Cheryl Rathsher glanced at the compass and adjusted the windvane to keep the Alicia on its due-south course. The night was full of moonlight, the sails were full of wind, and the sailboat whispered in the water leaving an eerie luminescent wake to mark where she had been.
Cheryl looked around, from side to side, forward over the bow and behind off the stern. The Alicia was alone on the Chesapeake Bay bound for Newport News, which lay sixty miles south at the lower end of the bay. Only the looms of small towns scattered about in tidewater Virginia reminded her that there were human beings fast asleep on the land.
The bimini that shaded the cockpit from the daytime sun was folded forward. Looking up Cheryl could see the masthead zigzagging through the star filled sky. The Smith Point light over the right-side, starboard bow, flashing every fifteen seconds, warned her of rocks and reefs on the Virginia side of the bay. But she could see she would be well offshore when she passed the lighthouse. Satisfied that all was well, she picked up her book and, turning on the cockpit light, began again to read; she liked to read on watch to pass the time. The watch alarm would ring in ten minutes and she would look around again; the boat couldn't get into trouble in ten minutes, could it?
She with her husband, Basil who was asleep below, had just bought the boat and were sailing it south, down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida and maybe over into the Bahama Islands for the winter. She bit her lip when she recalled that the former owner, who had named the boat after his daughter, wept when they took possession. She discovered that she too loved the boat and was amazed that an inanimate object could assume a personification. She had actually begun to refer to it as Alicia; Alicia did this, Alicia did that.
As she read, she sensed, more than heard, the wind begin to moan; knowing the windvane would keep them on course, she read on. When the moaning became a mournful weeping, a chill ran up her spine and she turned off the light to look into the darkness.
The weeping seemed to be coming from overhead and looking up she saw a gossamer piece of pink cloth floating down, drifting on the wind, curling around the shrouds and clinging to the mast. Taking a shape, as if someone was wearing it, it slid down the mainsail and slithered into the cockpit.
Bringing the weeping with it, the soft cloth tangled itself in her uplifted hands, and Cheryl, ready to scream, sucked in a great gulp of air. She pushed the apparition away and saw that it was a soft pink nightgown with blue roses embroidered here and there. It floated around the cockpit then gathered on a gust of wind and came toward her again, moaning while spreading and bunching, as if the unseen occupant was pleading to her, yet ready to spring upon her. The wind freshened, the boat heeled, the mournful moaning became a sobbing, and the floating cloth crept closer.
"Basil," she called out.
At the sound of her voice, the gown went silent and slipped to the cockpit floor where it cowered behind the steering pedestal. Cheryl wondered what to do, when, in the ensuing silence, it flowed a wavering web to her feet and, wrapping itself around her legs, climbed into her lap.
As if reminded of some purpose, it crawled up her chest and, draping itself over her shoulder, wound itself around her neck. Cheryl opened her mouth to scream but her plea for help came too late; the cloth, compulsively twisting and tightening its grip on her throat strangled her cry for help.
Her one call had wakened Basil, and sleepy eyed, he came up the companionway steps in his undershorts, asking, "What's up? Is it time for me to take the watch already?"
As if startled by the sound of his voice, the cloth released its grip. Leaving Cheryl gasping, it climbed to the cockpit coaming and dove into the dark water to be lost in the Alicia's churning wake.
"What was that?" Basil asked and moved to hug his wife. "Are you all right? Why are you choking?"
"There... the wind in the rigging. I heard a moaning and that pink thing came floating down and tried... I swear, Basil, it tried to choke me."
"Now, now. The wind often moans in a ship's rigging. You must have dozed off, been dreaming."
"I was awake, reading!"
"What were you reading when you dozed off."
"I didn't doze off!" she insisted. "I had just looked around and reset the alarm for ten minutes. I was wide awake."
"Are you certain?" he asked, sounding less sure of himself, and, lifting his eyes to the maze of ropes and wires that keep the mast parrying with the stars, whispered, "I don't hear any moaning."
"Basil," she clung to him, "It was awful, I felt as if I was not alone."
Looking into the Alicia's wake, he said, "Well, whatever it was, it's gone now."
Eric Stromfeld reached past a model of a sailboat and picked up the ringing phone. "Hello."
"May I speak to Eric Stromfeld?" a man's voice asked.
"This is he."
"Oh, Hello, Eric. This is Basil Rathsher. I'm the fellow who bought your boat, the Alicia."
"Yes. Yes. How are you?" Eric asked. He stared at the model of the boat which had been named after his daughter and felt a pang of sorrow that comes with loss.
"Would you mind if I asked you a, perhaps rather strange, question?"
"No, of course not."
"Well. Did... did anyone ever die aboard the Alicia?"
