The Moth and Moon

by Glenn Quigley

  The owners were trying to cover the round windows of the gallery as Duncan opened the door to his own shop. It was filled with toys and games, all made by his own hand. Usually, the woodworking was done in the workshop at his home, and then he took the toys to the back room of his shop where he painted them. The toyshop was a panoply of colour. A moving, swirling, undulating, bouncing, spinning cavalcade of animated toys. Suspended from the ceiling, a flock of geese flew round and round. On the floor, well-dressed monkeys banged their tin drums while pretty dolls waved from their cribs. Not every toy moved, however. A brightly coloured merry-go-round sat in the window, surrounded by boats of various sizes and shapes. Marionettes hung from the rafters by their controllers. Horse-drawn carriages rested on shelves, a row of ducks lined the massive cherrywood desk serving as his counter, and farmyard animals grazed on imaginary grass.

  He hurriedly packed away any items that might be shaken loose and damaged in the storm and stopped all the wind-up toys. How quiet the shop became without the incessant ticking and clicking and clacking. He also took down the sign outside which read “D. Hunger Quality Toys & Games,” and the wind chimes hanging from it. He shuttered the big, many-paned bay window at the front of the shop, and with one final check everything was in place, Duncan shut the door and dashed off towards his little blue house on the hill.

  May Bell had raced out of the Moth & Moon and up the road towards a small row of cottages. She spent her whole life running from one part of Blashy Cove to the other. The wind was growing stronger, and leaves whipped past her. She reached the little iron gate of Mrs. Whitewater’s tidy garden and undid the bolt. One neighbour was out in his own garden, gathering some tools and a basket that had been left lying. Another neighbour—a lightly built woman who seemed to be made entirely of tweed—finished beating a huge patterned rug with surprising force. She set the looped wicker carpet beater down, heaved the rug from the washing line on which it hung, and dragged it back indoors. May was put in mind of drawings she’d seen of a lion dragging away the carcass of a fresh kill.

  On the wall beside the front door was mounted a small, circular stone carving of a man’s face covered in leaves and framed by vines. The little girl knocked on the door, and Mrs. Whitewater called out to whoever was there to let themselves in. May politely entered the house.

  “Little May Bell! This is a surprise. What brings you here?”

  Mrs. Morwenna Whitewater was sitting by her stove, hands resting on her cane, as usual. She was a small woman in her late seventies with bright, vital eyes. Her short grey hair erupted from beneath her meagre bonnet and sat in loose, looping curls against her head. Quite round in shape, she usually wore a red shawl around her shoulders. The inside of her home would have been entirely unremarkable were it not for the abundance of paintings. Her late husband, Barnabas, had been a skilled artist, and every wall was covered in all manner of artworks, both framed and on bare canvas, some even painted on material like slate tiles or blocks of wood. From stirring lifelike portraits of local residents to still lifes to stunning landscapes and seascapes. Above the fireplace, in pride of place, was a modestly sized, framed painting of a young Morwenna and Barnabas Whitewater, made only a couple of months after their handfasting day.

  May quickly explained how Mr. Shipp had sent her there to escort her back to the Moth & Moon for the duration of the storm.

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Mrs. Whitewater sniffed. “Well, you can march right back there and tell him I’m staying where I am. I have plenty of food and wood for the fire. I’m not going anywhere.”

  May stood in the kitchen of the little cottage for a moment, uncertain of what to do. She could tell the old woman wasn’t taking her seriously. Adults could get a certain look sometimes, one suggesting she was just a silly little girl and they knew what was best. She hated it, and she saw the look then as Mrs. Whitewater smugly neatened the folds in her own long, bluebell-coloured dress. May’s hands clasped and relaxed a few times, and her mouth screwed up as she chewed the inside of her cheek. The grey clouds were moving ever closer. Finally, she took a deep breath, ran back outside, and slammed the storm shutters closed.

  Mrs. Whitewater appeared at the front door, red-faced and flustered.

  “Young lady, what exactly do you think you’re—” she began but was interrupted by May walking right past her and back inside her house. There May picked up a straw basket and began filling it with items she thought might be needed. A bonnet, a tin of mints she saw on a table, and a small book.

