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were off to, Lillian told herself, a week away before the boys returned to their schooling. “Just a quick trip o’er Cape St. Mary’s and Cape Race,” Paddy had told her. “Nothin’ to worry about.”
    At least it ’twas just a quick trip. Sure now, it could be worse with her boys dropping out of school to fish in the dories before they turned twelve . Paddy himself and most of the men and boys in Marystown had done the same. “No sense in schooling,” the dorymen told their sons. “It’s the sea where ye do yur learning. It’s the sea that teaches and feeds us.”
    It’s also the sea that takes ye , Lillian thought as she turned back to the window. Frankie and Jerome hollered from the wharf below, “Can we climb the rigging, Da?” Beyond the plum and lilac trees in the front garden, Lillian could see the masts of Mary Bernice and Annie Anita . The boats looked so small, Lillian thought. In these desperate times, she understood Paddy was lucky to have a vessel to sail, but they were a pitiful sight compared to the grand schooners he had owned in the past. Mary Bernice was a fifteen-ton boat and not much longer than fifty-five feet; on her deck, she’d carry two double dories, James, and his crew of four men. Paddy’s vessel, Annie Anita , was forty tons and a seventy-five footer. She’d carry three dories, along with Paddy, his two young sons, and six men.
    Lillian could not help but compare the schooners to the vessels Paddy had captained in the past: Lillian, Swan, A. Davis , and Golden Glow . Many of them were sixty-ton boats, capable of carrying six dories and fourteen men; they were schooners that could weather storms, rough seas, and trips to the Grand Banks, Greenland, Portugal, and Spain. How she loved the sight of Paddy returning in the A. Davis , his hand proudly on the helm and the wind at his back as he headed for his wharf, where he would drop the mainsail in a salute to his wife.
    It just about tore him in two to lose that vessel, the last of his grand schooners. A few years past, the merchant’s men had come with their legal papers while Paddy was in St. John’s trying to settle his debt for the schooner. The creditors had knocked on her door and gruffly told her, “We’re taking the A. Davis .” They were not long gone when the steamer carrying Paddy back home glided into the bay. From the bow of the ship, Paddy glimpsed the A. Davis with its sails stretched tight against the wind. His fists flailing in the air, Paddy shouted curses as his schooner breezed toward the sea. If he could have caught the men before they slipped away, he would have killed them. That much Lillian knew.
    Now he was left with these two schooners, one of them named after their daughter Mary Bernice, who had died of pneumonia. Lillian understood Paddy’s sentiment, wanting to honor the memory of their lost child. Skippers often named boats after their kin; but sure now, ’twas it not poor luck in naming a schooner after a baby who lay in the cold ground? Could that not bring ill fortune upon those who sailed her? Misfortune had also fallen upon the vessel’s previous crew. Before Paddy bought shares in Mary Bernice , she was caught in the 1927 gale; one of her crew had been washed overboard and drowned. She’s already lost a man , Lillian thought. What if the Mary Bernice is cursed?
    Paddy hushed his wife when she spoke of her misgivings. He had no use for premonitions, but Lillian looked for them in her dreams, in the sky, and in the noises after dark. In the small village of Marystown and its neighboring outports, Lillian was not alone in her beliefs. The superstitions and folklore had traveled across the Atlantic with the Irish immigrants who had made their homes in Newfoundland. The elder women knew the cures that could rid you of headaches and warts, infected sores, and boils. When the May snows fell, they collected and