She sailed across the moon
Last evening we were out at what some call the “witching hour”. That time, around midnight, when the moon is rising and you see wonderful sights, the sort that can be spun into a great tale with a bit of patience. Not here and now, but years from now, when the story has been told enough times to pick up some colour. I’ll check back in a few to see if the evolution has begun.
For now, I’ll plant the seed.
We were out at a time when we should have been safely in bed, especially because we still had to learn to inflate the new mattress we had picked up in town. Instead, we’d sat down by Shirley’s until she turned off the cookers and killed the lights, a signal that it was late. Not her posted closing time, but on a Friday night there are other places to be. She left, we stayed, until our company absolutely had to get in line for the crossing. Then we went up east.
I knew that if we made it to the Point before the boat had passed we might see her lights, and so we carried on to the end of the world, where the old radio house has swung ninety degrees and found a new foundation, cuddled tightly in the toes of the lighthouse. Even with the bright light out by the road and the flashing beacon it was very dark. The moon had not yet risen.
With binoculars in hand we gathered on the fence line, took sight on the reef buoy, and watched as the ferry transited the newly risen moon. A wonderful image.
Here we are, with a quarter moon, fully red, and a hundred lights in the form of a cruising vessel crossing majestically in front. The wind was blowing, cold. So cold we shivered in our tightly zippered jackets, trying hard to imagine if January could be
any worse. No sound from the boat; just the crashing of waves below the cliff. In minutes, the ship was gone, the moon had
risen into a bank of cloud and we were homeward bound, past the flashing red beacons that are the only trace of a row of windmills in the dark of night.
The tale is too new, but in time it will grow and adjust, as we learn more about the ghostly vessel that sails by the Point in the dark of night.
