Sea Drift

I knew, but I refused to see it.

The silver loving-cup turned black overnight, when careful hands had polished it daily as instructed.

My youngest kept hearing an owl calling from the window of my bedroom. I shouted nonsense words at the top of my lungs to drown her out.

A black dog tried to approach the door, and I chased it away with a broom and rocks.

Then I threw the broom into the back yard so it could not fall over on its own, and forbade the children from retrieving it.

The solitary magpie didn’t like my reaction. It thought that I would follow it to find another, like the legends instructed. It only took one arrow to convince it to go elsewhere.

I finally sent the children to live with my mother in town. In their faces, I could see the curve of his lips, the shape of his eyes, the twitch of his cheek when they were up to no good. I knew I was going mad. That would not keep the children fed, warm, dry. I knew grief, I had buried three children already. But this pit threatened to consume me, knowing he would never return.

He laughed, that last voyage. The sun was warm on his hair, turning the chestnut to ruddy gold. He kissed the top of my head as I hugged him fiercely, melting into his shape like he had done to me the night before. “Ye know I’ve got the selkie blood, me lass, I’ll be back in nae time!” And he whistled as he bounced away, to join his mates in their dinghy, the ship waiting out at the far end of the harbor like a quiet taste of foreshadowing.

There are things that prey on the selkie, Sean, and I fear one may have found you. And for all your claiming to be of their blood, you couldn’t swim for cac.

I took to sleeping days, and stared out to sea at night.

Our little home was the farthest from town, and closest to the sea. Maybe it was selkie blood, I don’t know, but we never got the bad storms that sweep in from the sea. Rain would come, surely, but in doses that we could use and recover from.

Only now, there was no rain.

I would search the horizon for a ship that I knew would never come again.

I knew. But I could not accept.

I would not.

He was not gone if I could feel the touch of his lips on mine, shiver at the feel of his skin on mine in the moonlight.

There were others grieving, I knew. My Sean was not the only sailor from town on that ship. But I did not care. My grief was my world, a lonely watch on a bluff in the whispering grasses.

And what would I do, if a wet-soaked body heaved itself out of cursed water onto blessed soil? Our bards have sung the warnings since we measured time. I knew the dangers of the monsters that would prey on our loss, taking grotesque form to lure loved ones into waterlogged graves.

Soft, easy, tasty food. Nothing more.

I didn’t have anything to bury.

There are things that feed on what you’re made of, and there are things that take more than they’re allowed. Things that feed on fear, pain, your soul, your memories. Meat-eaters are a part of nature; soul feeders are unnatural and to be avoided.

I knew my Sean. He would attack one of the latter with a warrior’s song on his lips. So a kitten hisses and scratches at the hurricane.

I have a touch of a gift, myself. Most-all do, here, it’s simply a matter of what kind, and what kindred. But is it more than a touch, usable? Moral uses. There are laws, and what you do to gather magic or how you choose to craft your spells are what determines your path. Would you wish to be healed, knowing an innocent life was taken in pain and suffering, too soon, to make the healing? It would taint your actions for the rest of your cursed life.

So I did what I could.

Scratchings made with a silver knife I bought from my own hard-earned money. Offerings of food I harvested and prepared myself. A few drops of blood – my own. A plea sent on the wind. Not a demand, not a bargain. All I had was a well of grief that was eating away at my mind as surely as my heart-mate was being eaten by something that should have stayed well hidden.

And I waited.

Night after night.

The moon waned, forsaking my lonely vigil.

The thinnest sliver of its light remained when I received the answer.

I saw shapes in the dark water.

I had my knife, and I had my bow and arrows. I had taken that loving cup to the arrowheads, rubbing the blackened silver-rust over as much of the tip as possible. Silver rusts in sea water. A simple cantrip, and you have an object that shows better than any glass barometer if your loved one has drowned.

And now I had arrows that could kill eldritch monsters.

I crept down to the shoreline.

The dark objects swam right to shore, and I readied myself to answer. But when they got close, I made a strangled noise and put my bow to the side.

They were seals.

So Sean did not lie.

I ran to the beach, and they heaved themselves through the rough shore-waves to touch land. It was dark, but starlight was enough to see on the slick sand.

They let me approach, and each spat a thing at my feet.

A broken piece of wood.

Part of a broken vessel, lost at sea.

I fell to my knees and howled my pain to the broken night. To my surprise, they joined me, also wailing in discordant seal song, mourning their loss, my loss, all our suffering, all our grief spilled onto star-spotted wetted sand.

I walked into town the next morning.

I must have looked a fright. Wind-tangled hair, tear-streaked face, salt from spray and tears on my tongue, sandy wet dress clinging to my legs. In my arms were five pieces of wood, gently curved, violently splintered at the ends.

It seemed the whole town was waiting for me. They most likely heard us in the dark of night. Not even the fishermen had gone out. They stood in the square, around the well, silent, staring.

