Lowcountry Weekly is pleased to announce the winners of the 12th Annual Sea Island Spirit Writers Short Story Contest. This year, the participants were asked to include the word “silence” somewhere in their story of 750 words or less. As always, there were many great stories, and we thank the Sea Island Spirit Writers for their service as judges. Thanks to everybody who entered the contest, as well, and congratulations to the winners! Please enjoy the prize-winning stories published below.
First Place ($100)
A Good Bet
By Jayne Adams
Second Place ($50)
Low Tide
by Bob Ferguson
Third Place ($25)
The Cement that Binds
by Charles Mitchell
Honorable Mention ($20)
Seasons
by Susan Willson
Lightly Trodden
by Rebecca Cartlidge
My Lady Celeste
by Robert Story
FIRST PLACE
A Good Bet
By Jayne Adams
They sat across from one another in the last window booth at the Rockaway Diner.
She picked at a chipped gel fingernail and stared out at the highway.
He rifled through his smartphone app for the day’s races, bypassing the track records and pedigrees of the horses. He didn’t know why he’d ever bothered with those useless stats. He always reverted to his habit of picking possible winners by their names anyway. If the name spoke to him, he put money on it. He won a little less than half the time––but when he did win, the odds usually paid better than if he’d tried to handicap the race. When he got the “magic” right, it was a good day.
Judi heaved a sigh and shifted her weight. The silence between them grew.
Willie scrolled through screens, emitting an occasional chuckle or groan, scribbling names on a paper napkin. So far he had: Tomorrow’s Promise, Yesterday’s Folly, and Nobody’s Home on his list for the first, second, and third races. He thought the first one sounded like good luck. The second name reminded him of a real blooper he’d made––he liked recalling some of his mistakes. They’d been fun. The last name just made him think of his favorite Paul Newman movie. Wait a minute! No! That was Nobody’s Fool. He scratched the third name.
Judi cleared her throat and wound the paper cover from her straw around one finger.
Willie paid no attention, intent upon finding a replacement horse for the third race. There it was: Chestnut Mane! He added that to his list and smiled as he thought of his first wife and her beautiful, long auburn hair. He still carried a bit of a torch for that one. Turning to the fourth race, he skimmed the horses’ names and stopped at My Old Mustang. “Yup, that’s the one,” he whispered to himself, “like my vintage four-on-the-floor, louvered hatchback. Went like a bat outa hell…bet this horse runs like that too. I’m doublin’ down on this one.” He wrote the name on the napkin and put a star next to it.
Judi raised a finger when the waitress came by, pointing to her empty glass.
Willie continued to scroll down. The fifth race looked uninteresting, so he went on to the sixth, inhaling sharply as his eyes fell on the horse named Heaven For the Asking. “Oh, yeah, baby.” That name went below My Old Mustang. He thought for a minute and added a star next to that name too.
Judi smiled at the waitress who brought the refill and sipped her second Diet Coke.
Willie had a good feeling about the picks he’d made so far, and proceeded to the seventh. He went past Sir William (too pretentious), Pretty Frilly (bad pun), and Prancin’ Feet (when they named’em that, they hardly ever were). And then his eyes lit on Rolling in Clover. “Oh, that’s the one. No ifs, ands, or buts!” He marked it down for Race 7.
Judi rose from the leatherette booth, pulled her jacket around her growing stomach, and headed toward the restroom.
Willie scrolled to the eighth race. It was a short program today, so this would be his final pick. He started to read through the names: Happy Meal (really?), Sarge’s Stripes (eh), Finally Home (had to be a loser), Lord Love-a-Duck (sounds like a Monty Python character), Sloppy Joe (definitely not). At that point, Willie paused to stare at the ceiling (he believed he gained clarity when he did this). When no inspiration came to him, he lowered his gaze and noticed that Judi’s soda sat half-finished on the table. Her paper placemat had been torn in half. A folded piece of it lay next to his plate. He opened it and read: Willie–– Thanks for meeting me. Doc says it’s a boy. I thought this would give us another chance. I think I better just go it alone.
He looked around the diner, saw no sign of her, and returned to the racing program on his phone. “Eureka! There it is!” A gelding named Go it Alone was next on the screen in the eighth.
