Where I Belong
Where I belong
A sorta fairytale
There is an empty little house on the outskirts of a village by the sea. Scarlet blooms flood the rutted walkway; ivy and moss hug the white stone walls. Children, who tiptoe past, tell tales of the ageless widow and her son who lived there. The town pariahs had become characters of town legend.
The son followed a song. Here is his tale.
~*~
Long ago, she rose from the sea with her child in her arms, water droplets starring her flaxen hair like diamonds. Little waves rose as she swam through the flat, inky waters. She slipped under the fallen log and curled among the almond willow’s roots, to wait. He would come soon, before moonrise.
Niamh opened her cherry mouth in a smiling yawn, eyes closing like buttons. Her mother laughed, and kissed her, holding on tight. She was too young to frolic through the waves alone, not at the surface. So she stroked Niamh’s hair, and let her silvery clear voice ascend in melody.
~*~
He came tripping over the uneven dock, skin shining in the starlight like porcelain. She felt the air rush through her frail lungs, fluttering. This was the night. He would know her.
The boy stopped at the pier’s end, panting. The song had lured him from his sleep, and he had sought its genesis for a hundred nights. He’d found nothing but the murmuring sea and the silent moon. Still he ventured to the shore, bewitched by that midnight chant. Clay Aiken always followed his voices.
“Who’s there?” Clay’s voice wavered like mist. “Who is it?” His words echoed into the boundless night and he sighed, dropping his hands against his homespun trousers. He squinted, watching the sea. Unless he was dreaming, there was something moving through the water…
“Is anyone there?”
“I am.” Clay’s breath caught in his throat and he looked around, eyes wide and darting like fish. He saw nothing but lamplight twinkling against the proud hills and the still deep below him. Had the voice been the whisper of the waves?
“Look below, fair boy.” Her voice floated on the wind, euphonic. Kneeling, Clay placed his trembling palms against the rough wood, and looked down.
It was a woman in the water, looking up at him as though he was a dream. Her hair hung in spirals of glistening gold down her shoulders and into the water. Her lissome body looked to be sculpted of soft ivory pearl, and her virescent eyes shone deep and yearning. A pretty baby girl rested her head against the woman’s shoulder.
His eyes widened, but in marvel and not disbelief. “It is you who call to me every night.” She inclined her head. Her lips trembled as she gazed at him in moonstruck wonder.
“Are you a – a” Clay fumbled for the word from memories of stories in his mother’s lap. “One of the merrow-folk?”
She twisted, raising her lacy fins into the air in assent. Droplets of water flashed golden in the starlight. He watched her, curiosity suspended in wonder.
“Have you a name?”
“Zara.” She whispered the word.
“Zara.”, he breathed. The name felt soft on his tongue. “Why have you brought me here for one hundred nights? Why do you show yourself now?” Zara’s white hand caressed Niamh as she sought words.
“I have sung for a thousand nights and none heard. You were the only one to seek me. The only one who heard, fair boy.”
He remembered the tale of Brenn, a town sailor never seen after he steered his boat toward night music. He licked his lips. “Am I chosen to die?”
She shook her head and twisted her hands into a heart, warding off bad luck. “Never. I do not know why you heard the song.”
“Why do you sing, Zara?” When he spoke her name, it sounded like an endearment.
“I love to sing. For three moons I have sung to bring you to the shore. I watched you searching for me.”
“I thought I was dreaming, or hearing the wind song.”
She smiled at him, and he felt full of light.
“Fair boy, I revealed myself tonight because this is the day you needed me.”
“Clay.” His voice was hoarse. “Call me Clay.”
“Clay, I saw you and those other boys before sunset. You were almost broken.” Now, her eyes were wide, staring into his imploringly. He reached out a hand for hers, startling at its warmth.
“They mean no real harm, Zara. They are sons of the women who hate my mother. Their stones are ill aimed. Do not trouble yourself.”
“I wanted to undo their blows as you lay on the sand.” He blinked, rubbing the red wine contusions on his arm.
