Descriptions: This is the first twelve pages of a novella thing I'm writing.
both dark and deep
By: Natalie Elizabeth
I sleep.
They explain to me, generation after generation, that I am the old god sleeping.
Maelstroms are my lullaby.
Time passes so slowly.
They come to me in waves, coming to visit me, coming to ask me, coming to leave me. I used to hope that this would be the last time, I think. Not for a while now. It is just the coming and going of the tide, waves of people coming to ask for the next clue on their quest. They wake me and ask me and leave me and I return to the ocean. There is no end. The quest is never fulfilled. And I return to the ocean to sleep.
I sleep.
They call it a riddle. When they ask, I say the words that come out before I can stop them,
so deeply engrained in my soul that they will never leave, that they are the whispers the waves
make on the sand, speaking them out on my behalf. They call it a riddle, but to me, they are the
only words I can think to tell them. I know they are the words I am meant to tell them. But I have
held them for so long without understanding what they mean that they have become my skin
instead of my bones. I am uneasy. I repeat them emptily to each crew that wakes me from my
sleep.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
They call it a riddle when I am done. They exclaim loudly or quietly and work to uncover
the truth. They pound knuckles into their foreheads and wait for the answer to come to them. I
think with them sometimes, wondering if now they will learn the true answer. Some parties
inquire about me. “Are you what we take with us? Are you discarded by the sea?”
But I tell them, the sea is my home. I cannot be discarded by it. Their shoulders sag and
my eyebrows try to mimic the disappointment they express. But by now, I am used to all the
answers. I have heard everything. A shell. Seaweed. Smooth stones. Coral pieces. Fish bones.
Nothing has worked.
I suppose nothing has worked because they keep coming. Generation after generation,
they wake me and seek a riddle. I give them what I have. It is never enough.
Some turn back. At the edge of the ocean, on the sharp cliffs or standing on the cool sand,
they give up. Others press on, clutching the item they have picked so thoughtfully from the
shoreline or the cliffside. Valiant captains lead ambitious crews, singing into the horizon and up
at the constellations, about victory and peace at last.
Peace at last. I have not felt peace for a long time. I try to convince myself that sleep is
peace, but I know too well that this is only avoidance. But I am tired. And time passes so slowly.
I sleep.
Maelstroms are her lullaby,
Shipwrecks are her jewels.
The old god sleeping bides her time
Among the shallow pools.
They sing, but I am not in the shallow pools today. Not yet. The song is sometimes
wrong. Today, I wake deep, deep down in the darkness of the sound. But it does not make a
difference and the voices above the water are clear to me. They draw me upward. It is a trip I
have taken thousands of times. There is nothing different about this one.
She whispers on the windy days,
And howls when waves race fast.
She rumbles and surges with the tide,
The present, future, past.
The bluffs of cliffs stretch on and on,
Her kingdom never ends.
She sings of stormy seas and skies
Along the beach’s bends.
Close to the surface, close to the beach now, I surge with a powerful wave, crashing into
the tidal pools near the rocky outcroppings. I find my feet and stand slowly, careful to avoid
crushing the creatures that call this water their home. Crab legs crackle on the wet stone as the
animals avoid my shadow. I have arrived.
There is a group of people watching me. They look bewildered, bewitched. They sing
cautiously. They do not have the melody right. It should sound calm.
And if you look to find her bed,
Be careful of your way:
One false step will sink you down
To meet her in the bay.
The song is sometimes wrong. It thinks that I will keep soldiers and seamen and warriors
in the deep blue out of spite, but I have never felt a desire to kill those who find comfort in the
ocean. I find comfort in the ocean. For that is the true meaning of the last line, my meaning.
Because soldiers and seamen and warriors walk to the edge of the cliff and look down. I do not
push or pull like the tide, convincing them to act. I am softer than that. The ocean holds me in a
loving embrace and I merely share it. I reach my arms out to hold my warriors who meet me in
the bay. I accept them without hesitation or malice or question. I have never been cruel. Just
tired. I let them cuddle close to me and we sleep in the deep.
The singers stare at my eyes and dripping, calloused hands and soft, slender feet. I am a
sailor and a siren. They are bewitched. They have never seen that before.
One person of the party steps forward between planks of wood. They ask for their task.
They seek to complete the quest. What must they take with them into the horizon?
