by Virginia Watts

Short Story published by Pacific Literary Review

By the light of an open-hearth fire, Garth squeezes the contents of his coat pocket. It is not unusual for him to keep his coat on after a long, frigid walk home from the tavern. Takes time to warm the deepest bones. Even if his mother heard him come in and decided to crawl out of bed to inquire about his night pulling taps at The King’s Key, she would not find it unusual, his coat still buttoned tight about his heaving chest. Garth reaches up, brushes fingertips across lips, rough and cracked from the harsh northern wind but also his habit of licking his lips when forced into conversation with a stranger.

“Garth?” Ma’s high-pitched voice shatters the hush in the room, drowns the sizzle of honey-hued flames at play inside the hearth. “Everything fine?”

“Yes, of course,” Garth answers. “Go back to sleep.”

He should have spoken more quietly, omitted “of course.” It is a modest, two-room cottage they share. Ma is naturally distrusting. She can smell a fib brewing inside Garth long before it reaches his tongue. Garth sips a shallow breath, holds onto it, hopes that her pillow is too deliciously soft, her goose down comforter too sumptuously cozy, the promise of a tranquil winter sleep too alluring, for her to rise and place her bare feet on cold, splintery floor.

A stranger darkened the door of The King’s Key that evening. There hasn’t been an unfamiliar face in the Village of Moors in months, and never anyone like this man. When he entered the tavern Garth thought perhaps, he was a spirit of the wood, an illusion sent to admonish the common folk for hunting more than their fair share of pheasant, deer, hooking too many trout from nearby creek and stream. The stranger was tall as an oak sapling, just shy of the roof beams, and his body glowed as if someone had dipped a paintbrush into a well of moonbeam and spread it about his frame.

Garth blinked, then blinked again, wondering if the man might disappear, but he did not. He wore no outercoat though the month is January, just pale-yellow trousers, and a shirt dyed an eye-catching, deep, rich blue Garth has only seen in picture books. The odd man put Garth on edge, until Garth caught a whiff of him. Piping hot, rye bread, Garth’s favorite, a treat Ma bakes only on his birthday for she does not care for the pungent flavor of rye seed. The man smelled of something else too, an aroma foreign to Garth. The scent of fish maybe, if he had to guess. Not unpleasant by any means. When Garth flared his nostrils, somewhere deep inside him a knot loosened.

“Son?” Ma stands before Garth now in her night dress, long, grey hair, kinky as fiddlehead fern, heavy across the sag of her waggy breasts. Her eyes, shiny bits of coal, hop up and down as they always do. The sight of her stabs Garth’s heart. He loves Ma dearly, but she insists upon knowing every detail of his days and his nights. Garth’s fingers twitch inside his pocket. He’s forgotten that his hand remains inside his shirt. He releases the contents, pulls his hand free, places it upon his knee.

“Aren’t you weary, Ma? Didn’t you walk the oxen cart to Chertsey for trade today? Were there plentiful wares to choose from?” Garth’s voice hangs in the space between them like an off-key church bell and its echo.

“Since when do you care about the market in Chertsey?”

Piss, she’s difficult. Why must she loom so close? She might be able to spy the contents of his pocket. Why won’t she sit in her chair, the one that holds the shape of her broad bottom, retains the smell of her. Lavender soap and a whiff of the chicken coop the village men built for her in the yard so that she would have a means to care for herself and her growing boy. The coop emits a sour smell from the moldy layers of straw at the bottom of the berths. Garth rotates the straw regularly, but while chickens produce delicious nourishment and all that he and Ma have need of; they are unclean creatures.

The regular crowd was light at The King’s Key for a Friday. Danford and Pawson Tillage, identicals, drunk as usual at the end of the bar, Pawson’s greasy hair splayed out on oak, face down, snoring, Danford picking his nose. A few farming couples scattered about the tables, chins tipped, shoveling watery, venison stew the tavern serves with crusts of bread. Mold scooped out as if that fooled anyone, but this land is inhabited by hard-working people desperate to remedy the gnaw of hunger in their gut with little time to cook before sleep.