Eric Stromfeld drew a sharp breath. The question surprised him and yet it did not. He swung his chair around and gazed out the window, out across the Chesapeake Bay, his eyes naturally picking out the blazing white sails of boats trailing lacy white wakes off their sterns in the grey water. The entire scene, Bay Bridge and the eastern shore, was brilliantly illuminated by the late afternoon sun. Finally, tightening his grip on the phone, he replied, "That is a strange question. Why do you ask?"
"There is... some nights when the wind is up... we hear... I know it's crazy, but when the wind is up we hear a moaning in the rigging."
"That's not unusual," Eric tried.
"But, well, it sounds like a girl, or young woman... crying."
Eric stiffened, what could he say.
"Eric? Are you there?"
"Yes, yes. I..." Eric stammered. The weeping was partly why he sold the boat. He had tried to alter the halyards, to tie them differently. He readjusted the shrouds and the forestay, but nothing worked. At night, while sailing on the bay or anchored in some protected cove, if the wind got up over fifteen knots, everyone on board could hear the mournful sound.
"There have been a few other things too," Basil continued. "Perhaps you could join us on board for dinner and you could tell me if any of these things ever happened to you, or... to any of your guests."
"Are you here? In Annapolis?" Eric was startled. When he sold the boat to Basil, the man and his wife had talked of going down the Intracoastal Waterway to Beaufort in North Carolina and then outside, in the Atlantic, down to Florida.
"Yes. I took her down to Florida for the winter, as planned. But, well, we're back now, and I'd rather tell you in person," Basil said, knowing he was procrastinating. How could he tell someone over the phone of the strange things that happened aboard the Alicia and the nightmares he and his guests had while tucked in their bunks, asleep off watch at night; strange things that happened only at night.
"We know you loved the Alicia ,and this would give you an opportunity to see her again," Basil offered.
"Yes, I'd love to see... the boat," Eric stammered, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"This evening, perhaps we could have dinner on the boat. I've taken slip 13, at the Spa Creek Marina."
"Slip thirteen?" Eric gasped. When he got himself in control again, he explained his upset, "That was... that, if you recall, was her slip when I had her."
"Yes, when I radioed in, the young lady in the office explained that things were very busy just now and, unfortunately, it was the only space available. She seemed to be apologetic, but I'm not superstitious and the Alicia settled in as if she had come home."
"Alicia came home," Eric echoed, his voice faltering.
"About dinner?" Basil persisted.
"Yes, dinner. Would eight o'clock be too late?" Eric asked, explaining, "I have a late meeting with my attorney."
"Eight o'clock it is. And would you mind fillet mignon?"
"Mind? I would be delighted," Eric responded, his spirits lifting in anticipation.
"Until eight then," the voice on the phone said and with a click the line went dead.
Eric Stromfeld walked down the dock. He didn't have to count slips or look for posted numbers, slip thirteen had been the Alicia's home for seven years.
There she sat, tethered with dock lines to keep her jauntily dancing without touching the pilings. Soft lights emanating from the portholes reminded him of the cozy ambience in the cabin blow. He looked up into her rigging and bit his lip. So engrossed was he that he did not see the loom of Annapolis glowing through the trees that border Back Creek. Even while he took pleasure in seeing the boat that had brought him and his family so much happiness, he winced at the sadness of having lost her.
Finally, he called out, "Alicia, may I come on board?"
The companionway doors were thrown open and a beam of light stabbed into the cockpit, followed by a square shouldered man whom he recognized as Basil Rathsher, the man who had bought the boat last year.
"Eric, come aboard. Cheryl is fixing a salad and the steaks are waiting to be enjoyed."
"Thank you," Eric stepped over the lifeline and took Basil's proffered hand. As the two men shook, Eric commented, "I see you've added a windvane so she steers herself."
"Yes. It's like having a third crew member. In open water, Broomhilde, that's her name, tirelessly keeps us on a proper course."
"Broomhilde? I thought she was a witch and a prankster," Eric remarked.
"She behaves quite well as a helmsperson. It's other bewitching things that I would like to ask you about."
Following Basil, he started down the steps into the Alicia's main cabin.
"Mr. Stromfeld, how good to see you," Cheryl stepped from behind the open kitchen counter and offered her hand.
"Mrs. Rathsher, Cheryl, I see you are enjoying the amenities of the Alicia," he replied and taking her hand nodded his head as if to bow. "And," he added, "please call me Eric."
"Only if you eat all your dinner like a good boy, Eric," she teased and returned to her culinary creations.
A salad of crisp lettuce leaves, smothered with sliced tomatoes and fresh cucumbers wet their appetites for the expected entree. But Basil Rathsher, unable to relax, looked across the Alicia's saloon table into the eyes of the man who had sold him this strange boat, and asked, "Like I said on the phone, did anyone ever die on the Alicia?"
