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in hard and strong.”
    The watchful crew had already begun setting about the necessary preparations. It was good to hear their instinctive certainty confirmed by the captain’s unmistakable orders. When all of the preparations had been tended to and all of the loose hatches made fast and the lines tied and retied there was nothing left to do but to hold on tight and see if the ship could outlive the blow.
    Ephraim wasn’t worried. He’d been a sailor and fisherman his whole life and he had long ago sworn on the Southern Cross that he’d be buried on the dry land. Yet the other night’s dream kept bothering him. It haunted him so much that when he heard the mainmast snap he looked straight up, hoping beyond hope that he was still swimming in the depths of his nightmare.
    All hands went down with the ship. The December waters in the Atlantic are cold enough to freeze the very blood in a man’s veins. The storm took everyone; not a single survivor remained.
    Back on land, Mabel had no such doubts. She knew what a forerunner meant. Just as soon as Ephraim left that morning, she cried for a full half hour. Then, deciding that her husband would suffer through more than his share of salt water and sorrow, she busied herself brushing off his best jacket and pants and preparing for the bad news she felt certain would come.
    Three days and three nights passed without a sign of Ephraim’s vessel. Everyone in the town presumed that the ship had sunk without a trace. Such events were common in coastal towns.
    On the fourth morning they found him washed ashore, still clinging to all that remained of the mainmast. Tucked in his fro-zen hands was Mabel’s silver crucifix.
    He’d come home to his wife, as he’d promised, bringing her crucifix home, as he’d likewise promised, and he was buried on dry land as he’d sworn so long ago upon the stars of the Southern Cross.

7

AS PALE AS ICE
AND AS HARD
AS STONE

MUD ISLAND

    About eighty kilometres southwest of Shelburne, you will be certain to notice three ill-formed islands located in the heart of Lobster Bay and called Seal, Mud, and John’s.
    Seal is named for the great herd of gray seals that make their home there at certain times of the year. I really don’t know who John was. Perhaps a sailor who drowned close to the island, or an early settler. Perhaps it was once the site of a convenient outdoor privy.
    But I can tell you about Mud Island, holder of the murky secret of the cold stone woman.
    Back in 1833, the brig Victory set sail for New York City carrying a cargo of Cape Breton granite. The brig was helmed by one George Card of Campobello, New Brunswick and had a crew of seven: five sturdy sailors, a cook, and his assistant, a young red-headed girl named Maggie Flynn.
    The weather was calm that day and they’d travelled far and the captain decided to drop anchor in the sheltered lee of Mud Island.
    That night, following a long calm, one of the worst nor’easter gales on record slammed into the still waters of Lobster Bay, lashing her full fury on the unwary Victory.
    The captain, fearing that the force of the storm would tear the ship from her anchor and turn her, ordered the ship’s cook and young Maggie Flynn into a dory.
    Now it might sound like a strange notion, sending a person from a large and sturdy brig to the dubious shelter of a dory in the heart of a gale, but the captain knew what he was doing. A dory was an awfully hard thing to sink. If the weather was bad enough, the sailors would seal the dory up with canvas, and they would ride the storm out, hunkered down in its belly, bobbing along like a cork in the waves.
    The waves were rough as young Maggie stepped into the dory. She nearly slipped as her feet caught on a poorly laid rope.
    â€œSit down!” a sailor called, but the sea was too loud for him to be clearly heard. As Maggie turned toward the sailor, a great wave smashed up against the side