Everyone froze when the stranger blew in and made his way to Garth who was polishing the copper taps. The stranger pulled out a stool, scraped it across the grooves of the gritty, stone floor, plopped down, then offered Garth his hand. The handshake proved firm and hot. Garth’s eyes were drawn at once to man’s other hand, the one he placed atop the bar, knuckles white, a tight grip on the object that now finds itself stowed away inside Garth’s coat pocket.

It was then that Garth began to lick his lips, startled to find himself tasting strongly of salt. As if he’d been weeping. The last time he wept was when his father left the family by cloak of darkness without warning or explanation, Garth not yet seven. For weeks after, Ma remained to her bed until one morning she rose, dressed properly, and announced that together they’d be just fine on their own. Your father’s run off to the vices of London town. Stop your fussing. Buck up now. Be brave, my little man.

“Why are you cross?” Garth asks, nodding Ma toward her customary seat by the fire. Is she staring at his coat pocket? Can she discern an outline of what he has? It would be impossible to explain the contents when Garth cannot explain this adequately to himself. 

“I’m not cross,” Ma snaps, but of course she is. There was the humming, affectionate Ma from before Garth’s father left and there is the woman now, good of heart but wary and weary of the endless routine of her labors. Garth crosses one leg over the other, begins to unfasten the buttons of his coat. When he’s finished, he shrugs his shoulders to allow the pockets to fall to the side, safely out of sight. At last, Ma loses interest, plops heavily into her chair.

“I was only asking about your day,” Garth says, mindful to keep his voice soothing. “You know how I savor the tasty lamb shanks and mincemeat pies the chickens afford us. The Morlaneys supped at The Key tonight. They have the final crop of squash if we have need of some. The lady says she’ll swap for blue or lavender eggs.”

“Romsey Morlaney doesn’t know a good egg from the hole in her arse. She’d be wise to take any eggs I offer her. Did you know she downs a dozen honey cakes a week? Explains why she’s round as a barrel, fat as a prize hog. Waste of good eggs if you ask me.”

“Ma, your tongue,” Garth says with a chuckle.

“The truth.” A rare grin blooms on Ma’s face and fades. They never stay long, the woman’s fleeting moments of mirth.

“Are you thirsty?” Garth inquired of the stranger, leaning an elbow on the bar for a closer look. There was a definite glow about the man, but it was drowning rapidly into the tavern’s dimness. The wall sconces offer little illumination.

“Have you any ale about to spoil?” The man asked. “I’m low on coin this evening, young man, but I do have an end of a fresh rye bread I’d be willing to barter.”

Some of the drippy, tallow candles inside the wall sconces flared up and snuffed out when the stranger opened his mouth to speak. Garth gasped. The tavern door was shut tight, the room stiflingly still. It was as if the man’s mouth had blown a mighty wind gust throughout the room. And there it was again, that aroma, clean, sweet air, with a tinge of fresh caught perch perhaps.

“Keep your bread. I’ll gift you a tankard as you are new here,” Garth said, working up what he hoped looked like a welcoming expression though the room had begun to swirl around him as if he was caught in an eddy. He reached out, grabbed the bar to steady himself.

“Most kind, young man,” the man answered.

Young man was an apt description for Garth as compared to the speaker who was decidedly old. Thick, puffy, white beard, matching eyebrows, long hair pulled back, fastened tight, creases around the eyes more like crevices. The man’s smile was teethy wide even as his stomach grumbled. A contented man even if shy on coin and hungry. His eyes were his most remarkable feature. One moment crystal green, the next pale blue, they continued to emit light even as man’s body dimmed. Garth shook his head, trying to make sense of it all.

“If you hunger, I can ask our cook if there is any scrap hospitable to eat.”

The man nodded, reaching eagerly for the tankard Garth filled for him with his free hand, while the other remained fisted on the bar top.

“Garth!” Ma cries. “You have such a strange look about you. What in the devil are you staring at?”

Garth coughs, chokes. His mouth is full of spittle. He’s forgotten to swallow. A tiny stream escapes down one side of his chin. He reaches up in haste to swipe it away.

