Chapter 5: The Hated Woman

When John next opened his eyes Iris was sleeping soundly in her hammock. The door to the cabin swung all the way open and banged against the crates along the wall, then swung halfway closed with a whimpering whine as the ship began her slow roll. John could see diffuse bright daylight illuminating the outer companionway, ribbons of fuzzy shadows advancing, retreating with the movement of the ship. It did not appear sunny, but the rain must have ceased, or the hatch would not be open.

He stepped from his bed and ducked under Iris’s hammock to catch and close the door. It banged loudly once more before he could secure it, and Iris started slightly and lifted her head. John closed the door gently as he turned to look at her. Her eyes were swollen, rimmed with pink. If he had not that moment watched her wake up, he would have guessed that she had not slept.

In the morning, at that moment, fresh from sleep and still within the shadow of a dream, John could not say with certainty that she had been gone the past night at all; or indeed if he had gotten up from his bed and ventured out. Was it a fancy of his sleeping mind? The wailing wind was strange, he thought, and dreamlike, as was the fear he felt at the ocean night. What had frightened him so? Surely not just the great unseen boundaries of the empty cage above. The emptiness of the night. The vast desolate deck, fading out to blackness. These small things did not account for the inescapable horror he recalled as having taken hold of him. He believed it, he felt it, but could not reconcile it to reality. For the time, it must be reluctantly put down to a dream.

Iris had by now sat up in her hammock, her bare feet swinging before her, and regarded her husband with a cheerful expression. “Good morning,” she said, smiling, her hair a tangle of red runaway strands popping up all over her head.