I borrowed the title of this one from a mystery novel my mother had worked at, on and off, through those years preceding her illness and subsequent death. The characters and content here are mine. The only item I remember from her manuscript was a woman who played an instrument that produced waves of air requiring her to wear different colored glass prosthetics over her fingers with which to sonically manipulate the currents.

Some of the characters aboard The Mare were lifted out of stories that my grandfather had told me about his time in the Merchant Marine. For instance, on the ship he served on there was a pair of Chinese brothers, twins, who worked in the kitchen. At dinnertime, as they delivered the meals throughout the ship, they would whistle back and forth so that each knew where the other was and they wouldn’t collide. One of the brothers died during a voyage in the Indian Ocean and was buried at sea. At sunset, after the burial, my grandfather told me that the remaining brother went to the side of the ship and whistled out over the water. A few seconds passed and then a whistle came back from off the ocean.

My grandfather was also very interested in grafting fruit trees, and we had many different varieties on our quarter-acre of property. Over the course of years, he grafted into existence a bluish tinged fruit he called Neptune’s Daughter. What connotation the name had for him, I can’t recall.