The loss of the Annie Day

The Sea of Despair can be a cruel. There are times of the year when no man would set out upon her. Mariners would tell stories of how the angry sea would rise out of its bed to drown any ship not willing to listen to the warnings of their elders.
In the early part of Latter Year, when the fog begins to build on the Southern Peaks, and the Tree’s begin to smolder in the Fading Fires before the snow falls, the Annie Day sat to port bristling in the afternoon light. She was the first of our pleasure liners. She stood tall and proud her gold fittings and rail braces glowing as though made from amber glass. Her three massive masts looked like black crosses as her sails draped over the yard arms like Turin shrouds.
When they were set, it was said her gossamer sails shone such a pail blue they nearly matched the sky making it look like she was moving by pure magic. I saw her once in port when I was very young and since that day I loved all tall ships.
Her Captain was the famous Allis Freed. A stout old bear of a man who thought himself to be a bit of a pirate. He had lived his life on the open waters of The Despair, thinking himself to be old salt but no matter how crass he pretended to be, he was just as much a very jovial man.
It was the year of when she was ready for her voyage. The fishing boats had come to port and the Big Dumb ducks were swarming the shores for scraps from the wharf, when word came down that the Annie Day was to put out.
The people of the towns were all a buzz about the voyage and clambered for tickets, but those who knew the nature of the Sea were wary and tried to talk the good Captain Allis out of his fool hearty journey.
The fog was building about the Peaks and the winds were harsher. It was the time for all good Seamen to batten down and light the lamps in their towers for Latter year. But they spoke to the winds themselves.
Capitan Freed was a good man, but when he got an idea in his head, it would not leave for fear or damnation. He was convinced that with the stronger winds, the Annie Day could cut a faster trim and make for the opposing shores of the Greater Depression in record time.
There are mariners who stalked every square inch of The Sea of Despair and they knew what no man could ever think to tell from the smell of the air or the slap of a wave on the hull of a ship. Bones ached and watchful eyes set to the sea as if there were someone out there waiting for any vessel crazy enough to encroach upon the waters after the signs told them to stay ashore.
Still the preparations went on and the ship stood ready in the harbor for her time to shine. She sat low in the water now, laden with boxes and bundles as passengers reveled on her decks ready to be the first to ride her out to sea.
I remember standing on the docks beside the cannery with the older Captain’s. They sat without saying a word as the Annie dropped her sails. Eighteen canvass curtains of the most subtle blue dropped and flapped for a minute, then puffed out as the winds caught and the Annie Day began to glide through the calm waters out to port.
“She sets under a blood sky.” One of the men said in a flat and chilling tone.
“God save them all.” Another said. “The wind witch wont.”
And they left for the pub in the very edge of the pier.
No one can know what happened to the Annie Day. The very next day the Sea of Despair was gray and angry as a storm blew over the coast throwing water and wind like fists against the shore.
It pounded and raged for the entire day and on the dawn of the third day a strange fog fell over the Sea and rolled slowly over the coast, up to the peaks and then by mid day it was gone.
Not until the lamplighters began to sing did anyone think that something might be wrong, for if any man could steer her safe to port, it was Allis Freed. Just as the lighters began their nightly routine a call came from the shores of the sea.
An old Timer had been walking the break wall when he saw an angel in the waters. Most of the stronger men went to see what he was talking about only to find a mainsail floating in the tide and a young woman laying dead in the center of it.
The canvass was an inconceivable blue and the woman a young mother who had signed on as a cook. She lay eyes wide open and locked in fear, a frightening message to the sailors of our town. The Annie Day now lay at the bottom of the Sea and so did all who booked passage on her.
For two days bit of the great boat came back to us, telling all of her long and torturous demise, but only the young cook was sent back. No one else ever came home.
It was then that the myth of the Annie Day was born, for in the first days of the Latter year, when a strange fog rolls in and climbs the foothills of the Peaks, if you listen you can hear the voices of the “Ship of Fools” calling for help that can never come. And the old timers, the fishermen and their mates stand on the break wall and toss bits of canvass into the Sea of Despair hoping to aid in the reconstruction of the sails, to guide her to heaven and appease the witch of the winds, so they won’t suffer the same fate.