Fantasy

Thursday, 11:33 am, July 12, 2012

“McCail, lunch. Time to wake, honey… Mac?”

Surfacing out of his three-hour sleep, he asks, “what did you say?”

“The captain said we’ll be there after lunch.”

“Lunch, what happened to breakfast?”

“We ate that hours ago.”

“Oh. That’s right. Are we home yet?”

“Yes dear, in about two weeks. We’re on vacation, remember?”

“Two weeks?” He adjusts his chair forward. “We’ve been on this damn’ plane that long. Shit. This is torture! Where’s the stewardess?”

“What do you expect her to do?” asks Ann.

At thirty-eight thousand feet over the Atlantic and six hundred miles from the coastline of England, Ann McClary and her husband McCail, are enduring a long flight. Impatient to arrive in the British Isles, she has prodded him awake.

Landing starts their fourteen-day vacation. They will roam the English countryside for seven days before heading to Greece for their second week. She has dreamt of doing this for years. While he, on the other hand, has been sleeping, dreaming about the winter of 1962.

Traveling to England, or anywhere for that matter, never sat well with him, in fact it rattles his cage. A deep and lasting fear of the unknown holds him to a daily routine. Traveling out with his familiar environment only brings anxiety. Right now he is very anxious and everyone had better stay out of his way. Meanwhile, touchdown is over two hours away on this non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow.

“Stewardess, can I have another magazine? Or is there nothing else to do besides sleep or watch Kung Fu movies on this flying tin can?” he protests. He’s in a first class seat and that’s another annoyance, as 12 B is not 12A, which is by the window, and Ann won the right to sit in by a toss of a coin.

“Oh, I am sorry, sir.” Is the stewardess’s insincere reply, “you’ve just missed the fashion show in the rear compartment!”

‘What a bitch.’ He watches her turn on her heels to fetch his magazine.

This leaves Kym Jade’s serving cart unattended. Kym with green eyes and auburn hair, who can shoot down more egos than Prince Charles does birds in the pheasant season and she only needs a few simple words.

Kym’s thoughts are on McCail. Evidently being fed three fine meals in first class along with a host of other treats is not enough for some passengers!

“What are you doing?” asks Ann.

“Give it a rest Ann!” Snaps McCail, as he grabs another handful of nuts.

“Give it a rest, yourself Mister! It’s really embarrassing, you know; the way you always grab all the free stuff within your reach. Why do you do that?”

Her question goes unanswered, but troubles his conscience, nevertheless.

“Say, Jade,” whispers a co-worker from behind the galley curtain, “there’s a man going through your cart.”

Kym peers from behind the curtain and checks it out. “Oh him! He’s been acting like an arsehole the whole trip. I hope he gets gut rot. Those nuts are off. They’re out of date. He can guzzle as many as he likes and get as sick as a dog for all I care. It’ll serve him right, the arsehole!” Her eyes become slits as she stares at him.

“Kym, I know that look. You’re up to something. What is it?” whispers another stewardess.

“What? Oh! I was thinking about Carl in customs. I’ll get him to take care of this swine when we land. Get him to put this sod through the mill, give him a full body search and up there as well! I’ll mark him down as a drunkard too! That’ll fix him good and proper!”

A few of the other passengers, on seeing McCail’s actions, turn away in disgust. A small boy, sitting all alone, interrupts McCail’s unbridled rummaging by loudly clearing his throat. Sensing the boy’s eyes on him, McCail turns and shoots a: ‘what do you want, kid stare. A budding opportunist himself, the boy returns the stare with a ‘gimme a bag of nuts or I’ll scream glower. That wins, and McCail hands over a bag of peanuts, which he only does after a short tug-of-war and mumbling, “You little shit!”

Stealing, or by his way of it, having the right to possess ten to fifteen bags of airline peanuts, he considers only justice, having paid dearly for his ride in the sky. After earning all those travel miles by spending tens of thousands of dollars over the years he reckons, if it isn’t nailed down, it’s mine!

“Sir, I’m terribly sorry, but we’re out of magazines. Can I offer you some nuts instead?” asks Jade.

“Certainly, oh and, by the way, the service on this plane sucks!”

Embarrassed, Ann turns away and seeks refuge in the passing clouds.

“I’m sorry, sir if we have failed to meet with your expectations. We have a form you can fill out if you wish to complain officially.” McCail clears his throat and makes no further comment. “Have another pillow then, sir. If I have shown you a lack of attention, I apologize. Once we land I’ll make sure you’re given the royal treatment. In the meantime, do you wish more nuts? She reaches into her cart, “or would you like this book to read instead?”