I speak.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
The people think. The short ones discuss with the tall ones. This group is smaller than
many I’ve seen, only four. They are focused and frustrated, so I turn to watch the horizon. It is
nearly sunset. The sun will soon sink beneath the unforgiving line, into my ocean. I have tried to
chase it before, to find it at the edge of my ocean, and I could not. Before I could go as far as I
wished, I was pulled to sleep by the dark and deep. I slept.
The leader holds tightly a bundle of seaweed. I can see the dried and dead shark eggs
woven into it. Perhaps this is their key, discarded by the rolling sea. Perhaps this group will
complete the quest. I am uneasy.
The leader tells me they are ready. They tell the others they can turn back now, or not at
all. They do not turn back. They will follow them until the end. And it must be the end, or else
someone would return. They would stop coming at all.
I gesture to the waves, which slow until they stop. I hold them flat against the sand. A
path shimmers to the surface, their path to the next place. I know it will lead them to the right
place, but I have not been there. I have tried to chase it before, to find its edge in the ocean, and I
could not. I returned to sleep. I do not know where they go.
They look once more at me, the sailor and the siren and the old god sleeping. They are
worried that I am the last thing they will see. Then they step on the shimmering path and begin to
walk. I watch them go until they fade into the glow of the setting sun. I have seen this before.
Time passes so slowly because it must be repeating. I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
The tide has pulled me into the caves. I am hidden in the shallow pools when the song wakes me.
The group is large, their voices boom. They are strong and loud. I have seen parties like this
before. This time will be no different.
I step over the sharp rocks and sea glass before the song is over. They see me and
continue, proud until they end. They think me fearsome, mighty, a sailor and a siren, and they do
not look away. They demand to know the clue.
The words slip off my tongue easily. They will not be enough. They never are.
The leaders of this party are brash. They choose broken weapons, spears and swords left
behind by other travelers who believed they had found the answer. I build them a shimmering
path, disappearing into the distance, faded under the sky full of stars. I will return to the ocean.
The leaders ask if any cowards wish to turn back. Now or never again. A girl backs away
from their weapons and fists and words. She drops the shells she had suggested as the key and
waits next to me.
My gaze shifts from the ocean to her.
Her leaders are angry, spitting over their shoulders at the girl on my beach who will turn
back now. She does not seek the embrace of the bay, or the end of the shimmering path. Nothing
I can give her. I do not know what she wants. I am uneasy.
Her leaders race along the sea path and leave us on the beach. She will return to her
home, I will return to mine. Time passes slowly when it is never any different.
I sleep.
A single voice sings hesitantly. I drift awake, floating to the surface from my bed between the
corals. She sings my song, calling me.
Maelstroms are her lullaby,
Shipwrecks are her jewels.
The old god sleeping bides her time
Among the shallow pools.
I stretch with the easy tide, pulling back and out to the open water. The song is a warm
salve on frigid wounds I never noticed. I come closer.
She whispers on the windy days,
And howls when waves race fast.
She rumbles and surges with the tide,
The present, future, past.
I can see her now. The owner of the voice is a girl. A girl who was once familiar to me. A
girl who used to hold shells.
The bluffs of cliffs stretch on and on,
Her kingdom never ends.
She sings of stormy seas and skies
Along the beach’s bends.
My hands drip with the harsh, embalming brine that tastes of salt and sand. I stare at the
girl curiously. Sleep clouds my thoughts.
And if you look to find her bed,
Be careful of your way:
One false step will sink you down
To meet her in the bay.
The song is sometimes wrong. I have never been cruel. She sings the melody too quickly,
too anxiously. The song should be slow and long, but she does not know that. When she is
finished, she steps closer to me. A lone girl. She will ask like everyone else. She meets my gaze,
then her eyes dart away.
“Do you think they made it?” she asks me.
I tell her I do not know.
She hesitates. Then, “Do you ever know?”
I take slow breaths with the waves, watching them draw in and out. In and out. I am
uneasy.
With a huff, she sits abruptly on the ground, her arms across her knees. She rolls her
shoulders, shaking her head. “I guess we have to wait for the next batch of questers to come
along, then, before we know for sure. If they come.”
She stares at the blue horizon. I cannot pull my eyes away.
She looks up at me without looking at my eyes, which are watching her so intently.
“Sorry, do you want to sit?”
I notice she did not return home.
“Yeah,” she says. “I decided to stay.”
I have not seen this before. I am confused. I take steps away, toward the waves. I will
remember her when I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
I drift beneath the drop off. The song calls me to the surface and I go. The song is wrong. I was
not in the shallow pools today. But I go. I have words to say.
