HONEYMOON

They pulled up in their rented red convertible to 76 Achlys Cove. Morgan let out a gasp.

“Oh. My. God.” Can you believe this?”

“I can’t wait to see the view!” Miles said.

She raced up to the door and put the number to the house, while he unloaded.

He looked up at the old mansard mansion. The paint was peeling off the boards and the roof looked as if it sagged in a spot, but he loved it. The house looked like something straight out of a Victorian dream. Or an episode of the Addams family depending on who you asked. But they were a different sort of couple. Hence why they were spending their honeymoon on an island in Downeast Maine, at the end of April, the off season. They were set to stay here for four or five days and then finish their trip up in Bangor where they would be taking the Stephen King Tour before flying out. Miles was a huge horror fan.

They were hikers, and they were there to explore the world-famous Acadia National Park. Busy season began in May sometime, so they decided to beat the crowds and the costs by coming early. So far, it had really paid off. Things were much cheaper, locals were more friendly since the tourists had not worn them down yet, and the house they booked had been the only one even remotely close to the park. Miles and Morgan didn't know if that was because it was still not full-on tourist season yet, or if that was because of the limited amount of lodging available.

The house they’d found had been dubbed a “rare find” by the vacation rental service they were using. Miles would have rather stayed at the nice hotel in Bar Harbor, but it wasn’t open for the season. The house itself was on its own island, Maramouth Island. Maramouth island was about an hour from Mt. Desert Island. Caligo, was once a bustling town, but had practically turned into a ghost town since the 1940s

The view from inside the mansion was beyond beautiful, the water seemed to come right up to the windows. Far across the bay, the mountains of the park were visible, jutting out of the water. There was also a small island with a structure in the distance, but he couldn't quite make it out. He looked down toward the walkway and saw that there were boats tied up. He couldn’t wait to go sailing.

“What a great house, great view, and it is only an hour away from the park!” Morgan said.

Miles didn’t say it, but he wondered if there was even a grocery store here on the island. Getting to the island had been somewhat eerie. They had to use a thin two laned bridge, which disappeared into the thick fog which obscured the island from view. They’d driven through the town briefly before stopping at their house, and it was a ghost town. Houses dotted the landscape, but judging by their dilapidation and their peeling paint, they seemed abandoned. Tourist spots such as lobster shacks and putt putt golf courses sat forsaken. Fog rolled through the empty streets and heavy painted signs for ice cream and t-shirts hung from their chains and swung back and forth like a hangman at the gallows. Pictures of cartoon lobsters and whales seemed to almost leer sinisterly. It felt more like a facade of a town than a town itself.

There was a book on the counter, “Hikes in Maine”, and there were a few bookmarked. How nice of the host to do that! Morgan turned to one which was a trail leading to a secret sea cave.

“Not many tourists know about this one, just the locals” the note next to the hike read.

“We definitely have to check it out!”

The hike down the trail was a winding trail that led them down the side of a sheer cliff. The path wove back and forth, leading them between outcroppings and patches of wild grass and trees. The views were magnificent. Rough waves crashed against the sheer cliffs dotted with various trees and shrubbery, and the fog rolled in between outcroppings of rock which stuck out from the ocean. It was everything that Morgan had wanted when she imagined the trip. They were from North Carolina and had never seen the ocean meet the mountains and rocky crags the way it did in Maine. It was like they were in another country all together. They seemed to be on the edge of the world, and beyond the fog there was another world, an inconceivable one.

When they got down to the cave, they were amazed. There were so many tidal pools inside and they saw all kinds of amazing fish and anemones inside. The cave itself had such an otherworldly feeling. They saw odd things too. Miles saw some sort of fish, a fish which looked like some sort of mutated cross between a fish and an urchin. Morgan saw a crab scuttling from tidal pool to tidal pool, moving with lightning speed. But with the glimpse she did witness, she thought she had seen the crab with three or four giant pincers instead of the regular two larger arms in front.

As they were heading back out of the cave, they noticed something in the distance for the first time. They were both individually filled with an alien feeling, as if they were witnessing something which ought not to be. Or that they were at the precipice of something forbidden, a haunting epiphany. Only being able to perceive the squirming little parts like cursed beings in the black tidal pools of the abyss, and never being able to perceive that whole, entire vision. That undulating tapestry of cyclical strangeness.

It was a lighthouse on a small island. As Miles looked at it, he thought he heard a humming noise. He bet that the hum was coming from the power that was running the lighthouse. The fog wrapped around the small island, pooling around it like dead milk.

“I wonder if we can see that lighthouse from our place?” She said

“I think we can, I noticed a small island earlier. Do you hear that hum?”

“The what?” she asked, and then a large wave crashed into the rocks and drowned out what she was going to say. Something flashed in her eyes for a moment, she seemed afraid.

“Nevermind”

On the way back from the hike, they stop at the gas station. Morgan ran in to get some drinks while Miles pumped the gas. In the distance off in the water, he could make out the small dot he knew was the lighthouse. He wanted to go over and explore it. Its presence haunted him. He could hear it humming still, even from this far away. How was that possible?

A guy pulled up in a truck with a bunch of empty lobster traps in the bed. He got out, hitting the pavement with a thud. The tree trunk of a man began to pump gas. Miles went to approach him.

