Lawrence University Creative Writing Club Spring Serial Story
I told my mother I would never again go to sea. I would stay safe on shore, away from the perils of Davy Jones’ locker. I swore it with my good arm and good eye. Pray, I earned what misfortunes befell my good arm and my good eye — now, one spasms and the other twitches, weary of swimming. So much swimming.
It came upon us on December 15, 1847, one day out from our stop in Lisbon. A gale of such magnificent proportions it seemed as if it were stirred up by the devil himself. All hands on deck, battling the swells that stretched high above us, clouding the moon and stars. Drenched and cold, it was only a matter of time; the ship took on too much water and tipped under. Or did it crack? Had the mast fallen? We rushed to the ships’ boats. Did I make it? It felt almost silly to attempt escape when it was clear the only way to freedom was water clogging my lungs—choking on salt.
Would the living mourn me? When we failed to appear for the host of friends and companions who would wait on the hills of heather, there would be much grieving. But there would be none for Lennerd van der Veen. Instead, the lords and ladies would despair for their precious teabags.
Yet somehow, the devil spared me. Or intended me for the worse fate of feeling my blood thicken in my veins from dehydration. Two nights later, I am floating, knowing there is not much time left. I wonder if I should try to sleep, or turn myself over and inhale a load of that salt now and be done with it.
Down to the deep. Down to the deep. Down to the deep. Chanting. In my mind, or so I think; but I open my eyes to the blinking stars and see staring down at me three sailors, their feet resting on the water as if it were stone.
“Down to the deep!” One chants, barely above a whisper.
“He is under the jurisdiction of Davy Jones,” another warns, glaring down at me through his good eye, covered by an eye patch.
“Down to the deep!” The spirits back away, and the leader looks at me with a glint of confusion in his eye, though maybe it’s just a star shining through his transparent form. The light of the moon reflects off of his edges, illuminating him in a shimmering silver. He is light and shadow without any substance.
“Aye, he must come down to the deep. But he is the last of them. We have failed to reclaim the crewmates. You know what that means.”
“Why should we stewards of the surface bow to the lords of the deep? I don’t bow to Davy Jones.”
“King Jones mind you; lest you desire to become kraken feed,” the third spirit cackles.
“Aye, King Jones,” the first spirit smiles, if that was at all possible. Whatever the reason, I can perceive mischief in his eyes; a conniving scheme to toy with my fate is forming in their minds—that is, if ghosts have minds. He continues to speak, scrutinizing me with suspicion. “My loyalty to him grows slim; but Jones has lost something. With a little coaxing, a witness to his crimes perhaps, he might reveal what has become of it.”
“What of the procedure, then?” Another spirit was circling us, coasting off the waves and somersaulting with the sea foam. “We do not have much.”
“We give him enough to get our business sorted with the king,” the spirit begins scooping up portions of water at the edge of the horizon, until eventually he catches a passing flying fish in his spectral hands. How the fish is restrained by something so nonphysical, I can only imagine. The spirit takes out a flask from the satchel he has around his waist, and carefully administers seven drops of a radiant, whitish-blue liquid to the fish’s gasping mouth. Its fins flutter frantically with panic, but eventually grow limp. “Seven days. Davy Jones won’t be dawdling with this one.” The spirit sticks out his arm at me, the motionless fish at the end of his fingers. “Eat.”
“Pardon?” I choke, my voice parched by the salt spray and the exertion of swimming. Until this point, I had assumed these spirits were my own hallucinations; but as I take the fish from the spirit’s hands, I realize they must be real. I look anxiously up at the first spirit, whose eyes twinkle with the starlight behind. “What does it do?”
“You will find out soon enough,” the spirit whispers. “Eat. You must be hungry.”
I carefully take the fish from the spirit’s fingers. It is certainly a real fish. As I bring it closer to my mouth, I realize it smells nice, though unlike any sort of fish I have tasted before. Tentatively, I take a bite. Then I become ravenous; shredding the flesh between my teeth, I feel a vitality enter my old and creaking bones, a feeling I have not felt in over forty years, when I was just a lad.
Suddenly, something from below yanks me down. Head suddenly plummeting beneath the surface, I cannot help but gasp with fright. Only, I do not feel water fill my lungs. I do not feel the nauseating need to cough and retch up seawater. I do not need to shut my eyes against the salt. Moonbeams pierce the ocean surface and illuminate the three spirits that now float around me underwater. The first spirit, the one with the eyepatch, smiles at me.
“Captain Truefellow, at your service,” the spirit bows, removing his feathered hat. “Your presence here is very valuable to us. Your memories are fuzzy and unclear, but you will remember them soon enough. For now, follow me, for down to the deep together we must be.”
As the three spirits begin to escort me deeper and deeper down, no pressure difference noticeable in my ears, I start to fall back into blackness. The waves roiled about, over fifty feet high. The boat capsized, or was close to it. I never made it to the ship’s boat. Had I jumped? Or had something with great strength, something rubbery and slimy, lashed at me and sent me careening through the ocean, before consuming the ship and crew in its wake?