The Gulf seas were gentle in the bright morning light, and Jake and Mabel unfurled the mainsail and pulled it aloft. It luffed gently in the breeze and Jake angled it to better catch the wind until they were heading due west at a fair clip.
Once all sight of land faded into the distance and the sails were billowing strongly, Mabel got out the rod and reel again and cast hard into the sea.
“You’ll probably not catch anything that way, with us going full-bore like this,” Jake said with a smile.
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “I just want to practice.”
She found the monotony of casting out and reeling in incredibly soothing, and as she sat on the deck with her feet dangling over the side, feeling the spray of the water on her face, she didn’t think there could possibly be anything better.
“I want to catch a Marlin,” she said. “Like Hemingway. Like Santiago. A big fish with a fin. How hard would that be?”
“Incredibly hard,” Jake said, laughing. “You need quite a bit of muscle to get one of those bad boys into a boat, and the deep sea fishing boats have special chairs to sit in while you wrestle the thing. You’ve noticed them in the harbor, right? Those boats with special chairs that help you brace the pole and stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“You have to have the right bait first, though. A Marlin’s not going to go for shrimp or something puny like that. You need bait fish for them. And heavy duty fishing line. Usually a deep sea fishing boat has several lines going at once to maximize their chances of hitting a Marlin, and when they do, it takes a full grown man all his strength to bring it in.”
“You don’t think I could do it?” Mabel said, flexing her wiry bicep.
“Well, I wouldn’t say you couldn’t…” he hedged. She smiled. “But I would be mighty surprised.”
Suddenly, Mabel’s line went taut, and the pole was very nearly jerked out of her hands.
“Shit!” she exclaimed.
“Hang on tight,” Jake urged. “You’ve got something big!”
“I’m hanging on,” she said, her heart racing in her chest as the line buzzed and spun. “What should I do?”
“Pull it in!”
She grabbed the handle of the reel and began to turn it backwards but the best she could do was just keep more from spinning out. She could hardly believe the pressure against her fingers as she gripped the pole and braced it under her arm for more control.
“I can’t believe you caught something just messing around!” Jake said, laughing.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know yet. Could be a shark. Could be a tuna. We’ll have to see. Don’t lose it!”
“I’m trying my best,” she grunted, reeling in ever so slightly. Inch by inch the line was wound back into the tackle, and the pole bent low.
“It won’t break, will it?” she asked.
“Hard to say,” Jake answered. “We only bought thirty pound line. If it’s bigger than that it very well might break it.”
Suddenly there was a commotion in the water and a vibrantly-colored fish broke the surface, thrashing. Mabel reeled hard and gained several feet.
“It’s mahi mahi,” Jake said. “Looks at least twenty pounds I’d say. Amazing!”
Mabel didn’t know mahi mahi from tuna, but she knew that she was looking at the most wildly beautiful thing she had ever seen. The fish was a rainbow of color as it fought her hook, and as its strength flagged, she brought it close to the boat, marveling.
“It’s so gorgeous!” she said as Jake put on gloves and pulled the fish onto the deck. The creature gasped and flopped, the iridescent scales rippling.
“It’s too big for us to keep,” Jake said. “But I want to get a picture of you with it, at least. Stay here and hold it still while I get my camera.”
Mabel obeyed, kneeling on the fish’s side, stroking it and speaking in what she hoped were reassuring tones while holding firmly onto the line that stretched from its mouth. In moments Jake emerged from the cabin with his camera in his hand.
“Smile!” he said, and Mabel smiled, heart still pounding from excitement and exertion. Jake took several pictures and then came close to extract the hook. Moments later, the big fish had splashed back into the water and disappeared from sight. Jake knelt on the deck, looking at Mabel with admiration.
“Well; we didn’t expect that to happen, did we?” he said. “It’s too bad we couldn’t have kept it; mahi mahi is delicious fried in butter.”
“I couldn’t have eaten anything that pretty,” said Mabel. “I need to catch some ugly fish.”
Jake laughed.
“Well, don’t count on too much that’s ugly! Most of the fish here in the gulf have their own kind of beauty. We’ve got to keep some of them, though, or we’ll get awfully hungry for real food. There’s only so many power bars and bologna sandwiches I can stand.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll try to get over it.”
Jake went back to sailing, correcting their course slightly while whistling an aimless tune. He turned on the radio and the sounds of the alternative rock station filled the air, between the weather reports put out by the naval base. Mabel went back to casting and sat, staring out at the endless water around her. She hoped the fish was not too frightened and would recover nicely.
She caught nothing more until the Marquesas Islands came into sight. There, Jake said, the reef would provide excellent prospects for fish the size of which they were looking for. They pulled in the sails and floated in some of the clearest water Mabel had ever seen, the reef off the port bow visible beneath the gentle waves that lapped at the boat.
“Now, let’s see what we can get for dinner,” Jake said, threading a hook through a meaty shrimp and casting out. Mabel followed suit and they sat in silence for a while, expectant.
Sailboats and yachts dotted the water around them, and they could hear the shrieks of swimmers and snorkelers carried to them over the waves.
