Fiction: St. Felicity's Newest Arrival

This month's Words for Wednesday's prompts are provided by Wisewebwoman over here. This week's prompts are: withdrawal, pollution, embrace, prosecution, year, represent, cottage, overwhelm, and a this photo of a pit mine. The words didn't inspire anything so I didn't use any of them but the photo sure makes me think.

The other part is here. It gives a little background to this story but you don't really have to read it.

Fiction: St. Felicity's Newest Arrival
The island is named St. Felicity after somebody but nobody remembers who, not even Mrs. Hodge, who has lived on the island all her life. From time to time, the island has unusual arrivals, usually crash-landed on the shore or just floated in by the wind and water but steady inhabitants of the island have happily accepted these arrivals as normal. But at the same time, most of them have no memories of what they have seen especially if someone or something is particularly peculiar.
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In the early hour of a quiet morning, Ben wakes to the sound of a booming noise. For a moment, he lies in bed listening. Then a tremor begins to shake the ground. Ben holds onto the edge of the iron bed with a tight grip. A loud boom follows and the tremor stops. After a moment of waiting and nothing happens, he rushes out of bed and makes his way toward the window and peers out.
    Early dawn's light illuminates a mushroom-shaped, semi-transparent dust cloud floating above the water. It soon dissipates to reveal a hole about sixty feet in length in the ocean. Ben rubs his eyes and look again. The hole in the water is still there, close to the shoreline but is surrounded by water as if someone has scooped out the water and everything in it. The hole is an elliptical shape with ladder-like layers for walls. Ben has only seen something like this years ago that had been a mine pit. This hole seems out of place in the middle of the ocean.
    Quickly, Ben runs down the stairs, puts on his boots and grabs a coat and runs out of the lighthouse while trying to put his coat on. His boots make a soft thud on the sandy ground. He stops just at the edge of the shoreline along with some ten or twelve islanders. Up close, he can see most of the top parts of the concave hole. Bit by bit, a ship begins to materialize to almost the same size as the hole itself. There is no one aboard. At the edge of the hole, water is slowly trickling in and falling onto the ship. The three white square-rigged masts flutter in the breeze and the rows and rows of silver and gold spoons that hang from them makes clinking sounds. Water clings to the nameless red-brown hull and drips down into the bottom of the ship. This seems impossible and yet, Ben must believe his eyes.
    The people around him are gawking at the sight as if in a trance. Mrs. Hodge and her dogs are doing the same. "Ben," she says with her wide eyes fix on the ship, "What do you make of this?"