"Basil!" Cheryl chastised, "Let the man eat his dinner in peace. You can talk shop after dessert."
"Why do you ask?" Eric Stromfeld, to avoid Basil's eyes, looked down at his salad.
"Spooky things have happened. Right off, going down the Chesapeake, on our way south, Cheryl was choked by a nightgown."
"A nightgown?" Eric responded with bitten lip.
"And then, one night off the Florida Keys, coming north on the Gulf Stream; we were making a passage from Key West up to Miami. There were six of us," Basil explained. "A lady, an experienced sailor took the midnight watch. The wind was light, coming from the south, following us up the stream which, as you know, flows north between Florida and the Bahama banks. I was dozing off in my bunk when I heard the wind getting up and felt the boat lifted on following seas. Knowing it was nights like this, with winds like this, that the weeping had frightened my crew in the past, I lay awake listening.
"You could predict the occurrence?" Eric asked.
"The lady on watch, between careful scans for hazards and other boats each time the ten minute timer rang, was reading by a faint cockpit light, leaving the steering to Broomhilde, the windvane gear. As the wind worked up, whitecaps began lapping at the hull, and before the watch alarm had a chance to ring again she screamed a frightened volley of terrified cries.
"I rolled out and, pulling on a pair of shorts I kept handy for emergencies, careened down the hall and climbed out the companionway. She was pointing off the back of the boat and babbling.
"`A nightgown," she wailed, blubbering, "There was this weeping high up in the rigging and when I looked up a gossamer cloth came drifting down. In spite of the wind, it drifted, dreamy like, down and wrapped itself around my head. That's when I screamed. I tore at it, untangled it, and even as I held it in my hands -- it was a soft silky thing, a nightgown, sort of pinkish. In the moonlight, I could see blue roses embroidered at random -- It pulled lose and, drifted to the rail, where it hung in the air. I rushed to grab it, but even as I reached, it climbed back up the rigging and disappeared in the darkness above."
"I tried to calm the guests who came climbing up the ladder from the main cabin and, bobbing their heads into the cockpit, looked around to see what had caused her to scream."
"`Who is crying?" a young man asked and everyone listened as the weeping sound chilled the warm night air that blew through the rigging high above us. To a man, we lifted our eyes; the crying came from up there somewhere amongst the ropes and wires and sails that converge at the top of main mast. The boat boomed along on the rolling waves and the masthead traced arcs through the midnight stars, but there was no one up there; it was as if the heavens themselves were weeping."
"You said it was only at night" Eric inquired, "with wind enough to raise whitecaps that the moaning had frightened your crew in the past?"
"Yes, whenever the wind freshens and the seas get up," Basil said, dropping his voice to whisper, "the rigging sounds as if it's crying."
"Only at night?" Eric persisted.
"Yes, only at night." Basil looked across at Eric and picked up his coffee cup to take a sip. "There must be something in the rigging that makes that mournful sound,"
"A sad sound," Eric commented without emotion.
"Yes." At this, Basil became more animated. "I've heard of rigging that whistles, rigging that sounds like an oboe player, but never rigging that weeps in the wind."
"Weeps in the wind," Eric Stromfeld repeated hypnotically and lifted his own cup to his lips. After a single sip, he shuddered so violently that coffee dribbled down his chin. "Sorry," he apologized and, letting the cup chatter into its saucer, reached for his napkin.
He saw Basil look at the spilled coffee and knew that he must eventually tell of the tragedy that occurred on that fateful night so many years ago.
But before he could start, Basil was off again. "The next time was over in the islands. I had outfitted her for a cruise into the Bahamas, and we were anchored in the lee of Devil's Cay in the Berry Islands, thirty miles northwest of Nassau. It was a moonlit night and with all secure, and the anchor seated in deep sand, there was no need to post a watch, so everyone turned in.
"Around midnight, the wind got up and I climbed up into the cockpit to be sure the anchor wasn't dragging. I could see nascent little whitecaps, silvery in the light of the overhead moon and then I heard it," Basil paused and took plates of steak from Cheryl and set them about on the table.
This time it was Basil who shuddered and continued with a cautious reverence in his voice, "As before, there came this weeping sound, like a girl or young lady softly crying, high up in the ship's rigging."
Eric nodded and, as if he had forgotten the subject had just been discussed, offered, "Ships often emit strange sounds, all those ropes and wires stretched taunt in the wind."
"I thought so too, until a lady, sleeping with her husband in the aft cabin, screamed that she was being choked."
"Choked?" Eric stammered and looked to where Cheryl was cutting a bite from her steak.
"We gathered here in the main cabin and listened to her tell us that she dreamed a handsome young man smiled at her and when she returned his glance a beautiful young woman, more a girl, in a pale pink nightgown with blue roses embroidered here and there, snarled at her and, grabbing her by the neck, began to strangle her."