“Are they going to scare the fish away?” Mabel asked.
“Hopefully they’ll scare them towards us.”
Mabel was hot now, the sun being well overhead and temperatures soaring into the nineties. The breeze came and went, but the water beckoned alluringly. Mabel stripped off her shirt and sat in her bikini, enjoying the feel of the sun on her skin. She was very brown now, as Jake had told her she’d be, and she lifted her face to the sky with a sigh of contentment.
“Can I jump in?” she asked.
“Sure. Just don’t get in the way of my line.”
She reeled in, set aside the rod, let the ladder down, and plunged in. With a shout of relief, she came up, shaking the water from her eyes.
“Jake, come in!” she said. “It’s so wonderful.”
“Maybe later,” he said, reeling in for the twentieth time, checking his lure, and casting out again. “If nothing hits my hook we’re going to be having bait for dinner.”
As if on cue, however, the line went rigid and the rod bowed. He whooped and pulled hard, reeling in as he did so. Soon he was hauling a ten pound grouper out of the water, and Mabel clambered back aboard to see it.
“Hey, that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “Ugly.”
“What do you mean?” Jake retorted. “Look at those lovely speckles and spots. It’s a beautiful fish too.”
“Maybe to another grouper. Not to me,” she shook her head.
Jake pulled out his fillet knife and a pair of pliers and set about filleting the fish, which Mabel watched with some fascination. Working one side of the fish and then the other, it took him no time at all to get the meat off, removing even the meat from the fish’s throat and cheeks, where Mabel would never have even thought to look. When he was done, he heaved the carcass back into the water and put the fillets and meat in the cooler.
“Handy skill, that,” she remarked admiringly. “Can you teach me?”
“I can teach you anything,” he said. “Really you just have to have a sharp knife and some confid
ence. You can’t be timid. Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll let you do the next fish, how about that?”
“Great!”
Mabel sat down once more to fish, determined to be patient. She stuck her hook firmly into a sardine and cast out. Within moments she had a fish, and as she pulled it onto the boat, Jake nodded approvingly.
“Yellowtail snapper,” he said. “A nice one, too! That will be tasty. Ugly enough for you?”
“No!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “That fish is beautiful! Look at its lovely tail! But I’ll eat it anyway.” The afternoon’s fishing and swimming had made her fiercely hungry, and the thought of a fish dinner made her mouth water.
“Ok then,” he said, and took the hook out of its mouth. With his tutelage, she soon had it filleted, albeit crudely, and put in the cooler alongside the grouper.
“Good job,” he told her. “You’re definitely not timid with a knife.”
“Thanks,” she said, blushing faintly.
“That’s a good day’s fishing for two,” Jake said, and he brought out a beer. Mabel took a bottle of water and together they toasted the day. The sun was lower in the sky, the time around 3pm, and Jake set about frying up the grouper, along with some squash they had brought with them. By the time it was done Mabel was properly ravenous, and devoured the meal with her characteristic speed. Jake laughed and shook his head.
“Are you sure you even tasted it, Jane?” he asked.
“Sure I did. It was delicious,” she said.
“You remind me of a pelican. All right. Well, let’s press on, shall we?”
Hoisting the mainsail once more, they set off to the west. The Dry Tortugas were only fifty more miles, and the trip was pleasant and mostly easy, with five foot seas to keep it interesting. As the sun touched the ocean, the low lying islands were on the horizon. Jake maneuvered around Garden Key to the boat pier and secured Stella Luna there.
“Shall we get out and walk around the fort?” Jake asked. “I have to go get us a boat permit anyway. Do you want to come?”
“Of course,” she said, pulling on her clothes over her bathing suit. They stepped onto the pier and Mabel took in the sight of the 170-year-old fort and felt a chill up her spine. History was thick in the air, and she could almost hear the voices of the people, long gone, who had built and defended it, lived there and died there. With the sun rapidly setting, it cast long shadows out over the water and looked thoroughly haunted.
She and Jake walked through the doors into a large, open courtyard where people milled about, talking and laughing and taking pictures, and this alone kept Mabel’s mind from straying down dark passages for too long. Still, the shadows that stretched over the grass were ominous, and she wished she had stayed on the boat.
Jake, seeing her anxious face, asked her what was wrong.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just…if there were such things as ghosts, they would live here. For sure.”
“I see,” he said, nodding but obviously not sharing her sense of the macabre. “Well, let’s get that permit and get back to the boat, okay? Then we’ll find a good anchorage and eat some dinner. You’ll probably feel better then.”
Mabel nodded. At the visitor’s center, Jake got the permit and grabbed a brochure. Following Mabel back to Stella Luna at a brisk pace, he called out facts to her as they went.
“Hey, did you know it took some sixteen million bricks to build this thing? And that it had 420 guns when it was built? At its height nearly 2,000 people lived here, including some women and children. Hey! Jane, are you listening?”
Mabel was not listening. Mabel was climbing back aboard the boat and untying it from the pier. Jake stepped onto the deck and helped her, winding the line around his arm and securing it before motoring back around the key to the anchorage. With the anchor down and the sails wrapped, Mabel sat with her back to the fort, looking out instead at the increasingly dark sky, musing.
