Ashes to Ashes

Photo by Susan Wenzel

Ashes to ashes, he always said. It sounded strange until you got to know him. He’d lost his wife and spread her ashes out over the ocean. They say he never recovered. On any given day, you could find him on the pier, muttering to himself, holding a seashell in his hand. Rumors swirled among townsfolk that there were ashes held captive inside that shell, the last remains of his beloved wife. You could set your watch by his appearance, until you couldn’t. He just disappeared one day, the opened shell floating along the shoreline the only evidence of his departure.

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Another Friday, another image to inspire my muse this week from Madison Woods and her clever #FridayFictioneers. A picture, a 100 words. You can do this!

I welcome constructive criticism. I would love to read your thoughts in a comment.

Thanks for stopping in!!

Grey Street

When is it my turn? When will anyone love me? Why must they all play games? There is something wrong with me. Why can’t they see how much I need them? How hard I love? Will this pain in my heart never end?

I’m right here, in front of you. Why must you run away, and then come back again, only to run away once more? Am I not good enough for you? Why must I always feel this way?

I just need to feel loved, to feel worth it to someone.

I’m screaming for help. Will no one answer?

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This week’s song was Grey Street by Dave Matthews. I require lyrics to be able to participate, and this week’s lyrics hit me hard. It took me back to a dark place in my life in my early 20s when I was probably suffering from PPD and recently removed from my childhood of abuse. The song reminded me much of “She Only” by Great White, which I had on replay back then because it fit me to a T.

Matilda

Her name was Matilda and she wasn’t supposed to be there. The coast guard found her floating in the ocean, a smile frozen on her sun-drenched face. I was on the pier when they brought her body to the shore, her arms and legs hanging firm from the rigor mortis that set in. Little bits of her flesh had been nibbled away from the tips of her fingers and the bottoms of her feet, but she was otherwise preserved. That was probably more related to the fact that she’d been missing less than two days rather than anything else. The big question on everyone’s mind was how she got there.

Matilda didn’t like the ocean. She was the only one on this small island who never came near it. For everyone else it was a regular after school activity. Everywhere you looked, you’d find volleyball games in the sand, sand castle contests, nearly naked bodies getting their tan on, and surfers competing for the big one.

But Matilda?

Matilda was content to hang out on her patio, facing the busy street, as far inland as possible. Can’t say as I blame her after the way her daddy was lost at sea on a fishing expedition and her momma just wasted away after he died. The locals took pity on her and forever after, you would find her at one house or another, but never the ocean.

She stayed as far away from the ocean as she could.

The locals speculated that it was because she heard the whispers. There’s an old island legend about one born every hundred years who could hear the whisper of the waves. The funny thing was the last sea whisperer was a Matilda, too.  In fact, old Matilda passed away around the same time new Matilda’s parents arrived on the island. Coincidence? You decide.

According to legend, two whisperers can’t coexist at the same time, and there must always be one. To have no living whisperer would be the end of our island. Unless there’s another whisperer no one knows about, ours just died.

I know what you’ll think of me, but there’s a mighty storm brewing in the west. This storm is said to be of a viciousness the likes of which we’ve never seen in our lifetimes. Not even the storm that took Matilda’s daddy was this severe. I’m telling you now. It’s the beginning of the end.

In the two days since Matilda passed, all those who lived on the shore have been evacuated. Since most folks live along the shoreline, the courthouse is quite crowded. Even the sheriff holed up with the rest of us. You know what happens when a bunch of people get together? The rumors start swirling.

This was no exception.

Since there was no one on the island who would harm a hair on Matilda’s head, the blame fell on the tourists. We never held much trust for tourists,  anyway. They were only necessary to keep the island going. If we could find other resources to keep the money rolling in, we’d keep them out altogether. So, yes, the tourists were to blame for Matilda, and because of that fact alone, they were to blame for the storm, too.

There was only one family of tourists hanging around the courthouse, fools that they were. They should have grabbed the ferry like the rest of their kind and gotten off the island completely. If the ocean really took the whisperer there would be hell to pay. I began to feel sorry for them. They were ill prepared to weather the storm and the locals? Well, they weren’t of a mind to share.

When the electricity went out, there weren’t enough blankets so the tourists went without. When the main water supply ran out, and they passed bottled water around, they skipped them then, too. After a couple days, only the crying reminded us they were there and eventually even that stopped. When their daughter died, we felt a shift in the storm, like Father Sea had been appeased.

As if the scales of good and evil were once again balanced.

Her name was Matilda and she wasn’t supposed to be there. And by being there, she turned our whole world inside out.

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Today’s story is brought to you through inspiration from Bloggy Moms Writer’s Workshop (the picture above was the prompt) and through the Weekly Prompt at Studio 30 + (Her name was Matilda.)

I always welcome and appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts in a comment, whether good or bad. It’s to help me grow as a writer.

In this particular piece, I intended to be obscure, leaving it up to your imagination to fill in the blanks. Did I do that successfully?

Thanks for stopping in and reading!!

Rolling in the Deep (Part 4)

Continued from here.

