsound reasoning persuaded them to visit the “world’s largest popcorn ball” or “only known petrified horse fossil”.

  Only in this case, the items pertained to things of a more mysterious nature. Blurry photographs of sasquatches or swamp monsters, miniature plastic ufos commemorating various, less-famous “crash sites” across the U.S. Pinned to his wall, crowded on his desk, tumbled into the wastebasket–they were the wallpaper and decoration of the room, the expansive border surrounding a road map of the fifty states.

  It was not by Landen’s choosing that they were here. They were gifts from readers of his column–The Unexplained America’s few thousand fans locally and online. Most of the online readers were the senders, a scattered following of conspiracy theorists and folklore lovers who enjoyed seeing their favorite subject in print.

  A column on the unexplained and urban legends wasn’t exactly what Landen had in mind when the journal offered him a job, but after a few years of tight-budget freelance existence, he was tempted to take something steady. Something reliable, even if it meant covering the minute details of local events and state politics in an eclectic journal's small political science section.

  “We have something more...interesting... in mind,” explained Joe Turret, the publication’s senior editor, during Landen’s first interview. He tossed an open magazine in front of Landen. Who turned it around to read his own name on the byline, an article he penned for Southern U.S.A. on sightings of strange lights in a rural Alabama town’s skies. For some reason, his heart sank at the sight.

  “This,” said Turret, “is what we’re thinking. A monthly column on strange events across the U.S. Sort of like that guy–you know the one–the one who travels around looking for good deed doers. Only you travel around looking for strange sightings.”

  Landen hesitated. “A monthly column,” he said, “entirely on ... weirdos?”

  “I was impressed by this,” said Turret. “It got me thinking. Why couldn’t this piece become popular? Why couldn’t it be a big hit across the U.S.? Good exposure for us, good exposure for you.” He raised his eyebrows significantly with this statement.

  “I see,” answered Landen. He slumped in his chair, the magazine across from him like a dead fish lending its stench to the scenario. Gone were political conspiracies and accounts of voter fraud and history's obscure facts. He was sucked into the journal's expansive realm of the surreal, with topics preferring mutations and urban myths to anything remotely connected to reality.

  The article which attracted the editor's attention was one of several Landen penned in his post-college years. A degree in journalism that turned into a hack’s version of a hobby. Picking up on interesting stories about local phenomena and drafting articles with half his time; pushing himself through his master’s degree classes in the rest. It wasn’t intended as a career, just a way to exploit a childhood interest, an adolescent fanship, into spare money to support more serious pursuits.

  Six years later, he had written about the Boggy Creek Monster and chupacabras in a Texas town. Thirty years old and several years wiser, he had resigned himself to his fate, even as he resigned himself to the occasional grey hair woven in with his dark ones, the first sign that his boyish looks were beginning to fade. Perhaps the result of his fading wonder with the world of the unexplained.

  He had visited the grave of the Exeter vampire and a supposed vampire bat haven in rural Michigan; a ghost town in California and a ghost ship harbor in Massachusetts. This last one was the most popular to date, even more so than his two-part series on white noise phenomena in urban Chicago.

  Hence the reason for the assignment he found on his desk on Monday morning as he shoved aside a Lego alien and two werewolf Christmas ornaments (new arrivals from fans). Suspiciously, he lifted the photocopy of a tattered newspaper clipping and an assignment sheet.

  “What’s this?” He stood in the doorway of Turret’s office, where no one was visible but the editor’s personal assistant.

  “You want to see him, I take it?” The assistant eyed the piece of paper. Lately– that is to say, for the past few months–Landen had taken a stand against some of the more unusual assignments, such as the headless hitchhiker near Duluth, whose hokey urban legend smacked of slasher films as opposed to fringe science.

  “Landen! Come in,” Turret ushered him forward through the half-open door. As his employee entered, he swung his feet off his desk, narrowly missing a stack of back issues piled in one corner.

  “Exciting, eh?” he said, gesturing towards the printout in Landen’s hand. “I thought of that myself. Old article in a scrapbook of my wife’s from college. It occurred to me it was the perfect follow-up after that piece on the ghost ship–most popular ever.”

  “You mean it generated the most mail ever,” answered Landen, tiredly. The piece was a departure for his usual voice, taking on the tones of a skeptic as opposed to an open mind. Two days of sitting in a foggy harbor, peering out on the water with a pair of binoculars in vain–while a city counselor and two tourists with more than one whiskey shot to their bar credit claimed to spot it drifting just off the coast. His disgust was a faint undertone in the piece as he explained the virtual absence of credible sightings throughout the story’s history, suggesting most of them were feigned
by visitors who wanted to claim credit for seeing the phenomenon. In response, readers flooded his inbox and the magazine’s mail with both cheers for scientific credibility of suggesting a hoax and rabid complaints for questioning the myth at all.