“Don’t think this makes up for anything, if I take it. What’s it about? I can’t see. My glasses are stowed away.”

“Then sir, if I may ask. Why do you ask for a magazine? For its pictures perhaps?”

“Just give me the book.”

“A bestseller. Look, it’s even been autographed.” Beams the stewardess.

“Alright already. Okay, I’ll take it.”

Ann looks across at the title and picture of the writer, and it’s Kym Jade! Kym’s and Ann’s eyes meet and they laugh. Ann gives her a wink and nod of approval.

The landing is smooth and cheers and sigh’s abounded as the pilot applies the brakes.

“Thanks for traveling Pan American. I hope you enjoy your stay in England.”

At debarkation, McCail takes everything he can, including his pillow, which he clutches like a teddy bear, along with the book. He has yet to see the title: “Traveling with Asses”, and oblivious to their joke, he walks with Ann down the ramp and into a fast moving crowd.

Positions in this race for the outside world forever change as all passengers charge down a stuffy corridor like buffalo. McCail like a drum major on crack takes the lead, but is soon overtaken by a group of youth. Everyone knew the rules. The slow will be trampled and left behind, without exception, as this stream of passengers pushes along the hallway in a wild non-stop drive toward the exit and freedom. However, in this Exodus, there is no Moses, no Prophet, and no clue. Instead, there is a primal instinct to walk toward the shiny thing that seemed to be a sign or a door.

Some had hoped that by following one another on this carpeted footpath the end would appear. What fools! Muscular atrophy and rumpled clothing walk the narrow halls in clumsy unison while the hopes of freedom lay just beyond; but is freedom an illusion? The only thing beyond is just another sign telling them, ‘this way suckers.’

“There is an end, right Ann?”

Disgruntled voices bounce against the walls like angry tumbleweeds’ as a destination looms out on the horizon or past the horizon-no one is sure. Some stayed occupied conversing about the weather, others curse it.

“Feels like we’re walking to England, Ann. Hope we’re following someone smart. This hallway is like the twilight zone.”

Seasoned travelers plant one foot in front of the others and know better than to look up, knowing the end could only be reached by walking like zombies for just one more step, and then another. Corners, are a rarity where hopes are planted, and then dashed once reached, in an overlapping deja`vu of another hallway.

“How are you doing Ann, want me to take your pack?” says McCail, a smile sneaking to the surface.

“No, I’m okay.”

The crowd moves along to the piped in music of a Van Morrison song. Like used candles the interior walls and flooring are showing signs of use. An estimated seventy-thousand passenger’s prance all over Heathrow each day and by its looks, they all had goats.

But things are beginning to turn as money begins to pour into England. It is in this particular summer that the winds of change have begun and take on the heat of a dragon’s breath, also warming the moods of Londoner’s. People were beginning to prosper with tourism on the rise.

It is the hottest place in all of Europe. France is still as cold as its population’s reputation, and Italy’s warm waters are still a bit cool as tomato’s with melons, like Sophia and Gina, anxiously waited with bikinis in hand for the sun to appear ,while the Spanish city of Barcelona is being besieged by gay linguists.

England is the new hot spot,  Night life flourishes.

An assortment of souvenir patches cover the backpack of an elderly Swedish woman who walks like fire down the long corridors ahead of all others, thanking those who move. “Tack so meken.”

The young for the most part keep a bounce in their stride and tennis shoes are still the preference of both the young, and old. Jackets once worn are now carried in reaction to the humid weather, while buttons on shirts and blouses are loosened. Some of the elderly are picked up by swift moving carts, while others refuse and soon become roadblocks, boulders, in this flow of humanity, but finally the end is in sight and it isn’t all that much of a comfort.

A small room holds groups of thirty, like packed pickles, as the failure of deodorants becomes apparent. Groups are sorted out by who goes where, and after a flushing of that batch, another group is injected following the same process. Ann and McCail are lucky and make it out on the third bus heading toward customs. The hours of cramped legs and sour looks of dread is coming to an end.

Warm rain pelts the windows of their bus.

“Welcome to England or is it Jamaica?” says the driver with unruly hair, speaking over his shoulder to his closest passengers, Ann and McCail. “It’s not to me liking at all. This is the queerest weather I’ve ever seen.”

The backlot of Heathrow is a beehive, filled with worker ants wearing shorts and exposing white sun starved skin. Transparent to the eyes and white, like Casper the ghost, these albino worker ants move about in a sea of motion with some taking corners on two wheels.