I emerge from the gentle ocean as a shining figure. The people standing before me are
many. They sing the end of the song sporadically. Not all of them make it to the last word. They
look at my dripping hands and slender feet, their voices caught somewhere between their neck
and their lips, or else swept away on a riptide.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
The leader asks his crew if they would like to stay. They shake their heads and look at
me. They fan out, searching the sand for the missing key. The something they need to complete
the quest, far off into the horizon.
It is a pale blue horizon, with clouds on the way. The sun is high ahead. When I look
back inland, a figure stands at the top of the cliffs. Long grass blows around her feet. I do not
understand why she is so far away from her people down here on the beach. She must have
decided to turn back. They are searching for what they might take but she only watches me.
I look down at the group and the leader, noticing they have gathered every object into a
pile. There are bones and flora and rocks and corals and shells. They look at me, then back to the
pile. A person in the crowd speaks up.
“Are you what we take with us?”
I have not been discarded by the sea, I reply. It is my home. I belong to it. I return to it.
Their faces drop and my head tilts to mimic the disappointment.
They decide to take one of everything. Each crew member selects an item and carries it
faithfully. There is a score of them, taking things from my beach to complete the quest. I am
tempted to hope that this will be the last time. But I am uneasy. All of this has happened before.
They come, they ask, they leave, I return to the ocean.
I weaken the waves until they stop. The sea path that leads to the right next place
shimmers to the surface. One by one, the score steps onto the bridge between worlds and walks
toward the horizon with the looming clouds. There is a storm coming, soon or later. I do not
know when. They tell me maelstroms are my lullaby.
I have seen this before. I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
High, clear women’s voices chirp into my sleep. The song draws me from the deep. I rise. The
sharp notes are piercing. They surprise me. I think there was something I meant to remember.
The waves are violent tonight. Clouds gather in the space between the ocean and the
stars, blocking any light from the sky. Cracked boards from great, far away, wooden ships wash
onto the shore. I emerge from the deep into a war between the world and its ceiling. The voices
pierce through it all. The women stand on the shore, watching my approach. They brace
themselves against the raging wind and rain. Their torches have sputtered out. The weather does
not touch me.
They ask me for the clue. The key they must take with them into the violent night, into
the middle of the sea.
I speak. My voice quiets the storm around us.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
They huddle to discuss my meaning. The salty ocean overpowers the sky’s tribute, but
still the rain continues, washing the rocks and caves with fresh water. The rain sticks to the
people’s clothes, cloaks, sandy shoes. Rinses their skin. It becomes part of them in a way I have
never felt. The weather does not touch me.
They gather their choices from the shoreline or the cliffside, placing plants and minerals
before me. They look up at me, uncertain. My head tilts. Then a girl catches my eye. A familiar
girl, somehow, peeks out from behind a rock far away, high on the cliffside. Her face is wet with
rain. The group turns to follow my gaze.
The girl is gone.
They decide to take a piece of coral.
I summon the shimmering sea path that will take them to the right next place. They leave
their soaked torches and shattered crystal lanterns on the sand. I do not watch them go. I have
seen that before. I look up to the cliff, where I caught a glimpse of the thing I meant to
remember. It is gone. I will return to the ocean uneasy. I am so tired.
I sleep.
A gruff voice wakes me from my slumber in the rocky, slippery caves. He beckons me from the
sandy beach. I stand in the tidal pools sheltered from the icy wind in this system of caverns,
taking form as the siren and the sailor. I come down to the beach, my feet washing in the rolling
waves. I feel no difference between my limbs and the sea. We are the same cold, the same
warmth, the same.
He stops singing when he sees me. I pause. He must continue. He hastily does. I approach
him and his party. There are six of them.
And there is a girl in the back, farther up on the sand. She sits, watching us closely. She
reminds me of someone I knew. The man glances at her, unconcerned. I turn to him.
He seeks the words he has been told to ask of me. I speak the words I know. He postures
suddenly, swiveling to one side.
“It’s you,” he states obviously.
I tell him it is not.
He is certain. He is outraged that I am not his key. A woman in his party reaches out a
hand, touches him, quiets him. I have seen this before. I tell them the sea is my home.
One at the back of the party comments that, because I am the old god sleeping beneath
the waves, it cannot be me. I nod. That must be me. I cannot be the key
They search the beach, the caves, the rocks, even the waves, for the key. The item most
precious to humanity that will complete their quest. I look to the girl, who has not moved. She
looks sadder than the someone I knew. I can see her bones under a tightly wrapped blanket. She
waits patiently as the story unfolds. When the party presents their decision to me, she observes
that these people have chosen smooth stones. As blind a guess as anyone.
