The Coral Bride

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Angel Roberts wakes with a start to the crash of a lobster trap tearing the water’s surface in two. It’s a lobster trap, she’s sure it is. Thousands of times she’s heard the whoosh of the sea surging into these things, swallowing them up and spitting them out again. It sounds like a sail being torn to shreds.

She smiles, satisfied with her deduction, and then tries to figure out what the heck could be making the other sound she can hear: a hammering. It almost sounds like her anchor chain, but it’s not the regular clanking of the metal as it hurtles its way overboard. Truth be told, she barely ever uses the chain. Nor the anchor, for that matter.

The sound is curiously persistent. Little by little she comes to her senses and takes in her surroundings: the water lapping at the hull, the salty air filling her nostrils, the fabric of her dress clinging to her skin in the damp chill of the night. The pain of having her right arm twisted behind her back. Angel struggles to open her eyes. She’s propped up against the wheelhouse of her lobster trawler. The tailgate is open, and a chain is clanking overboard. The swivel connecting the chain to the anchor rode thunks over the edge, and now that rope is being dragged down to the depths. It’s attached to something, but what? The lobster trap she heard? But why?

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