A hurried place where drivers have the apathy of baby-sitters, using horns in quick bursts, to either say, ‘hello’ or ‘go to hell bugger,’ as a giant game of chicken between vehicles and pedestrians is played out on this twisting roller-coaster ride.

Their bus comes to a stop.

“Boy, am I ever glad that’s over. Talk about a ride from hell.  Ann, I think I’m going to barf.”

No one is there to greet them. Not that they expected anyone as the two westerners out of Ventura, California, plough their naïve way through a battery of customs agents and corridors of closed doors, a hand stops McCail at the last checkpoint.

“Excuse me sir. Will you step to the side and follow me.”

McCail looks around at Ann who was still at the counter and shrugs his shoulders. Her eyes follow him till he is out of sight.

“What’s this about?” McCail asked.

“Just follow me sir.” said the customs agent who walks with a brisk step.

It isn’t a long walk. The hallway is just off the customs area, and is patrolled by unapproachable men, men with guns, big guns.

The room is small, just big enough for a desk, three chairs and a bright green table. A cloak rack stands off in the corner where the agent tosses his hat.

“Sir. Sorry for this slight delay, I insure you this will only take a few moments if you cooperate. My name is Carl. Your passport seems in order sir, but you seemed somewhat nervous in line. We have a duty to the public to detain people of suspicion.”

“Suspicious? Of what?” says McCail, set to walk he moves one step closer to the door.

Carl moves to block his exit. All five-feet of him takes a stance like a pit bull.

McCail looks at him and notices just a hint of lavender rouge and two small ruby studs embedded in each ear.

“It means sir, that we, you and I, that is, are going to get to the bottom of what’s making you so nervous. It’s my job to leave nothing uncovered, leaving nothing hidden.”

“You must be kidding? Uncover what? I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Good! Then let’s get on with it.”

“Shit!”

From the first moment McCail’s buckle hits the floor, it is off and running with a nonstop parade of instructions and poses.

“Now the socks, sir. Place it alongside your pants and shoes.”

“Do you have to watch, so closely? Aren’t you the least bit ashamed?”

“No. It’s my job, sir.”

Stares from the two occupants, hold and take different stances. McCail, standing in one corner is beyond pissed, approaching outer space, while Carl sits watching and directing, his passions aflame.

The door opens and a old woman with sagging stockings and cropped platinum hair, walks in and begins speaking. “Oh, sorry Carl. I didn’t know you had a guest.” She then walks over and whispers in Carl’s ear and walks out. Carl follows locking the door from the outside.

McCail stands firm like a statue, his boxers wrinkled and worn, staring at blank walls.

“Carl here. Oh hi Jade, how was your flight? Good, good. What’s that luv? What’s the name? McCail? He’s in me office now. Not to worry, his rudeness will be dealt with.” Carl hangs up the phone then places a do-not-disturb sign on the door handle.

A night at a horse opera would come closest to describing the sounds which pour through the walls. Notes meant for farm critters, jitter-ed through McCail’s teeth like a herd of donkeys at daybreak.

By the time Carl is done McCail’s rump is packed to captivity, yet void of jewels or weapons or anything else for that matter.

“You may go.”

McCail’s walk back to Ann is slow and uncomfortable, although his stride and pride pick up once he sees Ann, seated near an exit. He almost makes it to her, when he hears a somewhat familiar voice ring out, “stop, sir. Stop!” It is the customs agent out of breath and running.

McCail stops, dropping his head.

“You forgot your belt, sir.”

Standing tall and towering over the agent, McCail yanks his belt from the man’s grip and proceeds on his way.

“You know, Ann, that guy strip-searched me big time, and enjoyed it!”

“Why shouldn’t he? I always do.”

“That’s not funny, Ann. You don’t know the half of what I had to go through and that little bastard ripped my pillow to shreds in the bargain. Why the hell would he do that?”

Once outside, his spleen still vents on the air. “Shit! We left home for this muggy crap?”

He dabs his face and throat with his handkerchief and wipes it over a small, round, onyx medallion sweat-pasted to his chest. It was the last gift he received from his father before he died. He has worn it for the past fifteen years, despite having an aversion to men’s jewelry. His father had found it in Scotland back in 1947 while traveling there as an archaeologist.

Now they stand waiting for a cab amidst the chaotic antics of other harried travelers. They wait as long as they did in the customs line. Behind them a newsstand displays the latest headline: ‘Caribbean Heat Wave Hits UK.’