I create a path out of sea water that will shimmer until they reach the right next place.
The group sets out on it, angry with me. I do not watch them go. I have seen that before.
The girl stands, taking careful steps to close the distance between us. She watches them
go into the setting sun. I try to remember how I know her.
“They won’t make it, either, huh,” she says. Her voice is hoarse. The frigid wind makes
her cheeks pink.
I do not know if this is a question.
“How many have you seen?” she asks, looking out.
I reply that there have been many. Generation after generation. They are always the same.
“You’ve heard it all, then. Seen it all.”
I tell her that nothing is new to me. She watches the waves come in and out. In and out. I
realize that she is the girl with the shells.
“Except you,” I add.
She is startled and meets my gaze before she realizes that she did not want to. She looks
down.
I say I have seen her before.
“Yeah.” She digs her heel in the sand.
“You are still here.”
“Are you trying to ask me why?” She almost laughs. “There’s nowhere else I want to be,”
she replies. After a long pause, she continues. “This is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Good a place as
any... to wait. And, you know. I don’t know. I wanted to see how this whole thing worked.”
I ask what she means.
She looks at the beach curiously. “Well, you, of course. The old god sleeping. People
have seen you once, but never twice. I wanted to.” She shrugs. “And, they said, well, we said
that... I thought that this quest was the adventure to end all adventures, which meant you were
the god we would be lucky enough to meet.”
I wonder if that is anger in her voice. Then her expression clears. I tilt my head. I have
not heard this before.
“But I get it now. Seeing a god is special for us. For you, it’s thousands of times. It’s your
whole life.” She looks at her hands, saying quietly, “For we are but glances off the surface.” She
looks at me. “I mean, does anyone ever ask you for anything else? Do you ever do anything
else?”
I return to the ocean. I sleep.
It is whispered, kept close to the heart. The song is not sung so much as recited, but it is enough.
It wakes me, drawing me toward the source of the sound. The whisperer. Here I come.
It is a full moon tonight. A balmy breeze in the air. On the beach, washed with glowing
light, is a single girl. Familiar to me, but distant. Her eyes are old. She holds something in her
hands. And I remember, she is the girl with the shells. But it is not shells in her hands today. I
come closer.
“Have you seen these?” she asks me. She holds out the crown in her hand. I take it from
her. It is woven from flowers, flowers I have never seen before. They are lush and strong, full of
the bright colors that salty air stifles in my bay, that the moonlight now bleaches. But I know
they are beautiful.
I have not seen them.
The side of her mouth twitches up. “I thought so. I had to go pretty far inland to get them.
I guess you’ve never really gone inland.”
I tell her that I have never needed to.
“Huh. That’s kind of... handy.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Anyway, how old are
you, exactly?”
I ponder the question. I understand it. Some have asked me before. But the answer is
relative; it is difficult to gauge what answer will mean anything to her. I tell her that I am as old
as the life in the sea. This is true. I was the first life of the ocean. Hopefully, this answer is
helpful.
“Huh.” She leans her head back, looking at me from as far away as her neck will allow.
Perhaps age is important to her. “How old are you, exactly?” I repeat.
Something makes her laugh. She rocks forward on the sand. Her skin glows. Tiny scars
shine on her hands in the night light. She walks toward the soft seashore, wading into the cool
waves.
“I guess I’m twenty-six now,” she says eventually.
This number is not significant to me. She must notice this from my expression because
she starts to think hard. She searches for something on the cliffside. She points.
I follow her gesture, but all I see is the edge of the cliff and the soft grass billowing on
top.
“Up there, there’s a tree. You know what trees are, yeah?”
I answer yes. But she is not pointing to a tree. I am confused.
“Right up there, over the ridge and back down, is a tree that’s about this wide around.”
She makes a circle with her hands. Her fingertips barely touch. “I’ve been alive about the same
time as that tree. I think. I don’t know what kind of tree it is exactly, but based on what it’s like
at home—”
“You are so young,” I tell her.
Her expression changes twice. She laughs again. She looks like she wants to tell me
something, but she decides against it. “Do you want to come? Inland?” she asks. “I could show
you where I got these flowers. You could pick some.”
I return the lush crown to the girl with the shells. I do not need flowers. And besides, I
tell her, I cannot leave the shore, my sea. Someone could sing my song at any moment. I must
wait for them, to give them the words they need.
I step past her into the gentle waves. They lull me to sleep, and I am meant to sleep. To
wait for generation after generation. I return to the ocean to sleep.
