From The Deep

by From the Deep (anthology) [lit]

  FROM THE DEEP

  With stories by

  Karin Huxman

  Taylor Manning

  Shelley Munro

  Sea Change © copyright August 2005, Karin Huxman

  The Lady of the Loch © copyright August 2005, Taylor Manning

  Currents Run Deep © copyright August 2005, Shelley Munro

  Cover art by Kat Richards, © copyright August 2005

  ISBN 1-58608-630-8

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  SEA CHANGE

  By

  Karin Huxman

  Full Fathom Five, by William Shakespeare

  Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made;

  Those are pearls that were his eyes:

  Nothing of him that doth face,

  But doth suffer a sea change

  Into something rich and strange.

  Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

  Ding-dong.

  Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.

  From The Tempest

  Chapter One

  1840

  Marianne Shore turned her face into the cool October air that raked across the island from the Atlantic. Her heavy skirts anchored her to the narrow decking of the “widow’s walk” that made its way around the periphery of the rooftop. A cast iron rail edged the walk. She gripped it with both hands, glad for the added support as she stared first down to the harbor and then out to the endless horizon of the sea.

  The dazzling sun turned the restless sea into glittering diamonds. Marianne searched the horizon again, hoping to see a square-masted whaler come into view. Her husband was the captain of the Whelp. The ship was weeks late coming into port. Winter came harsh and early to Nantucket Island. Everyone with a man on a ship at sea counted the days until they were safe again.

  She spied a young boy zipping through the crowd on the wharf. Fair hair poked from around the edges of his cap. He ran up her street and then to the back of the house where the cook or the housekeeper would let him in. A fine tremor ran through her, of excitement or of anxiety, she knew not which.

  After one more glance at the surrounding water, Marianne gathered her skirts and entered the winding staircase that would bring her back to the living quarters. Three stories high, her home on Wharf Street was hard to heat in the winter and getting that run down look to it. She’d run out of money to hire a man to keep the front garden in order. The fence had several boards missing and could use a good layer of whitewash.

  She sighed and pressed her hand to her bosom. Money, she hated that there wasn’t enough. She considered the running boy. Maybe he’d brought news of the Whelp and of Silas. Her skirts rustled as she walked faster. The lightly laced corset she wore, only to fend off stares from the other wives if she didn’t, cut into her sides. Slowly and with dignity, she told herself again.

  Silas had liked her exuberant ways when he’d met and wooed her in Jamaica, her true home, three years ago. But once they’d returned to his home on Nantucket, he’d become obsessed with her behavior and dress. He’d wanted her to be a proper sea captain’s wife.

  She set those thoughts aside as she reached the final landing. Mrs. McCann, the housekeeper, stood at the bottom of the stairs, the fair headed boy beside her. He grasped a bit of foolscap in one hand. As Marianne stepped off the bottom step, he grabbed the grubby cap off his head and stared at his feet.

  “Well?” Marianne asked.

  Mrs. McCann’s face was ashen. “The boy brought news, ma’am.” She shook the boy. “Go on, tell her.”

  “Aye, the man at Nantucket Wholesale Whaling sent me with this note for Mrs. Shore, the captain’s wife. Are you Mrs. Shore?”

  Mrs. McCann cuffed him. “Of course she is. What’s wrong with you? Go on, give it to her. Tell her.”

  He turned his head so that he looked at Marianne sideways through narrowed eyes. The back of her neck prickled.

  She cleared her throat and held out her hand. “Well?” she said again.

  The boy handed her the grubby piece of paper. She read, “The Whelp comes into port shortly. We ask your company here at the shipping office today at the hour of noon to settle your late husband’s affairs.”

  Marianne stared at the paper. What did it mean? Settle her late husband’s affairs? He could settle them himself when he made port in two weeks.

  “Ma’am? Is it good news, Mrs. Shore?” Mrs. McCann asked. Her hands clenched in the voluminous folds of her apron.

  The words on the paper started to sink in. Marianne shook her head. The boy’s shuffling feet caught her attention.

  “What do you know of this?” she asked him, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

  He shuffled some more, then he looked at her sideways again and said, “I heard tell that your husband, the good Cap‘n Shore himself, fell overboard. His portion of the earnings go to you.” Mrs. McCann shook him. “Ma’am,” he added.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Marianne snapped. “Overboard indeed. Mrs. McCann, give this imp some sweet from the kitchen and send him on his way.”

  Mrs. McCann led the boy towards the back of the house. Marianne crossed the polished pine floorboards to the parlor. She pulled the doors closed behind her and slumped into the nearest chair. Dear God, she thought, could it be true?

  Her heart beat rapidly as she reread the words on the paper and remembered what the boy had said. It must be some mistake, she thought. It had to be. She was here on this godforsaken piece of rock, nothing like the warm, palm covered lands where she’d grown up, only because Silas had insisted on bringing his bride home to the family.

  His family was as cold as the sea and as hard as the rocks that barricaded this island from it. The fact that she’d been unable to conceive had not been a point in her favor. Still, she was part of their family now that she was Silas’s wife. In their taciturn way they’d tried to welcome her.

