Chapter 1 Saltcoven

A sample chapter, of how Judas Copperbell ends up trapped in the underworld and how he meets Captain Crookshank.

The world above seemed to fade like a distant dream, as the cold unforgiving waters of the North Atlantic took me deeper and deeper into its eternal darkness.  My name is lost and forgotten, and my heart is broken in ways that it is impossible for any man to describe.  For me there is no desire to live without she who gives my life meaning, and yet her name escapes my memory.  Sinking into nothingness wherein darkness prevails, I close my eyes to forget… forget…

My body sank ever deeper into nothingness and with it my life, my thoughts, my dreams everything gone.  Only one thought remained  “I love her.” Repeating over and over in my mind like a song…  “I love her…”

Darkness then came to my soul, and despair took me to the end, death was my destiny,

And yet I awoke.

Finding myself alone and walking towards an old tavern with no recollection as to how I came to be there, I stooped to pick a dog-end and continued to the old bar in front of me.  Opening the old wooden door I slowly walked inside, each floorboard seemed to creak under my weight, with each step I took.  I walked inside and stood at the bar.  At the other side of this old bar was a large faded cracked and broken mirror.  There could be seen, my reflection, or what I thought must be it.  A deep sigh escaped my lips, for if that reflection truly was of me, that man was, broken and beaten by the world.

There came a voice in the wilderness of my fogged soul, the man behind the bar serving drinks spoke candidly as he poured rum.  He was blabbering away like an idiot and talking about nothing.  A drink was what I needed, but not conversation.

I cared not for his words or what he was talking about and it sounded to me like a barrage of mindless drivel.  I sat there barely conscious half asleep and waking from a dream.

My eyes lifted and I gazed out of the dirty window out on to the endless ocean.  The sound of seagulls seemed loud and somehow the cry of those gulls was what I needed to hear, for it meant more to me than anything.

“Is that the Sun?”  I asked abruptly, with no  real interest and referring to the beautiful golden light that shone just on the horizon, the golden light which never seemed to fade, and lit up this strange place in an eerie and yet beautiful aura.

“That’s not the Sun.”  He answered in a hollow tone “No, it is but a Black Sun that shines here in Saltcoven.”  He continued with a smile that shamelessly showed his yellow teeth in all their glory. I could smell his awful fishy breath and stinking armpits, no worse than my own.   “At least we call it the Black Sun, its not really black.”  I frowned.  Why call a golden sunset a Black Sun?

“Though beautiful as this place is to the eye, we are not where we used to be.”  He blabbered, as his mouth dribbled some ghastly spittle which he wiped away with his sleeve. “We all know it but we don’t talk about it anymore. It has been so long since we crossed over.  The only ones who mention it are the new ones who arrive on the ships, confused they are, staring, driven mad they are, but we welcome them nonetheless. That madness may last a long time before they get used to being here.”

No answer escaped me through the numbness that encapsulated my very being.  My arms felt like lead and I had not the will to speak or to engage in communication of any kind with this tavern keeper.  My attention was momentarily distracted by the staggered drunken crawl of a confused spider that scuttled across the bar.  I mused that the poor creature had inadvertently spun a web which he had consequently fallen from over someone’s beer, and thus had been immersed in it, and the alcohol far too much for his tiny hairy spidery body to cope with, he had managed to free himself from the glass but by now was three sheets to the wind.  Lucky little spider.  The barman continued to talk anyway as if he needed to get my interest.

“You will also get used to our ways.”  He garbled “I know you haven’t got a clue what happened to you or where you are, and I suppose our town is a bit different to where you came from.”

Indeed, somewhere in my mind I had observed the crooked buildings and mused at the miracle it must have taken to keep the houses from falling down.  But the thought was a passing one. I was too depressed and distracted to care. The difference it made to my state of mind was negligible.

“You seem to have been confused by your ordeal Sir.  Don’t worry, sit down and have some good old fashioned Rum” He said handing me my drink.  And he continued.” My name is Arland” he said “I run this tavern here in Saltcoven.  You need to sit down and take in what has happened to you.  There now, don’t you worry about a thing?”