The song is sung quickly, confidently, into the morning. I float from the deep, up the slope of the
sandy beach. My eyes break the surface, then my arms and legs and feet. I walk into the sunrise
as a rough and sleek sailor siren. My skin glistens with the salty ocean grime.
This group is three strong: a boy, a girl, and someone in between. Their eyes are bright
with anxiety and excitement. They are younger than people I have seen for a while. Younger
than the girl with the shells. They hold so much promise in their clasped hands. They are so
scared.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
They listen carefully. They are patient, understanding. Two of the children start by
looking around themselves, scouring the shore for the item I describe. But the girl says to them,
“Riddles have tricks, Beeyo. Tyrus, stop. Think.”
“What do you mean?” the one called Beeyo replies.
“There’s got to be a trick. It can’t be just something...” The girl’s voice fades away as
her eyes take me in again.
The one called Tyrus squints at me. All at the same time, the trio shouts, “It’s you!” They
point at me and grin.
I think about this. I am uneasy. Up the beach, at the base of the cliffside, I see a girl. She
holds a shell loosely in one calloused hand. And I remember that she is the girl with the shells
from long ago. So long ago. The girl with the flower crown. Now, she is tan and strong, almost
as tall as me. Her eyebrows knit together. She leans closer to hear my reply. I wonder what stake
she has in my response.
I tell them, the sea is my home. I cannot be discarded by it. Their eyes fill with tears.
They force their wills to be strong. The girl keeps repeating that there must be a trick. There must
be. The boy is not sure. He urges her to pick something else. She inspects a broken lantern, left
behind by another group before her, but rejects it. She says no to the driftwood caught on
cracked stones near the caves.
The girl with the shells, concealed mostly by rocky outcroppings, observes as the trio
chooses a curved shell that seems important, flawless. The trio’s choice today was as careful a
guess as anyone’s. But the girl with the shells has seen this before.
The young ones pick up their broken hearts and reassure themselves that they are correct.
I create a shimmering path for them. Then the one called Tyrus wonders if they should turn back.
Beeyo hangs their head. “We can do this,” they say. “It’s too important. We have to do
this.”
“What chance do we have?” Tyrus replies.
The girl gestures certainly. “We made it this far. We’ve got the same chance as everyone
else.”
After hesitation, moments of indecision, they agree, led by the girl with the courage.
They disappear into the blue horizon on the sea path. I watch them go. When I step toward the
waves to return to my ocean, the girl with the shells from down the beach is in my way. She is
breathless.
“Why did you let them go?” she asks me, a glare in her eye. I do not recognize the break
in her voice. “Why did you let them go?”
I do not understand the question.
“Those were kids. They were kids that just went off into the middle of nowhere to never
come back from the quest no one can complete!” She pants. “They wanted to stop. You should
have stopped them!”
I reflect. “Why didn’t you?”
Her eyes widen. “You’re the god!” she yells at me.
I watch the waves pulse in and out. In and out. I walk toward them, to return to the ocean,
to sleep.
“Where are you going?”
To the ocean. To sleep.
“No kidding. That’s all you do. Makes you forget anything worth remembering. Makes
the time go fast.”
Slowly, I say. Time passes so slowly.
“But it’s just a blink of an eye and a year is over.” I can feel her looking hard at me. “It’s
been a year since my crew left and I’ve barely seen you. You’ve barely seen anything at all. You
just come and talk and leave again. You let kids kill themselves, huh.”
I begin to leave. I am uneasy.
“Wait on land,” she calls to me. “Wait here with me and see what it’s like.”
I do not hear this. I do not know what it means.
I return to the ocean. I sleep.
There is a small voice that reaches me in the middle of my ocean. It sings my song in a tune that
is almost right. It races across the water. A warm salve on frigid wounds I never noticed. I come
up from the deep and go to it. I feel a pull toward the beach.
There is a tanned girl standing for me when I arrive. The song is over quickly. Our
shoulders are square to each other. I wait to hear her ask for my words, but then I remember. She
is the girl with the shells and the broken voice.
“How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” she asks me. “The last time we saw
each other. How long has it been?”
I tell her that I do not know. I only know sleep.
“Does it feel like a day or a year since we’ve seen each other?” she asks again.
I tilt my head. She is obsessed with time.
Longer, I tell her. Longer than any of that. It has been so much longer.
“It hasn’t,” she tells me. “It hasn’t at all. It’s been hours.”
