by Devon Monk
The man from the mountains stopped, changing his breath, until it rose and fell in rhythm with the ocean. Magic was here, wrapped in the fog, he could taste it like honey on his tongue, feel it like the cold heat of mint against his skin.
But magic is elusive, hidden, the sound of madness creeping. Though the man followed the call, careful to keep his footfalls soft, his breathing in rhythm with fog-muted waves, magic was ho-ho, and you won’t see, in the dark wet streets of Brinkofsea.
On the cusping break of night to dawn, the man walked the last alley, the last street, morning cry of bird and hard smell of baked salt-bread filling the air where fog had once lay, fog which pulled away without the man feeling its loss.
Shipmen called while feet of runners pattered across cobble. Tide is turning, night is turning, life is turning. Up now, men and boys, up now rope and sail, up upon the crashing waves, before the chance is gone.
With each step, the man from the mountains wondered if fate was turning, if he too should shoulder against the wind, find his way home, taking defeat at his side.
And there, near the end of the alley, in the shadows of a doorway, leeward to the sky, blind to the wind, a woman sat sewing. Sails the color of dawn-painted clouds billowed and shimmered, laying like maidens of gossamer, fae beauty, bare to the pale sun, calling, calling, magic here beneath the stone, in the cold dark shadows.
So drawn to the sails, the man did not see the woman behind them for several moments. When he did look, his eyes, dazzled by gossamer beauty, could not believe the vision before them.
Thin to nothing, hair long and wild, Stigin Niddle sat, her sharp face tipped to the side, as if she heard a song no mortal could follow, her fingers lithe and long, spinning magic beneath her palms into cloth. Eyes lost in the gray of the stone which surrounded her, she rocked slowly, her mouth pulled in a smile only babes, or the mad can wear.
And despite the hollows of her cheeks, the pale skin covered with thin silver tracks of snails gone by, despite the cast of blue about her lips and eyes, as if she were long adrift in the cold, cold sea, the man from the mountain knew that magic, the filling, the need that had called him from snug and warm mountain holding was here, before him, in the lifeless eyes and flying hands of Stigin Niddle.
A fish hawker came, tossed yesterday’s carp at her feet, stared at the man of the mountain, the stranger who could not take his eyes off the woman beneath the sails and knew, with pity, that the man had never seen the ugly side of magic.
The fish hawker put a strong calloused hand on the arm of the man — wet and cold — his skin running with droplets of last night’s fog, his breath oddly in time with the ocean caressing the edge of Brinkofsea, in time with Stigin’s fingers pushing, coaxing cloth to spring, full and sewn from nothing but her hands.
The fish hawker pulled on the man’s arm, intent to take him somewhere warm, a fire, a hot mug of tea, away from the ugly odd woman, spinning magic for a world she could no longer see.
But the man from the mountain pushed aside the fish hawker’s hand, and before he could think again, before the fall of one wave curled into another, he bent, and caught Stigin Niddle’s hands between his own.
You are bound no longer to this town, bound no longer to stone and shadow, no longer to magic’s call. Come with me, lady Stigin, and the mountains themselves will bow down to you, hold you dear, precious, love you — but less even than I shall love you.
The hawker laughed. Could the man from the mountain think a woman such as that, a creature such as that would hear his words, bide his call? Magic has fed upon her humanity, sails have replaced her soul. She is but an empty shell, lost and singing, mad, and happy among the drift of sea and swell.
Ugly Stigin, perfect odd, sister Stigin. Not a creature that can be captured, not a woman to hear the heart of a man.
The man listened not to the hawker’s words, listened not to the gulls crying fool, fool, listened not to the slow drip of fog and morning sliding down the stone, down Stigin’s shoulders, her hair, her face. He listened instead to his heart, pounding with the strength of the mountain, the land come to claim that which the sea had taken, his lady, his love.
Fool, fool, the gulls cried from above, poor mistaken fool, the hawker echoed.
But Stigin did not hear the words of the hawker or the gulls. She did not hear the crash of the waves. Slowly, slowly, like sand sliding down stone, Stigin’s hands rested, her fingers lying still and white as folded wings against sails that no longer spun.
The man from the mountains laughed out full, and plucked her up, the nearly nothing of her left, and pulled her against his chest. Love I will give you, love shall you know. No longer the dampness of doorway, no longer the endless skein of sails to be spun.
At the moment the man held her, cradled her face against his own, the hawker cried out, the townsfolk cried out, the captains who had called her queen-nymph-goddess, the crewmen who had called her yes-lady, as-you-wish lady, called out as one, for then the spell was broken, and Stigin Niddle was no longer the heart of gray Brinkofsea, no longer the single, simple vessel for the magic of sail, the taming of the sea to pour through.
Lost it all when Stigin Niddle smiled and breathed again, her first breath.
They speak of her still, of Stigin Niddle, of the ugly, magical creature born of the sea, through whose hands the finest of sails were woven. They speak of the day magic was lost to the town of Brinkofsea, and they speak of the man, whose hands were not afraid to touch, and heart was not afraid to love the ugly beauty of magic.
