Freelance and Fishmaids is a supernatural mystery novel, serialized in twelve episodes. This is Episode Four of Season Two. Start Here.
{New to this story? Catch up with Season One here!}
Previously, Caroline learned a bit more about Flora’s motivations, and enlisted help in the ongoing saga of the Mothwood mystery…
In this episode, Caroline and Reyville meet a stranger in the woods, and are recruited into solving a paranormal conflict...
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For more tales set on Ferris Island, check out the Ferris Island Index.
Under the right circumstances, and without its fearsome reputation, Mothwood Forest might have been truly beautiful, once, in an uncomplicated way. One of the last old-growth forests in the state, fir trunks thick with time and soil rich with secrets.
Caroline peered up, considered the arching dark cathedral canopy of the trees overhead, the snips of star-studded deep-dyed indigo visible through the boughs, the way the night-creatures skittered through the brush. People used to live here, long ago. Cabins used to fill these clearings, smoke rising from their chimneys.
No wonder it was so ripe with ghosts.
She wondered if there was a past in which lovers strode beneath these trees, hand in hand, lips finding each other in the dark.
Had Mothwood ever borne witness to love? Or was every memory filled with terror and suspicion?
The stakeout spot was yards away from the old shed with as clear a view as they could get while still remaining hidden in a thick curtain of ferns. The ground was cold underneath but soft, moss and duff forming perfectly adequate seats to sit on. They had certainly managed under worse conditions.
Reyville had settled in nearby, at a respectful distance, pouring hot tea from the thermos into two mugs. He handed hers over and she thanked him, catching the brief glance he gave her, even in the gloom. She had brought pastries from the General Store to share, but these sat untouched.
Caroline sighed, deep breath of good forest air, sipped her tea. Let the silence stretch.
“May I ask you something?” Reyville said.
She held her warm mug in both hands. “Of course.”
He removed his felt fisherman’s cap, pushed his fingers through his golden hair, sighed. “If I did something wrong, you would tell me. Wouldn’t you?”
Caroline blinked. “I like to think I would, yeah. That’s what friends do. Why?”
“It just seems,” he said, slowly, “that ever since I told you about…my curse…my past…things have been different. Between us.”
Caroline’s heart sped. “Different? How?”
“I like to think that I’ve lived enough to know when I’m navigating right,” he said. “For months it felt like we were heading in a certain direction. It just seemed to me that we were…you were…”
He stopped, winced, then said, so softly, “I miss you, is all.”
“Miss me? I’m right here,” she said, trying to smile him out of this uncomfortable mood. “I've been here the whole time.”
But he shook his head.
“Sure. We’re still going through the motions, but it isn’t quite the same. There’s a gap. Something broke. And I think I broke it. And if I did, I’m so sorry. It’s the last thing I wanted.”
Caroline thought back, could see him sitting up in the bed in the Clinic, arm in a sling and golden sunset bathing his freshly-scarred face in an eerie glow as he told her his secret: that he has not lived one life, but many. That when he dies, he comes back. Somehow. A curse. At the time it was all she had ever wanted, to know that much after so many things kept from her. It felt like the solution. But it hadn’t taken long for the solution to breed more and more anxieties and questions, to the point where she talked herself out of getting any closer to him, out of fear of hurting him deeper than he had already been hurt.
She felt electric, high-voltage; no matter how she moved, even if she stood still, she was bound to hurt him somehow.
“I just wanted to apologize,” Reyville said, wide shoulders visibly slumping. “I’m tired of dancing around it. That’s all.”
Caroline breathed out, catching the steam from her mug and sending it swirling. “I don’t think it’s fair for you to hold all that. If there’s distance, it’s not only your fault. It takes two.”
He shrugged. “When you realize a ship is off-course, you have to correct it early or you swing wide and end up somewhere you don’t want to be. I don’t know a lot, but I know that.”
“You know plenty.” Caroline smiled. “And for what it's worth, I’m glad you said something.”
There was a pause, heavy with meaning, before she added, “So, Captain. You’re the navigator. How do we get back on course? Metaphorically speaking.”
She waited. Looked across the divide to find him peering at her through the dark with a look she hadn’t quite seen from him, before. Was that yearning? Was that desire?
Has Mothwood ever borne witness to love?