  “Excuse me, May Bell, but what. Are. You. Doing?” Mrs. Whitewater insisted.

  May sighed and looked at the ceiling for a moment, composing herself.

  “It’s like this, ma’am,” she said, tapping one foot impatiently. “Mr. Shipp gave me a job to do, and I’m not going to let him down. I know folks round here don’t care for him, but he’s always been very friendly to me and he seems like a nice man. He said you’d put up a fight, but I weren’t to let you win. That you knew it was best if you come with me, and that he wanted you to come, and…well…let’s go. Now. Please.” She held the basket out.

  Mrs. Whitewater looked at May. “Meagre of frame but ample of will, I see. Just like me at your age.”

  She took her coat from the back of the door and the basket from May and said, “Well, let’s get going then. Musn’t keep Mr. Shipp waiting!”

  On Hill Street, the shopkeepers were finalising their storm measures. Mr. Buddle, the glazier, was securing his premises. Mr. Blackwall was back from the market and carefully stacking up his trays, making sure each pile was the same height and perfectly aligned. Mr. Bell was setting up a small ladder to remove his shop sign, while his wife, Louisa, fortified the windows.

  Mr. Edwin Farriner was in his bakery, a few doors up. He’d been there since dawn, working nonstop, and had made almost all of his bread for the day. He was in the process of preparing for the following day when Mr. Blackwall had popped his head in the door and told him he was packing up for the bad weather and heading to the Moth & Moon. Edwin thanked the fishmonger and started packing up his flour and dough. He stopped the automated mixing apparatus—beautifully gilded clockwork machines for folding dough. He shook his head as he did so. He didn’t know how long the storm would last, and he was unhappy at the thought of losing time when there was so much to be done already.

  Upstairs in his living quarters, he made sure everything was locked down, then returned to the ground floor and quickly barricaded the windows. He packed a couple of trays with bread, buns, and cake and covered them with some cloth to protect them from the rain.

  His bakery solidly secured, Edwin raced up Ridge Street and over the other side of the hill towards his parents’ house, which was part of a row of houses beside the main road. Farther north, and slightly to the east, lay a large farm, founded shortly after the island was settled and still in the hands of the same family. Beyond that lay the north coast, where only a couple of houses stood. It was particularly exposed to the elements and home to only the hardiest of souls. He heard a galloping coming from behind him and instinctively jumped out of the way. Archibald Kind shot past on the back of Sweet Eclipse, his magnificent black horse. The ruffled collars of his extravagant shirt fluttered in the breeze, and his flowing hair trailed behind him like a silken tail. Headed north, Edwin assumed he was going to wait the storm out holed up in a barn, wrapped in the arms of a beautiful young woman. Or two.

  Hurrying on to his parents’ house, he found his mother and father already preparing for the coming storm. He set the trays of bread down on a table and hastily assisted his father in closing the shutters. His mother began fussing over him. She was a tough, wiry woman with wild red hair jumping off in assorted directions from her head.

  “You’re not stripped up for bad weather!” she cried.

  Which was true; he wasn’t prepared for rain at all. He was wearing his favourite cream linen shirt and sand-coloured breeches, with a tattered brown apron covering both. His
only coat was lying in his living room in a state of disrepair. He’d caught it on a loose nail and ripped one of the arms quite badly.

  “Come upstairs. I’m sure I have something old of your father’s you can wear,” his mother said.

  “I told you we should have kept some of Ambrose’s clothes, Sylvia,” his father said from the doorway.

  “No one asked you, Nathaniel,” his mother said sharply. His father sheepishly ducked back outside again. Edwin was big and broad-shouldered with a strong chest and a stomach that was getting softer by the day. His father, though a little stooped and frail these days, had a similar physique in his day, and his mother said she was sure she had something from her husband’s youth that would fit Edwin.

  “Mum, there isn’t time for…” Edwin started, but his mother held up a wrinkled palm and he fell silent. He knew better than to argue the point.