Through the fog of my mind and the confusion and of having no idea where this place was, hazy dreamlike fragments of memories came to me of another life somewhere else, a life that was led in another time and another place.  Other memories began to come back to me slowly.  That somehow I had stepped off my ship and made my way here, like others, confused and unsure of anything.  I started paying some attention to what Arland was saying because it was better to focus on something or else lose what little of my sanity that was left in me.   Things were very confusing here, and the atmosphere was strange.  The town itself seemed to emit this air of depression, of despair, like there was no hope, and yet no one could deny that it was an incredibly beautiful place to behold.  The strong smell of the sea was somehow comforting to me, like the sound of the seagulls, and the lapping of the waves, for it told me in my broken state of mind that I was still alive, that I still existed.

My mind contemplated the beauty of the place.   It was ghostly and magical; as if it was a dream, and there were what looked like golden brown clouds in what I assumed was the sky.  The Black Sun, as it was called was the most beautiful light to behold.  The alleys, nooks and crannies of the town I now knew to be Saltcoven were however, extremely dark dismal and the place seemed littered with vagrants and old drunken sailors who were either confused or affected with madness in some horrible way.  Gradually it came to me that there did not appear to be any women, at least none that could be distinguished from any of the other drunken sailors in this place.  There was the lady behind the bar in the tavern but it was obvious there were no others.  I realised then with deep despair that I was one of the confused half mad people Arland had described in his nonsensical babble.  Therefore accepting his kind offer of a drink I sat down on a bar stool.  He was the only friendly face I had come across.  He, Arland, was a stout man, with stubble on his bulging face, large eyes and slovenly appearance.  He wore some sort of dirty apron which I wasn’t paying attention to really but when thinking about it, that could have been blood smeared all over it for all I knew.   I just felt so wretched and alone and wishing only to keep drinking till nothing could be felt within.  The feelings of wretchedness became even worse, and I found myself crying.  Tears slipped from my eyes though I tried to hold them back.  I was past caring about who saw me.  I knew not of why I felt this way, nor where my life was before or what happened.

Yet in my mind a simple phrase that kept repeating, and it was “I love her.”  But who was she I so loved?  Her face was not in my mind for most things had been forgotten.  What could I do now but drink myself into nothingness?

“Is there no way out of here?”  Came a whisper from the depths of my soul, asking Arland who was behind the bar apparently washing some glasses.  He turned to me and dried some of them, hanging them up on some pegs above his head. The sound of my own voice shocked me, how I sounded, so anguished, it was clear that I should have remained silent.  A lump in my throat and burning tears in my eyes made speech almost impossible. I practically wept those words.

“Oh there’s no way out Mister.”  Arland replied almost matter-of-fact, his thick Cornish accent prevalent in his words. “Many have tried and failed.  You’ll soon get used to being here.”

Catching sight again of what had to be my reflection in the mirror behind the bar and gazed at myself.  My beard looked long and straggly, the hat on my head looked too big, and I didn’t feel that was me at all, I didn’t seem to recognise myself, Yet it must have been my reflection, because I moved and it moved the way a reflection should.

Arland seemed to understand.  “Do you remember who you are Mister or has your memory been wiped?”

“I was a Captain of a ship.”  I uttered.  The only memories in my mind were of sailing on the ocean. “I think I was a ship’s Captain.”

The lady behind the bar served a guy next to me and was obviously listening in on the conversation.  She was clearly mutton dressed as lamb, and had her blond hair in a beehive, but that might have been a wig, and she had on a red low cut old fashioned dress, high heels the lot, though I wouldn’t like to guess at her age.  She turned to Arland and pushed him backward.

“Pay no attention to him!”  She said to me and then she smiled.  Her teeth were equally rotten and her breath stank of something rotten in Denmark. “He hasn’t told you about Captain Crookshank!” She said.

Crookshank, Something about that name stirred some feeling for me. “C…Crookshank?”  I stammered.

Lifting my eyes slowly from the reflection in the mirror and the glass I looked at her directly.  If it was not for the layers of makeup upon her face she might have been one of the ugliest women in the entire world.  There were deep set wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and warts and other things covered up by makeup, but they were still visible.   Her eyes were much too big for her face but may have been her best feature.

“Hi my names Rosemary!”  She said in a motherly kind of way which despite the overpowering smell of lavender perfume which threatened to make me nauseas, was a comforting thing.

“He won’t tell you about Captain Crookshank, he doesn’t believe women should be Sea Captains, or even have any rights at all for that matter.”

She was obviously Arlands wife and the two obviously hated one another right from the gut, and I could see the seething almost murdering rage building in his eyes as she pushed him aside.

“I will tell him about Crookshank!”  He hissed in reply “He doesn’t need to hear that from YOU!”

She retaliated and slapped him across the face. The sailors in the bar laughed as if it was an everyday occurrence.  Well it probably was.