“That depends,” he said, quietly, “on where we’re going.”
Where are we going, Captain? I’ll gladly go. As long as you’re there, I’ll go.
But the moment broke, shattered, when a whistling sound rose up, clear and bright, from one end of the clearing. But it wasn’t the call of a night-creature; it was a whistled tune, cheery enough, incongruous in the gloom.
Before long, a shadow slipped from the edge of the trees into the clearing and walked through, passing the stakeout spot on its way to the old shed, whistling merrily.
Caroline and Reyville held very, very still as the shadow passed them. In the dark it was difficult to make out what exactly they were looking at…but it certainly wasn’t a giant spider monster.
The shadow passed, paused, and Caroline thought she heard the faint sound of…sniffing? Scenting the air like an animal? Before a deep voice with an unusual, clipped accent said, “I know you’re there. It’s bad manners to spy on folk simply minding their own business. Come on out, with you.”
Reyville and Caroline gave each other a quick glance before Reyville stood from the hiding spot first, subtly moving between the newcomer and Caroline, clicking on his flashlight and aiming it at the stranger’s chest. The glow revealed a very tall, very thin man with a crown of white hair and an unruly beard. He was well-dressed in tweed, a classic look, a fishing pole over his shoulder and—in his spindle-fingered hand—a line with three glimmering fresh-caught lake trout hanging from it.
Caroline rose, too, and for a moment, when Reyville’s flashlight slipped higher, she thought that the light flashed green in the stranger’s eyes like a wild animal. But the effect was quick, and she wasn’t sure if she had seen it at all.
“Well now,” the old man said. “I would have caught more fish if I’d known I would have company.” It was said in jest, but there was tension in it. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you Longshank, sir?” Reyville asked. He was polite enough, but Caroline caught that hint of island authority in his tone. Search and Rescue, Coast Guard, Fish and Wildlife all rolled into one, as he had once said.
The old man cocked his head. His face was unsettling; too old and too young all at once, and there was no clarity of daylight to make sense of it. “Either my reputation precedes me, or you’ve been snooping through my belongings,” he said, in a chiding tone. “Yes, if you must know. Lemuel Longshank. I’m just passing through, as is my habit. I’m an outdoorsman and a traveler. Ferris Island is full of beautiful places to stay for a while. Is that a problem?”
Before Reyville could read the old man the riot act for trespassing and squatting on closed island land, Caroline said, throwing on a gracious smile, “Mr. Longshank, my name is Caroline Phelan, and this is Captain Reyville. Forgive our intrusion. It’s just that we’ve been investigating reports of livestock disappearing from nearby farms, and locals are worried about a large, wild animal in the woods. Have you seen anything…suspicious while you’ve been out here?”
Longshank seemed to respond to good manners. He considered, sweeping a long arm around the clearing, taking it all into his gracious embrace. “These old woods are haunted, no?”
Caroline nodded.
“Then, aside from the usual-unusual, no. I have seen nothing suspicious. Just your regular beasts, your flickerings and frights, your ghouls and specters. These, I have seen. But nothing else. Nothing interested in something so rustic as livestock.”
Did Caroline imagine it, or did Longshank run his tongue over his teeth?
And did those eyes dart and flicker, strange and steely?
“And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have fish caught to cook and supper savory to eat, and I prefer to dine alone,” said the old man. “Out of the woods with you, before something decides you would make a fine meal, yes?”
He laughed. Reyville and Caroline did not. And when it became clear that the old man was going to stand there and wait until they left, Reyville picked up the thermos and Caroline picked up her bag and they turned away, walking back through the woods to her car, the old man watching them until they were fully out of sight. Just a tall shadow among the trees.
They were quiet until they were well out of earshot, when Reyville said, “Lemuel Longshank. The name doesn’t ring any bells, but…his face looked oddly familiar. Can’t fully place him, though.”
Caroline asked, “Do you believe his story? About being a traveler?”
“Not one bit.” Reyville paused, slipped his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “Tell you what. It’s still early. What do you say we head to the Wake? For old time’s sake?”
It had been a while since they had visited the old fishermen’s tavern at the Port Salish Harbor together.
Caroline nodded, nudged him with an elbow. “First round of ginger ale is on me.”
