The Sea Mist

I’d been staying at the Sea Mist for a week by the time I experienced its namesake – a fog so thick I could barely see my own two feet on the veranda.  Less than an hour ago, before breakfast, the air had been clear when I’d glanced from my room out the window.

“Mister Farthing?” a woman called out from the door behind me. It was Missus Scott, the landlady. Such a kind woman, and always doting over me. I think my age had something to do with it, as well as hobbling around on a cane with chronic back pain.

“Yes, Missus Scott?” I said. 

“Now don’t you be going any further from the house. Not until this fog clears. You understand? These fogs can confuse the mind. Play tricks on your sanity. Make you see things that aren’t there.”

I smiled fondly, though I knew she couldn’t see me. I’d strolled the cliff path each morning before sitting down to work on my manuscript, but the hell if I’d try it today.

“My thoughts exactly, Missus Scott. How long will this fog last, do you think?”

She explained how, as fall gave way to winter along the north Scottish coast, thick fogs portended of stormy winter weather on the way. But not to worry, she added in reassurance – I’d be warm, comfortable, and fed without interruption.

“I’ll do my best to not drag in a will-o’-the-wisp,” I joked, but got only silence back.

Just then, I thought I could make out a shape in the fog – perhaps a short figure moving silently from left to right out in the grass. I blinked, and it was gone.

“Best not jest about things, Mister Farthing,” she said, at last, and I could hear the hint of a scold. “Mentioning such creatures is what summons ‘em.”

So back in I went, dragging with me a great puff of fog that quickly evaporated in the parlor’s warmth. A fire was crackling in the great hearth, and the only other guests at the inn were seated on chairs near the fire. Mister Stodgers, a crusty older fellow, and Miss Fabersham, a shy, young woman, were each wrapped up in a book. Other than we three and the staff, the inn’s many rooms lay empty due to the approach of winter.

To think I could stay here at the Sea Mist for as long as I wished. It was only my recent good fortune – the publication of my second novel – that enabled me to afford such accommodations. Brisk sales and great reviews had, on short order, increased my net worth nearly five-fold. Now I was partway through my third book and hoped to stay here until I completed a first draft.

----

The weather here was remarkable. Not long after I returned to my room, I heard the tink-tink-tink of small particles against the window. It was sleet, falling at an ever increasing rate until the whole window emitted a loud, collective hiss. The wind rose, and, minutes later, the fog blew clear. When the sleet abated, it was just the wind, growing colder by the minute beneath a turbulent, gray sky.

I worked on the manuscript for two hours and added a bit of coal to the grate halfway through my work. But feeling a bit peckish, I went to the kitchen and scrounged up a small chunk of cheese.

After another hour of writing, I felt suddenly very tired. Lulled by the rhythmic crash of the sea’s great waves below the cliff, I lay my head down on my folded arms and drifted off.

----

I awoke suddenly to a knock on my door.

“Mister Farthing? Tea is being served,” a deep male voice said.

My mind raced. Was that the curmudgeonly Stodgers outside my room? After all, he was the only man here at the Sea Mist, besides myself.

“Thanks, Mister Stodgers. I’ll be down presently.”

There was a brief snort of laughter, a sigh, and the clomp of heavy shoes as he went down the stairs. If there’s one thing I never expected to hear from Stodgers, it was laughter.

Minutes later, I entered the dining room, where Stodgers glanced up at me in annoyance, while Miss Fabersham averted my gaze and stared down at her bowl of soup. As I sat down, a burly man, appearing to be in his forties, with a partially balding head and an apron stretched across his ample belly, carried in more food and placed it on the table. I’d never seen him before.

“Where’s Missus Scott?” I said. “Has she taken ill?”

Everyone stared at me, and the man in the apron froze holding a large plate, covered with what looked like roast lamb, a few inches above the table.

“What are you on about?” Stodgers said, cocking one bushy eyebrow, the one above his only good eye. “Who’s this Missus Scott?”

I was puzzled beyond words at everyone’s scrutiny.