    Ben shrugs. "I do not know."
    Without veering her eyes away from the ship, Mrs. Hodge says, "You do not? But you have been out in the world and knows much."
    "No more than you do, Mrs. Hodge," he replies.
    She smiles with her eyes still on the ship.
    For a long moment, they all stare at the ship. A pop sounds and then the ship suddenly vanishes along with the hole. The water is once again whole with no hint of it having been shifted.
    The people suddenly seems to snap out of a daze. They turn to one another and ask what they are doing there. After much chattering, they turn to go back home.
    Mrs. Hodge pauses. "Ben, Why am I— Why are we all out here in this early hour? It's freezing." She wears only a thin gown underneath a thick coat and her feet are clad in dark green boots.
    He stares at Mrs. Hodge trying to form an answer but he can't think of anything that she would believe. "I do not know."
    She nods and says, "Come in for breakfast. I'm cooking this morning."
    Ben wants to ask her if she remembers the ship but the furrow between her brows tells him she wouldn't remember. "I'll be there after I'm suitably dressed," Ben says. Mrs. Hodge nods and makes for the lodge with her dogs following her.
    A faint clinking resonates in the wind but then it fades away. Ben starts back toward the light but then he senses someone is watching him. Not far away is Mr. Driver, the newest inmate at Mrs. Hodge's lodge. The man nods and puts his unlit pipe back into his mouth before turning away. Mr. Driver is as mysterious as he is quiet. He has been on the island for a week now. Ben has only seen him once or twice at the lodge as Mr. Driver prefers to stay in his room and only comes out for his midday meal. Ben knows Mr. Driver is not a simple sailor but as long as he's not offering any explanation, Ben will not press him.
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Ben starts down the stairs to go out for breakfast at the lodge but then he turns back and walks into his bedroom/kitchen. He looks out the open window. The water's surface is calm as before. Cool wind blows at his face. Where would one hide a fifty-foot ship?
    He hears a clinking sound behind him and turns around. There is only room enough for one small bed in one corner, a small table with two chairs in the other and a skinny, tall bookshelf somewhere in the middle.
        A girl, no taller than his shoulder and wearing a white short-sleeve shirt, pink shorts and black boots, is standing there and waving at him. The web between her fingers gleam in the dim light. "Hello, I'm Beany. It's very polite to meet me." She smiles showing small, yellowish teeth. Her three ponytails - one in the back and two on either side of her head - swing with her head movements.
    "Hello, Beany. It's very polite to meet you. I'm Ben." Ben smiles.
    "Was you a healer?" Beany purses her lips into a thin line. Her large blue eyes narrows.
    "Yes, I'm a healer. Why do you ask?"
    Beany claps and laughs. "Yes. A healer named Ben. Yes. I'm correct." She claps again. "You healed big creature, large horn. Quite blue too."
    "Maybe. There are quite a lot of big creatures that I had met." The image of the narwhal two months back comes to Ben's mind. "Do you mean the narwhal?"
    She smiles and claps. "Yes, narwhal. I recollect now. You saved Brother. Narwhal."
    "Big brother? The narwhal is your brother?"
    Beany nods. "Brother here last night. No, last forty nights."
    The girl's long, slender, white tail twirls behind her while her large round ears wiggle.
    "Was that you with the hole in the water and the ship?" Ben asks.
    She grins. "Yes. Me. Being subtle."
    "I don't think that's subtle. That's a very grand entrance." Ben leans back on the windowsill and supports his hands on the sill.
    "But I turn invisible."
    "You should have come already invisible."
    "Your mind remembers." She giggles. "Than you are me. The same."
    Ben shakes his head. "Not quite. But I do remember what I saw."
    Beany sits down by the table next to the window and spreads her hand over the utensils in the tin can. She picks out a silver spoon and puts it into her mouth and rolls it to the side with the handle sticking out like she is sucking a lolly. "I like spoons."
    Ben nods. "Of course you do. Tell me, why are you here?"
    Beany springs up and twirls around the narrow space. Then she climbs onto the bed. She pulls the spoon from her mouth and starts jumping up and down. "Is this where you take slumber?"
    Ben nods. "Yes. Please stop jumping on the bed."
    Beany stops jumping and climbs down from the bed. "What is this?" She grabs the pull chain of the lamp hanging on the wall. The light goes on, then off, then on, then off, then on.
    "Please, stop doing that. There is enough daylight to see. We do not need the lamp." Ben resists the urge to go to her and pull her hand away from the chain but she stops.
    "Lamp, yes. I recollect." She turns the lamp off. "Oooh, like my ship, only not pretty." She peers up at the framed diagram of a ship hanging on the wall above the lamp.
    This reminds Ben of the girls's ship. "If I may ask, where is your ship now?"
    "I know sneaky." She smiles and points to her left.
    The place she is pointing at is Ben's skinny, six tier bookshelf. His eyes veer around the rows of books that he has collected. On the top shelf on the right side is a ship next to the small book he had held for dear life when he landed on the island. The ship takes up a small section of the shelf. He walks toward the shelf and examines the ship without touching it. The rows and rows of silver and gold spoons hanging on the masts seems to be moving and emanating clinking sounds.
    "Beany hungry. We eat now?"
    Ben turns around to face her. Beany has her back on the seat of the chair and boots against the wall. Faint boot prints covers part of the white wall. She dangles the spoon above her.
    "That's one way to start the day. But you must wait," Ben says. He points to the ship. "Is this your ship or a model?"
    Beany twists her body upright and stands up and walks around the space. "Model? I shrink. Very small. My ship. I know sneaky." She stops at the stairs in the far corner where there is no light. The stairs lead toward the upper level where the lantern and optical apparatus resides untouched for many years.
    "Do not go up there. You are not allowed. Understand?" Ben meets Beany's eyes.
    Beany nods. Her blue eyes sparkling. "Understand." She returns to sitting by the table, holding the spoon. Her tail moves about as it has a life of its own.
    "You haven't answered my other question. Why are you here in my home?"
    Beany grins. "You saved Brother. I visit."
    "Yes, yes, I get that part." Ben sighs. He has always had a lot of patience for almost everyone but this monkey-like girl is too scatterbrained. "How long will you stay here on the island?"
    She holds up her hand and starts counting off. "Today, tomorrow, another tomorrow. Yes, two tomorrows and one today." She smiles and widens her mouth.
    "You're here for three days. And what is it that you are planning to do? Is there something I can do to help you?" Ben pulls out the other chair and sits down facing Beany.
    She turns to look out the window. Ben looks out as well. Down below, there is only the calming water.   
    Beany laughs. "Yes, you do something. I grant a wish for you to come true."
    If he judges her words exactly, it sounds like she grants herself a wish but if one to judge how she speaks improperly, then it's a different meaning.
    "Are you saying you are going to grant me a wish?"
    "Yes. Are my words unintelligible? I grant you wish and make it true."