My mama with my children were off to the side, their eyes wide.

In front, four other women, with reddened faces and tear-streaked cheeks to match mine. We, who should be bright bonny lasses in the bloom of marriage, had grown old before our time.

I touched the wood-rib at the top of my stack, and I heard the name whispered to my mind. I held it out to his wife. His widow.

“Ryan Ua Néill.”

Her face crumpled, but she reached out and took the stave with a hand that only trembled a little.

The next drifted past my ear, and I turned to the right. “Darragh Brannagh.” His widow choked on a sob, but took the stave.

“Declan O'Raghallaigh.” His widow looked angry, but we both knew it for the mask it was. Slowly, her hand reached out to take her burden.

“Aidan O'Conchobhar.” His little widow, small but fierce, lifted both hands, took it gently, hugged it to her chest.

I cradled mine. “Sean Ua Cleirigh.” I looked at the poor priest, who looked uncertain, as if he didn’t know whether to bless or exorcise me. “Father, this is all we will ever receive of our menfolk lost at sea. These should be buried as soon as we can, with all the Christian rites, to save their immortal souls.” Father was never one to dither. He, bless him, took me at my word, and spun so hard on his heels that he left his sandals behind. He beckoned us all to his snug church, to do just that.

Five small graves, hastily dug. A full town’s worth of people, crammed into the pews, spilling over to sit against the walls. The opening of the Latin mass, spiraling towards the peak with the candle smoke and incense.

And the storm came.

That priest was made of sterner stuff than we realized. I caught his eye and nodded encouragement, and he continued while I strung my bow. Of course I still had it with me; one never leaves weapons discarded for long. I tied my hair back out of my eyes with a bit of thong and checked the arrows. Glints of silver over the bronze told me my spell was still in place.

How a packed church moved so that I could get out, I will never know.

The monster was coming in the storm.

What the Christian rite of burial did to it to harm it, bring it to land that fast, I will never know. But it was in pain, and thrashing, and wanting us all to pay for it.

Not any more. Not any of mine. Never again.

A dozen bronze-headed sticks against a thing of unknown power. One arrow was already knocked, all I had to do was raise, lock thumb to jaw, and tilt my body back. I was feeling for a target with mind alone, and the words of a rather potent spell were on my lips, binding and joining with the power of a prayer being sent aloft behind me by smoke and light.

And I let go.

Eleven more followed their leader, arcing through storm and howling wind and pouring rain.

And I heard all twelve hit, as if I had given them wings of gunpowder.

The storm, the thing at the center of the storm, shrieked.

Behind me, in one of the speediest funerals ever, five staves of wood representing our men were lowered into the blessed earth with all the reverence we would treat their flesh bodies. Pieces of the ship, the last thing of earth they touched, before drowning and being consumed and then having whatever remains after death also consumed.

The storm broke apart.

Something smacked at me out of the boiling clouds, and I fell.

In that instant, I had a flash of vision.

Our men, bound in a dark prison of black flesh and white bone ribs. It pulsated and oozed, a truly hideous place, and I had a thought that our priest lied to us about what hell looks like.

As I looked, their bonds broke, and they were free. Eyes widened in wonder, and they winked out, one by one. Each was looking upwards, hearing a call that I could not hear, and followed it home.

Only Sean was left. He looked slightly dazed, and turned. And saw me.

For a moment, our eyes met.

And there was recognition.

And love.

And regret.

He raised a hand to me, to touch, but the call was too much to resist, and he too, looked up, and vanished.

I was alone.

And I was not.

That look. Pure love, pure admiration for what I had done, health and life and memory returned from the bloated carcass that had been feeding on the essence of what they became after death.

The priest found me, on my knees again, in the mud and fading rain.

He was the only one brave enough to touch me. They were there, the townsfolk, behind him. I felt them like a solid wall, but I knew I could never rightly be a part of them again.

My poor children.

I told them all what I had seen. Perhaps they even believed me. Maybe.

But my bow was there, broken, and the quiver was empty, and there were chunks of black stuff hissing and dissolving into nothing where they touched the blessed earth.

I would be alone, I knew.

No one would wish to be with such a one who could walk the pathways I had chosen. For the sake of love, true, but uncomfortable to live with, all the same.

I knew one of my children would come, eventually, to learn. My strange child, neither fish nor fowl, would forge their own path with what magics I could teach them. My other children would find contentment in the village with my mother, and visit, but be happy to return to their new home. Eventually they would travel to other villages and marry, and settle into normal lives, and they would be content with that.

But I could not. And neither could my odd child, so we would work within our strangenesses.

And I would talk with my seal kin-in-laws, and see what other monsters we might destroy.

But for now, I needed a bath, and no one would get near me enough to help. I felt battered, dirty.

I wandered back to a small cottage on a bluff, with a broken bow and empty quiver.