Author: Cyrus Borzak
Mother’s Venture stout and true,
Vanished on the ocean blue.
No wreckage, mast, or sail be found,
On still nights her bell still sounds.
’Tis hope the lost shall reappear,
Til that day, hold memory dear.
Parker, Hudson, and Stone grabbed whatever was sturdy and close by. They watched as a wave rose above The Orange Nightingale, like a massive paw waiting to swat at an insignificant rodent. The creature’s shadow showed within the wave, oval-like but without any defining features. As their fates seemingly hung over a precipice, Parker got the odd sense that nothing was going to happen, that perhaps something had already happened and the wave was not a threat.
As quickly as the thought popped into Parker’s mind, the wave, creature and all, lurched at the ship. The men reflexively closed their eyes as they braced for the impact. And they waited. Then, they waited some more.
Parker dared a peek. He looked at Stone, who also began opening his eyes. He then looked at Hudson, who was already scanning their surroundings and focusing on something in front of them. Parker followed Hudson’s gaze and struggled to process what he saw. All three men now homed in on the lump lying ahead of them on the bow. Their struggling minds soon realized it was not just some flotsam deposited on their deck by the storm; it was a man, and he was in a panic.
“What? What? What,” the man repeated time and again. He looked around in a frantic misunderstanding of his surroundings, his eyes widening when he saw the three other men with him on this strange vessel. They looked to be as confused as he felt.
Parker’s reflexive humanity took over to awaken him from the shock paralysis, “Hello there! Are you okay? Do you need assistance?”
The words felt incredibly trite to say, but he tried to make them sound as sincere as possible. They had some effect as the unknown man paused his frenzied survey and cocked his head in surprise.
“I…where…where am I?”
His words came out clear despite his thoughts clearly stumbling over themselves.
“You’re aboard The Orange Nightingale off the coast of Maine of the United States.”
“Yes, Maine. I am from Maine,” the man seemed relieved that at least some of Parker’s answer made sense to him. “How did I get here? Did you rescue me from the storm?”
Parker was truly unsure how to answer that question since he had no idea how the man ended up on their boat. He figured admitting as much would suffice for now and that they all needed a moment to collect their thoughts to assess what happened.
“I’m sorry, friend, I don’t know how you got here. We encountered that storm and thought it had us. But it broke and you showed up. How about you come into the cabin with us so we can all warm up, have something to eat, and try figure out just what is going on?”
The man looked around again as if judging the safety of his situation and then nodded, “Yes, thank you. I would like that very much.”
Stone helped their surprise guest below to a small kitchenette table while Hudson set about warming a couple cans of beef stew and a kettle of hot water. Parker pulled a change of clothes from his trunk, figured he and the man were sized close enough, and offered them up.
“A mighty thanks for this. I didn’t realize how soaked I was til we got in the warmth. I can’t yet figure how I’ll repay the kindness, so please don’t interpret my rejection as rudeness, but I don’t dare impose on you more than I already have. Your food and drink is more than I could hope.” He sheepishly looked down at his folded hands that rested upon the table. Stone had a pitying look on his face that he shared with Parker as they exchanged glances. Parker felt, from the look of the man, that he had not had a change of clothes in a century or two.
“Please, I insist. There is nothing you need to repay. On the ocean, help is freely offered when it’s needed. Anyway, you need to get out of those clothes or you’ll end up at death’s door.” This comment appeared to shock and appease the man. He clearly did not want to die, and while skeptical that such kindness could be freely offered, he realized his trust needed to be placed somewhere to make it out of this current predicament. He took Parker’s clothes and disappeared into the bunk cabin to change.
When he emerged, the man looked almost completely different simply from a change of clothes. “I must say, my aunt made those clothes, and I hold them dear, but these fabrics feel beyond any luxury I’ve known. And the fit! I feel no restriction yet still sense the support of a sturdy garment. Again, you are too kind to share such fine things with me. God bless you all.” Despite an evolution in his looks, the man’s demeanor remained intact.
Parker had to smile. Those clothes were at least ten years old and had to be rescued multiple times from his wife’s donation purge. Despite his smile, Parker had formed a multitude of questions to ask of the man, and it took all the restraint he could muster to not burst with them at this moment. They all needed to eat and settle a spell before getting into any serious conversation. “They fit you well. My wife has been on me to get rid of them, so please, if you like them, they’re yours.” As the man began to object, Parker raised his hands, “I must insist, and if you keep denying our assistance or giving such heavy thanks we’ll have no choice but to be offended. I say that in jest of course, but you really do not need to worry.” The man seemed to finally accept the situation and smiled in return, giving a nod of appreciative acquiescence.