“This here,” Stodgers said, gesturing with one hand toward the balding man, “is Mister Scott!”

“My dear wife Rose passed nigh on ten years ago, now, Mister Farthing,” Mister Scott said, then set down the plate of meat.

“Surely you’re joking,” I said, grinning. “Is this some kind of…”

I trailed off, after seeing the renewed look of puzzlement on Mister Scott’s face. Even Miss Fabersham was staring at me, a look of kindly concern on her face. So I apologized straightaway, saying that I’d slept for a bit just before Mister Scott knocked on my door, and, as a writer, I occasionally confused a recent dream with reality.

----

I had just endured the most tense, humiliating meal of my life. After smoothing things over as best I could, the atmosphere at the Sea Mist had taken a dark turn. We had eaten after that in silence – only the clanks of silverware on our plates. Stodgers cleared his throat several times, then sipped tea while eyeing me suspiciously over the cup’s rim. Instead of sitting in the parlor with the others afterward, I’d retired to my room at once.

The weather added to my gloom. A heavy storm blasted the coast, and waves rumbled and roared below, slamming the cliff and sending up great sprays of water. The wind howled, and snow blew horizontally against my window. Sea Mist House had endured many such storms, thankfully, and we had an immense supply of coal, wood, and food.

To ease my frazzled nerves, I took a hot bath, put on my robe, and sat beside my fire with a large glass of brandy. I pulled a random book from my bag and saw that it was an illustrated version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Perhaps, along with the brandy, reading about ghosts of the past, present, and future, would distract me.

----

The next morning, I awoke to wind rattling my window. It was nearly time for breakfast, so I readied myself and prepared to head downstairs. My head felt clearer today, and I was succeeding, at least for now, in forcing myself to forget about the Missus/Mister Scott mystery.

But as I opened my door, I heard laughter from below. New guests must have checked in overnight. Yes – that would be a welcome distraction – new folks to meet. Folks who knew nothing of last evening’s kerfuffle.

I reached the bottom floor and saw a lively young man sitting by the fire. He wore an eye patch and a gray tweed jacket, and was conversing with Miss Fabersham. He said something to her in a hushed tone, and she blushed, then laughed. I wondered about this sudden change in atmosphere, here at at the Sea Mist.

“Mister Stodgers,” she said, extending a hand and patting his forearm, “you’re making me blush!”

I froze in place. Stodgers? Had the crusty old man’s son or nephew joined him here?

“Breakfast is served,” a familiar female voice said, and there stood Missus Scott at the dining room entrance, wearing an apron with the same pattern of stains as had Mister Scott last evening.

I rushed to follow her back into the dining room, hoping to see old man Stodgers already at the table, but he wasn’t there. The two other guests came in and joined me, and we all sat down for our meal. I was about to ask this young Mister Stodgers about the elder Stodgers, but then I bit my tongue, recalling the last evening’s social debacle.

As we sat there, enjoying our tea and breakfast food, I joined in a group conversation about the storm outside and the winter wonderland it had created about the home’s grounds. There was never any mention of old man Stodgers, and, as we finished, I saw the young man produce a very distinctive briar root pipe – identical in appearance to the one old man Stodgers smoked at the same time each morning.

Was I losing my mind? Where was Mister Scott? And the old curmudgeon?

At that moment, the clock above the mantle struck the hour. Not by elegantly chiming as it usually did. Instead, a wooden cuckoo popped out from the front of a large Black Forest style clock and began to count the hour.

My gorge rose, and I stood to excuse myself from the table. Fear suddenly gripped me, and I knew I was losing my mind, or had already lost it.  I rushed up to my room, and, upon flinging the door open, saw that gawdy wallpaper now covered the walls, where before there had been only whitewashed plaster.

I went into a frenzy, inspecting all of my belongings, verifying that no books had changed titles, and that my manuscript, as I had written it, was still intact and told the same story. But as I passed a small mirror hanging above my wash basin, I froze.

The man staring back at me had curly black hair, not sandy blonde. Brown eyes, not blue.

That’s when I fainted…