Edgewater Inn 1979
She rises and falls with the sea waves over the river where old sailors wives use to wait for the ships to come home, the wide mouth taking them in day after day, week after week, until weeks turned to months and then years, young women turning old as they stared out into the mist for the least hint of canvas, each waiting out the low tide until the promise that high tight might bring them in, always searching the dim horizon in sunlight or moonshine for any sign of sail. In 1854, the first fire gutted the inn, killing 62 unsuspecting sleepers, wives and the children of wives, who presumed they might be safe on land when their husbands and the fathers of children risked their lives on the sea. It took another hundred years for her to burn again, only by this time, the tall ships had shrunken to sail boats and the once grand dame had turned brown from disuse, little boys playing with matches in the cobweb-filled attic set her ablaze, laughing even as the flames consumed them, ...