“Have you been drinking that nasty draught you serve?” Ma is back on her feet, one meaty, freckled fist shaking. “You look flushed, your lips chaffed.”

“Not a drop, Ma. I promised you long ago that I’d never set drink to my lips, not ale, nor whiskey, wine, nor rum. I grow tired of you asking.”

That’s all the words Garth can manage. His cheeks flare. A familiar irritation erupts inside him, something that has become more difficult for him to control lately. A part of him is ashamed when this feeling overwhelms him, but a part of him revels in it. For ten years, he’s done everything his mother asked of him. Nearly eighteen now, he’s beginning to accept that no matter what he does or doesn’t do, he can’t make up for what his father did.

“Did something happen at The Key tonight, Garth?”

Ma’s eyes upon him are relentless. They nail him to a stake, but he won’t tell her about the stranger. For now, the man will remain his secret. The thought of what is in his pocket nibbles at his earlobe, whispers a giddy message into his vibrating eardrum, a refrain he has mulled over since the words slipped from the stranger’s bearded lips. I think this is for you.

“Ma, why must you hound me when I’m knackered and ready to fall dead into bed?”

“I am only looking out for you,” she says. Stepping to the hearth, she grabs a log, places it with practiced skill. The fire flares. “At trade today, June Evans was there with her honey jars and her lovely daughter, Juniper.”

Garth is too tired to do this again. He’s not interested in marriage, never has been, but he settles his tongue, keeps these thoughts to himself. Ma lingers a few moments longer, then leaves him to the blaze.

The remote village of Moors with its rugged, rocky farmland and harsh climate breeds the sort of folk who mind their own business. This is an isolated life. Folks see no need to learn about distant, foreign places. Once the stranger was halfway through his tankard and a dented pie tin of apple peels, fat cuts from meat, chunks of potatoes with blackened eyes, the other customers inside The Key had lost interest in him.

Seated at the bar, the visitor used his free hand with gusto, alternating between hoisting spoon and tankard. Although Garth introduced himself, no name had the stranger offered. It was none of Garth’s concern, the man’s name nor what he might have concealed inside his fist, so Garth went about his chores. Refilled tankards. Wiped the pitted oak bar top and the brass taps with a sour rag, even as the room continued to move queerly about him, less of a swirl as the evening wore on and more of a gentle rise and fall under his boots. He decided he was taking ill.  No one else inside The Key seemed to notice anything askew. It wasn’t the worst feeling he’d ever had taking ill. The sway of the room might be pleasant to sleep with.

“A word, son?” The man called across the room, having cleaned his plate and drained his tankard. In the dim room, Garth couldn’t be sure, but it seemed the man winked.

Garth made his way toward the taps, finding his footing even as the floorboards swung side to side. All in his mind, he told himself. A fever starting. That’s all it was. But then a sound erupted amid the subdued, tavern drone. The piercing cries of birds, captivatingly harsh and clear. Hawks on the prowl for prey, perhaps, but inside the tavern? The sound repeated. Garth heard wings flapping. He looked wildly about the room. As before, all remained content with company and sustenance. Trembling, Garth leaned across the bar toward the stranger.

“Did you hear something?” He whispered.

“What did it sound like?” the man whispered back.

“The shrieks of birds. Flapping wings.”

“Interesting.” Another wink.

“You heard it,” Garth persisted; his lips saltier by the second.

“Did not,” the man answered. “But I’m still thirsty.”

“If you want more, you must pay.”

“I can pay.”

Soon enough, Garth, bent over top his mop, swabbing floorboards, was left alone with the stranger. Tomorrow would come early. He needed to go home, sleep off whatever was picking at him. The stranger slurped his third ale noisily. No manners. Though the inexplicable shrieking sounds did not return, the inside of the tavern remained queer. Place didn’t seem solid. What a peculiar night. Garth stared longingly at the taps. He could use a few, hefty swigs for whatever was ailing him. The other patrons filed out one by one into the cold night, grumbling their goodbyes. Only Danford lingered by the stranger, eyeing his fancy-hued shirt, before Garth shooed him away.