  She shook the stray memories from her mind. She looked at the watch pinned to her blouse. It was ten and thirty minutes. Where had the time gone? It had been little past nine when she’d come down from the widow’s walk. Widow, would that be her title now?

  Never one to turn and run, Marianne stood, crumbling the ill message in her hands. Mr. Morrison, the owner of the Whelp and owner of the Nantucket Wholesale Whaling warehouse would have the answers. He was a grave, crooked old man who smelled of vinegar. It was not a meeting she looked forward to.

  * * * *

  Jonah McAdams scowled. The stench of a whaling town was the main reason he rarely visited one. If he hadn’t heard of a store of precious ambergris, worth over four-hundred dollars a pound by some reckoning, he wouldn’t have made port in Nantucket.

  He leaned over the dockside rail of his schooner, Poseidon, and stared at the crowded dock below. Men swarmed the sea-washed boards. They pushed barrels, toted bales of dry goods, and hauled on the pulley ropes in the act of loading or unloading some ship or other. This was home port to many whaling ships. The din was incredible. Here and a there a handful of women and children stood in hesitant groups amid the organized chaos around them.

  Enough.

  Jonah spoke briefly to his first mate then strode down the gangway and stepped into the crowd. For a moment the mass of men heaved against him. Then he began to move and a path opened before him. He heard snatches of whispered conversations eddy in his wake. He’d always heard them.

  “Jonah, bad luck name for a sailor, mate….�
�

  “The Devil has green eyes like him, I reckon….”

  “Never lost a ship or cargo to storm, heard tell….”

  “Swims like a fish….” Jonah grimaced at that one. The truest of the lot, yet no man had ever seen him swim. If he had, Jonah would have lost his foothold in this world.

  He stopped listening to the babble and found his way to a swinging sign over a battered door. The wooden sign, sporting a sperm whale blowing, swung in the cool breeze. Nantucket Wholesale Whaling was painted on the lintel of the door. This was the place.

  The cold, cavernous room smelled like fish and oiled rope and wooden barrels. Apparently Nantucket Wholesale Whaling sold more than the products of whaling. They had goods on hand to supply any ship. He’d heard that they also traded in the kinds of goods he carried, silk from China, spices from the Indies, in exchange for their whale oil, whale bone, and other by-products of hunting a whale.

  Jonah closed the door and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. He heard voices off to his right and wandered in that direction. No doubt Abe Morrison, the owner, was waiting for him in his office.

  A soft female voice murmured into a silence. The sound struck Jonah still. Her voice--he couldn’t understand the words--held confusion and unhappiness. It had the familiar quality of his people, an undulating huskiness that whispered to him.

  Impossible, he told himself. He continued towards the voices again. A circle of lamp light revealed a trio of people. The woman sat straight as a mast on a plain wooden chair. An elderly man, white haired and bewhiskered sat in the other chair, a large desk between the two. The third man, younger with a smug face and a weak chin, stood behind the older man.

  Just as Jonah stepped into the light, the woman said, “If that is the case, then I will require immediate transport to Jamaica. There is nothing left for me here.”

  The liquid tones that bespoke a Caribbean upbringing had Jonah staring at her. Her dark hair gleamed in the soft light, what he could see of it under her proper bonnet. His fingers itched to tear off that bonnet and let her hair free. A few tendrils curled from under the back of the hat. He wondered if she’d simply hauled it on top of her head and jammed the bonnet on the best she could.

  The younger man spoke. “Mrs. Shore, our firm will happily take care of the disposal of any property left in your name. But your late husband did not own much. The house you live in is owned by his parents, as are most of the furnishings. Of course, your portion of the cargo is substantial.”

  “Then all I need to do is find passage.” Her voice, though musical, was strained, Jonah noticed. A new widow….

  “I’ll see what I can do, madam,” the elderly gentleman said. “We have but a few whaling ships traveling south this time of year. They’ll not take a female on board.”

  “Yes, I am an expert on bad luck,” she replied.

  Jonah cleared his throat, eavesdropping did not suit him, and he’d learned all he needed or wanted to know.

  The three turned his way. Mr. Morrison and the other man nodded at him. The woman, Mrs. Shore, stared. Her eyes, green as the sea, opened wide, her nostrils flared, and he detected the beginnings of a blush on her cheeks. He often had that effect on women.

  “What do you want?” the young man said, his nose in the air, his thumbs stuck into his vest.

  A posturing sea pup if ever there was one.

  Jonah inclined his head to Mrs. Shore and spoke to Mr. Morrison. “Sir, I have business with you. I’ve heard you have a certain commodity for which I have many fine wares to trade.”

  Morrison harrumphed. “Your name, sir?”

  “McAdams, Jonah McAdams of the Poseidon. Recently returned from the Orient.”

  “Ah, Captain McAdams, you’ve a reputation.” Morrison didn’t say what that reputation pertained to. He studied Jonah for a moment, then turned back to Mrs. Shore. “Madam, Nantucket Wholesale Whaling and I are very sorry for your loss. As soon as the Whelp docks and we can ascertain the cargo, I will cut you a check for your late husband’s share of the earnings and send it wherever you wish. I’ve had a message that the ship’s luck finally changed on this voyage.”

