Page 20 | Chapter 1 | The Ghost Ship | A Free Serialized Novel by Scott Telek

They turned to each other in amazement. John opened his mouth to say something, lips and eyes drawing upward with a surprised smile, when he was interrupted by the deafening bustle of scampering feet rushing about upstairs. John and Iris followed the sound across the wooden ceiling until a door flung itself open, and three young women, each below twenty-five, rushed down the stairs in an ecstatic flurry. Their fingers fluttered in the air as they tumbled forward like a gaggle of excited geese. One of them held a two-year-old in one arm, dragging a child of three by the hand with the other. A second led a sour red-haired girl of five, face burnt by freckles of the highest concentration. Her grim expression stood in sharp contrast to the ecstatic gasps and clucks of the three women.

“God, I knew he’d come back,” the childless woman said. “Two years gone! And to Saint Ives and back! We should have had him in the spring!”

“Agnes said she dreamed of them wrecked on the rocks,” the woman with the girl added. “Said her Charlie came wet to her bedside and held her hand.”

“Oh don’t even say it!” the third scolded, as she used her spit to wipe dirt from her three-year-old’s face. “Agnes would be lucky if she saw the road just before her.”

“I wouldn’t have minded a few of them staying lost,” the childless woman said. “I tell you I’ll know enough to avoid that scoundrel Jessop when he shows his face again.”

“You and any woman has already been misled by that man,” said the mother of the two children. Her focus abruptly shifted to her child. “You’re daddy is back, little one, do you remember your daddy?”

“No,” said the child sullenly.