“What’s on your mind?” Jake asked, cooking the rest of the grouper and setting it in front of her. She picked at it listlessly and the lines on his forehead became more pronounced. “Are you okay?”
“I just don’t like the fort,” she said. “It makes me…nervous.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it was kind of cool. Maybe it will look less imposing tomorrow morning in the bright light of day, huh?”
“Probably,” she said, trying to cheer up and eat. The fish was wonderful, tasting of butter and herbs, and the potatoes were fried to perfection. Still, she ate slowly for once, and tried to understand the feeling of doom that had overtaken her. “I’m sure I’m just being silly.”
“Not silly,” Jake shook his head. “Some people are just extra sensitive to supernatural stuff. Maybe you’re one of them.”
That night she dreamt that she was standing on the top of the fort’s wall, looking down upon the water beneath a bright waxing moon. Stella Luna bobbed below her along with several other boats of varying sizes, and she knew, somehow, that she was safely asleep in her berth, and yet standing atop the wall at the same time. She didn’t want to be on the wall; she wanted to be reunited with her body, to be sleeping as soundly as Jake, who never dreamt of anything but Gina.
She turned to find her way off the fortress, to find the stairs and to make it back to the boat, even if she had to swim through the dark water to get there, but as she turned she saw the figure she dreaded most standing some hundred feet away, monolithic in the moonlight, just standing and staring.
Gail. Dead, of course, her face rotting and jaw hanging open, held to her skull crookedly by one membranous tendon. Mabel froze, willing herself to turn and run the other way but she was incapable of movement, and could only whimper, blood rushing in her ears, heart thudding in her chest.
Mabel came the familiar call, just as she expected it would.
You killed me, Mabel. You killed me dead. And now I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to kill you and throw you to the sharks but you won’t be dead, no, you’ll be a ghost like me, forever doomed to walk these walls and visit people in their dreams
The apparition moved towards her, staggering on its bent and decaying limbs, but coming closer just the same. She turned to run but as she did she felt the powerful grip take hold of her, the frigid, bony hand, this time around her neck, lifting her off her feet and dangling her over the low battlement of the wall, where nothing but rocks lay below. She tried to scream but her air was cut off, and then she was falling towards the rocks and water, just falling and falling into a dark void of nothingness and terror.
She awoke, gasping and crying. Jake stood over her, chafing her hands and repeating words of comfort.
“It’s okay, Jane,” he said softly as her eyes fixed upon his wonderfully real and sane face that never looked upon her with anything but tenderness and affection. “It’s okay.”
She sat upright and wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder as he patted her back and kept on talking in low, soothing tones. As her cries ebbed away, she lay back down and he offered her a drink of water. She took it gratefully.
“Now, do you think you can go back to sleep?” he asked.
“I don’t want to,” she answered.
“Understood. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay. Do you want me to sit up with you?”
“Yes.”
Jake yawned, pulled on a shirt, and set about making some coffee. The time was just after 4am, and as he spoke, he told Mabel stories from his youth in the boondocks of Georgia, which caused her to laugh and were altogether a great distraction from her dreadful and disturbing dream.
They stood out on the deck and watched the sun creep slowly over the eastern horizon, ignoring completely the fort behind them to the west. Finally, when the world was full of light and beauty once more, Mabel felt she had the strength to turn and look at the fort, which was, as predicted, perfectly unassuming i
n the bright daylight.
She stood with her mug of steaming coffee and felt her equilibrium return. She had dreamt of Gail again, just as she had suspected she would, yet here she was, still alive and healthy and with all faculties intact. Gail was dead and gone and if the worst she could do was inhabit the place between wakefulness and sleep, then there was nothing she could really—not really—do to her at all.
“Hi neighbors,” said a voice off to the left. They turned and nodded at the young, bearded man who stood on the deck of his Presto 30 just fifty feet away. He too held a mug of coffee and appeared to be greeting the sunrise. “Y’all having a good trip?”
“Sure are,” Jake answered. “And you?”
The man’s handsome face wrinkled into a broad smile.
“Wife divorced me. I’m loving being single. Name’s Dan. And y’all are?”
“Jake and Jane,” Jake said. “Sorry about the divorce.”
Dan continued to grin. “Bought this boat with the money I’ve saved now that she’s gone. It’s the life, I tell you. I’m new to sailing, but all things considered, it’s going really well. I’ve been here for three days; going to leave tomorrow.”
“Well, be careful out there,” Jake said. “I think I heard that things are going to get rough in the next couple of days. We were going to head back tomorrow too, but we may have to wait it out instead.”
“All right,” the man said. “I’ll be careful. Y’all have a nice trip, now. Enjoy each other.” He winked in an exaggerated fashion, and headed below deck. Mabel recoiled somewhat and looked at Jake. His brow was furrowed.
“He didn’t think—?”
“I think he did think.”
“Huh.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say past that, so they finished their coffee and ate the Danishes that Jake baked up in the tiny oven.
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