The days seemed to come and go without meaning or time. There was a nothingness in his world. As the good looking man scratched his scruffy beard he watched out of the telescope and looked at the sea. 'The sea' he thought to himself. That was the one thing that had been a constant in his life. But, now he was in his forties and he was ready to settle down.
Captain Gregg had spent the last thirty plus years at sea. On one of his many voyages he had returned to his boyhood home and purchased some land. There with his own hands he had built a home. He was proud of Gull Cottage. The house was not an extremely large home, but it was efficient and had all of the modern conveniences that a home built in the mid 1800 s could offer. As he went down the stairs to his alcove, he reflected on his life.
When he had built the house he had planned on marrying a woman named Vanessa. She was everything that he could ever want and he had thought that when he came back to Schooner Bay they would get married. However, that was not meant to be . He had come home to find out that she had left town and was now married to someone else.
It was strange, but Captain Gregg was not that upset about Vanessa marrying someone else. As he looked up from his desk he thought about her. She was beautiful and he was sure that they could have had a good marriage. But, he was moving on and was sure that there was someone out there for him. He was sure of it.
Captain Gregg continued to work in his alcove looking over some of his maps and could hear the howling of the wind. He could see his monkey puzzle tree bending to the wind as he looked out of the large bay window. The window had been placed there so that he could always look out and see who was coming up the road. The window had a good view of the sea also. It was going to be a cold night. He could hear the pounding of the waves as he closed the shutters. He had built a wall, a wall that would keep the sea away from his precious Gull Cottage. He smiled to himself, knowing that he had planned the location of the home properly and that all would be fine with his home.
Gull Cottage had been carefully planned . He had built her on top of a knoll. The knoll was not that high, however, it was high enough to protect it from higher tides. Each window had protective shutters and each room had its own fireplace.
The one thing that Captain Gregg did not look forward to was going out in this storm. But a bad storm was brewing and he knew that if he didn't go out and get wood now the weather was going to be much worse. He dressed for the cold and headed out to the woodshed. As he stepped out of his warm home he was encountered by the storm. The winds were blistery and he estimated the gale to have winds in excess of sixty miles per hour. Because of the location of his home and the sea there was not much snow, but the trek to the woodshed seemed long on this long and cold night.
Captain Gregg looked at the pile of wood that he had stocked for the winter and nod his head with pride. There was plenty of wood and it was well seasoned. He stood tall with pride as he gathered up the wood and headed back to the house.
As Captain Gregg brought in the last of the wood he looked around. He was a careful man and checked every window and door in the home. The storm was going to be a bad one and he wanted to insure that everything was ready.
As he went up the stairs to his master bedroom, he carried two bundles of wood. He would need the heat . The room that he had designed and built himself was a large room with a fireplace that normally did a good job of providing heat. As he put more wood on the fire, he looked down at a new item that he had just purchased.
Captain Gregg was a modern man and when he had seen a heater that was advertised as being capable of heating an entire room he had purchased it. It was a new type of heater and worked with gas. The man at the store had been using it at the time when he had gone to the store and Captain Gregg had been impressed with the heat that it had given off. The room was indeed warm.
Now it was time for him to ready the heater for his use. The man had warned him of the dangers and Captain Gregg was very careful to do thins exactly as he had been told to. As he turned the heater on he smiled, almost immediately he could feel the heat.
Feeling quite safe, Captain Gregg went to his shelf and took out one of his favorite books. He sat back in his most comfortable chair and began to read the book.
Captain Gregg woke up to find himself somewhat disoriented. He looked around and realized that he wasn't walking on the floor. As a matter of fact, he was floating. It was then that he found himself floating towards the sea. But, when he reached the water, it was as though he was walking on the water, not through it.
At that moment he looked up at his beloved Gull Cottage . That was his home. He was not going to leave his home. But, the sea it was calling to him. "No No" he shouted and with the force of a very determined man Captain Gregg found himself in his bedroom looking down at his body. To his horror he saw what had happened. He had dozed off while reading and had accidently kicked the gas heater. He knew that he had died from the fumes from the gas heater.
Thus the story begins.