Making soft way across the soft wet sand, trying to pay mind to spitting clams annoyed by the disturbance. The tide will begin to come in soon and there is only so much space between the wrack line and the dunes. Just a moment past golden hour and already a chill is settling on bare shoulders and exposed backs of knees. It’s time to go home and time for the sweater still in the bag left by driftwood, out of the path of the eventual reaching backwash.
A lone cry from a laughing gull wedges into rhythmic waves lapping. A small gull, with red beak and black head or white head and black beak, makes an awkward cry not quite reminiscent of a laugh. In a group, it is a cacophony of birds chattering and shrieking but no laughter. Still, it’s a nice-looking little bird.
The people ahead, small and faded in the haze, slowly move out of frame. A pause, a moment, a time…there is no one left but one. Sand glows from golden hour touching it, stretching into glimmering waters contrasting with the darkened edge of cloud touched waves. A storm bringing rains far-away creeps closer, the cool westerly winds riding ahead.
The beach is free but not alone.
As the chill settles closer, the sun’s heat still pressing against spine, to the left lies the shimmering water stretching out to a wall of mist; a barrier between sunny sands and threatening storm clouds. A thought of the veil between worlds crosses while crossing a new patch of spitting clams. Chilled water snakes around ankles and splashes on knees, brings grounding to reality to the cooled sands caked on feet and wind pressing by and through. Dunes loom tall, patterned in streaked sediment and fibrous roots in rows; beach grass perched atop, bristling with the wind.
There is a sudden sound of people chattering. The only sign of other people is a house on the other side of a broad sand flat, already far behind. Wind shifting in small increments, the chatter moves this way or another - difficult to pin the talk in place, yet still too close. Laughter, murmuration, and clattering chatter ebbs and grows, but off to where no people should be heard.
It’s as if the growing group of unseen people are coming from the mist - the ghosts of a party lost offshore.
Bewildering, but then there is movement of black somethings blurred by mist. On the edge, almost coming into focus before bobbing back into the cloak: a colony of little laughing gulls. The wind and its knots strip back their cries, removing gull qualities revealing how human they sound from a distance; unsettling. They become as they are, spooking a person simply walking while acting as peculiar companion.
With sweater on and stepping into the marsh with sandals in hand, the water does its first rush inward in signal: it’s time to go. The laughing gulls are barely heard, the high pitch of the familiar seagull cry the only tone carried by the cooling wind. There is no more talk or uproar. The greying clouds distract and attention is on lazy raindrops coating exposed skin while settling into textile. The gulls will be remembered later, when outrunning the storm is no longer the necessity and dry clothes are found.
—
The story is something I experienced while walking on the beach on Morris Island. There is a long history of ghost stories on Cape Cod and is home to many birds, among them gulls.
On Cape Cod there are over 1000 shipwrecks buried in the sands off the coast from Monomoy Island to Provincetown, many of them pirate. The most famous pirate shipwreck on Cape Cod is the Whydah Gally, a ship which had been taken over by Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy and sank on April 26, 1717 near Wellfleet due to a storm, excavated in 1984, and the latest find of skeletal remains was in 2021. There is a story that Bellamy and Maria “Goody” Hallett fell in love and she became pregnant with his child before he went off to the Bahamas and comandeered the Whydah. She was waiting for him and kept waiting for him. Allegedly, she is still haunting Marconi Beach and you can sometimes hear her wailing. Another version of the story is that Goody Hallett was bitter he left, sold her soul to the devil to become a witch, and cursed Sam Bellamy’s ship when she saw it on the horizon bringing upon him the storm. Storms were not the only the reasons for shipwrecks. There are shoals under the waters which are hard to navigate and detect even with modern technology, leading to ships still occasionally hitting them. There are many other stories about hauntings in Cape Cod’s maritime lore.
Laughing gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) are a medium-sized gull found on the North American coast of the Atlantic Ocean from just north of Maine down to Mexico and the Pacific side of Mexico and partially up the California coast; they have been seen inland. Being warm weather birds, they tend to be migratory and don’t stay year round in cold areas. The characteristic features of a black head, red beak, and red legs belong to the breeding adults while the nonbreeding adults have a white head with limited grey streaking, dark beak, and dark legs. Juveniles are a mottled muted brown with some grey and white, dark beak, and dark legs. The adult will go through different winter colorings the first 2 winters. Their namesake comes from their calls which can sound like laughter. In a large group at a distance they can sound like a group of people talking and having a good time.
Sources & Further Reading
- Cape Cod Legends and Lore by Christopher Kazarian, 2021, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, blog post
- Flotillas in the Mist by Marilyn Stasio, 1997, New York Times, web article (Flotillas alt link)
- Laughing Gull entry from Audubon Bird Guide, 2021, National Audubon Society, web
- Monomoy Island National Wildlife Refuge, 2022, website
- The Sibley Guide to Birds, 2nd Edition by David Allen Sibley, 2014, print book
- Six Skeletons Found in Wreck of 18th-Century Pirate Ship Sunk Off Cape Cod by Isis Davis-Marks, 2021, Smithsonian Magazine, web article
About the Creator
Chaia Levi
like if Nabokov had a brain injury
artist, writer, photographer. focus on horror and nature. all original content, all made myself — no AI.
bluesky, tiktok, tumblr: @chaialevi
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