The Salt Queen Haunting

The Salt Queen sank during the last minutes before midnight. The old steamer was out on the bay that was embracing the island and the factory waterfronts. Out on the nearby open sea, the moonlight on the water was a shimmer of silver, and the stars were diamonds on a floating mirage.

The Salt Queen was more a ship than a private yacht, and she was hosting a New Year’s Eve party for the most elite subjects and supporters of the Dowager mistress. The Dowager was the new owner by a recent inheritance of a small empire of business, which made a yearly fortune by producing salt.

The stylish widow was dressed in the best finery of the latest century, and her position as the queen of all she could survey was as solid as the fortune her late husband produced with his wizardry in business.

For the New Year’s Eve celebration, the Dowager was flaunting her latest acquisition, which was a diamond ring of such value and rarity that it was infamous across oceans and continents. During the previous Christmas festivities, which had also included all of her cronies from business and pleasure, the selfish woman with the scrutinizing scowl never wavered from showing off her new priceless heirloom.

Unbeknownst to the Dowager and all her subjects, a small mob of thieves was aboard the Salt Queen and waiting for the midnight celebrations. The intent of the robbers was to make off with the Dowager’s new diamond and as much loot as they could pilfer from the other wealthy guests.

Just before midnight, the lively but small orchestra crashed into the first notes of Robbie Burns’ Auld Lang Syne, and by prearrangement, the robbers struck. A trio of shotguns shot up and into the air of the still tropical night and the celebration of the elite and prideful was shattered. Two of the men fainted to escape the nightmare, but everyone, including the Dowager and her entourage, fell to their knees and reached for the deck to avoid the shocking calamity.

The robbers were quick, well-informed, and made fast work of their thievery. Within minutes, several of the course cloth sacks from the salt wharves were rapidly filling with the gathering heist when two of the Salt Queen’s crew burst onto the deck. The sailors were fearless and armed only with truncheons when they began to wade through the cowering revelers for the New Year’s party. After the thieves saw the determined advance, they began to scamper for the lifeboat hiding along the ship’s side. Before the thieves could escape over the railing, the Captain emerged from an upper bridge wing of the Dowager’s yacht and threw a harpoon he had snatched from a display on the wall of the dining room. The missile fell short of the escaping thieves but sailed down a companionway and lodged in a live steam line that was running to the ship’s boiler. After the spear point burst a safety valve to the volatile and aging steam engine, an explosion burst the belly of the ship and the Salt Queen began to suffer a wound from which she could not recover.

Before the ship's clock could tick away the first minutes into the New Year, the thieves and their lifeboat were scattered over the bay by the exploding hull and the conflagration from the ruptured boiler. The glory of the loot was lost at once and sank into the deep and tumultuous undercurrents of the bay. The Dowager and the most ubiquitous of her entourage escaped the drowning fate of the Salt Queen but her captain, crew, and many of the guests for the New Year’s celebration went to the bottom with the priceless diamond.

When the Dowager recovered from the shock of the invasion, the loss of her pride, her ship, and the value of her lost wealthy admirers, she became determined to overcome the most recent act of piracy and retrieve her lost diamond and heirloom.

Divers with the latest copper helmets were sent to the bottom to search, but the tides were too strong, and the rushing water along the seafloor made the recovery impossible. Rewards cast temptations, and one diver searched until he was overwhelmed with the rapture of the deep, but none of the treasures lost from the theft ever came to the surface.

Many years later, the Dowager choked on her fine dining dinner and joined her captain and crew, but she was never as imperious as she once was in her efforts to dominate her subjects.

After a hundred and fifty years, the Dowager is only a distant memory, alongside her much older, mysteriously murdered husband and his salt-producing empire. The topical island that was once home to the evil woman and her many acolytes is now a thriving port with the industry of travel replacing everything as trivial as the production of salt.

On a distant anniversary of the Salt Queen tragedy, and on a sunny New Year’s Day, a honeymoon couple was walking along the bay looking for seashells. When the far much younger woman, who was the bride, bent at the waist to retrieve what she thought was a shining mollusk, she picked up the Dowager’s priceless diamond ring.

After the new bride broke away a cluster of clinging barnacles and saw the sparkling light of the diamond’s fire glinting in the sunlight, she pocketed the heirloom before her aging but new husband could see her discovery. With the newfound treasure hidden but burning the skin beneath her tiny bathing suit, she became inspired with a haunting plan and a dark vision she had hardly, even once . . . ever . . . considered . . .