“I’m closing,” Garth barked hoarsely to the stranger.

“Very well, but before I take my leave, I think this is for you,” the man answered, nodding toward his fist on the bar, grinning behind his beard at Garth. The man’s eyes were really something, how they glowed. Uncanny. The manner in which they changed from fern green to sky blue, sometimes deeper blue that matched the man’s shirt. Garth paused in his work.

“What kind of jokery is this, old man?”

“I’m meant to hand this to you. The time is nigh. Come here.”

“What is it?”

“Come and see.”

“Tell me what it is first,” Garth said, a kernel of fear nipping at his heel.

“Come here and I’ll show it to you.

Why should Garth take orders from this stranger? Garth would not be the brunt of a joke. He refused to be made a fool. He threw his mop to the floor, made haste to the tavern door, swung it wide. Perhaps the man’s eyes were not all that unusual. Garth hadn’t met many people outside of Moors. Surely there were people in the world with eyes the shade of green lakes and blue horizons. This was a man who played at games, made people believe he had something hidden in his hand, something special meant for them. Cruel. The sooner Garth returned home to Ma, the cottage’s hearth fire, the better.

“Leave, Sir. I’ve no time for foolishness. Should you need shelter for the night, there are rooms to rent eight doors to the left. Faley Molluck has lodging. If you can’t pay in coin, then you’ll have to muck out his pig stalls at daybreak.”

The stranger sighed, stood, gave his beard a few strokes, drew a handkerchief from his pocket, snorted his nose, dropped the handkerchief, then bent down to pluck it from the floor, from muck of boots, crumbs of rot gut bread, swills of ale, wine, and fresh mice droppings. These movements distracted Garth. He didn’t notice the stranger had left an object behind on the bar top. Stepping outside, the man called over his shoulder. “Thank you kindly for your hospitality.”

Inside the cottage, Garth’s eyelids are growing heavy within the familiar, warm arms of home. Here’s what he’ll do. Tomorrow, he’ll pretend the stranger never came through the door of The Key. He’ll hurl the contents of his pocket into the deepest part of Lake Idwal. The matter settled; Garth falls asleep.

This could be the end of the story except that Garth hears again the shrieks of fowl, flapping wings, this time louder and closer to his ears. He lurches awake. His hand flies to his pocket. When he squeezes the object inside, excitement washes away his dread, euphoria his fears. A desire for the stranger’s company pours into his body, spreads through the warm throb of his veins. Garth quickly closes his coat, buttons it tight, slips his hand into the pocket, retrieves the object the man left behind at The Key. The fire in the hearth is dying down, hissing softly. Garth strikes a match; lights the lantern they use to check on the chickens in the early morning. He rolls the object around inside his palm, then drops it back into his coat pocket and tiptoes to the window.

Outside, it has begun to snow. A dance of white and fog. He looks for anything that shouldn’t be there. A shadow on dark ground. Figure leading against a tree. Who exactly is this man who’d brought this trinket to The Key? He must see him again. Garth grasps the lantern, opens the cottage’s door, and steps outside.

Faley Molluck is not the least bit pleased to see Garth standing on his stoop at such a late hour. He cracks his door, sets one eyeball in the space. It spies Garth through what has become a lighter snowfall. The eye, bloodshot with sleep, blinks once, then squints. Garth can’t blame Faley for not opening his door fully, poor bloke clad in a flimsy nightshirt. It had required a powerful round of knocking to coax him from his woolen covers.

“What ya doin’ out this late, Garth?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but I must speak with the man who came here for a room for this night. Tall. Light of eye.”

At this, Faley opens the door far enough to poke his head through. He stinks of his pigs. Always does. Long ago, he tried to woo Garth’s mother. Garth winces, wonders what caustic words she chose to refuse Faley’s entreaties.

“See here, Garth Thumball. No one came here this night. You daft?”

“No one? Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure.” Faley shakes his head, sends his nightcap flying behind him. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, Garth. Go home. Bad weather.”