"Oh, dear." Eric uttered a cry.
Basil sat forward, leaning on the table to shorten the distance to the man who might explain why the rigging moans when the wind gets up, and asked, "These things have happened to you?"
But Eric just stared at his half eaten dinner, so Basil went on.
"Another time, a few weeks later, it was midnight again, and again the wind had just increased, when a young man, tucked safely in his bunk, began to moan. I looked in on him to be sure he was all right. Then, embarrassed, I backed out of his cabin and closed the door."
"He was sick?"
"Not sick. He was... how do you say it? He appeared to be having what in my youth we used to call a wet dream."
"Succubus," Eric whispered and nervously picked up his napkin.
"Yes, and since then several gentlemen guests have told me of a spirit-like female form that came to them in their sleep and brought them a sweet, dreamy, physical pleasure. They each put it off to the gently rolling motion of the boat."
"Will you gentlemen take a break for desert?" Cheryl piped in. "I have rum cake and brandy."
Basil was so excited to have someone who might explain the eerie feeling that there was a mysterious crew member secreted somewhere in the boat that he resumed the discussion with hardly a pause. "During the negotiations, when I bought the Alicia from you, you said you named the boat after your daughter."
"Yes, she was ten when I bought the boat, brand new she was, and Alicia loved to sail with me and Lois, her mother"
"The documentation papers indicated the boat was nine years old when I bought her. So, Alicia would have been about nineteen at the time?"
"Yes, she would have been nineteen," Eric agreed and looked away.
"Would have been?" Cheryl wondered aloud.
"Alicia loved to sail, you said," Basil commented and cut a bite of rum cake.
"We sailed her, the Alicia, up and down the Chesapeake from end to end. In the south, we anchored in Newport News and took pictures of the Navy boats lined along the docks. We sailed to the north end anchoring nights in every little cove. We explored our way through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and out into Delaware Bay."
"Could Alicia handle the boat? A fifty-five foot hull is pretty big for a girl in her teens."
"She was quite strong. She could raise and lower sails, drop the anchor and winch it in," Eric paused then added wistfully, "She loved for me to haul her to the masthead in the bosun's chair where she'd sit for hours gazing out over the sea, singing her favorite songs."
"She sang at the masthead?" Basil coughed.
Eric picked up his brandy and warming the glass with his hands, first sniffed then took a drop on his tongue. Setting the glass down, he invited Cheryl to sit with them, and offered, "I guess I'll have to tell you the whole story."
Basil looked at the man and wondered if this would clear up the mystery."
"One weekend, we took a group of Alicia's friends out for an overnight sail. Robert, a rather handsome young man who had called upon her several times, came along. Alicia, who had just turned seventeen, was thrilled to show him off to her friends.
"Into the evening, sailing south past Smith Point, where the Potomac joins the Bay on its way to the ocean, the party became jovial. Everyone was having a good time, and, while they laughed and sang, Alicia's mother and I kept a sharp lookout for other boats.
"As the evening progressed, I noticed Alicia becoming upset, even angry, when she thought Robert was making up to one of her rather attractive girlfriends.
"When it got quite late, I got them calmed down and on their way to their beds and Lois and I took watches, turn-about, and sailed on into the night.
"Just at midnight, it was my turn to take watch, Robert came up into the cockpit and commented on the beauty of sailing at night. Lois asked him about the college he was attending, and we three were chatting away, when the controversial young lady came up to join us.
"Well, it didn't take long for Alicia, impulsive as she was, to come barreling up the companionway, still in her nightgown." Eric paused and, after another sip of his brandy, looked first at Basil then to Cheryl before he carefully cleared his voice and explained, "Her nightgown was pink with blue roses embroidered here and there.
"Oh, dear," Cheryl breathed.
"She was highly agitated and accused Robert of courting the girl. Suddenly, to everyone's complete surprise, she attacked him -- her young man lost his balance and fell overboard."
"Overboard?"
"Yes, I threw the helm over to turn the boat around, Lois and the girl threw flotation cushions over. I told Alicia to point to where she thought he was in the water, but before I could stop her, she climbed to the rail and weeping woefully dove over."
"Dove over? In the middle of the night?" Cheryl asked.
"Weeping woefully?" Basil groaned.
"Yes. I can still see her poised like an angel, ready to fly on white wings in the black night," Eric sobbed.
"An angel? You found them," Cheryl whimpered.
"We found Robert and got him back on board."
"Alicia?" Basil asked.
Eric Stromfeld choked as if strangling and finally, after a great gulp of air, whispered, "Alicia... my daughter is still out there, somewhere... in that pink nightgown with the blue roses... weeping in the wind."
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