But I feel it in my bones. Time is passing slowly. I am so tired.
“Maybe if you were awake, you’d know.”
I tell her that the water lulls me to sleep, and I am meant to sleep, and I go to the water
until I am called again.
“Why? Why don’t you wait on the land? To stay awake?”
I am uneasy. “I have never done that before,” I say.
“Come try it,” she says, still.
I watch her as long as she is frozen, waiting for my response. She stands poorly, not
proudly. She grasps one rough elbow with her other hand, her strong shoulders caving forward.
But her chin is level with the ground. Her coarse hair whips in the ocean breeze. Her eyes lock
with mine, unafraid. She unfreezes. Without ritual or reverence, she gestures behind her.
“Come try it,” she repeats.
I am uneasy. I look inland. I look to the ocean.
“Do you have a name?” she asks me.
Yes. “I am Aiosha.”
She might be pleased. I ask her if she has one, too. She turns to the cliffside, clambering
up. I must have said something wrong because she does not reply. She is fast, energetic. At the
top of the cliff, she shouts down to me. Her voice is carried away by the wind but I catch a
whisper of it. Coyatl.
I reach out toward the rocky cliffs that I have seen so often but never touched. I wonder if
my arms are strong enough to climb toward her. Toward the sky. I grasp the weather-worn stone,
slick with moss. My feet leave the yellow sand, following the path my hands lay out for them. I
look up at the girl looking down at the god. She wants to grin.
I will follow Coyatl.
The tall grass that lines the cliffs is sharp. It looks so soft from the beach. I try to step around it,
but it is everywhere. The girl with the shells watches me closely. I should swim through it, like I
do the sea below.
The sea below. My home. My sea below. I am uneasy.
Coyatl keeps walking. She throws words over her shoulder: “It’s just a little bit this way.
Up that hill, do you see?”
I see it. The hill has a steep incline. Large boulders threaten to fall from its crest or down
its sides, but the girl climbs confidently. I see her shoulders roll with every move.
I look at the beach, the sea, my home. I wait for anyone to emerge, asking for my clue.
The only words I have. But no one comes. The girl is getting farther away. She disappears
between two rocks. I will follow her.
I reach her hideout and stare. She breathes deeply the salty, wet air. The water
accumulates in tiny droplets in her hair. She looks down at the empty beach like someone is
there. I follow her gaze.
“How’d you do? I remember when I could barely climb this much at all.” She looks at
me. “I’m used to pretty flat terrain. Never even saw a mountain before I went with the... yeah.
Anyway.”
I trace our route with my eyes. I feel the urge to slip back down to the waves. I am about
to oblige it. But the girl with the shells points to a pass between the rocks below, before the
cliffs, that I never knew about.
“See, down there is where they come to you. Well, they mostly go that route. One of the
groups just went straight down the cliffside, like me, but a lot of them find this way. I can see it
all from up here.”
I do not understand.
“The questers?” she says. “The people. On the quest. Coming to ask you a question. I see
them come and I follow them to the beach to watch.”
I ask her how.
“How what? You mean with my eyes? You have eyes. I mean, your eyes work, right?”
I ask her how she knows when they are coming.
She looks at me strangely and chuckles. “I watch.”
“When do you sleep?”
“At night,” she replies. “And usually, not that much.” She remembers that I am standing
next to her, but she does not meet my eyes. “I don’t sleep all the time like you. We don’t, you
know?”
I do not know.
“I just watch for them to come. They don’t sing to me, you know?”
I did not know. But they sing to me. They might at any moment. I must return to the sea,
my sea, my ocean to sleep. I go. I watch the waves as I meet them. I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
I wake up before I even hear the song. I wake up with her name floating above me, circling in the
eddies and drifting back and forth with the current. The girl with the shells. Coyatl.
And then I hear her voice. I am there before she finishes the second verse. But she
continues, singing it until the end. It is almost beautiful. She stands and waits when she is
finished.
I step toward her. She seems smaller than I remember. Her eyes look haunted. She wraps
a cloak tightly around her shoulders. She looks at the trail my footprints leave in the sand.
“How’ve you been?” she asks.
I sleep, I reply.
“Right.” She nods. “I guess I shouldn’t bother asking.”
I do not mind. “How’ve you been? How long has it been since we have seen each other?”
Her eyebrows go up. “Wow.”
I said something wrong.
“No,” she tells me. “You said all of it right. I’m just surprised, is all. I’ve been... uh,
well...” She puts a hand on her neck and stares at the horizon. I turn to look at it with her.
