The Mary Celeste is a famous 'ghost ship'; it was discovered by the crew of the Dei Gratia in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, unmanned and abandoned for unknown reasons. The crew was never seen or heard from again.

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XVII. Dear David

"Hey, John! John!"

He could not tear his eyes off the ship, the ship he stared at intently, the ship in which his experienced mariner's eye had detected something strangely wrong.

"What is it?" His second officer had run up to him, and was scrutinizing the waters. The sea was uncharacteristically calm; so calm, in fact, that it resembled a vast expanse of mirror glass rather than water.

Wordlessly, he handed him the spyglass.

"Well, it's a…hm, something's wrong with that girl," he said, squinting into the glass, the skin around his eyes wrinkling and creasing. Like the sea… "Yawing slightly, and her sails are torn…I say we tell the captain, Johnson, see what he thinks. No good sailin' around with torn up sails like that, she'll bowl over in any storm."

"Looks like she's drifting. Strange, we'd think we'd have seen the distress signal…John, call the captain."

Captain Morehouse decided it was best to investigate the matter; a fellow vessel should never be allowed to be left in distress if one has the opportunity to help. Here, only the Captain was responsible. The Captain leaves the boat last. This was the sea. This was a different life altogether. Different rules. It made a difference, that it was not land, but water, dark, bottomless water, beneath your feet.

The wind whipped up the waves a little, slowly, and soon enough, as the ship inched closer to the abandoned, strange vessel, the sea began looking more and more like its old self. The name on the hull was rather dull, but visible. She was an old ship, an old, familiar ship. Especially to their Captain.

"Mary Celeste…my good old mate Briggs must be on there, come on, let's send a team to investigate. Surely nothing could be…" The captain stopped abruptly. His expression hardened, his brows contracted above his eyes, as they swept the deck of the ship, now clearly visible in its vicinity. It was completely empty, with a look about it that seemed to say it had been abandoned for more than a few hours. Perhaps more than a few days. The ship, oblivious to all, just yawed on, back and forth, in an endless rhythm.

The ship was old, and though obviously painted over and over, refurbished and tweaked, polished and scrubbed, it still bore the hallmarks of an aging vessel. There were no signs of violence; the only thing that seemed overtly amiss was the light tearing of the sails that swayed in the breeze, uncharacteristically light for open sea, back and forth, while the masts creaked benignly, swaying in rhythm with the ship. An old pipe lay in the middle of the quarterdeck; when John sniffed it, he smelled tobacco, not quite fresh and yet not stale. The two Johns made their way into the belly of the ship, which was just as deserted as the rest. The silence weighed on their ears. There had been a woman on board: a pair of lady's gloves lay upon one of the tables, and a bobbin of silk rested on a spindle of a spinner. A woman on board is bad luck, any superstitious seaman would say.

John – John Johnson – contemplated the gloves for a while, scratching his chin. "John, why'd you think they say a woman on board's bad luck?"

"Well," he said, staring at the same gloves, "I suppose it's just one of those superstitions…sailing's for the men, isn't it?" He chuckled, still looking at the lace details on the white gloves. "A woman can be bad luck on land too, let alone at sea…"

"The ladies wouldn't like to hear you talking like that, John, old boy,"

"Well, to be honest, methinks it's got to do with the ship itself being a she."

"A woman?"

"Yes…have you not noticed? A ship is always referred to as a woman…most ships are even given women's names…hah, look at this one – Mary Celeste…and if the ship's a woman, mate, a woman with a woman is bad news…"

"Why?"

"Well, because they say that true friendship between women doesn't really exist…so I suppose a woman on a ship is bad luck…"

"Enough woman talk…what if thinking about a woman on board is also bad luck," he said, picking up a glove and shaking it.

"Well then, my friend, all ships in the history of seafaring would have gone down." They laughed, the two Johns, and set off to explore the rest of the abandoned ship.

It seemed like it had been cleared in a hurry; writing paper and pen with unfinished words lay carelessly tossed aside, clothes and coffers of books…

"Hey, John, I think pirates are out of the question. Come 'ere."

John Johnson saw his second officer bent over a set of open drawers. Drawers full of jewels and other valuables. "Yes, well, the captain confirmed that much…there's tons of cargo in the back and it's all untouched. No pirate – unless he's loopy – would miss out on such a chance. Besides, we'd see signs of struggle, and there are none."

"Apart from the torn sails," said John, and absently leant on the side of one of the cabins. Yet, he had failed to notice that the door was slightly ajar. Before his friend could stop him, he slipped off the edge, and fell on the door, causing it to swing open, and him to fall onto the floor of the cabin with a resounding smack. And yet, the floor of the cabin was entirely white. Black-and-white, with he paper that was spilled onto it.

"Hey, look at all this!"

"Letters? John, I don't think we…"

"Why not? Maybe it'll help us. Think detectives. They watch out for every little detail. So let's do that, while those idlers walk endlessly around the empty deck. We're not even supposed to be here.…The committee's investigating the matter. We can just fool around."

He picked up one of the many papers, those black-and-white butterflies that had drifted through the air to the ground. Indeed, they were letters. Letters to someone, from someone; letters with heart and soul, or, perhaps, just letters that were written for the sake of empty words. The cursive, the neat slant of the letters suggested a feminine hand; and that would indeed explain the presence of the women's gloves they had found…He read aloud.