“My mother salved me. Please, forget what you saw.”
Zara didn’t speak, but her eyes were eloquent. Clay knew that she would hold his every expression in memory. He lifted a knee; it was sore from his genuflection, and chilled by the cold wood.
“The tyke – your little one is very pretty.”
Clay thrilled when her face blossomed into a smile. “Her name is Niamh. It means radiance. I named her because she is like a little golden pearl. Like your sun.” Niamh slept, pillowed against her mother’s skin and rocked by the waves.
“She’s darling.” Zara trembled under his unspoken spell, wistful tears wanting to fill her eyes. The sight of the sky broke her enchantment. The stolen hours had almost waned. She dared not linger.
“Clay, I must return.”
“Wait. You will come back to see me again.”
“I shall try.” He held her gaze captive.
“You will. Please.”
“I have sung for you these hundred nights. I will not leave you now.” Zara moved away from the pier, barely rippling the surface.
“How will I know if you have returned?”
“Listen for me, as you always do.” She lowered herself so that only her head floated above the water, and the baby was already immersed. “Farewell.” She kissed her fingers to him and Clay watched her sink into her universe.
~*~
If Zara’s call had been alluring before, it became irresistible now. Clay spent days teaching the children, and nights at the pier, listening to his Scheherazade. Some nights she brought Niamh, others, she came alone. Clay liked it better when she was unaccompanied, unburdened. Then, her smiles were untroubled, and she would listen to Clay speak of the children he taught and the way they all quieted when he sang them songs.
Zara, who often sung him tales of the sea, told him that his voice must be enchantment, and begged him to sing for her. He protested, but one evening, he relented, and the night was full of his melody. Zara was bewitched.
One morning I rambled down by the sea shore
The wind it did whistle and the waters did roar
I heard some fair maiden give a pitiful cry
It sounded so lonesome, it swept off on high
I never will marry, I'll be no man's wife
I expect to live single all the days of my life
The shells in the ocean shall be my death-bed
While the fish in deep water swim over my head
She cast her fair body in the water so deep
And closed her pretty blue eyes forever to sleep.
When Clay’s voice faded into the stillness, Zara’s lips trembled.
“Did I sing it wrong? I’m sorry, I’ve never sung to anyone alone, I mean to a woman alone, you were my first; I was coltish and couldn’t help it, Zara--”
He was silenced by her unspoken plea, her stricken gaze crying for absolution. “It was enchanting.” Clay watched her fine hands twist like seaweed. Her voice shook. “Thank you. You were beautiful but I – I musn’t.”
She rose so far from the sea that only her fins grazed the water, and tried to kiss his cheek. Clay turned. Zara’s kiss crashed against his mouth and filled him with surrender. She tasted not of salt but of something sweet, something lingering like rose juice. He wanted to let her lead him into the swirling depths and awaken where she would always be.
She broke out of his embrace and cried in alarm as he almost tumbled into the sea. She steadied him, fearing his feverish glazed eyes.
“Zara – I must come with you. I must. Take me with you.” The words rose unbidden from his breathless throat.
“I cannot.” Her voice was broken, wistful. “Stay and live, fair boy. I can give you nothing.”
“But I need you.” Dazzled by the tears in his eyes, Clay leaned forward as Zara sank into the sea.
“Because you kissed me, you will always pine. It is a cursed magic. But you will live. You cannot die of longing.”
“Yet you have made me love the sea that was once my enemy. Surely there is blessed magic in that.”
“It is a white curse.” The tears finally escaped Zara’s eyes. “Forget me. Someday I hope the wind will bring you a new love. I can never be yours.” All she could hear was his exquisite, scraping breath.
No fury marred his voice, only a fog. “Then all this was for naught.” She shook her head.
“Not to me. Sometimes a memory is all we are given, fair boy.”
Zara let Clay enfold her hand in his, and hallow it with a kiss. “Farewell.”