“It’s been a long time,” she says next to me. “Since last time. And since my crew...” She
puts her head down. “Maybe that last group made it. It’s been so long since anyone came.”
But I am uneasy, I tell her. The quest is not fulfilled.
“Yeah, I was worried about that,” she says. “Maybe I just need the excuse, though.” She
sighs. “Here’s the thing... Your heart tells you to do what you want, to go after what matters to
you and what’s good for you even though your head tells you that... I’m barely surviving out
here on my own.” She points to her temple. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She puts a hand on
her chest and clutches the shirt she wears in her fist. “But I know that I’m... I’m supposed to
stay.” She meets my eyes. “Does any of that make sense?”
I tell her I do not know.
She chuckles shortly, a dry laugh. Annoyed at something. “Apparently, I’ve got enough
knowing for both of us.”
I smile.
She climbs the rocks, up toward her cave. I look at the ocean once, then follow her. The
sharp grass is familiar to me know. Coyatl does not watch me as I follow. She does not turn to
see me at all; she rubs at her eyes and marches onward.
She has reached her hideout before she says anything. “So, anyway, I’ve got to do
something.”
I do not understand.
“I’ve gotta go,” she tells me.
There are belongings strewn all over this cave. She plucks items from their places on the
ground and organizes them into a sack or she tosses them down the hill. After a flurry of
movement, she is still. She is ready for something.
“Your heart doesn’t feed you forever, you know.” Her expression changes. “Sometimes
you’ve got to listen to your head. And your head says...” Her voice trails off.
I still do not understand.
“My head says I’m an idiot,” she finishes, shrugging obviously. “This was never a plan.
This was running away! You know me.” She steps past me, muttering something, back down the
hill. She jumps and slips down the slope, landing on her feet. Rocks tumble after her. I try to
follow.
Her head rolls back in amazement. Her lips pull open in happy, fanciful expressions but
her voice does not sound right. It is too angry, too tight. I only catch most of the words she yells
into the wind. “I’ve got to... real house—real insulation against the winter... helps me when
things get tough... put it off any longer.” Finally, now, I’m close enough now to hear all the
words she says. She continues, “I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m so exhausted and... I’m
dying out—”
I am confused. More confused than I have been.
She purses her lips. “Your heart can’t feed you forever,” she repeats, finally looking up at
me. Her breath calms. She takes me in for a long time: my sailor hands and siren legs, dripping
with salty brine that embalms me against the elements, that keeps the weather out. “Goodbye,”
she says to the sharp grass around us.
I watch her go.
I have not seen this before.
I have seen this before. They go on or they go back. They do not stay, they always leave,
one way or another. They come, they ask, they leave, I return to the ocean. This is as it should
be. As the ocean lulls me to sleep, and I am meant to sleep, this is the way of things. They come
and leave. They do not stay.
She is finally like the rest. I am so tired. I am so tired.
I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
A group, loud and nervous, sings my song. I emerge from the deep and pull toward the beach.
There are eight of them. They ask me for a clue. They search the shoreline. They take something
with them. Without another word, they are gone into the horizon.
I watch them go until they disappear.
I study the cliffs behind me, the ones I learned to climb. They are taller than I remember.
The girl who used to watch from there is nowhere in sight. She was the girl with the shells. She
was the one who stayed. She was the only thing different about the world.
But she is like everyone else. They come and they leave. And I am left.
I return to the ocean.
I sleep.
The song. It is right.
Maelstroms are her lullaby,
Shipwrecks are her jewels.
The old god sleeping bides her time
Among the shallow pools.
It is familiar, perfect, finally a tune I recognize. Notes sung with the weight and
tenderness that they were arranged for. A warm salve on frigid wounds. I rise to see who is the
only one to sing it so beautifully, who is it that surely must be able to complete the impossible
quest. Who is the only one that knows the song as well as I know it myself.
It is a girl. She sits on the beach, her mouth closed. She is not singing. I pause in the
waves. It is the girl with the shells. She is strong and tanned. She had a name once. How could it
be her?
I do not move forward. She must continue the song. She does not. She watches me and I
watch her. She must continue the song.
“Aren’t you going to come?” she asks me. “It’s been a while. Plenty of beach for both of
us. Or we could climb, if you want.”
She must continue the song. The song that she knows so well. The girl who can sing a
song as if she truly knows what it means. But she does not. She cannot. How? How can it be her?
“I didn’t want to go back,” she says.
Before my heart can ask her why she went away, my head blurts out, “It is only you.”