  “It seems my husband’s luck changed also,” she said. She stood. “Very well, when do you expect the ship to make port?”

  “A day or two, madam.”

  “And you will find me passage on a ship?” Her hands held the back of the chair so tightly that her knuckles showed white even in this light.

  “I shall do what I can, madam.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Morrison.” She nodded to both men at the desk and swept past Jonah without turning her head.

  Her scent stayed with him, like a fair weather breeze on a warm day, and just as dangerous.

  He refocused on the men who looked at him expectantly. “Shall we get down to business, gentlemen?”

  Thirty minutes later Jonah was striding back to the Poseidon. No deal had yet been reached. These Yankees enjoyed a good bargain and they were adept at getting the best of any deal. It had been decided that Morrison and Matthew Keagan, the younger of the two men, would come aboard the Poseidon this evening for a meal. They would inspect his goods in the hold and decide on how much ambergris they were willing to part with.

  Dark lowering clouds and a stiffening wind made Jonah want to set sail and feel the waves crashing with a coming storm. He inhaled deeply of the scents around him, sifting through the unwashed people and muddy lanes until he could smell the freshness of the ocean. He also smelled food and realized how hungry he was. Just in front of him a door swung open letting out two men and the mouth-watering aroma of meat pasties. Jonah went through the door to satisfy at least one of his hungers.

  Chapter Two

  “Is it bad?” Mrs. McCann asked when Marianne arrived home.

  “Yes.” She hardly knew what to think. Her fingers struggled with the ribbons of her bonnet. Everything was starting to sink in. She’d walked home in a kind of daze.

  “Yes,” she said again. “Mrs. McCann, please ask cook to join us in the parlor. I’ll tell you both together.”

  The other woman rustled to the kitchen and once again Marianne found herself in the parlor. It was a cool room even during the height of summer. On this cloud-cooled day in October it was simply dismal. Though a fire had been laid, she didn’t put flame to it. Maybe tonight, after dinner. No, tonight she had to tell Silas’ parents. There would be no relaxing evening by the fire after that.

  Her throat ached with the effort of containing her emotions. Verily, she did not know which emotion took the fore. Was it heartache that made it hard to breathe? After the first month and after his first voyage after the marriage their ardor had cooled. Especially when she’d remained barren. She would miss Silas, but she hadn’t loved him the way she ought to have.

  Fear then, that had to be what she felt. It made her legs weak and caused her brain to move slowly. She’d asked Mr. Morrison about passage back to Jamaica. The idea had come to her like a storm in her mind. Run away home, away from the unforgiving stares of Jedidiah and Hester Shore, his parents. She had failed to produce a grandson, any grandchild, so had been a useless personage in their opinion.

  It wasn’t fear, though. She’d faced them before and not wilted. Anger coursed through her. She wanted to yell out her rage at the unfairness of believing in a life that had been a disappointment, and in a husband who had been a failure.

  Was this grief, she wondered; this tidal wave of feelings that she couldn’t find a way to step away from? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was what she did next. Mrs. McCann and Mrs. Nelson came to the door, hesitated, and then entered the room.

  “Please sit,” Marianne told them.

  They remained standing. Identical expressions worried their faces; from down turned lips to furrowed brows they radiated unease.

  “Very well,” Marianne said. “I’ve been to the shipping office. Captain Shore has been lost at sea, as the boy said.” She swallowed hard, not letting them
see how difficult it was for her to say the words out loud. “As soon as the Whelp docks and my portion is paid out, I intend to depart for Jamaica, the island on which I grew up.”

  They stared at her. Neither spoke.

  Marianne continued. “If you wish I will help you find new positions. I will certainly write letters of reference for you. You have both….” She fumbled with her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “You have both been kind and good to me. I thank you.” Her voice sank to a whisper at the last and she could hardly see the two for the unshed tears in her eyes.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Shore,” Mrs. Nelson said. “I would appreciate that letter of good word from you.” She lumbered out of the room.

  The concern in Mrs. McCann’s kind eyes almost undid Marianne. “How can I help you, you poor dear, you?” the older woman said.

  “I must find mourning clothes. Then I’ll need the trunks brought down from the attic so that I can pack. Then, then I must talk to Silas’, I mean Captain Shore’s, parents.” There was so much to do, so many overwhelming decisions to make.

  Mrs. McCann stepped closer. “Yes, dearie. Those things will get done. But for you, just for you, how can I help?”

  Marianne didn’t know what to do. But Mrs. McCann did. She took the last step towards the younger woman and held her tight. The kindness was too much to bear. Marianne sobbed in her housekeeper’s arms.

  * * * *

  Jonah stood at the rail of Poseidon watching the exchange of cargo. Morrison had been just the Yankee trader Jonah had expected him to be, but Jonah had garnered a concession or two. Unfortunately, one of the least pleasant of the points to Morrison was approaching now.

  The widow, Mrs. Shore, wore dead black from head to toes. She made her way across the chaos of the wharf without looking to either side. She must own an uncanny sense of the path of least resistance or the men naturally stepped out of her way in deference to her sex and status.