It is not the future which haunts us; the past, which contains demons who hunt the unwary, is the past that puts us to the test and the future that holds potential.

The man standing on the rounded bow of the cargo vessel Stallion knew this lesson better than most. The waters of Lake Superior haunted him, but he could not quit the lake. For thirty years, he had stood guard on a terrible secret; a punishment of his own design for failing good men in their hour of need. Guarding the secret from escape was his burden alone.

Once blond hair was white and cropped close to his skull. The youthful face of a farm boy replaced by hard edges and leather tough skin. He was still tall, but he was stronger than the farm boy who had fled his comrades, a powerhouse of strength from decades of work on ships.

He was called Bosun, his position on the ships he had called home on the lake. He was the man who repaired and maintained his ship, running the deck crew servicing the ship. The Bosun was a harsh taskmaster, having learned the cost of failure in the lives of men lost.

The Stallion was his home now, one of a new breed of ship on the lake, a whaleback.

Captain Markus Bosch took pride in his ship just as his father and grandfather had loved their ships. It was the captain’s father who had introduced the Bosun.

None of this touched the Bosun’s mind as he stared ahead of the ship, trying to pierce the November fog with inadequate vision. The fog that blanketed Lake Superior was still and heavy, refusing to part for the ship and her crew, determined as they might be.

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It was like a story; he thought grimly. Once upon a time, his name had been Holm. Once upon a time, he had been a private in the Army of the Potomac and he had possessed honor. He could still remember his flight across the frigid water of the lake, then crossing ice flows to the shore, an impossible feat that only he knew occurred.

The image of a man still played in his mind after all these years, a man fierce of visage dressed in a gray uniform with a great bristling beard.

Something tapped the bell on the foredeck house wall, a light musical ring that was not a common noise.

The Bosun turned to find his memory taken to life; standing by the steel house was a major of the Confederate Army, his bloodless skin transparent and frost gracing his beard.

“Major?” the voice of strength and conviction, the hallmark of a respected man, reduced to the frightened and confused tone of a nineteen-year-old soldier.

The dead man cocked his head as if confused.

“Major Kane,” the Bosun repeated louder and took a step toward the specter.

Slowly the ghost’s arm rose until it was pointing past the Bosun, ahead of the ship.

Holm turned and looked with a large knot of fear in his stomach. Emerging from the fog were trees, and they were way too close.

The Bosun leaped to the bell, the absence of the ghost hardly noticed, and rang the brass wildly. “Come on, come on, look forward.”

It was too late for the Stallion; the trees came out of the fog, gaining definition and number until the ship headed into a forest with all the momentum eight thousand tons of steel possessed.

Steel cried out as it was rent by stone, the scream getting worse by the second.

Joshua Holm knew he had returned to Coal Island as the force of the grounding threw the Bosun over the bow of the Stallion and into the trees.