I wrote this during a class at the Oregon coast. The assignment was to incorporate the setting of the ocean into a story. Somehow life and death got mixed in there too, and the meaning of family, love, and loss.
FISHING THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Morning came over the hills of Devil’s Bay like a long exhale, the pale light caught gold by shore pines. Sadie was already on her side of the beach, the heavy fish bucket sloshing water down her clamming boots and staining the sand pewter.
Salt air came into her nostrils cool, chilled the back of her throat and made her mouth fill with the taste of tears. Ocean air always tasted like tears, though most people never noticed.
Sadie grunted and trudged up to the edge of the drainage stream, a glassy ribbon of water that rippled from the bank and widened out to the ocean’s reach.
George was late again.
She put her bucket of fish water down on the sand, the metal rim of the pail sinking like a cookie cutter into dough. She squinted down the length of the beach. There weren’t any people on the beach yet, nothing to block her view of the sand, the green-tarnished waves and the curve of land that hooked out and caught the edge of the horizon.
When she looked away from the horizon, George was on the beach walking toward her.
He wore the same black jacket he always wore, his gray hair lifting in the breeze, his tall form getting taller as he neared. His kept his hands in his pockets.
Sadie had been married to George, and working with him for more years than she remembered. She could tell by his slow-swinging stride and the skull-splitting grin that he had something to say to her, something he liked and she wouldn’t.
“Hallo, Sadie.” George sauntered up, but did not cross over the narrow stream between them. There were rules, and he followed them. “Any new fish last night?”
“A few. I was by the hospital.” Tiny fish in the bucket splashed in the water. “Did you and Troy work things out?”
George’s grin faded and a crow called out, the sound of it as black as wings, as sudden as death.
“No, no.” He glanced off over her shoulder, his gaze sharp with old pain as he stared at the cottages that lined the cliffs above the beach, then away, to the ocean. “Haven’t seen Troy since yesterday when he went into town.”
“You let him go?” Her voice came out too sharp, and she licked her lips before adding, “Do you know where he is?”
“Easy, easy. I found hi
m and called. He was still in town, about three miles away and walking north.”
North. Closer to where Katie lived with her mother.
“He should be here any minute,” George said.
The sound of trees and brush being pushed apart drew Sadie’s gaze up the stream bank, past a half-buried gray log, and up to the land’s edge.
Troy pushed the last branch of shore pine blocking his way between the land and sand. The branch flashed bright in sunlight, then swung back into shadow, swallowing the sound of commuter traffic that buzzed north and south on Highway 101.
There was no sound between them except the breath of the waves.
Troy hesitated, one hand behind his back as if the trees were a life line and he were falling fast. He wore faded denim and a plain white t-shirt. His feet, of course, were bare. Sadie felt a familiar pang of regret when his eyes narrowed into accusing slits.
They had done what they could for him — been the only mother and father he had known — tried to show him how to make the best out of this existence.
He hadn’t listened.
Troy strode toward them through the ankle-deep sand at the land’s edge. “Glad to see you, son.” George did not turn to look at Troy, but his voice was warm.
Troy walked right past him, leaving the smell of crushed leaves and broken twigs to mingle and die in the salt air. Troy was young enough he could have been their real son, his hair a shaved crop of black like George’s had once been, his eyes deep-set above a broody mouth.
Sadie’s heart beat harder as he stepped into the surf. The bucket in her hand rang out with a low bell-tone, as if it had just been rapped by a rock and the fish splashed and swam harder. She closed her eyes. This, then was the day she had dreaded.
Troy walked until he was ankle deep in the ocean. He faced the dark line of the horizon where a troller stood up, tipped out of view, stood up again. He didn’t look down at the froth that curled up and around his feet, and lapped darkly at the cuffs of his jeans.
Sadie glanced at George, who was still looking at his own horizon, over her shoulder. Waiting for her to invite him over the stream, and give him the bucket. Following the rules.
“Help with the bucket, will you George?” she asked. “It’s a heavy load today.”
“Sure. Sure thing.” George sucked on his bottom lip and glanced at Troy, then back at Sadie. “Going to be a good day for fish, I think.”
He didn’t sound happy about it.
But then, neither was she.
George took a step, two, both white sneakers forming damns in the stream, footprints pressing, then gone beneath the shallow water.
Three steps, and George was on her side of the beach.
The wind whipped, hard, as if it had been waiting for George to reach the other side of the stream before rushing from the iced edge of the Pacific. Waves flicked up, turned pointed and dark farther out, wind-whipped and white closer in. Wind strained through trees, stirred brown grasses that rattled like dry bones.
Sadie shivered as the wind gusted by.
She touched George’s arm, his coat cold and slick beneath her fingertips. He paused and looked down. She caught a whiff of cherry tobacco, and the sweet warmth of rum as he brushed at her short, gray curls, his thick fingers tracing the lines of old sorrows across her cheek.
“Maybe the fish will all swim away,” he said, his words soft. But his eyes held the knowledge that his words were false. “The three of us could just go home. Leave the bucket where it is.”
It was the same thing he had said last fall. The same hope both of them knew could never come true. They had their jobs now. They had chosen them. Even if they didn’t always like them.
Sadie smiled anyway, acknowledging the sentiment.
