From The Desk of Ezra Must, Attorney at Law
To: Mr. Jacob Whippleton
86 Bank Street, Boston
(Direct messenger to Office With the Yellow Door.)
January 14, 1843
Dearest Friend,
It is my pleasure to inform you that the transactions made for the Beach House have been made in full, and the house now belongs to the firm. We will demolish it when we see fit. The surrounding land should be on the property market before June comes round.
By the bank's request, I instructed a crew to clear the house of possibly valuable objects, and now, waiting for you in humble little Milford, is a the coat closet in my office containing: a Woman's Armoire, a Pearl Necklace, a Bronze Telescope, five Silver Horseshoes, and an Ornate Key.
Not by the bank's request, I confiscated from the crew a Packet Most Curious. It is heavy and bound with leather, and the clasp on the front, I presume, is opened by the Key. My wife and I are very much looking forward to your upcoming visit on the 25th, and I hope, when you stop by the little town by the sea, that you should open it with me, in the case it is also of some monetary value.
Sincerely,
Ezra
___
The First Account
There are three women sitting around the table, eating.
The table is perfectly circular. Two of the women sit closer to each other- twin sisters once beautiful. Annabelle is the other figure sitting at the table, a grave girl far too solemn for her age. She spends most of her time reading the Bible like the good girls do, and the rest of it is spent cleaning for the Twins, the Aunts. The Aunts are good to her. They always have been, since the day Annabelle's parents were carried away in the Pox Cart, gray limbs sticking out of the sides.
Suddenly feeling full, she asks to be excused, leaving two pieces of wild asparagus and a bit of pork slathered and butter behind. The Aunts stare after her as she ascends the stairs into her room.
There, on the floor beside her bed, is her Bible and her bronze telescope. She gathers these and cradles them in her arms before climbing back down the stairs.
The Aunts are discussing something in their usual hushed tones, something Annabelle can't make out. She slips into the kitchen and pushes the door open, struggling against a drift of sand that had been carried up by the wind.
Outside, the smell is briny- it is low tide, and the sand stretches in almost every direction, except for small pocks filled with water and tiny crabs. She balances her belongings between her arm and her hip, leaving the other hand free to hold a fistful of fabric from her skirt as she wrestles through the barrier of reeds- the only thing that separates her from the trail to Salem Rock.
It's not much of a trail; merely a line of black sand, seemingly permanent. It leads to the edge of the rock, where receding water and anxious humans have carved footholds into its sides.
The black sand is rock and rough, and harbors shells that cut into the soles of Annabelle's feet. Clutching her belongings to her chest, she puts her feet in the niches- which, compared to the sand, feel like velvet.
Once on top of the rock, she folds her legs beneath her and gingerly flips the pages to Psalms. She reads them in time with the familiar church melodies, stopping every few verses to look out at the sea, and the setting sun dipping below the horizon.
Suddenly, she remembers what she has brought the telescope for.
To her left, far out on the water, is an island. From her window, she can see there is a smokestack- a chimney that belches out steam every so often, even though the Aunts say it is ridiculous. No one lives there, they say, and give her worried looks, reaching up to feel her forehead with the flat of their hands.
She lifts the eyepiece and looks through, feeling the cold metal against her skin.
The island has very little beach, and so the water merely laps up against straight rock. The trees grow raggedly, erratically- a few of them have been overturned by storms and disease.
Through them, she can see the water. There is no smokestack, at least, not today.
Annabelle is about to put the telescope down when she catches something- a brown corner, encroaching into her view. She yelps and the eyepiece drops to the rock, clattering as it rolls to and fro.
"Hello, Miss," says a voice.
The voice belongs to a boy, looking at her pleadingly from over the rock. He is merely a head from this angle.
"Hello," Annabelle replies, still shaken.
His irreverently messy hair sticks out in wet spikes, no doubt from swimming. Sand is stuck to his lip and his eyebrows, which shield blue eyes reminiscent of a cat that wakes up from a nap- languid and sleepy. "Do you need something, sir?"
He nods. "Do you have any extra cloth you could spare? I cut my foot on a rock, see, and it hurts quite fierce."
She feels panicked. Her heart begins to beat wildly as she shakes out the book and her pocket, feeling compelled by Christian duty to assist him but not having anything to do it with.
He begins to shrug and turn away, but she tears the scarf from her hair and hands it to him.
"Here."
"I can't do that, miss, that's yours. I mean, extra- scraps," he says, smiling. "I'll just head on home, then. Thank you."
She frowns. "Take it."
"No."
"Really, it's all right."
His smile falters. He puts both his palms on the rock and lifts himself up, growing from a mere head to a body. The body is very tall and covered in salt-ironed clothes, no doubt stiffened when he had fallen asleep in the sand.
The foot in question is wet, and blood runs from an ugly gash on his heel, only to mix with water and fall in dilute, spidery patterns.
Annabelle wraps the scarf around it twice, once over his foot and the second along the back of the ankle to keep it secure. All the while, the boy looks out to sea- to the island.
He gives her a strange look when she finishes, sleepy-cat eyes distraught and troubled as he notices something over her shoulder. "Thank you.” His smile is forced.
She nods back and watches him as he slides back off the rock, careful to walk on the balls of his feet. The wet sand kicks up in globs around him, and he begins to whistle. Annabelle tears her gaze away from him and looks back up toward the house. The Aunts are watching from her window, identical faces peering out towards the sunset.
Sophie
This was really good; you showed us the image well. Or maybe just people that are familiar with the ocean lol. I quite liked it, and I only caught the one thing.
