Peculiar Adventure (MPHFPC Millard X Reader)

The Piss Hole

     Fog closed around us like a blindfold. When the captain announced that we were nearly there, at first I thought he was kidding; all I could see from the ferry's rolling deck was an endless curtain of gray. I clutched the rail and stared into the green waves, contemplating the fish who might soon be enjoying my breakfast , while my father stood shivering beside me in a short sleeve shirt. It was colder and wetter than I'd ever known June could be. I hoped, for his sake and mine, that the grueling thirty-six hours we'd braved to get this far-three, airplanes, two layovers, shift-napping in grubby train stations, and now this interminable gut-churning ferry ride-would pay off. Then my father shouted, "Look!" and I raised my head to see a towering mountain of rock emerge from the blank canvas before us.

     It was my grandfather's island. Looming and bleak, folded in mist, guarded by a million screeching birds, it looked like some ancient fortress constructed by giants. As I gazed up at its sheer cliffs, tops disappearing in a reef of ghostly clouds, the idea that this was a magical place didn't seem ridiculous.

     My nausea seemed to vanish. Dad ran around like a kid on Christmas, his eyes glued to the birds wheeling above us. "Jacob, look at that!" he cried, pointing to a cluster of airborne specks. "Manx Shearwaters!"

     As we drew nearer to the cliffs, I began to notice odd shapes lurking underwater. A passing crewman caught me learning over the rail to stare at them and said, "Never seen a shipwreck before, eh?"

     I Turned to him. "Really?"

     "This whole area's a nautical graveyard. It's like the old captains used to say-'Twix Hartland Point and Cairnholm Bay is a sailor's grave by night or day!'"

     Just then we passed a wreck that was so near the surface, the outline of its greening carcass so clear, that it looked like it was about to rise out of the water like a zombie from a shallow grave. "See that one?" he said, pointing at it. "Sunk by a U-Boat, she was."

     "There were U-Boats around here?"

     "Loads. Whole Irish Sea was rotten with German subs. Wager you'd have half a navy on your hands if you could un-sink all the ships they torpedoed." He arched one eyebrow dramatically, then walked off laughing.

     I jogged along the deck to the stern, tracking the shipwreck as it disappeared beneath our wake. Then, just as I was starting to wonder if we'd need climbing gear to get onto the island, its steep cliffs sloped down to meet us. We rounded a headland to enter a rocky half-moon bay. In the distance I saw a little harbor bobbing with colorful fishing boats, and beyond it a town set into a green bowl of land. A patchwork of sheep-speckled fields spread across hills that rose away to meet a high ridge, where a wall of clouds stood like a cotton parapet. It was dramatic and beautiful, unlike any place I'd seen. I felt a little thrill of adventure as we chugged into the bay, as if I were sighting land where maps had noted only a sweep of undistinguished blue.

     The ferry docked and we humped our bags into the little town. Upon closer inspection I decided it was, like a lot of things, not as pretty up close as it seemed from a distance. Whitewashed cottages, quaint except for the satellite dishes sprouting from their roofs, lined a small grid of muddy gravel streets. Because Cairnholm was too distant and too inconsequential to justify the cost of running power lines from the mainland, foul-smelling diesel generators buzzed on every corner like angry wasps, harmonizing with the growl of tractors, the island's only a vehicular traffic. At the edges of town, ancient-looking cottages stood abandoned and roofless, evidence of a shrinking population, children lured away from centuries-old fishing and farming traditions by more glamorous opportunities elsewhere.

     We dragged our stuff through town looking for something called the Priest Home, where my dad had booked a room. I pictured an old church converted into a bed and breakfast-nothing fancy, just somewhere to sleep when we weren't watching birds or chasing down leads. We asked a few locals for directions but got only confused looks in return. "They speak English right?" my dad wondered aloud. Just as my hand was beginning to ache from the unreasonable weight of my suitcase, we came upon a church. We thought we'd found our accommodations, until we went inside and saw that it had indeed been converted, but into a dingy little museum, not a B&B.