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Stepping off the porch, she padded down towards the water and almost turned back to get a shawl. The breeze off the water was cool and whipped her hair around her, almost painfully… welcoming it.
She at least felt alive.
Walking forward, she stood there, legs akimbo with her arms crossed over her chest, watching the sun off in the distance as the ship grew closer. That was one thing, it being a coastal town and a major port less than an hour away… she got to see a lot of ships.
When it was Fleet Week in New York City, there were so many vessels that would linger off the horizon, and it was one of the reasons that they’d bought this place.
She loved the water.
They’d saved every penny for over six years – only for Jack to live here for less than four months. He barely left a mark on the house and had been still unpacking, putting little knick-knacks away due to his hectic schedule.
Life wasn’t fair.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she whispered painfully, staring off in the distance, wishing and wanting some epic kernel of knowledge to just fall right into her lap, giving her insight on life’s little mysteries so she had some sort of understanding or acceptance.
Yet there was silence.
No uptick of wind, no caw of a seagull, just the faint lapping of water along the beach.
“You can’t even answer me… can you?” she said bitterly. “I’m dying on the inside and you can’t even give me a sign? Just have a seagull poop in my hair for luck, or a crab scuttle across the sand writing out some glyph for me to translate. Give me a mystery, something to sink my teeth into… just anything to feel alive…please.”
Nothing.
“Then just strike me down and end it all,” she whispered painfully, choking on the words she spoke openly, staring at the clouds on the horizon. “Because without hope, I’m lost… and…”
“CALISTA JENNINGS…”
A voice called out in the distance, causing her to turn, immediately thinking it was a neighbor – and she took a step back in fear as three men advanced on her.
“Who’s looking for me?” Calista asked simply, wondering if they were here to deliver a package from her agent – or maybe something was wrong with the electricity or plumbing.
There had been plumbing trucks at the neighbor’s house two doors down three days ago, but these three men didn’t look like plumbers.
They looked… homeless.
One man was wearing leather huaraches, an eyepatch, and jeans sliced off below the knee.Another man was wearing Nikes with some khaki pants – also sliced off raggedly below the knee… almost like it was deliberate. The last fellow had a prosthetic limb – complete with neatly shredded pants, too.
If they were torn, shouldn’t they be frayed? Instead, they looked like someone had taken scissors and cut them into a thick fringe to look rough.
Why?
… All three were wearing white t-shirts and bandanas around their necks.
“Captain Kidd be needing yer services, lassie…” the man with the eyepatch began, glancing at the man with the prosthetic limb.
“Jeez Jared, laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”
“He said to make it sound good.”
“Yo ho!” the man with the Nikes hollered, shaking a… a hook at her?
Did he seriously have a hook for a hand? Weren’t there prosthetic hands, mechanical devices, or other items that could be used… besides a hook? What if he scratched himself or someone?
“Dude, don’t call the client’s ‘hoes’… the captain hates that.”
“Yeah man, that’s really a derogatory term.”
“Well don’t tell him I said it,” the man snapped angrily, pointing the hook at her again. “Missus, I wasn’t calling you a ‘ho,’ but rather referring to the term applicable to…”