  “Exactly,” said Turret. “Any mail is good mail.” He jabbed his finger in Landen’s direction.

  “Ever heard of Fair Island?” the editor asked, switching topics in an instant. Landen’s eyes narrowed. Recognizing this reference to the article in his hands.

  “Can’t say that I have,” he answered, as Turret lifted the original copy of the article from where it rested on his desk, protected in a plastic sleeve. A clip of newspaper circa 1970s, Landen estimated, from its yellowish patina and grainy black and white photo of a harbor view.

  “It’s got quite a record in the urban legend world,” said Turret. “Most mermaid sightings of any place in the U.S. Starting from the 1800s through today, apparently. People from all over–sailors, townspeople, strangers passing through–all claim to have seen a figure out there in the waters. Got even more claims than the Celtic Isles, supposedly.”

  A free trip to Ireland would have seemed worth it, Landon thought. But a boat ride to an obscure point in the New England waters? Not by comparison, not for the sake of a mythical story. Already, he felt his teeth gritting slightly in response.

  “Mermaids?” he repeated.

  “Mermaids,” echoed Turret. “See, my wife vacationed there when she was a kid. So did her best friend. Both said they saw something out there on the water, sitting offshore. Something not human, that is. Made a good story around the dinner table at Christmas, but I hadn’t given it much thought until now–” with that, he swiveled towards his computer monitor and keyboard “–when I looked it up online and found out there were all kinds of stories. People come from all over to see this thing. Like people on those tornado bus tours in Kansas.”

  He typed something into the search bar on his screen, then turned the monitor towards Landen with a flourish. An old-fashioned woodcut of a mermaid in one corner, with the “Merpeople Legends of Fair Island” in elaborate font.

  “They’ve got stories from all different eras,” said Turret. “Anyway, we’ll send you down there to spend a few days and try to catch a glimpse yourself. A little local color, a couple of stories, and we’ve got a hot follow-up for the ghost ship.”

  Landen cleared his throat. “This is something I think we should reconsider,” he said. Now seemed as good a time as any for this announcement.

  Turret stared at him. “What?” he asked.

  “I think it’s time for a change,” he said. “It’s just–I need a new angle for these stories. I can’t keep following the same trails. Alien sightings, purple rain...pretending to believe in the possibility of some of them is one thing, but I can’t keep pretending. Not for the ones that are so patently unbelievable.”

  Such as mermaid sightings. This, he was tempted to add, but didn’t. Pointing out the gradual disintegration of his career into hokey tourist traps and hocus pocus would be pointless at this moment, given Turret’s enthusiasm. Already, he could see his editor’s face clouding.

  “Well,” said Turret. “I don’t see why you couldn’t take whatever angle you like on this. If, that is, I like it when I see it. So write it up and put it on my desk when you get back, whether you believe in mermaids or not.” With a grin as he closed the computer screen.

  It wasn’t a question of mermaids, Landen thought to himself as he shopped online for an airline ticket. It was a question of where this story–or any he wrote these days–belonged in the sense of his career. By now, he fully expected to be writing stories about something more important. Scientific breakthroughs, astronomical discoveries, even the science of politics, instead of fluff pieces on sightings of devil creatures or anacondas in upstate New York.

  Why couldn’t Turret have picked the twister tour instead? At least the subject of meteorology was actual science. Sighing, Landen clicked the button to reserve a seat on a flight to Massachusetts.

  Six years of journalistic studies and where did he end up–with the same stories he read as a ten year-old enthusiast of Is it True Science? and Star Fiction and Fantasy. Now he wrote for the grown-up version, where mechanical robots were replaced with covers depicting blurry shots of unidentified objects or blazing supernovas. He lived alone, worked long hours, and traveled to places where his presence was that of a much-revered outsider come to publicize–or jeopardize–someone’s favorite legend.

  Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. In this self-created darkness, no random toys of weird creatures surrounded him, no plastic souvenirs of the bizarre assailed his vision from every corner of his office like a child’s tribute to The X Files’s Mulder. Landen was alone with the memories of his pride at first penning anything as a journalist, even if it was a story inspired by a childhood documentary on hairy creatures stalking the forest.