“I knew it would be hot, Ann, but this is unbearable.”

“Behave yourself, will you! We’ll get used to the weather soon enough. Once we get to our room, you’ll be fine. You can have a nice cool shower. Say! I can’t believe we’re actually here!” rejoices Ann as she prances about in delight.

“I can’t either. It’s like a bloody nightmare.”

She stops and frowns. “Wait here, dear. I’ll be right back. I need the bathroom.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Ann! Can’t it wait?”

“No it can’t! Stay right there. I won’t be long. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah, right! Not long. I’ll bet.” is his sarcastic reply. She never returns, “In a bit.” But he’s a teddy bear deep down and says. “Take care, darling, won’t you. Love you.”

Smiling, she responds, “Yeah, I know you do.”

The distant thrill and roar of Niagara Falls is nineteen years in the past for them, and the passion it engendered equally so. Exactly when that happened they do not know, but it did.

This decided Ann, although her partner reluctantly agreed, to set out on a quest that would spice up their lives by venturing into the unknown while traveling as sophisticated backpackers. Their itinerary is not planned, adding to the mystery and excitement. With no timetable or hotel bookings, other than a bed and breakfast outside London, they will take each day as it comes, sampling new tastes and odd places as they chance upon them on their journey through England all the way to the Scottish Highlands by rental car.

Or so they planned.

Anxiety rules McCail. He is afraid of everything not within his control. Yet he is about to learn anxiety is his friend, trying to whisper to his soul.

The Ripple Effect   

The Sea Hag – Prologue

Athens, December, 332 BC

“We must take this man chained before us to the edge of the world and drop him! He has too much power!” shouted one of the council.

“Take him to the edge? But he has done no wrong!” shouted another older member in a voice, which shook the dust from the pillars of the Areopagus in Athens, and summoned the attention of the audience surrounding him. He stood on a platform, dressed in a white toga, sporting a long white beard and an upright carriage. His stance was as solid as his irresolute opinion. He continued.

“Why? What fear lurks in the shadows of your hearts regarding this man? Is it the truth, he speaks? His morals? Or is it your lack of morals he disturbs by his mere presence?”

He waved his arms at the crowd as he showered them with more questions.

“The fear of what is right my friends means letting go of what has implanted its nature in all, growing only if allowed from the weakness of will. Somehow, the overwhelming prospect of some great pleasure seems to obscure one’s perception of what is truly good. But this difficulty need not be fatal to the achievement of virtue. Who among you deliberately chooses to develop vicious habits? The great enemy of moral conduct is precisely the failure to behave well even on occasions when one’s deliberation has resulted in clear knowledge of what is right. If you do as such with this man you will be letting the fortune of fortunes slip through your hands. Casting him over the edge is a fool’s deed, for this man, who kneels before you chained to the floor, has an abundance of knowledge at his fingertips, touching hands, as he does, with God. My observational science, he has shown me. The weather, the…”

“Silence, Aristotle! Sit! You speak in riddles. You’re old! Your theories have outlived their time, proved wrong by our scholars! I vote we take this prisoner back to Persia before we’re all destroyed!” declared yet another member. His face was etched in fear even with the support of the majority of the crowd.

“Have you all gone mad? You have no idea of what he holds! You cannot do this!” Nearly crying and with his toga gathered in his left hand, Aristotle walked down a few of the marble steps before stopping just above the main floor and pleaded.

“Where are your hearts and ethics? Did you lose them in battle? And for what? For power? The power of an empty hand is all that will be left! For life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. These improprieties of conduct will cause our decline, that is if we continue eroding morality. Persecution is not necessary; free him!” stated Aristotle.

Delegates from every Grecian state were assembled before Alexander, whose abilities, as a leader, were beginning to wane. The visions he once held, blurred by drink and his insatiable appetite for power, no longer revealed themselves to him. The question of what to do with this man, who threatened his authority and made fools of his scholars by calling them “educated donkeys”, lay before him with no easy answer. The prisoner had performed feats of strength and demonstrated abilities beyond imagination. Yet this man, chained to the floor, still sat silently with his eyes closed.

“No more talk, Aristotle! The will of the council will be done! Take the prisoner and deliver him to the edge, this very night!” commanded Alexander. His words put an end to the debate and were supported by the boasters, who held the strings of many, like so many puppeteers.

The prisoner, chained and guarded by hundreds, raised his head and spoke.

“The blessing and wisdom of God, speak through your actions Aristotle, and you, my dear friend, now hold what I was given. I will greet you there, where the wanderers pass into the heavens.”