“How about we take the bucket down the beach a ways and sit?” she said. “Watch the children play.”
“The log, maybe?” George bent and curled his fingers around the bucket’s metal handle.
In the hollow space where George had been, Sadie once again saw Troy. He had turned to face her. Both hands were at his sides, curled tight as stone fists. His lips were moving around words lost to the shush and crackle of waves.
His words drew the wind. Loose dry sand snapped at her boots, her coat, and finally, stung her face. Sadie tasted lightning, copper-cold on the air.
Sadie lifted two fingers of her left hand and cancelled Troy’s commands to the wind and sand. The wind stopped, the sand dropped, and the morning was still.
George straightened, blocking her view of Troy again.
“Easy now, Sadie. There’s a long day left. Let’s find the log before the living wake up,” George said.
Sadie nodded, and followed George back across the stream to his side of the beach.
The agate lickers came down to the beach to walk the wet strip of sand where the ocean slipped in, rolled stones, covered and uncovered gems. Agate lickers usually traveled alone, strolling slowly, heads hung as if a heavy weight pulled at their necks, their gaze on the sand. They looked old and slow no matter their age, and only paused for the glint of a mossy, a milky or a blood amber chunk of the earth’s castoff bones.
Sadie had always liked the agate lickers, but today, they moved too slowly, like harbingers of a world mourning its own life/death rhythm.
Families spilled out of hotels and summer cottages set along the cliffs. More people poured from parked cars. People with blankets, baskets, backpacks and coffee cups. Tiny children with floppy hats rode on shoulders, older children bounced and careened down steep stairways that were clamped against the banks like braces of concrete, steel, and wood. The children stopped five steps above the sand, tugged their shoes off and flung themselves out and out, thrilling in a moment of flight before they landed with a soft thud on the beach beneath them.
George and Sadie had chosen their favorite spot, and sat with their legs straight in front of them and a log that looked like the bleached rib of a whale at their backs.
Sadie’s fish bucket sat between them, a cool metal pool that reflected no light.
Troy was pacing. Twelve steps north, twelve steps left in front of them, close enough Sadie could hear the sugar-crunch of his strides. He stared forward, and turned toward the ocean to change direction. He never looked their way.
“Might be sunny all day,” George said. His head swivelled from side to side as he watched Troy pace.
“Good day for the children to play,” Sadie said.
Troy stopped, turned, glared.
“Why did you make me come back?” They were the first words he had spoken since he came back from the land, and his voice sounded raw from the salt air.
“It was your choice,” Sadie said. A squabbling flight of seagulls passed above them, and a dog yipped by, chasing a tennis ball down the sand.
“I chose to leave you,” Troy said.
“You chose to stay with us three years ago. Not at the top of the cliff when you took your last step, but halfway down, many moments before you hit the surf and stones.” Sadie said.
George slipped his hand around the back of the bucket, searching and finding her hand. His hand was cold, bone hard, and rough as a winter stone. Sadie shivered, but held his hand, drawing what strength from it she could.
“You came back to us again today when we called,” Sadie said. “You are a part of the sand and the wind and the stone now. You cannot take back your first step in life. Nor your last.”
“But my Katie —”
“Your daughter is gone. Three years ago. You let her go, when you stepped into air.” Sadie said this softer, for she had said these words so many times, they were faded and thinned.
“Holding on to Katie will only bring sorrow to you. And to her.”
George squeezed her hand, and his grip hurt, but it was a reminder of how strong they were, together.
“But I can’t just —” he waved his hand, at the families, the bright sky. “How can I watch this? How can you?”
Th
ree children, two girls and a boy, laughed and raced down to the ocean, where they splashed and squealed in the waves.
The bucket hummed, as if a wooden spoon had been rapped against it once, twice, three fresh, sweet notes as each child, as each soul, touched the waves.
A fourth child, younger and slower under the burden of a bright yellow beach ball rambled down to the water. She stopped a short distance from the smooth, shallow wave, and waited for the foam to trickle over her bare toes.
The bucket hummed again, sour and sharp.
Troy gasped. “Katie?”
The little girl tipped her face toward the sky and smiled.
“Don’t go to her, Son.” George’s voice was grave and cool. “She wouldn’t see you.”
Troy paused, his entire body looking like a wire that had been stretched too tight.
A breeze lapped up off of the waves, carrying the smell of kelp, fish, and cool, deep minerals. A young couple walked past, hand-in-hand. They stepped around Troy as if a rock, or bit of seaweed were in their path.
“I can go back once,” Troy said. “You told me that, when I . . . at the cliff, three years ago, when you found me. You told me I could go back one time.”
“Listen to yourself, Troy,” Sadie said. “If you go back, it will be the last time. And it will only last for a moment. No one escapes death. You made your choice to die, and you chose to spend your days with us helping souls find their way to death. We love you. You’ll see Katie some day. When she’s older.”
“When she’s dead!” Troy spun, and faced them. “I will not have my daughter grow up without me.” His shoulders were angled as if he were facing down a cold wind. His feet were braced, one behind and one in front. “Please, let me go,” he said.
Sadie nodded. George nodded.
