Boon Island Light. The jagged teeth of rock float upon the ocean's surface, only the Light House rising from them as a hand from the deep screams a warning of light into the night's sky.
The sailors onboard The Almonbird listen to the sound of the waves brushing against the bow of their ship; like footsteps played in reverse. They keep watch for Boon Island.
Toward evening clouds begin to roll accross the sky and the wind rushes in and the waves rise.
Henderson remembered a story he had heard once in a tavern in New York. Someone stumbling up to their table with a mug of beer in his hand and saying,
"of course you boys know the story of Boon Island do you?" The men at the table didn't and so they had made room for the stranger.
"It started back in 1682 with an old ship called The Increase . Four men marooned on the island, one of them an Indian. They survived on gull's eggs until the Indian sees smoke rising from a hillside and thinks to make a fire himself. They got lucky. You don't live for long on eggs alone. In 1710 when the Nottingham Galley upturned and left her men stranded on Boon they killed and ate one another. What do you boys think about that? Would you have a go at eating one another?" They didn't like the man's wheezing laugh and they didn't think much of his horror stories.
"Mark my words; steer clear of Boon Island." He ended as if this were the punchline to a wonderfully original joke and wheezing merrily slapped each man on the back before standing to join another group at the bar.
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