SECOND PLACE
Low Tide
By Bob Ferguson
Wade Pinckney had been polishing his Key West 203 FS since five that morning. She was twenty foot of pure Carolina, and by the time the Steins came down the dock, the Yamaha F150 on her transom shone like a church piano.
“Mornin’, folks. Welcome to the Lowcountry.”
“Nine hundred dollars,” Richard Stein said, instead of hello. “For this money, we should be hauling fish out of the water in droves. I want a bull red. I hear they fight like hell and eat even better.”
“Yes, sir,” Wade said. “We’ll surely try.”
“He read one article,” Ellen said.
“Two articles.”
They were still arguing about the articles when Wade cleared the no-wake zone.
It did not stop. On the run to the first creek, they argued about the weather forecast. At the first spot, they argued about their son’s grades. At the second, about their son’s lack of physical fitness.
Wade baited hooks. Wade untangled lines. Richard cast like a man hailing a cab. Every third throw landed in the rock reef, which rose higher and blacker from the water as the tide fell.
“It’s snagged,” Richard announced, as though filing a complaint.
“Yes, sir.” Wade idled over, reached down past the barnacles, and worked it free. Again.
Nothing bit.
“Our neighbors bought a Tesla,” Ellen said to no one. “They won’t shut up about it.”
“It’s a sensible car.”
“It’s a smug car, Richard.”
Wade moved the boat to his favorite oyster bar. Nothing. He moved to the deep bend at Coosaw where the reds stacked up on the falling tide. Nothing. The fish were there. Wade could feel them there, the way you can feel someone watching you from a porch. They simply had no interest in the Steins.
Neither, it seemed, did anything else. A heron lifted off the mud flat and flew away without looking back. Dolphins surfaced, listened, and sank.
“Eleven hundred a square foot,” Richard was saying. “For a nondescript box near us. Eleven hundred.”
“It was nine hundred last spring.”
“It was never nine hundred.”
“You weren’t even there, Richard, you were in traffic.”
“Everyone is always in traffic!”
Wade stared at the horizon and wondered what the Lord had intended when He made people this loud. They talked too loud. They said too much. They irritated every one of God’s creatures within a mile of the boat, Wade included.
Then the rod in the stern holder, the one nobody was watching, bowed nearly to the water. The reel began to scream.
“Mine!” Richard lunged.
“It’s my turn!”
“I paid for this!”
“We paid for this!”
Wade stepped between them, lifted the rod from its holder, and said one word, firmly and with conviction, the way his daddy used to say grace.
“Silence.”
They stared at him. He placed the rod in Richard’s hands.
“Tip up, sir. Let him run.”
Richard fought the fish for several minutes. Ellen fought Richard.
“You’re reeling too fast. Now too slow. Your back, Richard. Think of your back.”
The fish made three long runs toward the rocks. Three times Wade quietly guided the line clear. At last a great bronze shape rolled beside the boat, broad as a fence plank, a single black spot on its tail. Wade slid the net under it and grunted as he lifted.
It was over thirty-six inches. A true bull red, a breeding female, maybe fifteen years old.
“We’re keeping it,” Richard said.
“It’s too big to keep, anyone can see that.”
“How would you know what anyone can see?”
“With what gas costs now, we’re eating this fish.”
“Don’t you start on gas prices and that fool in Washington…”
“Which fool?”
“All of them!”
Wade knelt on his clean deck, one hand under the fish’s belly and the other at her tail, and held her in the water beside the boat. South Carolina’s limit stopped at twenty-three inches. Fish like this one belonged to the river.
“Folks,” he said, and for the first time all day, there was no courtesy left in his voice. “Please. Silence.”
This time, they heard him.
The bull red breathed against his hands. The marsh ticked. Ellen’s mouth opened, and closed. Richard lowered himself onto the cooler.
With one strong push of her tail, the fish was gone.
On the way in, Wade turned on the stereo: Alison Krauss, “When You Say Nothing at All.” He kept his eyes on the channel markers. Nobody said a word the whole way to the dock.