  She riffled through some clothes in a wardrobe while Edwin shuffled around the dim, untidy room. She pulled out one jacket, a heavy woollen grey number with brass buttons and held it up to Edwin’s chest. Finding it entirely too small, she returned it to the rack and kept looking. Edwin perused the clothes on offer and touched upon some emerald green item at the back of the wardrobe, with dented and tarnished buttons. His mother slapped his hand away.

  “That’s no use to you, unless you want to wear a ladies jacket to the Moth & Moon!”

  “Well, you never wear it. Anyway, it might look quite fetching on me. Bring out the colour of my eyes,” Edwin joked.

  His mother rolled her own piercing green eyes and after some more searching found a mushroom-coloured frock coat decorated with gold filigree. It was old-fashioned and far more formal than was necessary. Edwin slipped the coat on and though it was quite snug, it would have to do.

  Once downstairs, he lifted the trays of bread and tried to coerce his parents into joining him at the inn.

  “No, we’ll stay here and look after the house,” his father said.

  His mother crossed her arms and squinted.

  “I suppose your 'friend’ will be there,” she said with obvious unguarded contempt.

  Edwin sighed, feeling deflated. This again.

  “Yes, Mum, Robin Shipp will be there. I hope that’s not why you’re both staying here?”

  His father rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders as if to say it wasn’t his choice.

  “No, no, we just feel we’re better off here,” his mother said.

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  Edwin leaned down to kiss his mother on the cheek. She smiled, but he knew it was put on for his benefit, to show him that she was fine. He wasn’t convinced, but he knew better than to argue.

  Dashing back towards the top of the hill, Edwin couldn’t help but notice the aroma of the bread he carried as it mixed with the delicate scent of apple blossoms. Once he crested the hill, those sweet bouquets were replaced with the rather more lively smells of the harbour. Fish, salt, and straw. Every time he crested these hills, which circled Blashy Cove and hid half of the village from the rest of the island, he was struck by how the rustling of the trees in the orchard and woods to the west was replaced by the crashing of the waves. As a boy he’d misspent many a summer’s afternoon in those woods, playing in the old walnut treehouse overlooking the graveyard and raiding apples from the orchard. Nowadays he used that same orchard’s fruit to bake pies and tarts for the village, using recipes handed down from his grandmother to his father to him.

  At the top of the hill, he stopped for a moment and surveyed his surroundings. From there, he had an unobstructed view over the village right down to the harbour. He could see as far as the headland to the east and the fields to the west. And also the immense clouds bearing down on the village. They rolled and churned, flowed and swirled, a reflection of the angry waves below. They galloped toward the village with menacing purpose, expelling gallons of rainwater as they went. The sea was above them now, and it was coming to drown them all. Edwin had lingered too long and ran towards the Moth & Moon.

  Robin had returned to the inn. Some of his neighbours had refused his offer of help and began preparing for the bad weather in their own way, but the tavern was filling up fast. Almost every little alcove and table had someone seated there. The oldest faces were painted with concern, the youngest with excitement. The children didn’t really understand what was happening, of course. They just knew a gathering of this many people meant a chance for lots of fun and games. They ran around in boisterous packs, weaving in and out of groups of adults and the posts holding the ancient ceiling up. Eventually, attempts were made to confine them to the rooms towards the back of the inn. Some had brought games and dolls to play with, and more than one tea party was already in progress.

  Perched by the fireplace, in shawl and bonnet, sat Mrs. Morwenna Whitewater.

  She had taken the prime spot at a large table. With many of the other elderly women of the village gathered around her, she was very much the King Arthur of this particular round table. Some of her vassals included Mrs. Greenaway—the wife of the village doctor—Mrs. Buddle, and Mrs. Caddy—who lived on Anchor Rise and had come here straight after receiving his warning—and her own neighbour, the tweed-clad carpet beater. Her name was Mrs. Hanniti Kind and she knitted with a ferocity unmatched by mere mortals. The incessant clacking of her knitting pins was mercifully drowned out by the general din of the assembled crowd, but Morwenna often said her vigorous rubbing of the wooden needles might one day set off a spark and burn the Moth & Moon to the ground. As Robin approached, Mrs. Greenaway and Mrs. Kind tutted audibly, earning them a cautioning glare from Morwenna.

