About this story
When paying customers keep interrupting the work, you rent the empty schoolhouse on the hill instead, only to have old Captain Littlepage climb up after a funeral to tell you, in a lowered voice, of a wrecked Arctic voyage and a town of figures that are neither living nor dead.
How it opens
One June evening, the steamer left you alone on Dunnet Landing's narrow wharf.
You remembered our coast long enough to return at the herb season.
White houses watched the harbor between dark spruce woods and ledges of grey stone.
Lodging includes a cold noon meal, a hot supper, and no promise of silence.
Choose
I need mornings undisturbed more than elaborate meals.
Let the village come; I can learn its rhythm before asking it for quiet.