“Blessed be.”, she whispered. And lingering, Zara pulled her hand away and sank back into the sea. Clay watched the ripples of her golden hair trail behind her as he first tasted the bitterness of eternity.
~*~
Clay lay awake many a night, longing to hear faraway music. It never came. He went on teaching, but the glamour of his dream had left his eyes. He was empty, only smiling over his little scholars but never singing.
His mother watched him, seeing the lag in his step and lethargy of his once beaming smile. She knew what must entrap him, she, too, had been lovelorn. When a slice of lima bean pie went uneaten, she pushed away the stack of books before him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Clay?” He lifted his desolate gaze to his Ma’s beloved old face, puckered with sorrows for him.
“Yes Ma.”
“Are you well? You’ve been so quiet and when you were a child, quiet was the first sign of an ill wind.”
“I might have a chill.”
“I don’t wonder that you do, when you go traipsing to the seaside every sunset and coming home with wet feet.”
He shook his head, as gold drops of lamplight bounced against the wall. “I don’t stay long anymore.”
“Good. You’re too busy these days to play by the shore. But you’ve done good work with the children. You ought to be proud.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Then you mustn’t sorrow so. Unless you’re figuring on becoming a poet. Then you may muse all you please.” She ruffled his rusty locks, and he giggled.
“Mama.”
“There’s my leprechaun smile.” Ma smiled back. “Won’t you tell your Ma what’s troubling you? Is it the boys?”
“No.” He caught the truth before he could tell it. “I haven’t seen them.” His palm touched the flannel sheltering the dark, distorted flower that bloomed keenly against his ribs.
“I’m glad. Is it little Brigid you’re worrying over? Her mother has left old Tom. She and Brigid are quite safe at Fiona’s.”
“I know. She told me today.” He gave Ma a tiny smile.
“If it is not the boys or Brigid who are the trouble, it must be a woman. Which girl is fortune’s favourite? Is it Eileen? Or her sister Mary? They’re both such lovely girls, and you were sweet on them at school.”
“Ma, they’re lovely girls, but they’re fancying Matthew.”
“Patricia then. Or Kimberly. Such lovely smiles…”
“Ma, let it be. It’s not them.” His laughter trailed like a cord of pearls. “Nor is it Meredith or Anastasia or Janet or Kelly or any of our village beauties.”
“Then who?”
“Her name is Zara. She lives in Emarys.” Ma’s eyes widened.
“Emarys.” Her voice was buoyant with wonder.
“It’s a small town far from here. She came visiting one night in spring.” The remembrances shimmered in his eyes like fountains. “She sings like a si—like a nightingale.”
“I’m sure she does.” Her voice caught, like gossamer on a rose thorn. “What has happened to make you lovelorn?”
“Her universe is not mine. I can never see her again.” Clay leaned his cheek on his hand. Ma heard what he left unsaid.
“Never lose hope.” Ma leaned over her tall son and kissed his forehead. “If you’re so bewitched, there’s a hope for you and this girl of Emarys.”
“Oh Ma.”
“Eat your pie. You’re frail.” She patted his shoulder. “Try and sleep soon.”
“Yes Ma.”
As she drifted into sleep, Ma prayed that his hope should remain unfulfilled.
~*~
The night of his twenty first birthday, Clay followed his worn path to the sea. He wanted to give Zara a message. His foot stumbled in a rut, and he winced, flames of pain licking at his sore abdomen. The boys had shown him few kindnesses that afternoon. Robert and Frank’s boots had bruised his head. There had been a moment under the bloody sun when he’d imagine Zara and his mother through the kaleidoscope of his shattered glasses.
He’d washed away the crimson from his face with stinging brine. Ma hadn’t noticed the swelling under his hair or that he’d put on his old glasses. He almost wished she had, though she was powerless to help him. Her pleas to the boys’ mothers would be met with stony faces, for her words were weightless in this village. A mother’s sins lived in her son.
Clay reached the pier’s edge. He pushed the cork tight into the bottle holding his scroll. With a wish, he tossed it out to the deep. The bottle was cradled in the waves now.
