Fern knew these stories but out of necessity she had paid no attention. Or at least, she never had before. Since the sinking of the Augustina she thought she heard noises in the night. The noises were full of screams and cries and the deafening sound of splintering wood. She would check her window and listen but only heard the usual sounds of leaves rustling and the crash of the surf.

               One week later, Fern laid down to bed. She slipped into a fitful sleep full of lightening and endless storm. She woke at midnight, though she didn’t know why. She lifted her head from her pillow and listened. The only sounds were of the quiet of the house. Her mother was asleep and her father was tending the light.

               Laying tense as a wooden board, Fern strained her ears against the silence. Soon she heard something, it was quiet and muffled like it was far away or under water somehow. She listened, pale and afraid, and soon she could make the sound out to be a scream. Or rather, many screams.

               No longer muffled, Fern could hear the terrifying cacophony of long, dolorous wails. She was sure the sound came from the water. As Fern lay trembling under her blankets, she heard the din burst up from the sea and rush towards the cottage. She heard the kitchen door crash open and suddenly the roaring was downstairs. The whole house began to shake and shudder with the suffering of those lost souls.

               Fern froze in shock and dread as the mass rushed up the stairs and down the hallway. It erupted into her room and suddenly Fern was engulfed by it. The screams echoed all around her and she pushed her palms so hard to her ears that her hands turned white. With great awe, she realized she could make out individual voices.

“Oh God, no!”

“James, the baby!”

“I can’t breathe!”

“My legs, Jesus Christ, my legs!”

               All of this wrapped by the sounds of sobbing so hard and loud that Fern’s chest began to ache. Helpless, her own screams joined in with the rest of them. Her bedroom seemed to swell and undulate as the restless souls howled their grief into her ears. Suddenly, there was a loud, crashing boom that made her head ring. Everything stopped.

               Shaking, Fern moved her hands away from her hears. Nothing. No screaming, no wind, no sound of the world breaking open. Only the sounds of the sleeping house. The only evidence of the event were Fern’s reddened, tear-stained cheeks, and the pain in her throat from screaming. Even the bedroom door was still closed. Cautiously, the girl crept out of bed and down the hallway. Still nothing. She paused at the door to her parent’s bedroom and heard the deep breathing of her sleeping mother. Making her way downstairs, she found it was just as still. No screams, no broken furniture to explain the crashing she heard.

               Fern crossed the room to the large window opposite. It looked out over the ocean and Fern had passed many happy afternoons watching the waves. Now, the window seemed to beckon her with a foreboding she couldn’t explain. Each step she took seemed mechanical, as if some outside force compelled her forward. Unease growing, she made her way to the window.

               Throwing open the heavy curtains, Fern was greeted with an awesome scene of sublime terror. The waves were whipped to a fever pitch, rolling and crashing in barbaric frenzy. All manner of vessels were being slapped and beaten by swells. Helpless, they plunged under and rose again, endlessly floundering over and over. Everything in the fiendish presentation was lit in a sickly glow. Fern gasped as fear and shock forced her lungs to empty. Tears ran unchecked but she could not scream. Whatever held her chest held her between life and death, it had full command of her.

               Forced to look, Fern realized with horror that she could see people as well. They dripped with wet and blood from ghastly injuries. On their broken and twisted limbs, with their skin rotting, they were dragged along the waves. When they screamed, Fern could see their teeth through ripped skin. Their clothing in savage disarray, they almost seemed to dance with the feral surf of the storming sea.

               The girl at the window watched the lost souls perform their dance macabre. All the while, they heaved across the maelstrom, headed desperately towards the beam of the lighthouse, the valiant beacon that tried to bring them home.

               Fern could bear no more and collapsed to the floor in a faint. Her mother found her there in the morning. Fern was pale and shivering. She would take to her bed for a week and when she emerged, she was always quieter thereafter.

               As her mother had tucked her into bed, she reassured Fern that the sea had been calm overnight and her father’s watch was uneventful. Still, it was a long time before the spell of that night lost its power over Fern.

               Ever after, in the early spring, she hears the voices of the lost, far out at sea as they struggle to  make their way home.