THIRD PLACE
The Cement That Binds
By Charles Mitchell
Sixty feet from the marsh grass at the river’s edge, the seven-foot section of chest-high, old wall stood proudly, its weather-worn, colonial tabby cement surface revealing glistening oyster shells.
The red-faced man growled.
“What do I lose?”
The seasoned foreman checked his paperwork.
“Thirty-two square feet. About.”
“My second grill? Unacceptable! Fix it!”
The foreman replied bluntly.
“It’s protected, as discussed.”
“Nonsense. Tonight’s storm could easily hasten its demise. Fix it, or I’ll find another who will.”
The red-faced man retreated to his idling car, visibly relieved when the air-conditioning hit his steaming face.
Biting his tongue, the foreman turned to the bustle of activity at the oversized mansion being built near the end of Beaufort’s historic Bay Street.
The wall waited.
Movement then caught the foreman’s eye. He looked back. A small girl of seven or eight, blonde, in a pale but pretty dress, was standing near the old tabby wall. His voice showed surprise.
“Miss? How did you get past the fences?”
Silence.
“By those rocks? Along the river? They aren’t safe.”
Silence.
Before he could direct someone to escort her out, the girl answered in the most angelic voice the foreman had ever heard.
“Mama says to respect our elders, sir, but he’s wrong. Shouldn’t hurt the church wall, sir.”
The foreman was immediately struck by the child’s solemn reverence, surprising for one so young.
“Not to worry, miss. I’m running the build. Nothing will happen.”
Resting her right hand on the wall, the child then pointed her left hand at the departing car. She spoke, her deep, hazel-blue eyes boring into the foreman.
“The bad man will use acid. Seen others do it, sir. Powerful. Bubbles and breaks up our walls. Many gone, sir, these long years.”
The foreman was incredulous, first that the child would suspect the owner of crimes, and second that she understood the damage industrial acid would do to even the sturdiest, centuries-old tabby cement.
“Miss, he’s not that foolish.”
The girl’s eyes flashed, and, suddenly grabbing the foreman’s right hand, she held it against the wall.
Like a blow to his chest, the foreman saw, or thought he saw, the owner directing several men, with thick gloves and heavy buckets, swarming the wall in darkness. His head reeled. The girl dropped his hand.
Shocked, the foreman studied the strange girl, her hand stroking the wall. He then shook his head, glanced at the receding car, and pulled out his phone.
“Jim? Right, it’s me. Need a favor. Tonight. Two officers. A few days. Don’t worry. I’m paying overtime. Yes, Bay Street. Keep an eye on the old tabby wall, the one from that church fire. Way back. Thanks. Yes. I’ll meet them. Give Marie a hug.”
The foreman put his phone away as the child spoke.
“You are a good man, sir. My family thanks you and the sheriff. His great-grandpa was a fine man.”
The girl sighed quietly, then turned away from the wall and walked slowly toward the river.
“Miss. There’s no path. Please use the road.”
The girl only smiled, weaving her way into the tall marsh reeds, which were swaying like a choir in the morning breeze.
The foreman blinked several times, the hair on his neck pricking up. The girl was gone.
Silence.
The foreman slowly crossed himself, something he had not done in years. Then a distant voice reached out and pulled his mind from the river’s edge.
“Boss?”
“Yes?”
“Priest is here.”
“Priest?”
“Didn’t you see the morning report?”
“Sorry. Not yet. Owner was here.”
“A grave. They missed one, boss.”
“Grave?”
“Yes, sir. Young girl, the stone says. Sad. Whole family lost in that church fire. No one knows why her grave wasn’t moved with the others back in the fifties when this stretch was redeveloped. River side of that thick stand of palmettos.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Spotting the priest near the trees, far to the left of where the girl had vanished, the foreman, after giving the old tabby wall a gentle pat, made his way over.
“Father, my apologies. Just heard you arrived. Thanks for coming.”
The priest nodded.
The foreman looked from the gravestone back to the wall.
“Father, I know it’s been a while, but I’d like you to hear my confession later.”
The priest smiled.
The two men then stood together in peaceful silence, their eyes seeing far beyond the weathered stone to a young, ageless girl who loved her church and her old tabby wall.
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(HONORABLE MENTIONS COMING SOON… Check back tomorrow! – Editor)