*******
When they arrived at the Fishmaid’s Wake it was Sunday-full, the usual weekend crowd. Stevie Nicks was halfway through the second chorus of Landslide on the jukebox and Dan Simmons, the Port Salish Harbormaster, was sitting at a table with a handful of fisherfolk. She raised her glass as Caroline and Reyville came in, stood to give Caroline a warm hug while Reyville greeted the others at the table.
“Word to the wise,” Dan said to Caroline, when she pulled away from the embrace. “Zeke is in a foul mood, this evening.”
“Isn’t he always?” Caroline glanced past Dan to the bar, where the tavern owner—Ezekiel Shy—was pacing under the neon bar signs, big gray beard quivering, polishing a glass with unusual fervor. At this distance it was tough to see his expression, but she didn’t have to in order to imagine it; Zeke was not her biggest fan. She was well-used to his typical scowl.
“Worse than usual, I warn you.” Dan shook her head. “Won’t tell any of us what’s up. I say you better avoid sitting at the bar.”
Indeed, the stools at the bar were all empty, which is why the tables and booths felt extra crowded. Clearly Zeke’s thunderclouds had chased even the regulars away. But Reyville, returning to Caroline’s side, simply shrugged. “Calm seas never made a skilled sailor. I say let’s chance it.”
Caroline gave Dan a helpless look, but let Reyville lead her to the bar where they perched on two stools and waited for the barkeep to notice them.
It didn’t take long, and up close it was worse than Caroline imagined. Zeke didn’t just look grumpy, he looked ruined. Bereft. She almost felt sorry for him. His big frame was slouched, his craggy face forlorn. As he approached, Caroline leaned back out of instinct, but Reyville leaned forward on his elbows. “What’s the news, Skipper?”
Zeke glowered down on them both. He wasn’t having it. “The usual?” he growled, but then did not wait for an answer before heading back to get them both a ginger ale, which was decidedly Reyville’s usual. Frankly, Caroline could have gone for a beer, but she didn’t feel it was the time to quibble.
The barkeep returned with the fizzing glasses, set them down just a little too hard without remembering to put beermats down first, then slumped away.
“Odd,” Reyville said, taking a sip. “That’s not like Zeke at all. Wonder what’s gotten into him.”
“I bet it’s woman troubles.” Caroline said, offhanded, flippant, slight roll of the eyes.
Reyville tilted his glass at her. “Aye, yeah, that could be it.”
“I was joking.”
“Even so. Nothing ruins a sailor faster than love.”
She glanced up to see if there was any irony written on his face, but he gave nothing away. So she decided to change the subject. “What do we think about Longshank?”
“Now there’s a strange fella. Wish I could figure out where I know him from. If he’s just a traveler passing through, I’ll eat my hat.”
“What do we do about it?”
Reyville scratched at the trimmed hair around his chin. “He's technically trespassing. We could call in the authorities, throw the book at him. But it definitely feels like there's something more, there.”
“Maybe it's time to call in a favor with Flora.” Caroline said the words with a non-committal shrug, trying not to push. “She did say we could have full access to RUMOR’s tech and resources.”
Reyville didn't respond.
A shadow loomed over them and Caroline looked up to see Zeke, standing, staring down at the both of them, still polishing the same glass as if he couldn’t get it clean enough.
“I might…need your help,” he said, strained, as if he had never said those words before.
“Us?” Caroline was unable to mask her surprise.
Zeke shook his great shaggy head, pinned Caroline with his icy blue stare. “You.”
Caroline frowned. “What do you…need help with?”
Zeke looked around, making sure no one else was listening. “It’s…the basement. The…you know.”
Caroline blinked, caught off guard. It was one of her first paranormal experiences on the island, back when she and Reyville only knew each other as strangers on the phone and she was trying to maintain her journalism career at the Port Salish Chronicle while moonlighting as a ghost hunter for her blog. Reyville had tipped her off to a ghost in the basement of the tavern, a bit of local lore called the “Weeper at the Wake”. Zeke had rumbled her sneaking into the basement and had never been all that happy with her, since. Granted, it had not been the best first impression.
“You’re talking about…the ghost?” Caroline said, slowly.
Zeke nodded. “Yes, that. She’s, well…there’s something wrong. With her.”
“Something wrong with a ghost? Compared to…?” Reyville asked.
