Page 59 | Chapter 3 | The Ghost Ship | A Free Serialized Online Novel by Scott Telek

John stared at the sailor, who took no more notice of him. He huffed, nostrils flaring, and with a sudden movement, pulled his chin in to his chest and gazed hard at the boat bottom between his feet. Iris asked him if something was the matter, but he did not hear her. He seemed to compress his chin as he ground his teeth in concentration. Iris asked him again.

Abruptly his expression changed, his eyes grew wide, and he leaned to the side, over the wales of the boat. He had not noticed that they had left the land. He had inwardly instructed himself to devote attention to the moment when his foot passed from land to sea, but he had not noticed. He stared at the surface of the opaque water with an expression of abandonment on his face. He could not even see pebbles on the bottom. He saw nothing.

Iris looked in the other direction, hands folded in her lap, bright smile on her face.

John continued to gaze at the blank face of the water, until another thought seemed to pass over him, and his expression grew even more morbid. He leaned back slowly, face still, as though aware of being observed from behind. Slowly he turned.

The Eurydice was growing larger as they neared. The great black mass of ship expanded with every oar-stroke, the sense of her weighty presence felt in the hollow of his chest, increasing as she grew larger in his vision. Her mast-tops stretched ever upward into the sky from the line of distant trees as they neared, appearing to grow organically from the bare-branched forest of the late season. Their shadows rose into the sky like tendrils of black ink staining parchment. The straight black lines of her cordage now rose above the crooked bare branches, as the boat drew under the loom of her yards. All fell silent in their boat as they passed under the presence of the colossal ship.