“Who is Crookshank?”  I asked, with hope somehow finding its way into my heart.

Arland leaned on the bar as his lovely wife went off to serve more customers.

“She was the only one ever to leave here.”  He said “She leaves and comes back again from time to time and is gone for months. Though there was one time we all thought she’d given up trying to leave this place and thought she’d settle down and get used to Saltcoven like everyone else”

“She can get me back to where I used to be?” I asked.  My left hand began to tremble as it seemed to do in certain situations.

“Don’t get yer hopes up man.”  He replied “She isn’t here right now.  She ain’t been around almost two years.  We are thinking she won’t be back this time.

I wanted to know who she was; I needed to get out of this godforsaken little hovel. Yet I knew it was impossible for despite having virtually no memory of how I came to be here there was a vague recollection of my ship vanishing into thin air.

"She's not been around in two years."  He said and to me it seemed as though his voice was fading into the background.  I had to focus again.

As he spoke I was painfully aware of a giant wart with a hair in it that protruded from his dribbling drooling chin.  He poured himself a drink and continued.

"The ships half disappear when you get here and you'll have noticed that."  He said “But her ship, Well. As long as she is on board it’s as solid as anything else."

"Tell me more.”  I said eagerly “How is it that her ship is solid as long as she is on board it?" Why did my ship become half transparent?"

"They say 'er ships got Faeries on it... “Arland replied “And that she's not what she appears to be."

“Faeries?”   There could not possibly be such things as Faeries.   It seemed to me he was telling me lies. Since when did Faeries really exist?  Then again this was the strangest place in the known world.

At that point Mrs Arland, Rosemary, knocked out three men and hit another with a bottle, and everyone laughed for about five seconds before doom once again settled in the bar. I watched a rat run across the floor and into a hole where there was a small flame and the sound of horrific squealing.

"She arrived here as a young 'un with 'er Dad, Eli Crookshank, that's him over there, by the fire, lost in his drink."  He pointed to a young looking rugged man who couldn’t have been more than 45 years old staring into his beer glass.

"I know.” He said "Ugly as sin ain’t he?  Well she is as ugly as sin as well let me tell ya."

Looking over at the man across the bar it seemed didn't look ugly at all, what was Arland talking about?  I was a tad confused.  Arland went over to the man, who was Eli Crookshank and immediately and without warning he grabbed him by the throat and reached inside his pocket and took out an old brown sepia toned photograph, before throwing him on the floor. Eli groaned writhing on the stone tiles.  Arland returned to me with the dog eared photo which looked as if the corner had been burned.  This is Captain Albert Crookshank.  Have a look.

He thrust the photograph in my face.  Again I had no idea what he was talking about when he said she was ugly she was dressed as a man but there was a Nordic Goddess with long beautiful maybe blond hair, a strong face, beautiful eyes, she was Crookshank, and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and something stirred in my mind like a memory, but my thoughts were interrupted once again by Arland

"Yes I know, she looks like a man doesn't she?  Well apparently her old man, Eli over there, he brought her up as a boy, called her Albert.  Anyway, they came here must have been oh...hundred years ago."

Eli dragged himself up to the bar. He belched and came over to us, drunken and slovenly, staggering and barely able to make sense of anything, much like everyone else here.

"Give me back my photograph, it be the only one I have of her’ "   He mumbled sounding pitiful and forlorn as he made a grab for it.  “She’s my daughter, gives it to me!”

"But where is she?" I asked pulling it away from his grasp.  "I need to know, I know her somehow, and she must be here…"

"No she ain’t.”  Eli mumbled reaching for the picture "Went away with Captain Judas.”  He belched “She's gone, I will never see my lovely daughter again, and Arland snatches the only photograph I have of her.”

Eli fell to the floor drunk and I knew I would soon as fall down drunk as well.

Arland shook his head “He's been like that since, Forever.”  He said “Yes she went off with a Naval Captain. His name was Judas Copperbell, like you he was a lost sailor, but he was different, he weren't like the others cos he could remember stuff.   We thought our Albert would be staying here in Saltcoven forever, and given up on trying to get out.

The Tavern Keeper began to talk, and my mind began to wander almost as if it was my own memory, and yet it couldn’t have been, for I was, or I must have been somewhere else at the time.  And yet as the tears streamed down my face, I seemed to visualise it all. . See it all happening in front of me almost as if I was there.

Author's Note

How do you like the flow of this chapter?