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Salted Wounds

The twinkle in her eyes was bright enough for ships to find their way home. All the men wanted her, but carnal wasn’t the emotion. It was love; offspring, gardens, land-based jobs.

She was regal without trying. In fact, she didn’t care about her beauty, “It’s all mathematical” she was once heard to say, “a sum we can’t change”.

Obviously, she wasn’t the only woman wandering the shores purchasing fish out of fresh nets. She never asked for the cream of the crop, it was the helpless men drunk off her scent and bountiful hips.

A handful of fishmonger wives enlisted the help of D’Moan, a brackish swamp witch. She boiled up a potion that turned the target of their jealousy into a piece of solid wood which, in itself, had a heart stronger than all of them combined.

It was old John who found her floating in the murk, now forever his masthead. As with all witchcraft, there was a glitch; for some unknown reason or rhyme, she’d dive down from her perch and follow old John about town.

Her name; Andromeda.

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