“Yes. There’s something wrong. She’s…she’s been destructive, lately. Breaking things in storage. Making noise. Scaring my wait staff. They won’t go near the basement right now. She’s never done anything like this, before. Years and years she's been down there. She’s…”
Zeke sighed, great shoulders quaking.
“Why me?” Caroline asked.
“Because,” Zeke said. “You do…weird.”
Yes, weird is what we do.
Caroline was always happy to help anyone who asked, but she felt the hitch in her soul like a blade, digging deep. Last time she met the Weeper at the Wake face to face, she had Scully. It was the camera that revealed the Weeper’s secret: she wasn’t weeping, at all. That was just local legend. She was a spirit who was happy where she was. Content.
“Who was she, Zeke?” Caroline asked. “I think, to find out what’s wrong, I need to know.”
He nodded, checked again to make sure no one was listening. He was clearly not a man prone to explaining the more sensitive details of his personal history to anyone, least of all a woman, a relative stranger.
“She was my fiancee,” he said, after a pause. “I shipped out with the Navy during Vietnam, promised we’d get married when I came home. But she got sick, and…”
He looked at Caroline, asking with his eyes for her not to force him to say the rest. She understood, nodded. “And she’s been in the cellar ever since?”
“Just…lingering,” he said. “To be near me. It’s been good, knowing she’s there, and she seemed at peace all this time. I don’t know what’s wrong. Can you…can you help?”
Caroline looked at Reyville, but he was waiting for her cue.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I make no promises.”
She took a swig of ginger ale—not quite the liquid courage she was expecting, far too sweet—and stood from the bar stool. Reyville followed her lead, solid at her side.
“What’s her name?” Caroline asked.
“Violet.” Zeke said it very softly.
Caroline turned and headed for the basement door, down a short hallway, door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, with Reyville close behind her.
“See?” he said, when they were out of Zeke’s earshot. “Like I told you: nothing ruins a sailor faster than love.”
“Yes, you were right. Clever you.” Caroline pushed through the door, and the cold of the basement rushed up to greet them where they stood on a landing at the top of the stairs under a single bare lightbulb. Below, all was dark. “I’m genuinely not sure what he expects me to do, here.”
Reyville shrugged. “You’re the ghost whisperer. Do a little chat, calm her down. You’ve been here before, maybe she’ll remember you?”
“I don’t know if it works like that.”
As if on cue, in response to their voices, a sound fluttered up from the dark space below. A thin wail, breathy, like the squeal of a metal chair on a linoleum floor.
Reyville exhaled, a whistling note. “She doesn’t sound too happy.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Caroline sighed. “Well. I guess…I’m going down there. Stay here, okay? I don’t want her to feel ambushed.”
Reyville nodded, reluctant. “I’ll be here if you need me. Just shout.”
I know. I know it. You’ll always follow. Somehow, I know.
Caroline descended the stairs, creaking under her shoes, the temperature cooling rapidly—unnaturally—as she descended. Her fingers itched. She wanted Scully. She wanted eyes to see, down here.
I feel so blind.
At the bottom of the stairs, Caroline sat on the final step. The other bare bulb that was supposed to illuminate this stone-walled cellar space had been smashed, the pieces littering the floor. Shelves had been toppled, kegs rolled higgledy-piggledy. The far corners of the room were a void, completely obscured.
“Violet?” Caroline said into the dark. “Violet, are you here?”
It took no time at all. A shattering of glass in a far corner of the room, a low groaning cry—muffled, as through water—and a skittering of footfalls.
The goosebumps rose on Caroline’s arms, but she forced herself to sit calmly. “Violet, Zeke sent me down here. What’s wrong?”
A metallic slam as something hit the wall, hard. A keg, maybe. Caroline jumped.
“Violet, please. Show me your face. Let me see you. Tell me what's wrong, somehow. I'm here to help.”
There was a pause after that. A watchful quiet that was somehow worse than the angry sounds of a sorrowful ghost.
The hairs at the base of Caroline’s neck fluttered as a shape coalesced at the edge of the wan pool of light at the bottom of the stairs. The shape of a woman, kneeling on the ground, head bowed in sorrow. The sound of weeping, sobbing, filled the cellar as if played on an old radio.