Dear David,

Do you know about this ship? It has a most interesting history. My husband talked to be about it a few days ago. That's what I told you, about conversations with him. He is a most interesting companion. Perhaps I will learn to survive without you, and with him. My lot is not as bad as that of other woman. Thank heavens I'm not Catherine Howard (1).

So, about this ship. Well, of course, you, as a great ship enthusiast, would believe that this ship was built in Nova Scotia, as the 'Amazon'. Well, that much is untrue!

He tossed the letter aside, playfully, and looked up at his fellow John. He was surprised to see a look of utmost sobriety on his face. His eyebrows were set in a frown. A frown he knew to well indicated intense disapproval.

"Relax, John! This is so dramatic! And what if the clue to the ship's abandonment lies here?" he said, shaking a handful of papers at John. Failing to produce any response but a deeper frown, he turned back to the letter.

The ship builders were pressured to have the ship ready in a set deadline, and they weren't managing. Spencer's Island didn't have that much resource or wealth to build that ship on time. So they just renamed an old English ship that had recently sailed for the New World. An old English ship belonging to a young couple who sold it. They had come to the New World, and said they wouldn't be needing the ship anymore. The young man decided to give up his sailing. He said they had sailed half the world and now wanted solid ground under their feet…

Well, I don't know why they renamed it. 'Mary Celeste' is a pretty enough name, but 'Amazon' – I don't like the sound of it. They should have at least kept it the same…'The Bountiful'…

"Darned ship had three names! Good old girl!" he said, eyes wide, staring at the letter.

"Surely, that is strange…come on, continue!"

John smiled impishly and shook his head, "Here now, Mr. Disapprove…"

"Come on!"

"Fine!"

And the sailor – or should I say captain – that's another story – had a most wonderful name…Hope…I would love to be called Hope. Its beautiful, isn't it? That lady was lucky. An adventure at sea with a young man called Hope and a ship called the Bountiful…"

Though I am as content as Mrs. Briggs. As I said, other women's lot is worse.

- Yours Ever, Sarah

"Mrs. Briggs...so this is the captain's wife?" Tutting to himself, he flicked to the next letter.

Dear David,

Well, I'll continue my story. I suppose the Bountiful once belonged to another man; when he died, he gave the captainship to his favourite sailor. My husband says he knew the old captain. And he was just that – old, and withered. Not in any fit state to steer a ship…though the ship, too, was old, and do we not think of old men when we think of the sea?

An old, wrinkled man, hair white, a pipe in his mouth, steering a ship, through calm, blue-grey waters.

-Sarah

As he picked up the next letter, he noticed a blot of red. A blot of dried, wrinkly red amidst white. Not unlike red ink, and yet much more sinister. For it was not ink.

There were more letters, more pages, pages of stories, of promises, of declarations of love, of the incomprehensible paradox of separation and togetherness. And yet, the only thing he saw, the only thing they saw, was the blood. He picked up the page, the page with that unsettling bloom of color upon the white paper, that bloom of sickening dried blood, and read.

Dear David,

I know we won't see each other again. The New World is a long way away from where I'm going, and I cannot even bring myself to tell you how far. Perhaps I haven't come to terms with it myself. I believe he suspects it; I love him, David, I love my husband. Understand that, please. But never in the way in which I love you. He is a companion; someone to play cards with at dinnertime; someone to talk to when all seems bland and boring; someone whose shoulder I know I can cry on…you will, of course, say, that you, too, can be all these things for me. Yes, that's true…but women in love also have friends, and ironic as it can be, my husband is just that – a friend. But sometimes, I grow tired of pretending. I fear that he knows, deep down, and that if I mention being unhappy to part from America, he will fly into a great rage, and possibly take my little Sophia. I cannot allow that. There have been so many cases of such things happening.

I will live with him. He is, after all, your friend.

And a seafarer, an ardent one.

Just like you.

Forgive me.

- Sarah

He looked up from the letter, his confusion mirrored in the eyes of his friend.

"David…"

"Briggs' friend? A seafarer? David? What are the odds, John?"

"Captain Morehouse? Mrs. Briggs...and Captain Morehouse?"

They both looked at the blood-stained paper, incredulous.

"D'you say he…took his life? Or hers? After he read…his best friend…"

John, John Johnson, raised his hand. There was authority in his voice, in his eyes. Even his friend wouldn't miss that.

"Leave them here." He twitched his hand again to silence him as he opened his mouth to protest. "I captain with a broken heart is much worse luck than any woman on a ship."

They both looked up as a voice summoned them to the deck. "Johnson! Wright! Up here!" It was Morehouse. Poor David…

"Hide the gloves. Just in case. And let's go."

As they walked onto the deck, John Johnson sniffed his fingers. They smelt of azaleas. The azaleas those gloves had touched, perhaps, or held. Azaleas from David, perhaps. Or just a keepsake. He would not know.

No-one need ever know, he thought, as he walked across the deck of Mary Celeste. The ghost ship.

1 Catherine Howard, Queen Consort of England 1540-1541; was about 17 years old when Henry VIII of England took her as his fifth wife. Henry at the time was obese, diseased, quite revolting and old enough to be her grandfather; unsurprisingly, she had an affair with a young courtier named Thomas Culpepper, and made a mistake of taking into her service one Francis Dereham with whom she had been close before her arrival at court, and was hence beheaded for treason, meaning adultery while being married to the king.