Artwork by Flynn the Cat

Furious silence surrounded Celia. The quiet sky and her parent’s peacefulness left the house almost too serene for her to sleep. She turned on the small ocean lamp that was a gift from Mother four birthdays ago. The soft blue light rocked as the liquid inside swished from left to right and back again. The gentle shadow of the wave on her wall comforted her. After a time, it lulled her to sleep. And in her sleep, she dreamed.

Seagulls filled the sky, their cries breaking the monotony of waves crashing against the rocks. Salt ignored the umbrella and settled on her lips. The keys in her outstretched hand felt heavy. A mist settled like glass across the top of the waves. An arm shot out of the water, its webbed hands floundering against the rocks near her. Another arm appeared, and out of the water emerged a creature so hideous it was beautiful. It’s perfectly rounded hairless head held large pointed ears on each side and fat puffer fish lips on its face. The scales of its body glimmered with every shade of blue as it lifted itself out of the water. Wings fanned out from its back and a long tail flipped up and back, propelling Celia into the water with its forward motion. Her scream was cut short as she breached the waves and another set of arms pulled her under. The first creature joined them and together the creatures took her down, one on each side, with other unseen creatures biting her legs through her skirt.

The lack of oxygen burned through Celia’s chest so she breathed; the bubbles of her exhale the only evidence of her plight. One of the creatures stopped, pulled her face close, and opened its mouth. Celia thought it meant to bite her, but it blew air into her mouth instead. The air traveled through her body, filling her lungs, cooling her chest. Satisfied, the creatures continued their descent, pulling her along with them until they came to a place on the ocean floor filled with more of their kind. There they shifted direction and swam towards a large coral reef and through a hidden opening. A black shadow moved from a far corner, and a sliver of light appeared in the darkness. This new creature, black as onyx, with sharp spikes down its back, rose in size, and its wings unfolded, like those of a giant manta ray. Its tail, skinny and spiked at the end, reached out and snapped the keys from her hand. It was at that moment that she felt her lungs burst and she rose up in her bed, screaming.

A ghostly face stared back at her from the other side of the room, and she screamed again. Her bedroom door opened, the overhead light came on, and her mother sailed through the doorway, her white nightgown trailing out behind her in her rush. The ghost disappeared when the light came on, and Celia laughed as she realized it was her own reflection.

“What’s wrong?” Mother asked. She scurried to Celia’s bed and sat on the edge, her fingers deftly stroking Celia’s hair behind her ears. “Is it the dream again?”

Celia neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the dream tonight. She needed to talk about something else.

“I went to see Father Brown today,” she said. Mother remained quiet, using her eyes to keep Celia talking. “I needed…” Celia broke Mother’s eye contact and stared at the blanket instead. “I don’t know what I expected him to say. He confirmed your story, gave me the blanket and a stuffed animal I was found with, but most curious of all, he gave me a piece of paper.”

“What was on it?” Mother asked.

“Just some art work and a poem that makes no sense, to me anyway.” Celia answered. Reluctance peppered her voice. She opened the drawer of her nightstand and pulled the paper out. She’d carefully folded it back to its original shape before putting it away. Mother took it from her, opened it, and read it aloud.

Gift from the sea, we to thee

A broken heart’s request.

Back to the sea, returned from thee

And then, your debt redressed.

“You’re right. This makes no sense.” Mother agreed. “Well, unless it means the passenger ship, then you would have been a gift from the sea, so to speak.”

“But back to the sea? I have no….Oh! Mother! Do you happen to remember if I had a set of keys with me when Father Brown gave me to your care?” Celia’s eyebrows raised in anticipation. Mother’s eyebrows scrunched together in that endearing way she had when she was thinking.

“A set of keys? Hm. That’s a good question. You came with a few things.” Mother sat with her hand covering her mouth as she thought. “You know what? I do think you did. Why?”

“The dream transformed on me again, and this time I saw the creatures—lovely mermaids with skin colored with every blue crayon in the box—and they took me to their world underneath the sea. They took me to this…this…bizarre creature, different from them, which took the keys from me.” Her fingers tapped absently on her lap. “I wonder if the keys are what it means when it says ‘Back to the sea, returned from thee’?”

“That seems kind of crazy, if you ask me, Celia. It still makes no sense. What does an ocean need with keys?” Mother laughed.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out tomorrow. Do you still have the keys?” Celia hoped. She could feel it in her bones that tomorrow would be different, if only Mother still had the keys.

“I do.” Mother said.

To be continued…

(The art showcased at the top of this post is by the brilliantly talented Flynn the Cat. You should stop by and treat your eyes to some sweet art sometime.)

 

>Sea and Salt

>

Tumbling, turning end over end

Breath collapses with every bend

Heart seizes with terror in a silent cry

Life flashes before her little eye

Caught in a wave with no escape

Knives battering her tiny shape

A frantic touch just here and there

Arms that enclose her everywhere

 Safe from the water that desires her soul

Snatched from the billowing, brazen black hole

Lashes heavy with sea and salt

Tears overflow in thunderous assault

Sand crammed in places it shouldn’t be

“Not today,” Mom whispers to the beckoning sea.

Today’s prompt: Sand.Enjoy. Concrit is always welcome.

Also, I am looking for a few fantasy lovers to help edit my NaNo novel on a private (wordpress) blog. If interested, please send me an email at thedramamamaanswers@gmail.com with your wordpress email address.