By Martin Pearson
Sea Fever
“I must go down to the sea again,
To the lonely sea and the sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship,
And a star to steer her by.”
Philomena Bucket looked at Reggie Upton in surprise.
“Did you make that one up yourself?” she asked, admiringly. “It’s very good.”
“Good Lord, no” laughed Reggie. “It’s by a young chap named Masefield. He’s a bit of a poet who once persuaded me to buy a copy of one of his books. It was called ‘Salt Water Ballads’, and was full of that sort of thing. That particular poem came to mind after I saw the sailing ship that had floundered on the rocks, down by Scilly Point, yesterday.”
“Oh yes, I heard about that,” said Philomena. “Do you know if there were any survivors?”
“None that I have heard about,” replied Reggie, sadly. “I am fairly sure they would have made themselves known by now.”
It was true. Most newcomers to the island of Hopeless, Maine, seemed to turn up at the door of The Squid and Teapot eventually.
Trickster looked down at his new meat-suit with approval. It had taken little effort to persuade the drunken sea captain to drive his ship on to the fog-bound rocks. Trickster was an old hand at things like that. More difficult was the task of ensuring that the well-dressed young man, who appeared to be the schooner’s solitary passenger, survived the catastrophe unscathed. Trickster did not know, or indeed care, that the owner of the merchantman was, even then, waiting anxiously for his son to arrive on the quayside at Newhaven, Connecticut. All that the lad meant to Trickster was the means to a very desirable meat-suit; one that no one on the island had seen before.
“That chair has got four legs,” scolded Mrs Ephemery. “Break it, and you’ll be sorry.”
The well-dressed young man flashed the landlady a charming smile and dutifully eased his weight forward, allowing the chair to sit squarely, once more, upon the floor of the inn.
It was such a pity that he had to frequent The Crow in order to conclude his business. Unfortunately, it would be to here, and not to the far more hospitable environs of The Squid and Teapot, that those lads, whom the islanders insisted on calling ‘The Famous Five’, would be returned, now that they had almost recovered from their ordeal at the hands of Durosimi O’Stoat. There was still the issue of their amnesia, of course, and that was something that Trickster wanted to put right. Naturally, this was not out of any sense of altruism, or wishing to help the Famous Five. It was purely a means of making Durosimi’s life a little more uncomfortable, for if the truth of their captivity was to get out, Durosimi would become even less popular than he was at present; it might even lead to violent retribution. One could but hope.
Trickster had no wish to physically harm Durosimi; he was perfectly content to do no more than create the circumstances which would provide the sorcerer with an occasional, but generous, helping of misery. If, on the other hand, a series of events should lead to Durosimi’s downfall, then so be it. In the meantime, he would linger here in The Crow, eat their lousy food, and wait to restore the memories that those five young men had so inconveniently mislaid. Like the best laid plans of mice and men, however, Trickster’s schemes do not always come to the pleasing conclusion that he has envisaged.
The Famous Five were, by now, deemed eligible for discharge from the Pallid Rock Orphanage, where they had been hospitalised for a week or so. It was with light hearts and optimism that they set off that morning, bound for their local inn, The Crow, where a welcome-home party had been arranged. To begin with all seemed fairly normal, or as normal as could reasonably be expected on Hopeless. It was after little more than a few hundred yards into their journey, however, that they noticed how the perennial fog, which wraps itself coldly around the island, seemed to be growing unusually thick, and stealthily creeping in from the sea with all the subtlety of a well-worn Gothic cliché. Despite this, the young men wandered into its chilly embrace with good spirits, laughing and singing with all of the exuberance of youth. It was only when other voices joined theirs that they paused to listen. These new songsters sweetened the air with pure and melodious harmonies, intoxicating and irresistible to those young ears. As one, the five turned and walked through the unrelenting fog to where the voices called them, totally bewitched and besotted. They stumbled over rocks, through soft sand and sucking mud, until the cold Atlantic lapped around their feet, but still they did not stop, drawn ever onward by the seductive siren-song. Not until the water had reached their chests, and insistent, unseen hands drew them beneath the waves with preternatural strength, did they realise, too late, their awful fate. It was only then that they beheld, with horror, the hideous creatures who had serenaded them.
A solitary figure stood in the already thinning fog. He knew that summoning the sirens would have its cost. There was always a price to be paid. He really hoped that the five fresh victims would be payment enough, but he had his doubts.
Durosimi sighed, and wrapped his cloak tightly around him.
“It was necessary to do this,” he told himself. “That only leaves young Septimus Washwell to attend to now.”
As the day wore on, Trickster became more and more convinced that something was amiss, and that Durosimi was at the bottom of it. The Famous Five should have been back hours ago. Even Mr and Mrs Ephemery, who managed the inn, had given up on them, and was taking down the crude bunting that proclaimed “Welkum Home Famus 5”
With an angry kick, Trickster sent his chair spinning across the room, where it shattered into matchwood against the far wall. Freezing Mrs Ephemery’s spluttered protestations in mid-sentence with a wave of his hand, he strode out of The Crow in a rage, slamming the big oak door behind him.
“It is time to go to The Squid and Teapot,” he muttered. “At least there I can plot my revenge on O’Stoat in something resembling civilized comfort.”