That said, his chains broke, like they were just made of fine porcelain, and fell to the ground as he stood, looking around with an angelic smile and supreme power. Some felt his eyes pierce theirs, striking them as their emotions and passions were stirred from deep within, while others, with souls of charcoal, stood like statues afraid to even breathe.

The prisoner began to spin slowly in a small circle, with each rotation becoming faster and faster. This speed became so intense that, from every angle, he appeared motionless, while surrounded in a blue-green aura.

Alexander commands his archers let fly a rain of arrows, but their arrows turned to plumes of dust before reaching their target. His swordsmen then advanced, but were frozen in fear and fell to their knees. Everyone stood back when Alexander ordered his cheetahs to be released, however, all six cheetahs disappoint as they end up sitting and purring at the prisoner’s feet.

Complete silence followed.

The prisoner, waving his arm and pointing in the direction of the entrance to the great hall said, “We must go. The sea awaits!”

The cheetahs opened up a respectful path, then accompanied him, as he strode away and made for the waters of the Mediterranean.

All that evening, thunder rolled over the grey reaches of the sea, while a fleet of thirty vessels left Greece and sailed towards the Pillars of Hercules, making for the great Atlantic. Their passage through the Mediterranean was calm and steady. Once inside the boundaries of the Atlantic however, storms raged as they ran north towards the cold and misty isle of Britannia. Straight towards the edge of the known universe, they headed, and it lay just beyond the horizon. Each night, two ships were ordered to turn back for Greece.

The ship’s timbers creaked with each crest of a wave, as oarsman continue their hypnotic stoke heading towards their destiny.

Below deck, in a cage bound in chains, the young man with long blonde hair lay resting, his mood calm. The vessel’s commander feared him and stood well clear, any time he visited, never letting this prisoner look in his direction. One night, eight days out from Greece, the commander crept below deck and peered into the cage.

The young man, with his back turned, said, “What do you seek, Captain, life or eternal death? I hold the keys to the everlasting, as I am he, who sounds the horn. I can help you overcome your demons?”

The commander turned and ran and, for the rest of his life, these words would echo unceasingly in his head.

Crashing through heavy waves, the ship’s bow began to plough along the coastal waters of Britannia. Where lost to its bleak days, fear tore at the crew’s souls when the night of a single star came upon them.

The crew had whispered to each other for weeks about what must lie ahead. They knew their fate already, and if falling off the edge of the earth was not bad enough, other worries disturbed the men.

Rumours of the sea hag, and of sea serpents which could drag the ship into the deep caused many a frantic eye to search the waters. On several occasions, men swore they saw a great beast breast the waters, with its humps and neck, stretching high over the sea. As the days past, more and more were seen coming ever closer to the vessel.

The ship’s navigator, Pytheas, reported a dragon had flown passed one moonless night while he was relieving himself at the stern.

“I felt no fear though.” he added, “The gust from its wings blew over me as it stared into my eyes. It could have snatched me, but it just… just hung there in the fog. Blue it was; a blue dragon of the sea, gone quiet, way before my father and his father’s time. But it was blue alright. Brilliant and glowing like turquoise. It was not a dream. I was held, timeless, in its sight. It spoke to me without a sound, saying the serpents mean us no harm. And in the time it took me to swallow, it was gone!”

The men took comfort from his words, as they knew Pytheas told no tales and, in time, they began to feel at ease with the serpents. But, they were still afraid of being eaten by “the one that calls out;” the sea witch. With a dragon or serpent there was a chance, if your blade was placed just right and, with their size, you could hardly miss their approach.

But, when it came to attacks from blackest evil, you would never know until it was too late and she rips your tongue out and cackles. Yes, that topped their fear list, alright!

The old hag, the sea witch, was the dread of the seas and the stories about her had been passed down by travellers from neighbouring lands and beyond. She spoke in many voices, while her warm tones could caress and soothe the weary.

But, it was the mother’s milk of the devil they drank before dying.

Pits and crags, hollowed-out logs, caves and chimneys black with soot, suited the hag just fine.

The old tale of a witch being afraid of water was just that, a tale. She flourished on it. Water wells, with their deep shafts travelling down into the darkness, was her favourite place to snatch a life. Any place out of sight was her haunt.

Born in the southern regions of Portugal along the Mediterranean Sea, amongst its jagged rocks, lived the old hag before drifting north with her eight-sisters. Not born to earthly parents, she was the ‘prick of confusion,’ sent by the devil.