  “Well, Robin,” she called. “Here I am.”

  “Hullo, Morwenner,” he said. His heavy accent meant he always ended her name with an er, which he knew annoyed her a bit, but try as he might he couldn’t help it. “I ’ope you didn’t give young May too much trouble.” He laughed as he bent down to kiss Morwenna’s cheek.

  May, who had been ordered to stoke the fire into a further fury with a long twisted black poker, turned and gave him a knowing look.

  “Of course not, I came along quietly. I know better than to argue,” Morwenna said, sniffing defiantly and adjusting her cane.

  Robin went to speak to some of the men at the bar. Among them were Mr. Ben Blackwall and the local butcher, who was a very rotund man named Mr. Hamilton Bounsell. They thanked Robin for his warning, the first to do so. As he chomped on the end of a clay pipe, the butcher told the gathering that everywhere in the village had been boarded up, and all of the shopfronts were secured. Most of the villagers had gathered in the Moth & Moon.

  They began to talk of buildings that might not survive. Mrs. Whitewater’s cottage was mentioned, as was the schoolhouse and a couple of homes near the seafront. Someone mentioned Duncan Hunger’s house on the hill, but Robin told them he’d spoken to him. There was a leery silence at that, and just as Mr. Bounsell was about to break it, all colour quickly drained from the world. Living at the coast, the people of Blashy Cove were well used to bad weather. The village was nicknamed Rainy Day Bay, after all. They had even laughed and joked as they made preparations for the storm, but now the wind suddenly began to howl and thunder exploded in a deafening chorus of fearsome roars.

  The storm had arrived.

  Chapter Four

  THE LANTERNS HANGING from the walls of the Moth & Moon flickered in the hush that followed. Everyone held their breaths as they listened to the tremendous crashing and banging outside. The masts of the luggers docked in the harbour rattled and clanged. It was very difficult to see outside as the clattering storm shutters covered every window, but it was just possible to see through some cracks and gaps. Every now and then, almighty snapping, rending, fracturing noises sounded as the roofs were torn off buildings. This storm was going to be worse than they feared.

  Edwin Farriner had arrived a few minutes earlier, dripping wet but otherwise none the worse for wear. He handed the trays of bread over
to Mr. Reed, explaining he’d brought them in case they were trapped in the inn for longer than expected. He knew the Moth & Moon often baked their own bread in the kitchens, but he thought every little bit would help. Edwin kept one loaf of his famous fruitcake aside and quietly gave it to Morwenna Whitewater’s table of village elders. He winked as he placed the wrapped cake on their table, and many coos and oohs were heard in appreciation. Every one of the women was a regular customer of his, and he wanted to make sure they were comfortable and looked after. He spotted Robin and started off through the crowd to join him.

  The Moth & Moon was the oldest building in the village. Cavernous, sprawling, and dark, it had been added to many times over the years, making it a labyrinth of rooms and corridors. Black wooden beams criss-crossed almost every surface. Lanterns hung low on the walls, casting a shallow light across the tavern. Various bric-a-brac, from irons to watering cans to flails and more than a few pieces of rusted fishing equipment, could be found on every shelf. The walls were either white, uneven, and limewashed, or dark panelled wood. Whatever their construction, they were punctured with niches of varying sizes filled with candles or books or tankards or far more colourful items. It was something of a ritual for sailors passing through to place a token in one of these hollows. Statuettes of outlandish, long-abandoned gods and demons were a popular choice, as were seashells from distant beaches. Necklaces, knives, and coins were dotted about like barely hidden treasure, each one a donation from a thankful visitor.

  Some walls held framed paintings depicting various scenes of mighty warships blasting cannons or enormous whaling vessels crashing through vicious waves. One of the paintings, hanging in a dim alcove under one of the main staircases, showed four mighty ships engaged in combat in the waters of Blashy Cove. It was titled The Battle in the Bay and had been painted many years earlier by Mrs. Whitewater’s late husband, Barnabas.