Dark Places by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, Thriller, scary, +UNCHECKED, gryphonwood, david debord, david wood, terry w ervin ii, alan baxter, sherry thompson
Publisher: Gryphonwood Press
Published: 2011-10-28T09:21:47+00:00

A Sailor's Tale by Sherry Thompson

Look on the southwest side of the Bay Light, and you'll still see it. You may have to look hard and long, but it's there amidst the overgrown grasses: a cast-iron plaque to mark the spot where they say Anne fell. The plaque was her father's idea. The framing edge of seagulls, mine. Make what you can of the plaque, if you'll not believe an old sailor's memories or the testimony records.

Anne was only sixteen the October her father found out she was in love. To say he was furious would be to speak faint of the man's cold rage. To find her in love would have been nothing. But the galling fact was she loved a common sailor from the courier ship, 'Albatross'. And that could not be borne.

The lighthouse keeper was not a staunch Royalist. Some even whispered that Jacob sided with those who thought of insurrection. The same murmuring voices said it made his teeth grind to keep the fire burning when the king's own ships were due in harbor. Jacob was never a friend, but I'll say this. He was a principled man. No matter the provocation, he would never have let the Bay Light go out when any ship was due.

It was the day of the night that the 'Albatross' was expected. 'Vengeance' had seen and hailed her with cannon, only hours before the fog began closing in. She reported the 'Albatross' due to touch dock after midnight, bearing messages from the governor at the great port north of the town. But in those few hours the fog was thickening and billowing, ...and tempting Jacob.

Michel was Jacob's help at the light. Michel and I, and Jacob of course, knew Anne to be strange. Jacob couldn't help but know it. He'd married Anne's mother and, even without the rumors, he couldn't help but know. You needn't spy Anne up on the rocks with her arms aloft, her loosened hair like a great sail streaming at her back to wonder about her. You could see it in Anne's black eyes, just as you could have seen it once in her mother's---a reflection of the sea but not as the sailors saw it on their wooden steeds, nor even as the townsfolk saw it from their quays. It was a giddy thing to look into Anne's eyes, and those who encountered her in the town played it safe and scarce even looked in her face.

Jacob knew all this. He might even have suspected the reason why, in one part of his soul. But he'd loved Anne's mother once, and he'd shut out that part of his whispering soul, the more comfortably to keep loving her. And the daughter, his beloved Anne? Well, hadn't he done what he could with the priest's holy water? Yes, he'd done all he could. But the townsfolk talked, and his soul whispered, and Anne's eyes kept on reflecting the sea.

Michel's testimony is still stored at the old courthouse, if you've a mind to read it.

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