  When the printer’s whirr finished, his airline ticket was resting in the tray. All he had to do was pack his bags and face the real and mythical inhabitants of his destination.

  *****

  “He’s coming.” Morgan Malloy stirred a spoonful of creamer into his coffee, one weathered hand lifting the cup to his lips.

  As he spoke, he was not gazing out the window of the coffee shop, its panes speckled with seawater and grime, but rather at an open magazine before him. Around him were the regular patrons of this establishment, their wrinkled faces and hands evident in the harsh light of early morning, as if the marks of the sea were stamped permanently upon their bodies.

  A waitress poured a cup of coffee for a sailor a few tables away. “Know that for sure?” she asked, eyeing Morgan.

  “I know it for sure,” answered another man. He removed the pipe from his mouth and motioned for a refill. “Heard it from Haggit on the town council. Thinks it’ll give us a boost with the tourists, as ‘e says.”

  “Tourists,” muttered his companion. “Need a boost in the fish population, that’s what we need.”

  “Ay, but tourists pay the bills,” answered Morgan. “That is to say, for some of the town. Makes more fish for the rest of us, with the likes of them earning elsewhere.” He grinned as he reached for a donut on his plate.

  “But if he pokes around much here,” said the waitress, “he may find out something.” She raised her eyes pointedly with this question. A nametag reading “Lorrie” was fastened to the strap of her apron. “There’s a lot of folks that’ll say the story is made up when they read about it, but if he spends a bit o’ time here–”

  “He’ll see what most o’ the tourists see at night with imagination and foggy waters,” answered the pipe smoker. “A lot o’ nothin’.”

  “Maybe,” said Morgan, vaguely. “Or maybe not.” He watched the fog slowly dissolving on the other side of the glass, lifting to reveal a view of the docks and a weathered building by the ferry’s site. A peeling painted sign swung overhead, reading “Mermaid Visitor’s Center.”

  “Now don’t say that,” scolded the fisherman a few feet away. “You’ll jinx us, Malloy.” Half-smiling, half-serious with these words.

  “Then maybe we should be giving his visit a bit of thought,” said Morgan. He left the half-finished doughnut on his plate, dusting his hand as he rose.

  Outside the coffee shop, the sound of waves was audible, lapping against the dock. Morgan Malloy shuffled towards a fishing boat moored there, as if his bones were stiffened by the cool air. He waved his hand towards a figure on the deck, busy untangling a pile of fishing nets.

  “Ahoy, Finn,” he called. “They’ve got word from the Council–he’s coming.”

  *****

  The ferry to the island swayed on the waters, giving Landen the sensation that a washtub bounced over its waves. In the distance, he could see the shapes of low buildings and the movement of boats in the waters beyond.

  With a sigh, he rested his arms on the rail and breathed th
e salt air as it sprayed the decks. He had no car, since the guidebook said the island could be navigated on foot, by bicycle, or by an obliging local bus which traveled from one side to the other on a semi-regular schedule. Few people aboard the ferry had vehicles, he noticed; except for a few heavy-duty pickups and a couple of rental cars, the shiny paint and lack of personal touches betraying them.

  In his bag was a digital recorder and a stack of books on mermaid lore, along with a few changes of clothes. He didn’t intend to stay long–a few days to collect stories and tour the lackluster museum mentioned briefly in one of the volumes. Supposedly a famous folk writer lived on the island, chronicling the mermaid lore for his future book; the scattered village also boasted a population of seniors and octogenarians who might remember the faint details behind some of the older stories.

  “Fair Island, straight ahead,” called the ferry’s attendant. The shores were near, the weathered dock and sea-worn buildings directly in front of Landen as he hoisted his bag on his shoulder and prepared to disembark. A fisherman was leaning against the side of an office, studying a map. Three people armed with cameras were chatting outside a building marked by a battered wooden mermaid sign.

  As soon as he stepped onto the docks, he approached the fisherman.

  “Where’s the nearest place to get a bite to eat?” he inquired, in friendly tones. He cast an eye at the office, its windows revealing an office space packed with charts and paperwork, a computer screen occupied by a news site. The fisherman raised his glance from the chart in hand.

  “Ay?” he said. “Ah, that’d be...that’d be the Codswallow,” he said. “Yonder.” He pointed towards a brick building, the first signs of a main street.

  “Thanks,” said Landen. Strolling off in its direction, he cast a glance in passing at the rest of the dock’s crowd. A few more tourists consulting guidebooks, a few fisherman disembarking in the direction of a few boats moored near the docks. Clothes stained with grease and mud, knit caps and protective gloves.