“Hey There!” Miles greeted him.

The guy looked at Miles like he had three heads.

“This is probably a weird question but I am not from around here and I figured you might know. Do you know much about that lighthouse over there in the distance? We saw it on a hike and it just…fascinated me.”

“Do not go to the lighthouse.” The man said angrily.

“What?” Miles asked

“Do not go there!” The man shouted angrily. “In fact, you and your wife need to leave this town immediately if you know what's good for you. Pick some other tourist trap town to spend all your hard-earned dollars in. This place is… tainted.” He got back in the car and drove off.

Morgan came outside as the man sped away, kicking up rocks.

“What was his deal?” She asked.

“Not sure, some grumpy local who probably hates tourists. You’d think he would be grateful for us bringing some dollars to their suffering economy. He told us we needed to leave town.”

She looked scared “Oh no! You don't think he knows where we are staying do you?”

“No, no. We are fine”

“Want to go get a drink?”

“Sure! That and a bite to eat!”

They stopped at a bar on the mainland side of the foggy bridge, a place called the Thirsty Puffin. The guide they’d found in their house had recommended the establishment. The bar, like the town, was once again empty. Miles looked out the window, which was slightly cracked open. The fog was moving faster today. The waves and the water of the ocean churned in a sickening manner, and the thick brine of the ocean assaulted his nostrils. And there was something else underneath it as well. The smells of rotting, beached things. Seaweed, kelp, fish and other strange beings that crawl and float at the bottom of the ocean. The tidal energy, the pulsing of the wind and waves, mesmerized Miles.

After ordering some drinks, they overheard some conversations from the people at the bar. They were talking about how climate change was affecting the lobster catch, how many and where they went, that the temperature of the waters was changing too drastically.

“Soon we won't even have any lobster! Think of how much that will hurt tourism!”

Another one of them laughed. “Good I hate those damn tourists. We always have to be beholden to them to make our living. We always have to serve them, serve up our most beautiful parts of our land on a silver platter to them. The rich and the out-of-staters get our best, and we get left with the driftwood. Can’t even enjoy the beaches anymore, most of them are private! You can’t make mother nature your prisoner.” the man said in the thickest Mainer accent Morgan had heard in her life

“They will take and take and then when there's nothing left, they’ll spit us out. Move on to the next best thing.”

The bartender came down to us at the end of the bar. “Sorry about them, They’re kooky old timers. Want another drink?”

“Sure, and I have a question for you…do you know anything about that lighthouse out in the distance there?” They could see it from the window, a tiny dot in the distance.

The bartender then told them about the Maramouth Lighthouse. He said there were many odd stories surrounding it but this is the one that was told the most: “In the 1800s, the lighthouse was inhabited by a caretaker and his wife. To combat the lonely isolation of the island, the caretaker had a piano shipped to keep his wife occupied. He probably should have found out her level of expertise before providing this gift, though. Unfortunately, she only knew one song and played it incessantly. Eventually the caretaker could take no more, went a bit insane and destroyed the piano with an axe. Next, he killed his wife and, finally, himself. Today, local folks have claimed to have heard the lone song coming from the lighthouse. There’s another story about three men who stayed out there. Two men and a boy about 15, who was essentially their apprentice. The snow got too bad that winter and they got stranded. The two men…they ate the boy. Bones and all. They’d run out of food. But the worst of it is that the rescue came for them two days after they’d eaten him.”

“That’s a crazy story!” This made Miles even more interested in the lighthouse. He seemed enthralled and unfazed by the horrors that the bartender told him. Meanwhile Morgan was getting more and more frightened. The unnamable feeling she’d felt in the cave had completely crept underneath her skin and into her bones. The shadows in the corners of the bar seemed menacing, and she would catch the few locals who were in the bar giving her a horrible glare.

“The folks that are local around here can get a little weird too. Some of ‘em still worship in the pagan way if you know what I mean. It’s an urban legend probably, but they say some of ‘em worship a goddess. Some call her the Sea Witch, The Fog Mother, the Rotting Goddess, the Goddess of the Driftwood, The Tidal Mother. She is the supreme goddess of these seas, but really, she’s the mother of everything. Because everything came from the sea. That ancient sea. That primordial void. The Abyss. Legends say that the Native Americans used to worship her, that they did deals with her to keep their crops and fishing good. But one time, one of the Natives went against her, and so the Sea Witch punished their kind. Ever since then, the natives did not worship her or speak of her. But when the white people landed here, they learned about her, and some, who had worshipped in the pagan ways in the old country, began to worship her too. But that’s just old legends.”

When they got back to their Gothic abode, the sun was setting.

While Morgan was off in one of the other rooms of the house admiring the strange masks made of seashells and other sea debris which hung from the walls, Miles was in the main room in front of the windows that looked onto the water. He looked on the shelves and found a pair of binoculars and looked out toward the shape in the distance. Sure enough, it was the lighthouse. And Miles could hear it humming. And as he looked out at the lighthouse, he thought he saw someone walking around. But hadn't the bartender said the place was abandoned?

Later, Miles and Morgan watched the sunset together on the lounge chairs in front of the windows overlooking the bay. Morgan was talking about their plans for the next day. But Miles was not listening. He was thinking about the lighthouse, and he was listening to the hum.