The slam of a door thunders down the deserted street. Garth looks left and right. No one.  All quiet, save the snow’s soundless landings. No footprints but his own on the white, silent road. Garth fiddles with the chain around his neck, pulls out the tavern key.

Stepping back inside The Key, he lights a candle from one of the tables and takes it with him to the bar. Reaching up for a mug on the shelf, he wipes it with his shirt tail, tugs a tap.  Amber ale flows forth. All is normal inside the tavern now, quiet save the rustle and scurry of mice having their way with crumbs Garth’s mop failed to remedy. He can almost hear the heart of The Key, familiar voices, laughter, hoots, clink of tankards, even the snores of Pawson Tillage.

It’s not a bad life, tending in Moors, earns a decent wage. Once, it had been Eric Thumball, Garth’s father, who tended at The Key. Garth fell into the role when he came of age. There was another vacancy, and he needed a trade. It was never his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps, to serve drink and bowls of stew within these walls for the rest of his days, but fate had him by the tail. Wind gusts rattle the tavern windows with a vengeance. If the stranger is outside walking without an overcoat, thinking he can make it to the next town without suffering frostbite, and possibly death, he’s about to learn about life in Moors the hard way.

The ale tastes tart and delicious. Garth downs one tankard. Pulls himself another. If there was ever an occasion to justify the breaking of his vow to his mother, the events of this night should suffice. He plucks his old friend from his pocket. Silver pocket watch. Mighty stag, nostrils flared, carved upon it. Proud, majestic creature, ready to battle for its territory, its pride, its life. The last time Garth held this object; he was but a tender boy of six.

There’s one thing Garth’s father allowed as tender at The Key that Garth has never allowed. Garth accepts only coin in exchange for drink and food, but his father had a penchant for trinkets, shiny objects from faraway lands he had no business dreaming about. On occasion, he would barter in lieu of coin behind the back of the owner of the tavern, Mayla Cleff, who’d inherited The Key from her father, but never wanted to run it herself. Garth’s father often said under his breath:  What Mayla Cleff doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

When his mother was away from the cottage and his father was hunting, fishing or gone early to The Key, Garth would drag out the wooden box from underneath his parents’ bed to admire his father’s treasures, to dream about the mysterious places they’d come from. There wasn’t much, but it was enough. Foreign coins, compass with a broken arrow, shiny brass button from a military jacket, lady’s pearl hairpin, a pocketknife with writing his father said hailed from the Orient, a tiny rabbit no bigger than Garth’s pinky finger carved from ivory.

He hadn’t thought about it in years until tonight, but on the day his mother spilled out the contents of his father’s box, planning to take the “foolishness” for trade, one item was missing. The pocket watch. It had been Garth’s favorite. He loved the stoic stag, the latch that clicked the watch open and closed, the shine of the silver. And now the watch has returned. Had his father sent it? Hired the strange man to ferry it? Is it a peace token from his father? Will he return to Moors? No, his father will not return to Moors. There is nothing for him here. There’ll be no acceptance from family or townsfolk, no welcoming arms. Forgiveness comes hard in Moors. His father knows that.

Garth presses in with his thumb and the pocket watch pops open like it always did, as if it’s eager to see him. The clockface and delicate hands are gone, along with the inner workings. The watch has been gutted. Something round spills out, rolls across the bar top and pings onto the floor below the stool where the stranger had been sitting. Cursing, Garth hurries around the bar, candlestick in hand. It takes some searching in the dark until he spies it. A round, flat object. Not coin. A token. Garth has heard of these. Such tokens grant passage onto sailing ships in London harbor for unskilled men in their youth willing to take work of any manner aboard a ship. Young men who want nothing more than to take to the high seas bound for adventure. The tokens are rare. Sometimes given to the eldest sons of dead sailors in remembrance of their bravery. A way to set tragedy to right.

Maybe his father is dead. Not that it matters. He’s been dead to Garth for years. Still, maybe after he left Moors, his father became a hero of sorts on the high seas. A person of legend.   Admired. In that, Garth could finally take some pride in being the son of Eric Thumball. It wouldn’t matter to Ma, though, what happened to his father after he left Moors. Her heart’s core is closed to laughter, adventure, to any hope in life.

