The night is too silent, and I cannot sleep.
No rain against the window, no wind screeching in the night. Not even the ticking of the clock—it has run itself down to stillness. No sound in the darkness but the gasp as the sea caresses the shale, the rattle of pebbles as they drag against each other like loose teeth, the suck and draw of the foam. The tide has been coming in for hours now, edging up the shore, swallowing the skerries inch by inch, one by one.
She’ll be gone now.
I cannot think of it. I cannot think of her. My dear, sweet, beautiful sister. Darling of my heart, of everyone’s hearts. Child of blessings and delight. No one impervious. My mother’s thunder melted with her smile. My father’s back unbent at her laugh. No one impervious— not me, not him. I never blamed him for turning from me to her. I, too, would turn towards the light.
I think of her body lifting and drifting in the rolling waves. She’s a marionette, falling and rising to the tug of her strings. She’s a gauze scarf snagged against a gale, twisting and furling in the sky. Her limbs, loose and limber, reach with the pull of the swell, a silent conductor of the deep. Tethered, her body rolls and dances in the surge. I see her clothes billow and snag against her, following the sweeps and eddies of her arms. How long until the fabric is torn and tattered, the shreds a ragged algae? I see the golden ropes of her hair undulating in the tide, beautiful hair that shimmered under my comb each night. Gently, so gently, I would tease it smooth. Tenderly, so tenderly I would braid it. Twist and plait, twist and plait. How long until, one by one, the fibres break? Freed, she spins off into the swell, a pale shimmer drifting into darkness, lost to this world.
Her body out in the sea. The skin of her finger pads grooved like bark, her beautiful face—still smiling, always smiling—swollen and featureless. The waves stroke her cheeks, claiming her for their own. Child of blessings and of light, too good for this world. She drifts; the seaweed that bound her clouds around her bare coral skull. It swirls and it clings to her. Her overripe eyes roll and gleam beneath paper-fine lids. Her lips part, her teeth a pearled pebbled smile. My sea-spun sister, turning to embrace the water that holds her close, that cradles her just as I did, my own beloved.
When did she wake? Was she stirred by the spray from a rogue wave, long before the water reached her? Or was it the cold creep of the sea—reaching and releasing, caressing then retreating—slowly, so surely, climbing towards her? Was it a gentle wakening, or a start, a scramble to sit up, and then jerking back, held fast against the rock? How long did she struggle like a fish on a line, how long did she believe her fingers could tease apart the knots? Her fingers in her snared hair, scrabbling at the spun silk and stretched slime, the strands of seaweed soft and yielding, rigid in their grip. They cling to the rock in the wildest nights, when the full fury of the sea fails to drag them from their hold. They think nothing of her clumsy fumbling, her blunted attempts to tear and snap. They hold her fast, and the tide comes in.
It is too silent, tonight. There should be unrest, there should be a howling and a roaring and a raging. But the world is at peace, and I am warm under the blanket, the low embers of the fire are winking in the corner, and my sister is gone.
My sweet, beautiful sister asleep on the rocks. Her head against my leg, eyelashes resting on rounded cheeks. Smiling—always smiling. When she smiled, so too the world. So tenderly, I stroked her hair, glistering golden against the stone. I braided it so gently, twist and plait, twist and plait. So carefully, I entwined it with the bladderwrack and dulse, coil and knot, twist and plait, braid and stroke. And when her hair was braided fast and the tide had turned, I slipped away and rowed home. Darling of my heart. Child of blessings and of light. Too good for this world.
Tomorrow, I will see him. Tomorrow, I will mourn with him. Together at last, we will rage against the injustice of the sea, its cruelty in taking her from us. And after we have scoured the rocks for her, found the boat sunk out by the shoals, screamed our anguish into the deep, we will return home together. At last. I will sit beside him and feel the air pulse with his sorrow and his helpless wrath, feel the tingle of his despair, drink up his need for me. I will hold his hand in mine as I used to do, as I used to do. Perhaps he will lay his head against my leg, his strength spent from weeping, and I will stroke his hair, his dulse-red curls. I will sing to him in my sweet, sweet voice of all that we have lost. I will sing to him, my hands moving through his hair as my voice rises and falls, ebbs and flows, until he, too, falls asleep.
It is too silent, tonight. No rain against the window, no wind screeching in the night. Only the gasp and sigh of the sea against the shale. No howling, no roaring, no raging, not even the ticking of the clock. Only the loose-teeth rattle of pebbles dragged from the shore. Only the muted click and scratch of shell on rock. Only the soft squirming sob of seaweed on rock. Only the relentless music of the silence inside.
Gasp and sigh. Scratch and click. Squirm and sob.
Braid and stroke. Coil and knot. Twist and plait.
Ella Leith is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, and occasional poetry. Drawing on her background in folklore and oral history, her work explores how the past and uncanny exist in the present and mundane. Recent publications include pieces in Gramarye, The Literary Times Magazine, and Oprelle’s Matter XXIII anthology. Originally from the UK, she now lives in Malta.
Published 10/31/24