By the time the clothing situation was settled, Hudson had their food ready. Instead of tea or water, the man asked for ale and nearly slid from his seat when Parker placed a colorful metallic cylinder before him. It quickly became clear he had no idea what to do with the item. A few exchanged glances between Stone, Parker, and Hudson later, Parker picked up the can, popped the tab, and set it back down, pointing at the new opening in the can, “You can drink from there.” If the stranger was surprised by the beer’s presentation, he nearly transcended when he took a drink and tasted a cold, crisp pilsner. Seconds later, he hesitantly asked for a second.
Parker began to worry their guest would die of shock before anyone got any answers. First, his appearance was otherworldly, the fresh clothes seemed to upend his world, then the cold beer was either a long-avoided vice or something completely new, and when the large bowl of steaming beef stew arrived in front of him, there was no denying he was being introduced to things Stone, Hudson, and Parker all took for granted. They watched as the man cleaned his bowl to the last drop of sauce.
The man sat back with a smile on his reddened face as he cradled a full but still absent belly. “Oh ho ho, I tell you, I’ve been to many ports and eaten at many taverns, thinking I had to have tasted some of the best cooking mankind has to offer, none of it matching my mother’s cooking of course, God rest her soul.” He folded his hands in front of his face and closed his eyes for a second before they popped back open atop a large smile. “But this, this was something else. My poor but capable mind can find no way to adequately describe it. My compliments.” He raised his beer to Hudson who smiled and returned the toast with his tea.
“Afraid I can’t take credit. This delightful meal was constructed by someone else. I merely made it warm.”
The man cocked his head in confusion but quickly re-raised his can, “To our mystery cook then. Whoever they are, God truly blessed them with mastery of their craft.” To that, they all toasted and drank. The man was right, canned food had somehow never tasted so good.
Parker felt Hudson’s boot thump his shin under the table and realized the moment was as good as any to begin assessing their guest and situation. “I hope some food and drink has you feeling restored.”
It may have been the beers or a legitimately restored constitution, but the man now looked calm and more like someone who could handle themselves on the water. “It’s amazing isn’t it, how some food and drink can send your troubles to the other side of the world? Yes, thank you, I am feeling as whole as I have ever felt.”
Parker smiled and got to work, “I’m very glad to hear it. It feels silly to say this now, but I don’t believe any of us have been properly introduced. I’m Parker Bore, and I guess you can consider me the captain of this rig. It’s a lobster boat out of Bar Harbor, Maine. And this is my brother, Hudson, who operates The Orange Nightingale with me. And this is our nephew, Stone.”
The man nodded along with each introduction. “It’s my great fortune to have met you three, though my circumstances for doing so are beyond my understanding. My name is Desmond Beauchamp. I am, or was, or maybe still am, I don’t know,” he took a deep breath to get his thoughts centered, “I was a crewman on Mother’s Venture out of Portland, Maine.”
Parker noticed Hudson cock his head at the mention of Mother’s Venture but did not himself catch anything peculiar in their guest’s introductory statement. “Desmond, it’s good to officially meet you. A lot has happened beyond all our understandings, so you’re not alone there. We’ll try get there together though, okay? I guess to start, do you remember what was happening before you ended up here?”
Desmond nodded, “We were hauling granite to Washington when a terrible storm set upon us out of nowhere. That’s a voyage I’d made a handful of times already with that crew. We knew the waters and were all capable sailors.Mother’s Venture was a stout ship too. She could stand up to most anything. This storm was different though. It got the better of her, rocked her more than I’d ever seen. The granite must’ve shifted in her hold, started pulling the old girl down by the bow.”
Something about how Desmond talked about and described Mother’s Venture felt off for Parker, almost anachronistic. He gave quick glances to the others to see if they were going to interject or hinted at a similar feeling. Stone hung on Desmond’s every word and Hudson did not appear to be paying any attention, his mind clearly elsewhere. Parker continued, “So Mother’s Venture is going down, what happened next?”
Hudson snapped back to the present and interrupted, startling everyone, “Was it a rebuild?”