Garth decides to leave under the cloak of night, as his father before him. Perhaps this is  cowardice, but if his father had left in a different manner, it would have done nothing to ease his mother’s pain. There isn’t any good way to leave. Besides, Garth can offer Ma no rational explanation as to why he is so sure he wants to go, other than the way his body teems with excitement at the prospect of taking to sea, a vocation for which he has no training. He’s never been more than a few days walk from the village of Moors, never laid eyes on saltwater, only seen ships in picture books. Such heady madness. Such immaculate delight.

Outside the tavern’s front door, Garth rinses his mouth with snow. His last walk home through the town of Moors passes in a blur of flakes, the silence of a wintry night save his own muffled footfalls. He won’t miss the wickedness of a Moors winter. Back inside the cottage, all is quiet. Ma is mercifully at rest. Garth tiptoes about, grabs a satchel, clothing, helps himself to some bread, dried meat from the larder. When he closes the door on the only life he’s ever known, on the only person who has ever loved him enough, he promises himself he won’t look back. If he does, he won’t be able to bear it, he won’t be able to go.

Mara is awake under bed covers, her eyes pinched shut, refusing tears. She waits a few moments after the cottage door closes before she steps outside barefoot into the bitter weather for one last look of her son. His shape recedes into the snowstorm, steps steady and sure, head high. His hopes, she believes, are even higher, lost in dangerous, foolhardy dreams.

When a messenger from the sea came within the environs of Moors, Mara immediately sensed his presence. He’d been there before. She prayed she was wrong, but when she noticed how strangely her son behaved after his night tending at The Key, she knew. She knew the messenger had already set foot in the tavern, already wormed his way into Garth’s heart with his hypnotic smells, captivating sounds, his ensnaring magic. She would lose her son as she had the love of her life before him. The call of the sea is mightier than any landbound home, any past, any family, any woman, any promise. Her son, like his father, would vanish into a future of ropes and sails, waves and ports, and there was nothing Mara could do about it.

When Garth left the cottage earlier that evening on his way to Faley Molluck’s door, Mara didn’t know where he was going, she only understood that she had to leave the cottage too, and quickly. She could feel the presence of the sea’s messenger within the environs of Moors growing weaker by the minute.

Mara chose the dense, forest path that bypassed the town, intersected with the road leading away from Moors. Her boots dug deep as she ran. She knew the way. Fortune was upon her for the moon was full and bright. There was a lull in the storm. When she spied a bluish green figure moving in the distance, her heart skipped. She ran to catch up but stopped at a safe distance, afraid to get too close to something she wasn’t sure was a man.

“You must carry a message to her,” Mara screamed. “I have a right to demand this of you.” Mara’s voice sounded thin, perhaps too high pitched to be heard, but the faintly lit shape on the path halted.

“Tell her I dreamed of it. Many times. How she claimed my Eric for herself in a storm, a fit of her senseless, selfish fury. For shame!”

The sea’s messenger was fading fast before her eyes, going back to what he was, a mighty gust of salt air blown from the lips of his mother. His light, a mere ripple now on alabaster landscape, turned around what was left of his earthly shape, a grey mist figure, to face Mara.

“She will do right by Eric’s son,” Mara was back to shaking her fist. “Grant Garth Thumball a long life. Keep him safe. Close to her bosom warm and beating as I have done all these years. Promise me you’ll give her this message!”

It was a desperate plea from one woman to another, but it was all Mara had left. It would do her no good to appeal to her own God, to kneel inside the timber plank church in Moors. Men, good men and bad, had been falling at the sea’s feet for centuries, helpless to her wiles. For the rest of her days, Mara comforted herself best as she could with a memory. How a son of the sea, as if still cast of flesh and bone, blood and sinew, bent down on one knee, bowed his head to Mara, reverent, before he vanished.

Copyright © 2026 Virginia Watts. All rights reserved.