Story Spotlight: “The Wind Witch of Weird Water Harbour” by Steve Vernon
In Steve Vernon’s “The Wind Witch of Weird Water Harbour,” a desperate sea captain makes a deal with a witch who sells the wind by the knot. But some debts cannot be paid with coin, and every storm remembers the name of the thief.
When Captain Donny Parsons’ ship lies stranded in the breathless harbor, he strikes a bargain with Gusty Annie—the Wind Witch. She offers him a leather cord, three knots tied with captured wind, for whatever coins fate places in his hand. But Donny’s greed and pride stir a darker wind, one that will follow him past storm, shipwreck, and death.
Told in Vernon’s unmistakable maritime voice, full of humor, salt, and hard-won wisdom, “The Wind Witch of Weird Water Harbour” is both a sailor’s yarn and a haunting meditation on human folly. Like all great sea tales, it carries the weight of myth—and the sting of truth.
That’s when I saw her, standing down there on the shoreline all by her own lonesome self, without a soul daring to come near her.
I knew who she was. Everyone in town knew who the Wind Witch was. Mind you, none of us really knew her all that well. All we had to chew on were the rumours that constantly buzzed about her like hot summer honeybees around a patch of sweet peas. Everyone had their own story to tell about her. Some said she could see the future. Some said she could stop a man’s breath cold with a single stare. Some said just the whisper of her curse could curdle an entire herd of alfalfa-fed dairy cattle in the space of three single heartbeats.
Mind you, I don’t really know how somebody would make that sort of a claim about anyone that you can think of. I mean, was that somebody standing there counting his own heartbeats while she was busily flinging her curse? Did she stare at him and stop his breath after she curdled the cattle? And if that were true, why hadn’t she looked into the future BEFORE she curdled the cattle to make sure there were no heartbeat-tallying witnesses close enough to catch her in the act?
It puzzled my thinking for certain sure, but I knew just about as much as anybody in this town about the Wind Witch, and I had the half-urging of an idea that I might be able to bargain something useful out of her if I could only come up with the right turn of word.
About the Author
Steve is a writer and an oral tradition storyteller; he learned the storytelling tradition from his grandfather, and regularly tells stories to in-person audiences ranging from 5 to 5,000 spectators. He writes horror, paranormal, dark fantasy, and ghost stories, and specializes in the fine old art of booga-booga.
Think of Steve as that old dude at the campfire spinning out ghost stories and weird adventures and the grand epic saga of how Thud the Second stepped out of his cave with nothing more than a rock in his fist and slew the saber-tooth tiger.
Find Steve at: stevevernonstoryteller.wordpress.com
Read the Story
You can find “The Wind Witch of Weird Water Harbour” in the Haunted Waters anthology.
Buy the book from your favorite store
If you liked…
- The Fisherman and His Soul by Oscar Wilde—for its moral fable and oceanic myth
- The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway—for its reflection on pride, nature, and survival
- The Witch (2015 film)—for its blend of folklore and psychological dread
…then you’ll enjoy “The Wind Witch of Weird Water Harbour,” where Vernon channels the rough charm of East Coast storytelling and the bite of a haunting tale told by lantern light.