They all stared at him with the same confused expressions as if a horn had suddenly erupted from his head. Hudson picked up on this and quickly clarified, “Sorry, Mother’s Venture, was it a rebuild?”
Desmond, still looking confused, shook his head, “Nay, at least not to my knowledge. The old timers always talked about how they were present to sign onto her crew the day she was christened.”
Hudson looked to Parker with an intense sparkle in his eyes, “That song, you know the one dad always hummed when he was behind the wheel?! Do you remember the words?” He began humming the melody.
Parker could hear the mournful tones, but the words remained fuzzy as they rolled over the slow triplets of the song’s timing. He hummed the notes along with Hudson, but neither of them could pull in the lyrics that lay just beyond reach. Out of nowhere, Stone’s hesitant voice brought it all together in a surprisingly rich tenor,
“Mother’s Venture stout and true,
Vanished on the ocean blue.
No wreckage, mast, or sail be found,
On still nights her bell still sounds.
’Tis hope the lost shall reappear,
Til that day, hold memory dear.”
Hudson clapped his hands together and pointed at Stone as he joined in singing. As the cabin filled with song, Parker’s mind populated with images of his father at the wheel of The Orange Nightingale doing what he loved most and sharing that love with his sons. Parker got lost in those memories for a moment until he saw the horrified look on Desmond’s face. He quickly held up a hand to cut off Hudson and Stone. “Desmond, what’s wrong?”
“That…that song, what does it mean?”
Hudson cleared his throat and suddenly looked ashamed and sorrowful. “I, I’m sorry. Your vessel, Mother’s Venture, sounded so familiar to me when you first said it. I knew I’d heard of it before. Our father always had this old sailing tune stuck in his head that he’d be singing or humming around us. Parker and me must’ve heard it a thousand times, but it’s been so long. But that’s why I asked if your Mother’s Venture was a rebuild, because the one in the song disappeared in the eighteen-hundreds. Nobody ever knew what happened to it, just vanished around these parts.”
Desmond looked as if a thousand unpleasant thoughts hit him at once. He looked at his clothes, the beer cans, and around the cabin. There was a question building within him that he had not wanted to acknowledge, that he had been able to ignore or reconcile to this point, but now it steamed within him, waiting to erupt. He looked stricken as he said, “Why do you say it like that, ‘the eighteen-hundreds’?”
Hudson looked confused and unsure how to answer, but Parker recognized what spawned the question. It was the same thing that had him feeling something about Desmond felt out of place. Again, however, it was Stone rescuing his uncles, “Because Mother’s Venture disappeared in 1850.”
Desmond nodded as if that was given but did not answer his question. Stone looked at Hudson and then Parker to make sure he was not missing something before answering. They gave him nothing. “Well, er, that was, um, one-hundred and, uh, seventy…six, one-hundred and seventy-six years ago.”
Desmond burst out in laughter and continued laughing until tears streamed down his cheeks. “Oh, I knew these ales were getting to me. I wondered about this fancy ship and these fancy clothes. Never seen anything like it! You all having a laugh at my expense? Some highfalutin European sailors come to make fun of some poor American sod when he’s vulnerable, is that it?”
Parker knew it was time to pull back the curtain on the thought nagging him since Desmond appeared on their deck. “Desmond, I assure you we are also American and are only trying to help. We’re caught in an unbelievable situation, same as you. Let me ask though, the last thing you remember before ending up here is Mother’s Venture sinking, correct?” Desmond was still trying to compose himself but nodded. “Okay, and what year do you believe it to be?”
Desmond did not bristle at what normally would be a ludicrous question, but he certainly looked to be wary of where Parker was going. “1850. Why do you ask that, is it not?”
“I need you to think of everything you’ve seen since coming aboard. Think of how we look and talk. Think of how we present our food and drink.”
Desmond narrowed his eyes at Parker, but in his mind the old man’s pendant flashed and images of a conquistador appearing out of his time flooded Desmond’s thoughts.
“Desmond, the current year is two-thousand twenty-six.”
There was no flurry of reaction or denial of the situation. Instead, Desmond closed his eyes and whispered, “I am him.”
