Chapter 7
Back on the high seas...
Hi friends. If you’re new here, I’m writing a book 200 words at a time, Monday through Friday. Each Monday I post the last week’s progress, raw and largely unedited, along with some reflections on the past week’s writing.
If you’re here primarily to read the story, you can find the start of the novel here. If you’re mostly interested in the weekly introspection on writing (and occasional life update), you can find that down below.
The port materialized through the morning mist like a half-remembered dream. Gruber stood at the bow of the *Duskhawk*, webbed hands gripping the gunwale as he guided Basil through the treacherous approach. The fog here never quite lifted, even in full daylight, lending the crumbling docks and weathered buildings an ethereal, impermanent quality.
“Cheerful place,” Orion muttered from behind him. The wolf had insisted on accompanying Gruber to the bow despite his obvious discomfort, his silver fur matted and still bearing scorch marks from the previous night’s battle. “Very... atmospheric.”
Gruber’s tongue flicked out, tasting the salt-heavy air. “Stay on the ship,” he said.
“Oh, I intend to,” Orion replied. “Though I must say, for a ‘haunted’ port, it looks remarkably like every other abandoned dock I’ve ever seen. Which, granted, is not many, but the principle stands.”
“You think this is local superstition.” It wasn’t a question.
“I think,” Orion said, adjusting his damp robes, “that sailors are a notoriously superstitious lot. No offense to present company. And that ‘haunted’ is often code for ‘inconvenient’ or ‘poorly maintained’ or ‘that one time someone saw a really big fish.’”
“You would be wrong.”
Something in his tone made Orion pause. “You’ve seen something here yourself?”
“I stay away,” Gruber said. “I’ve guided many ships through these waters, but I do not stop here. The folks who travel these waters…” He trailed off, his gaze distant. “They do not wish to disturb what rests here. We should not linger longer than we must.”
“’What rests here,’” Orion repeated, his voice taking on a mocking lilt. “My dear frog, you’ll have to be more specific than vague pronouncements if you want to properly spook me.”
“I have no desire to spook you,” Gruber replied. “Only to keep you alive long enough to collect my fee.”
Before Orion could respond, Basil’s voice rang out from the helm. “Gruber! We need depth readings!”
Gruber raised his bone horn to his lips and let out three sharp notes—a pattern that resonated not just in the air but seemed to sink into the water itself. Moments later, an answering whistle echoed up from below. Gilly.
“Twenty spans and holding,” Gruber called back. “Safe to approach the inner dock.”
The *Duskhawk* limped forward, her damaged mast creaking ominously with each shift of the wind. The crew worked in tense silence, still exhausted from the previous night’s violence and the hurried burial at sea they’d conducted at dawn. Gruber noted how their eyes kept darting toward the shore, toward the buildings that seemed to lean away from the water as if recoiling from it.
The port itself showed signs of past habitation—a darkened lighthouse, storage houses with sagging roofs, and a tavern whose sign had long since fallen and lay half-buried in the sandy shore. The weathered wood and crumbling stones spoke of a settlement long since abandoned, well on its way to reclamation by the natural growth of the small island.
“Drop anchor!” Basil commanded, and the crew scrambled to obey. The anchor chain rattled down, and Gruber heard the splash as it hit water, then the scrape as it found purchase on the rocky bottom.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then Benji emerged from below deck, looking considerably less green than he had during their voyage thus far. The young owl’s golden eyes swept across the port with obvious curiosity. “So this is it,” he said.
“The guide’s not wrong,” Ari said, appearing at his side like a shadow. Her paw rested on her sword hilt. “Bad taste to the air here.”
“That would be the rotting wood of the abandoned docks,” Orion said. “Nothing arcane or supernatural about it.”
“All crew, listen up!” Basil’s voice cut through the tension. She stood at the helm, her injured shoulder wrapped in fresh bandages. “We’re here to make repairs, nothing more. No one goes ashore alone. No one wanders off. We work in pairs at a minimum, and we do not—I repeat, do *not*—go inside any of those buildings. Understood?”
A chorus of “Aye, Captain” rippled across the deck.
“Ren, Odo—take a team and assess what timber we can salvage from the dock for mast repairs. “ Basil’s gaze swept across her crew. “The rest of you, let’s start work on patching things up with what planks we have on board.”
Orion leaned over to whisper to Gruber. “I thought you said we all were to stay on the ship.”
”I said *you* should stay on the ship,” Gruber corrected. “You’re loud, and your magic is louder.”
“No magic on shore,” Basil echoed. “And stay as quiet as possible. Haunted or no, there’s no need to draw attention to us, from whatever might be out there to listen.”
She turned to Gruber. “Any other directives we should know?”
Gruber shook his head. “Stay within sight of the ship, stay out of the buildings, and move quick. The sooner we leave, the better.” He gestured to the fallen sign. “And stay far and clear of that tavern.”
“Why specifically the tavern?” Odo asked, unable to hide his curiosity.
“Because that’s where they found the bodies,” Gruber said. “What was left of them.”
Finding The Way
We’re back to Gruber and friends this week!
I’ll be honest. I’m not sure what happens next in the story with Gruber, nor what they’ll find on this island. I’m not even sure if it’s really haunted. Or what the bodies in the tavern means. We’re flying on some vibes and the loosest sketches of a plan here.
As I get deeper into the story, the desire to start editing—to start tightening things and pulling strands together and planning things out—grows. I think my biggest worry of writing this piece by piece 200 words at a time is that it feels disjointed or less coherent. But for now, I’m going to try to stick by the plan to get a full draft out before we dive deep into making it tighter, cleaning up prose, punching up dialog, and more.
Procrastinating the Novel with the Other Novel
I’ve spent some time this week making some progress on my novel writing month novel. I’m still behind on where I should be as we pass the halfway mark of the month, but there’s a good pile of words in the shape of some kind of story there—written in a blitzed fashion, in stark contrast to the daily patient discipline of writing this story.
I was going to start posting some of that novel here, but I think I’m actually going to hold off. (Thanks to the very kind friends who expressed interest in checking out that story!) If I can hit my goal of finishing a first draft of that story this month, I might want to spend some time editing the even messier prose before I put it in front of folks.
For now though, I’m happy to share the blurb and seed of an idea that spurred this silly side project on top of my side project!
“Ally is not a protagonist kind of girl. A stage manager for a regional theatre by day, she helps the organization navigate the egos and personalities that come through the door. But for her secret job, she works with superheroes… as the team and project manager. She has no powers of her own beyond a sharp sense of organization and a high EQ to manage the egos and tempers of her friends and colleagues. And that’s the way she likes it: staying invisible, keeping things running smoothly, and staying out of the limelight.
But all that changes when a crisis at the theatre happens at the same time as a mysterious new hero arrives in her city. Suddenly, all of Ally’s efforts to avoid becoming a main character is put to the test, as strangers and friends alike crash land fall into her life.”
It’s dumb, it’s genre, and I’m having a lot of fun setting up all the romantic interests and possibilities. Fingers crossed I can cross the finish line on a first draft this month (or sometime soon after)!
Thanks as always for reading, and for your support! Next week: more progress on the novels, and maybe some updates and progress on the various other projects currently in flight!