Of the Sea

Of the Sea
A short story by Molly Colleen McIsaac

It always called to me, that vast body of water known as the sea. Beckoning, bribing, pulling at my heart, begging me come back to it. I usually resisted and went about my business, answering it's calls sadly with: "I am of the land now. I will return to you one day.". But, this night... my window was open, pale moonlight illuminating my golden hair, the smell of the sea wafting in and settling upon me. I could hear the calls of whales, the crash of the waves, the melancholy music of the wind. Sighing, I tried to ignore the voices calling to me, but to no avail. The wind had already swept up my spirit and started to whisk it away to the sea, and before I knew it, I was climbing out of my window, dropping lithly to the grass below. Dewdrops clung to my bare feet, the light from the full moon dappled my skin.

Breaking into a run, I leapt over a fence and landed upon a bed of rocks and sand. It stuck to my wet feet, ground between my toes and worked it's way under my toenails. A few more steps brought me less then half a foot away from the waves, which were reaching for me eagerly.

"Hello, tortured souls..."

I knelt, reaching forward and letting the water slide through my fingers. It was a gentle carress, one of calming, a kiss upon my heated flesh.

"Do not fear, I have come..."

The waves rose higher, washing around my knees, pulling at my shorts. That which swallows bodies wanted me, wanted me to dodge through its azure depths like the whales many said I was. For all flowers wilted when near me, all except seagrass. And almost every morning I awoke to find seaweed tangled in my golden hair, bright fish upon my breast. My people stayed away from me, thought I was a priestess of ice, one who made love to whales.

But I, I knew that the sea was our friend. Where children fled with their dreams, leaving their ghosts that became the song of the wind. I called to that very wind in my own dreams, I thought the sidewalks were sand, the ground always rolled underneath my feet, the basin in my house always had the lingering smell of saltwater.

Some said when I swim, that my hair turned from pale gold to green, my skin from white to ice blue, and that the whales and other sea creatures followed in my wake, singing a song of: "She's home! She has returned! Put amber upon the alters, polish the goblets of ice and prepare the feast!"

Others said when the wind swept around me, my frail body weaved to the music of it, my dark eyes became glazed and shimmer like the ocean, and I always looked to the glaciers, listening to music in the hollowed icebergs that only my ears could hear.

I was lost to it now, and as the water and wind pulled off my clothes, I slid into the water, welcoming the cold. Enchanted frozen rivulets flowed over my curves, healing my heart. And it was then that my hair did turn to mermaid green, that my skin became a deathly blue. I felt the sea creatures around me, singing a song:

"Ready the altars, she has arrived! Collect the bits of amber floating upon the ice! Sing your songs in the hollowed out icebergs, let the stucco white fall upon the ice!"

This was where I belonged, with the current carrying me out further, the whales carrying me upon their backs.

And then, in my midnight freeze daydream, I felt my heart grow cold too, I thrashed in the waves of air, gulping it as if it was water, trying to provide my lungs with oxygen. But nothing happened, I could not breathe, my lungs felt as if they would burst. I tried to dive beneath the waves, gulping for the breath I knew I could find in the depths of the sea, but the waves prevented me from doing so, kept me up upon there backs. It was that night that I left my body, to become a water Goddess, the lover of the whales.

Two days later my shell washed up upon the beach, and I watched from the water as my people found it. The skin color was still blue, the hair still mermaid green. None could find why I died.

"Did she freeze? Was it a heart attack?"

But the truly wise ones knew it was nothing like that. The wise ones saw my spirit watching them, and they bowed their heads, muttering a prayer. I had not died. I had been born of the sea, and to it I had returned.