Chapter 2
(Plot 1)Weeks later, Calufray could be found on the shores of a small island, a passable hut erected from flotsam and palm fronds. Supper was bubbling in the shell of a coconut over the firepit. Calufray was whittling down the tip of what used to be an old oar he found on the beach—now fashioned by him to serve as a spear. He had seen rays swimming in the waters, and was ready to move on from boiled crab.
Leaving supper where it was, he rose and rested his spear over one shoulder. Out of habit, he scanned the horizon, moments later reminding himself that even if the Trawler found him, he didn’t deserve to return to that life. What he had done was…
He adjusted the spear on his shoulder and set out for the shallows where the rays swam.
That night, after the fire had dimmed, and Calufray’s eyes drooped, and the stars came out from their hiding places, a thin wisp of white smoke curled from the fire. It swirled and became a siren woman with a frail physique and wearing a wrap that reached around her chest and tied behind her neck, draping and flowing around her lower body as if suspended in water. A troubled look crossed her brow.
“Calufray,” came the even, dead voice.
Calufray stirred from sleep under his palm fronds. Seeing the ghostly siren, he started, shoved the fronds away, and pressed his back into the corner of his small hut.
“What…!?” Pressing one hand out toward the wispy siren woman, he used the other to wipe the sand and sleep from his eyes.
“Calufray,” the wisp of a siren repeated, floating closer, her hair and clothing billowing behind her as through water. “I am your mother. But I am not what you expect. Your father knew me as a human, and so I was by then. But it was not always so. Calufray, there is something you must know about me; I came to Cadfelham for the same reason your father did...”
Calufray tossed his head, trying to reconcile what he saw before him. Was he still dreaming? No, this felt too real—and yet it was clearly unnatural.
But he had little time to consider this further, as a mounting roar came from all sides, heralding the rising tide. The waves were still coming in toward the land, Calufray saw, but they were no longer returning to the sea. It was as if the ocean were taking one great, endless breath as seawater consumed the beach, coming ever closer to Calufray’s little camp, the roar louder and ever louder by the moment.
Soon the coals of the fire were squelched like the wick of a candle. The moon loomed large and bright in the sky, and it drew ever nearer, it seemed. The water picked up the palm fronds he had used as a blanket, followed by his boots…
...and now the waves threatened to carry him away as well.
Calufray ran. Away from the vanishing shore and into the palms he dashed, bootless and panting, he strove through the ankle-deep waters for higher ground. But the plant-life further in was thicker than it was near the beach and the waters were coming too quickly; he couldn’t make headway—if the waters didn’t stop, he would be drowned.
Now the seafoam was up to his thighs, now his waist, and all the while the wisp of his mother watched with her troubled brow. The spray shot up into his face as the sea consumed his chest, then his arms. He swam, but shortly his head was swallowed as well.
His eyes snapped shut out of instinct; all was darkness and cold under the surface of the hungry sea. But as the roar of the waves disappeared above him, he found that he could still see the thin wisp of his mother hovering near, her ghostly movements no longer out of place in the water that surrounded them both.
Calufray scooped at the water above him, struggling for the surface, but a powerful downspout pushed him even further from the surface. His breath caught in his throat and panic set in.
“Breathe,” said his mother’s ghost. “Just breathe.”
Ignoring the oversimple and unhelpful instructions, Calufray struggled for air, but only gulped a mouthful of seawater. Shocked at how cold it was in his lungs, he coughed, releasing bubbles of air to race upward. His eyes snapped open, then squinted against the salty water and the light of the moon, still large overhead, the shafts of light cast down through the seascape. It would have been a lovely sight if he were not drowning...
...or else, not, he realized.
Not only were his lungs not burning, but neither were his eyes. Several meters of water were still between him and the surface, and yet he did not feel the need to gasp for air. His lungs accepted the water just as easily—perhaps better, he noted.
He breathed in experimentally and felt the cold salty water flow into his chest, and then out between his ribs. Feeling for where it had escaped he discovered three thin slits along the side of his chest that he had never noticed before. Gingerly lifting one of the slits, he felt tender ridges of flesh underneath.