She looks down suddenly, and to the end of the beach, far off in a distance I do not care
to see. She pauses. She carefully stands, nods, and turns. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
She plans to leave. She makes her way to the rocks. She will climb. Up her cliff and to
her hideout or beyond. The ocean tugs at my middle. Or maybe it is something else.
I realize that she will leave because she is sorry, but she should not be. The words fall
out. I tell her, “Everyone is wrong.”
She halts. She does not believe me. “About you?” she asks.
I am confused.
“Everyone is wrong about you?” she asks.
I tilt my head. I tell the girl with the shells that everyone is wrong about the clue.
She tries to laugh but something goes wrong. She says, “I was wrong about you. I don’t
care about the quest. I’m an idiot!” She rubs her face with her hand, then gestures with it. “I
thought you might want a friend.” She looks down. “I do.” Then she adds, “Yeah, only me. I’ll
go. Forget it.”
I am still frozen on the waves. She never finished the song. But I step forward onto the
beach, wading among the wasted boats that wash up on the shore, filled with hints of an old
treasure. Pieces of mirrors, fractured chests of rich fabric or perfume or precious stones.
I am uneasy. She turns toward the wall of rock, reaching up. She tells me good luck.
Then, she will climb. She will leave. She is like everyone else. I turn tiredly toward the sunset,
my ocean horizon.
She will go. And I am left.
“What did you say?” she shouts at me.
I glance at the girl. She is studying me intently. She has not gone, but she will go. And I
will be left.
I step into the surf. Before I can continue, the girl with the shells has appeared in front of
me. She blocks my way. She is breathing hard, knee-deep in the ocean. The setting sun shines on
her head from behind, lighting the salty spray that adorns her hair like a crown of pearls. Her
name is Coyatl. I will never see her again, like everyone else.
“Say it again,” she demands. Her posture changes. “Please, the next step for the quest.
The clue. Say it one more time.”
I sigh. I decide to be relieved by the familiarity instead of tired. They come, they ask,
they leave, I return to the ocean. I have seen this before. Finally, she will leave, and I will return
to the ocean. I give her the only words I have.
The tide recedes
And I am left with broken glass,
Driftwood beams,
Discarded by the rolling sea.
She starts to smile. She thinks she knows what I ask for, but she does not. They never do.
She will pick up her shells and disappear into the setting sun in my ocean’s horizon and I will
sleep.
“It’s you,” she tells me.
I look at my feet in the breaking waves. She has not learned, then, like I thought she had.
“It is you,” she says again, slow and sure.
Her name is Coyatl. I do not have the strength to tell her that the sea is my home. I cannot
be discarded by it. I do not have the strength. Time passes so slowly. It is repeating. I am so
tired.
The ocean tugs at my ankles. It urges me back to the depths.
“You...” I feel warm fingers on my hand. I have never felt this before. She holds me
softly. “Who is left behind when we leave? We come and go like the tide. And you... Always
left behind.”
My voice is small, choked by an unseen force. “Left behind,” I echo.
The water urges me back to the depths. It lulls me to sleep, and I am meant to sleep. To
forget the secret she is whispering to me now. I am to bide my time among the shallow pools. I
am to be uneasy forever, resting in my ocean’s perfect embrace. I am to sleep. Someone might
sing my song at any moment. I should be ready for them. I should wait. And sleep. I am so tired.
But Coyatl goes on.
“Who stands amidst the wooden boards of long-ago shipwrecks and the broken glass of
crystal lanterns.” She bends her knees and looks up at me, trying to catch my gaze. She says my
name. “Aiosha.” She places her other hand on mine, gripping it tightly. I feel the heat seep into
my body. I have never felt this. The weather does not touch me. But she does.
“Aiosha,” she repeats. “It is you.”
I close my eyes.
“Who has been discarded for so long, and by so many.”
I open them. I see the girl before me clearly and I feel something strange. It stretches
beyond unease; I am afraid. But she is sure. Her mouth is sure, her eyes are sure, her hands on
mine are steady. She is the one who stayed.
“Except you,” I whisper.
Her eyes, at the corners, crinkle ever so slightly. She takes a deep breath, straightening. I
copy her.
I am the old god sleeping, discarded by the rolling sea, except her. Maelstroms are my
lullaby and I am so tired. I am afraid. But I have slept long enough. I have searched the seas for
the end of the shimmering path enough times before. It is time to walk along it, and find it, and
be sure. I will not return to sleep this time.
I will follow Coyatl to the right next place. Maybe we will get there.