Castle by the Sea

The decrepit stone cottage stood at the edge of the cliff like a bird in her nest overlooking the shoreline below. It had a sloping, uneven roof and peeling, tightly closed shutters. The ivy growing wildly along the walls had interlaced itself right over the door.

The villagers called it a castle, for according to one local legend, it sat on the ruins of an old fortress. They were sure that the weathered stones which leaned so endearingly were the very same blocks that once helped keep vikings out. Of course, there were many tales whispered to whomever dared cross the threshold of the village pub, the Hag and Harpy. The villagers often sat at the bar over foamy pints, unraveling each shimmering strand as if pulling threads from a great tapestry.

They said the cottage had been owned by a fisherman's wife who sang every day in loneliness, who drowned in sorrow after waiting too many years for his return. It was said to have been home to a writer of fairy tales who spun so many stories that she began to believe them, seeing fairies and sprites and mermaids where they weren't. It was said to have been home to a man who lost everything, who became a sea serpent when the moon touched the waves.

It was as if a strange, lingering magic hung about the house, as if there were some truth to the villager's tales. As if there were some uncanny, otherworldly essence here. It would, I suppose, help account for some things. Disappearances, transformations, madness.

And then of course, there were the stories about my mother.

She had always moved as if she belonged under water. My mother’s limbs waved and flowed as if perpetually caught on a gentle current. Or perhaps she was more of a shore bird, her arms arching like feathered wings, her great brown eyes blinking with thoughts she couldn’t iterate.

Villagers thought that her mind had been taken by the fairies. That perhaps she had left her window open on the eve of Samhain, and the spirits had crept across the creaky old floors and over her hand stitched quilt, drinking all her memories away like the finest bottle of summer wine. I had imagined spindly, webbed fingers swirling the remnants of her life in a glass, lips smacking at the full-bodied taste. I wanted to believe it. For then, at least- at last- there would be an explanation.

I stood before the cottage, eyes squinted against the sun. I tried to imagine her tending the ghost of the garden that lay on the east side of the cottage. She would have planted leeks and zucchini, mint and rosemary. She would have painted, too. I watched her in my minds eye, setting up her paints and easel before the sunset. Her favourite things to paint had always been things that were about to end. Things just on the edge of being lost forever.

The strong wind, heavy with the scent of salt, put its hand on my back and nudged me onwards. I moved toward the little cottage, my own steps growing more deliberate with the memory of my mother’s sure footedness. She had always been able to forge ahead, her hand tightly clutched around mine, pulling me onward even when my own stubbornly childish feet dug into the ground. She had always held tight to my hand, until the day she let go.

I knew where the key would be- inside the little ceramic swan I had crudely painted in grade school. I lifted the swan’s back, and pulled out the key. Still, it took me a minute to wretch the door open. The tangle of vines was thorny in places, and my palm and knuckles dripped tiny pearls of blood.

Inside was cold and damp and strangely hollow feeling. I left the door ajar to let some light in, but the strong breeze slammed it shut. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I breathed in the heady mixture of dampness and the leftover scent of her. There was just the smallest hint of vanilla and cinnamon, a minuscule nod of the universe that she had, indeed, belonged here.

I crossed the room, opening the windows and shutters and latching them in place. Gusts of salty wind and honey-coloured light tumbled into the room. It was small and well-worn and exactly how I remembered.

The large rickety bed was draped in my mother’s quilts. There was the bookshelf bowing under the weight of volumes of herbal texts and fairy tales. A single dried marigold in an old wine bottle sat collecting dust on the table. The web of spiders in the kitchen window hung like an ornament, the gossamer thread glistening in the light. I went closer to inspect the rust coloured beast. It was spinning an unfortunate fly in it’s incandescent web.

I thought of the year that carnival vans and tents had set up down the hill. I remembered watching the woman at the confections cart spinning cotton candy. It was perhaps the last day that I had seen my mother laugh before she became like sea mist to me, evaporating into nothing. I thought darkly of my even longer lost father, who to me was no more that a wisp of memory. He had left no trace of himself in our lives, not even half the words of a story.

My gaze fell upon a picture frame beside the bed. Crossing the room, I picked it up. My throat tight, I wiped the dust away. It was taken from behind, my mother and I grinning at each other madly, sitting at the end of the pier with our feet dangling over the edge of the water. I had wanted to jump in, to feel the cold rush of the waves through my hair and along my skin. She had told me, her face going pale, that the sea was far too cold, far too unfathomable and deep. That she had once lost another beloved beneath the waves forever. That she could not bear it again.

My fingers tightened on the frame, the loss of her and him and even me echoing through the hollow cottage.

Because of course, all the villager’s tales were true.