“Gills,” he said aloud into the water. Evidently, he could breathe and speak here. He spun himself around in the water to face the wisp of his mother, at last comprehending what was happening. “You’re not human,” he said.
“No,” his mother replied. “Though you are. Mostly. You were born after I became human. When I was your age, however, I appeared the way you see me now.”
Calufray studied her more carefully now that his shock had subsided. “You’re a siren. Like...”
“Your father.”
“Then why did you change who you were? Why did you become human?”
Calufray’s mother flicked her tail and swam closer, never disturbing even a swirl of water. “For the same reason your father left the ocean to be with me. I was in love. But not with your father.” Her tail flicked again, and Calufray had to push himself in a circle to track where she went.
“Your first love...was human.”
“She was, yes,"Calufray's mother replied. "She always wore violets in her hair. I left the ocean to be with her. I made a deal with a sea-witch to become human permanently. We had a child; a boy. We were happy. But it was not to last.” Calufray’s mother looked away and fell silent.
Calufray took all of this in; he had a brother. An older brother. Where had that brother gone? What had happened to his mother’s first mate? “How did you meet Father?” he said aloud.
“As anyone meets anyone," his mother replied nostalgically. "He came to the beach one day while I was taking one of my boats for its maiden voyage—”
“You made boats? Father never told me!” Calufray interjected, surprised. “I make boats, too!” He thought of the boathouse back in Cadfelham, now abandoned after the fire. “I made boats,” he quietly corrected himself.
His mother smiled. “Yes, you must have gotten that from me.”
“What else?” he asked, eager to hear more about his parents together.
His mother shrugged. “We talked. I fell in love for the second time. And it was all different, and yet so much the same as when I met my first mate. It had been several years since she…" The ghost's voice faltered a moment. "And I was ready. So he came to shore for me, and swore he would never leave.”
“He didn’t,” said Calufray, and then added, “not for long, anyway.”
Silence fell between them for a moment. The deep, churning drone of the underwater world filled his ears. Calufray wondered how much his mother knew of what happened after she died. “Father…”
“You need to rescue him, Calufray,” said his mother, called back to attention. “You can’t live here on this island forever, drowning in your guilt. Wapasha never left you. You must not leave him to his fate. He stayed with you no matter his trials, left behind his people for all but a moment.” She floated closer, looking him in the eyes, placing her hand on the back of his neck, where the knob was. “I know you feel guilty. I know what you wanted was taken from you. I know how that feels…”
Her silence spoke louder that her words could have. “You need to get past that. There is still time. You can still save your father. You must take this…”
And suddenly, as she floated back from him, there was a small, stout pitcher in her hands, made of sand-colored clay and fired with a smooth glaze that caught the moonlight. It was simple, but wonderful to behold.
He reached out.
“A trade,” she said, retaining the pitcher. “For your self-pity and remorse.”
Calufray inhaled a deep breath of seawater and felt it leave through his gills, still acclimatizing to the sensation. “A trade, then,” he said. And he reached out to take the pitcher by its handle.
The moment his hand touched the glossy clay a sudden whirlpool formed, sucking the water out of his mouth and causing him to catch his breath. Suddenly the entire ocean was being sucked in, down, down into the pitcher. The water level dropped so suddenly that Calufray was unceremoniously deposited back on the island in a clump of beachgrass, the pitcher still in his hand.
Wiping the sand from his face, he gulped in a strained breath of air, feeling the rest of the water leave his lungs through his gills. He watched as the tide receded as quickly as it had come, settling at last into its regular rhythmic motion—in and out, in and out—as if it had returned to breathing normally along with him.
He caught sight of the water in the pitcher, swirling inside as it lowered slowly, vanishing… somewhere. With a final sucking sound it was empty, though seawater still lined the inside and several drops gathered at the bottom.
“Lay aside your self-pity and remorse,” Calufray heard his mother’s voice say, as if from within the pitcher. “Save him…”
And then he was alone on the beach, far from his hut. His boat listed several meters from the shore, half filled with water. He stood on the wet sand beneath him and held the pitcher close, looking out to the horizon, this time with determination.
He began setting out driftwood. It would need to dry all night if he was to get a signal fire going by morning...
No comments:
Post a Comment