Just then, the Nightingale’s proximity alarm sounded and ejected everyone from their discomposed stupor. Hudson was first up the stairs and set about scanning the vessel’s surroundings from behind the wheel while Parker checked radar and made sure they had not changed position. The radar’s display was clean, and The Orange Nightingale had not been under power nor did it continue drifting after the storm and their encounter with the mysterious creature. Additionally, Parker verified their anchor was still deployed and secure, so whatever posed a proximity threat was approaching them. He barked at Hudson, “See anything?”
Hudson now ran from side to side, checking over the railing and scanning the length of the vessel for any potential dangers. “Nothing’s in the water, but if something’s coming at us, I doubt we’ll see it through this fog until it’s right on us!”
That was the first time Parker noticed the thick fog surrounding the Nightingale. He wondered if it interfered with the ship’s sensors and triggered a false alarm. Parker turned to the circular radar display on the helm’s console and still did not see any surprise blips. He was nearly ready to confirm the false alarm when Hudson yelled from up near the port bow, “Wait! There’s a light! Something’s approaching!”
About the same time, Parker finally saw something on radar. It appeared during one sweep, then gone for the next, then back, alternating its presence with each radar ping. The object’s size varied as well, changing with each appearance. Part of Parker was resigned to exhaustion; his past however long had been a wave of storms and mysteries approaching The Orange Nightingale. He was tired of the mystery and unknown persistent threat, so he just watched out the wheelhouse window as the light approached. Stone and Desmond now stood behind him in the wheelhouse, following where Hudson was looking. If Parker looked like he felt, then Desmond was at the point of collapse from trying to make sense of his unbelievable circumstances.
Out by the bow, Hudson stared at the approaching light, growing bigger and brighter as it neared the Nightingale. He soon heard what sounded like a thunderous engine which was followed by a wall of ocean spray that pelted him like he was holding his face directly beneath a shower head. He started backtracking to the wheelhouse when a large vessel burst through the fog headed straight for The Orange Nightingale. Before making contact, however, the oncoming vessel darted ahead of the ship and maintained a holding position just off the bow. Hudson could now see why the spray was so intense. The mysterious craft, still hidden behind an intense light, hovered above the water, and whatever kept it in the air repelled a tremendous amount of the ocean.
Parker joined his brother on the deck and marveled at the craft, that wonder sharing space with burgeoning terror. He had seen hovercraft before, but this appeared to be more of an air-based machine than any hovercraft technology he knew. It was hard to truly tell what they were looking at because of the light. A shadow briefly obscured the light, passing before it for only a second. Hudson and Parker inadvertently took steps back and scanned their immediate vicinity to see if they were no longer alone on the deck. Concurrently, what they took to be the craft’s engine could be heard throttling down and the incessant spray weakened. Then, finally, the light’s intensity decreased as a shadow slowly grew from the center to begin occluding its power.
As the shadow grew, Parker realized whatever made it drew closer. A moment later, he saw the light was now averted from them toward the rest of the Nightingale, and the source of the shadow stood mere feet from Hudson and him. It was a person, at least it was shaped like a person. They wore a dark, tightly fitting body suit that covered every inch up to a black, completely smooth helmet. Hudson and Parker took additional inadvertent steps back as the figure made several steps toward them. It raised a hand that they interpreted as “stop”. Then, with their other hand, the figure touched a spot on their helmet, and a previously indistinguishable visor lifted to reveal a human-looking face. Parker and Hudson stepped toward one another, shoulder to shoulder, and froze to await whatever additional nightmare the ocean was about to bestow upon them.
“Captain Parker Bore?”
It spoke and Parker felt himself nod.
“I’m Lieutenant Anixmar with the Northern Oceanic Research and Enforcement Alliance. Your crew and vessel popped up on our anomaly displacement monitor. We’re here to ensure your safety and request you and the others on board transfer to our craft so we can transport you and your vessel to our facility.”
Parker heard the words, but he did not understand them. He did not recognize the Northern Oceanic Research and Enforcement Alliance nor was he sure where the name “Anixmar” came from. This time, he felt himself shaking his head along with a nudge from Hudson pushing him back toward the wheelhouse. Nothing felt right. “No, no, I can’t do that. I don’t know what this is. Please get off my boat immediately.”
Lieutenant Anixmar took two more steps toward them. “I’m afraid that is not an option. You must come with us. Trust me, it is for your protection.” He took several more steps toward them as three more dark-clad figures landed on the deck, surrounding the brothers.
Featured Image: Shutterstock 2620124251 (KinoMasterskaya)
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