heads and again found the vessel, which had moved closer to us, two of its sails battered and torn. The yard of one mast dangled in the water, while another fraying sail, puffed and straining, sped the boat along its deadly path. The ship was almost on its side as the waves-great foam beasts climbing their way to shore-navigated what looked like a potentially fatal outcome for the vessel and its crew. The light revealed the name of the vessel, the
“She’s a charter boat out of Rotterdam, carries cargo for whoever can pay the price. The captain knows his way into this harbor,” said the coastguardsman. “Why does he allow the sea to have its way with the boat?”
The searchlight clearly showed the path into the harbor’s mouth, but the captain ignored it, allowing his boat to continue to list helplessly toward the shore. It appeared that the catastrophic accident of seventy years ago described by the old whaler would be reenacted right before my eyes.
A wave like the gargantuan arm of Poseidon shot up from deep within the sea, slapping the starboard side of the ship.
“Looks like she’s hit the reef,” yelled one of the coastguardsmen.
“Great gods!” Morris said, his attention now fully engaged. Without taking his eyes off the water, he opened his cloak and put it over my shoulders. I could have objected, but I appreciated the protection and warmth it gave my skin, now wet with seawater and cold from the fierce wind. Lightning flashed across the sky with such ferocity it made me cower. Instinctively, I leaned closer to Morris, hating myself for being a skittish woman who so required the protection of a man that she would depend upon a dastardly one such as this. Yet I would not be dragged away from this awful but majestic performance put on by nature.
The wind shifted without warning, enhancing the sheer wild and random power of the sea. As easily as it had slammed the boat against the reef, it rose at an even greater velocity and freed it, throwing the boat helplessly toward the pier. Now the boat and we spectators were entirely at the mercy of the sea. The water made swooping curls, like the snarling lips of a monster, ringing the vessel in a watery prison. At this point, the sea was dictating its path with an encircling chain of turbulent waves.
As if changing its mind and granting a reprieve, the waves tossed the vessel upward again, veritably throwing it into the mouth of the harbor. The crowd let out a little cheer, until we collectively realized that the boat was headed directly toward us and would slam straight into the foundations of the pier.
I thought we should run away, but there were too many people behind us, and most of us were in too much awe of the spectacle to move. Morris must have figured as much because he tightened his grip around me, bracing us for whatever happened. But at the last moment, as if it were actually ruled by tempestuous Neptune, the fickle sea changed the direction of its waves, and the boat slid straight into the sandy pit of soil and gravel that jutted from under the cliffs.
Many of the people on the pier hurried down the steps to the shore to help the rescue party or perhaps to welcome the heroic survivors or maybe just to gawk at the potential dead. The searchlight grazed the ship’s deck, as a rescue crew, all too familiar with the aftermath of a shipwreck, rushed forward with planks to make a gangway for whomever was onboard.
They waited, but no one and nothing stirred from that vessel. The searchlight stopped abruptly, illuminating the sailor at the helm, presumably the vessel’s captain, whose head drooped over the wheel. The grotesque scene came into focus slowly, bringing with it a long moment of eerie silence in which neither thunder nor lightning nor wind disturbed the quiet of the night. No one on the pier, not even the coastguardsmen, spoke a word. It was as if the light had stopped time, freezing both man and nature in that moment.
The men on the shore, who had been poised to rush the ship, stood still, gazing at the macabre sight before them. A sailor’s body slumped over the helm, his hands tied to the wheel’s spokes with figure eight knots, distanced just enough to enable him to handle the big wheel. A dark rivulet of blood streamed from his neck. He looked almost as if he had been crucified.
“Saints preserve us, the captain is lashed to the helm!” The red-haired man cried out to the coastguardsman, who, without looking away from the ship, confirmed what he said with a nod. “Looks to me like it’s a bloody corpse that brought in the vessel.”
“The ship was sailed by a dead man.” As people grasped this reality, they put their hands to their mouths or shouted shrieks of disbelief or raised their palms to the sky as if to ask God how this could have happened.
“Fucking hell,” Morris Quince whispered softly.
A clap of vicious thunder broke our quiet moment of astonishment. As if awakened from a dream, the rescue crew began to move slowly toward the
Chapter Five
Lucy and I were undressing for bed, or rather I was, and Lucy watched me. She had no interest in discussing the shipwreck or speculating on the mystery of the dead captain but preferred to reminisce about the thrill of seeing Morris. I rinsed my mouth slowly and closed my jar of toothpaste, checking my teeth in the mirror, while I decided whether to challenge Lucy. As her friend, I felt I owed it to her to point out the ramifications of her actions.
“But, Lucy, he is Arthur’s friend. Surely this will not come to a good end.”
“Oh, Arthur is not a true friend. He simply thinks it’s daring to have a friend from a scandalous American family. He speaks badly of Morris behind his back.”
“Perhaps he is speaking the truth,” I said. “Perhaps you should take heed.”
“You are supposed to be my best friend, Mina, and yet you have not tried at all to understand!”
“I only understand what I see. Look at yourself.” I pulled Lucy off the bed and stood her in front of the oval cheval mirror. She crossed her arms in protest, but she did not look away. “You are wasting away to skin and bones. You do not eat. You do not sleep. And all day long, you are as nervous as an alley cat. Your sweet temper has become sharp. When you talk about your love, you look like Lizzie Cornwall, sick and dizzy from smoking opium but craving it nonetheless.”
“I do crave his love. It has replaced every other appetite.” Lucy’s eyes danced in the sockets in the strange way they did when she thought of Morris Quince. She pulled a note out of her bodice. “He slipped this to me when no one was looking. I am going to meet him!”
“Lucy! The weather!”
She went to the window and opened the shutters. “Look. It has cleared. God himself is smiling upon my love.”
The rain had stopped and the mist had lifted. A cool breeze wafted in. I looked out the window and traced the seven brightly burning stars comprising the Starry Plow, so vivid that it looked as if I could reach up and use it to scoop water out of a well. The single good memory I had of my father was when he had me in his arms one night and pointed it out in the sky.
“Morris would not let me come to him in the rain, Mina,” she said, thrusting the note into my hand.
“These are just words, Lucy. Any man can write words on a page if it costs him nothing,” I said.
“Apparently not Jonathan Harker. How long has it been since you have had words on a page from him?”
“Lucy, how unkind!” Her words made my own fears come roaring back. Jonathan did not love me. Jonathan had met someone more suitable to be his wife. I was to be a spinster schoolteacher for the rest of my days. These fears had overtaken me a few days prior, and I had written to Mr. Hawkins to ask if he had had word from Jonathan, but I