Caroline watched, fascinated into paralysis, as the shape of the woman leaned in and seemed to crawl forward, the light turning her to a sort of vapor as she made her way across the floor. When she was only feet away the spirit reached out a hand—stretching, desperate—and Caroline, moved by something she could not name, reached out to close the gap.
As soon as their hands touched, the round welts hidden under the long sleeve on Caroline’s arm fizzed and vibrated and a vision flew through her mind, fast, a scene: Zeke Shy, hand in hand with a woman, walking along the harbor side, her hair windswept, both smiling.
But it was now. Zeke Shy now, not Zeke Shy as a young man. This was new.
Violet pulled away, and the mark of the Sisters calmed, eased, the vision clearing. Caroline sat with her hand outstretched, thinking. She didn't know why the welts were allowing her to see these things. But at least she could use them, for forever long this was going to last.
“Zeke is in love again,” she said, softly, to Violet. “Is that why you’re so upset?”
The ghostly form receded back into the shadows, the weeping continuing. Caroline’s heart squeezed for the phantom.
“Violet, you had to know that he…he can’t stay alone forever. At least, it was always a possibility that he would find someone. You had to know that.”
Clearly more comfortable at the edge of the dark the ghost tipped her face up, and even without Scully, Caroline could see: she knew. Of course she knew. Her wide, unblinking eyes were full of pain...and affection.
She loved Zeke. But she was alone. She just didn’t want to feel alone, abandoned.
Caroline nodded. “I think I understand.”
As the ghost slipped back into the shadows, Caroline stood from the step and climbed back up the stairs, Reyville waiting faithfully at the top.
“Well?” he said.
But she didn’t respond. Just gave him a quick smile, beckoned him to follow her back out into the tavern where someone had put on a deep-cut track from Tusk that literally no one was paying attention to, because…well, it’s Tusk.
“Zeke,” she said, drawing near to the bar, sitting back on her barstool. The barkeep came over, still polishing the same glass, eyes hopeful, and Caroline asked, “Are you…seeing someone? Romantically, I mean.”
The blush spread across the old sailor’s cheeks above his beard and over his nose, and he looked side to side, nervous. “Who, uh…who told you that?”
“Violet did. Sort of.”
Zeke blinked, clearly shocked, and said, “Well, I mean…yes. We’re not exclusive or anything, but…yes, there’s a new lady in my life. Is that…is that why Violet…?”
“She loves you, Zeke. That’s clear enough to me. I think she just…wants you to talk to her. Tell her about what’s happening. How often do you talk to her?”
He shook his shaggy head. “I didn’t know she could hear me.”
“She can. And she just doesn’t want to be abandoned. Before you shut down tonight, go down there and tell her. She needs to hear it from you.”
“And that's all it will take? To fix this?”
Caroline shrugged. “It's worth a try, right? Better than having an angry ghost in your cellar. Give her the news and let her be happy for you. I truly think she will.”
Zeke nodded, then he reached a strong hand across the bar. Caroline, surprised, shook it.
“Thank you,” Zeke said, with genuine warmth. “Really. Thank you.”
She smiled, and a new group of customers approached the bar, so Zeke strode away to take their orders. Shoulders squared, voice back to its normal gruff growl. A sailor’s sailor.
Caroline's phone buzzed. A text from Flora. She resolved to check it later.
Reyville slipped onto the stool next to Caroline and looked at her, lifting his ginger ale glass for a triumphant sip. “And you were worried.”
“Turns out I still got it.”
“That was never in doubt.” He smiled over his glass at her, and something deep within her tensed, squeezed.
“But, then again, I was right,” he added. “Nothing ruins a sailor faster than love.”
“So I’ve heard.” Caroline raised her glass, and Reyville met it with his. It was good to return, like this. Draw close. A small correction to bring the ship back to its proper course.
To navigate right. If only she knew where they were really going.
Oh, Captain. My Captain. Dear Captain.
If it be ruin, let it be ruin on us both.
Thank you for reading! 📸
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Well, that was a rollercoaster of emotions: I was awed by the forest, worried about Reyville and Caroline, and then that Lemuel Longshanks guy, I suspect he's up to no good, although I'm not sure, but I love his dialogue. It's practically musical. And then the poor ghost, I felt so sorry for her, because that's got to be rough. You hit all the feels on this one.
Well done!