Reaching up from the bowels of the earth, he moulded them from maggots and slime. Then he planting her and her sisters, in the swamps of the southern lands to grow and practice her deception. Their putrid stench could foul the air for miles around. Their chins jutted to a point and with teeth sharp bitter and broken; as rotten as their soul. Praying on the helpless and the unconscious was their art.

On this night number-eight began to draw them into her dream with a nightmare of spells.

Call her, Hagakulla Puitlootta! She stood tall, when not hunched and bone-thin before she ate her victims. Her hair was manlike and sprouted from odd places. Her toes curled and were covered with warts. Her eyes were offset, one blue, one black, with red pupils and lay under a hedge of eyebrows. Her clothes were tattered, ill-fitting, red rags, and a flowing black cloak. Her hands, though, were unusually soft, graceful, caressing and warm to the touch. They were bait, mesmerizing, enticing, seductive, hypnotic, with nails so sharp, a nick would never be felt.

Changing into a revolting creature form like a rat or scorpion, she could do with just a thought. Piercing a soul past the flesh, was her food. Discarded bones lined her walkway, buried beneath, decaying flesh and weathered clothing.

In the year 332BC, her home was a thatched hut, with a fireplace built for three, placed high on a cliff overlooking Holy Island. But it was there, high above the sea, she sang her last hag tune.

On a night when rain and fire blades of lightning fell in a constant assault upon the living, the seas began to stir, boiling in a froth of whitecaps and deep valleys of water.

And then she began to sing.

Nine witches were there since the beginning of time. One through seven is long departed since, while number eight, Hagakulla, choked on a beam of light, thrown by an angel who swam on a bitter and chilly night.

Then she began to howl.

“We need to let him go, or we will all perish!” cried the crew as the storm intensified. “The gods are angry and come with swords of fire!”

And wail, she did! 

Held captive below deck, he stayed calm and focused through the pounding and relentless waves and the screeches of the siren. “Your strength is with me. Thank you, God.”

And men began to cry.

The aroma of death made her mouth water. She drew her broom close and spat on her hands. In a gargling tone, she uttered a spell. “Boiling seas, whispering pleas, come to Mother, suckle and rest. I will comfort thee. Come to Mother. Come to me.”

Thirty-three of the crew mutinied, over-powered ranking officers by holding gaggers to their throats, then freed the prisoner and brought him up on deck. And all the while, they headed towards the rocks of Holy Island; home of the witches.

Standing on the bluff, silhouetted by a distorted moon, she drew them in: “Come to me.”

Blinded by fierce wind-driven rain, the ship floundered on the rocks and the Captain cried, “Abandon ship!”

Like a spider to a fly, the old hag flew from the cliff’s edge, dropping to the sea below and sped across the waters snagging what she could of the living and eating their hearts and swallowing their souls. In an instant, their lives were no more. Their bodies littered the rocks as she came to roost and her toenails dug into a barnacle-covered boulder.

Only the ship’s prisoner and thirty-three of her crew survived. The witch shook her broom at the night for those who got away; casting spells and curses upon them, as she spat her rank saliva everywhere. Then, to her regret, she looked up and into the eyes of an angel.

Once on shore, the young man shouted with such a voice that it blasted the rains apart and a beam of light pierced the eyes of the sea witch, who had dared to look his way.

“Why, bless you, kind witch. It’s by your doing I am now free. Your evil has saved me. Ye are not of this earth, so ye will not rot. Return instead as a rock. Ye old hag, frozen by thee, hag I say, hag it be. And for all time, you will breathe no more, as pelican’s roost, a white bonnet you will wear old witch, not black like before: beautiful, just beautiful!”

The rain stopped. The clouds parted and the sky became brilliant with stars.

He then turned to the men. “I thank you. You shall be rewarded with the blessings of God. You shall have long lives. Tears will not flow from your loved ones, for they will be with you soon. You will become rich in spirit and grow as oaks, solid from the ground. Be steadfast in your ways, then, by the grace of God, this will be done.

You and I, we have work that must be done. This is where we will build a foundation and a horn of plenty will overflow from its walls. And we shall call it, Goosenham.”

The sea hags sister Bultas, who was uglier and more powerful, awoke from a gorging and having seen what happened to her beautiful sister, began hiding in the shadows then crept away in fear. She was pissed and places a curse on the angel.

“Revenge will be mine angel swine, your heart I will eat, along with your feet and use your hair as twine. All in due time. All in due time, swine! I will wait. I will… wait.”

And so the story begins…