“May you find it on this fair night.” He whispered to the sea. No answering song met his ears.
He turned to leave; Ma worried so if he didn’t return before moonset. It was his birthday. She would have cake and rose juice and stories of his babyhood to share. He did not wish to deprive her of her small joys.
He heard footsteps, and when he looked up, he saw Robert. Three young men weaved behind him, and tendrils of whiskey scent wafted from them. Clay’s breath seemed to suspend within him but he was not afraid. Clay stood tall, and fought his destiny.
When Robert’s gang left him, Clay was broken on the shore, and impossible to save. His breath had stilled forever.
Weeping, Zara wrapped her arms around him and pulled him back into the tide. His mother who loved him should not see him like this. She caressed his beautiful waxen face and bright hair with lingering fingers. Her fair boy only lived in her memory.
Where Zara’s tears fell, his skin glowed pink under the freckles. Tear blind, she saw nothing but water. In Emarys he would be honoured.
The moving water rippled his hair, and made his chest rise and fall. Zara laid him on the coral bench and rested her head against his arm. Her tears floated onto his fingertips.
As she wept, his fingers delicately stroked her hair.
Like a dream Zara lifted her head, and saw him smiling at her. His eyes were drowsy, but his legs had grown into a fish tail, and when Zara laid her hand against his chest, she found a heartbeat. He was breathing the water, unsurely yet unmistakably.
“You – you are of our blood.”
“This is why I heard your song.”
She threw her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “You were broken on the shore. I brought you here to be honoured, and you returned to life. Clay, if you only knew how I had longed for you…”
“I do know. And I for you, even when I should have forgotten.”
She turned shining eyes to him. “Was it your mother or father who lived among us?”
“My father is dead. I do not know.”
“Some of us have the power to become human and live amongst your people. Some who leave never return, because a love or child binds them. I was bound to the sea because of Niamh, for she is all that remains of my husband.”
“Now, we can live as one.”
Clay rose from the bench and floated to her. She began unbuttoning his shirt. He clutched at it, laughing and licking his lips.
“Zara, what are you doing?”
“You wanted to live as one.” His mouth fell open, and she laughed silvery at his expression. “Nobody wears such coverings in Emarys, Clay.”
The tips of his ears flamed. “Oh.” He wrinkled his nose. “Fine.” Zara laughed softly, and he smiled too.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re bashful.” He touched her cheek, and her eyes widened. His lips crushed hers like velvet full of static sparks. Nothing on land or sea could come between them now.
“I told you there was hope.”
Clay turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Ma, you…”
She glided to Clay and hugged him tight. “I did not know whether my gift would live in you. Forgive me for not telling you.”
The slow smile illuminated his face. “It doesn’t matter.” Ma kissed Zara’s forehead, and she raised her eyes in gratitude. Clay took Zara’s hand and kissed it.
“Thank you for bringing us where we belong.”
the end
Tags: Clay Aiken, writing, fiction
A sorta fairytale
There is an empty little house on the outskirts of a village by the sea. Scarlet blooms flood the rutted walkway; ivy and moss hug the white stone walls. Children, who tiptoe past, tell tales of the ageless widow and her son who lived there. The town pariahs had become characters of town legend.
The son followed a song. Here is his tale.
~*~
Long ago, she rose from the sea with her child in her arms, water droplets starring her flaxen hair like diamonds. Little waves rose as she swam through the flat, inky waters. She slipped under the fallen log and curled among the almond willow’s roots, to wait. He would come soon, before moonrise.
Niamh opened her cherry mouth in a smiling yawn, eyes closing like buttons. Her mother laughed, and kissed her, holding on tight. She was too young to frolic through the waves alone, not at the surface. So she stroked Niamh’s hair, and let her silvery clear voice ascend in melody.
~*~
He came tripping over the uneven dock, skin shining in the starlight like porcelain. She felt the air rush through her frail lungs, fluttering. This was the night. He would know her.
The boy stopped at the pier’s end, panting. The song had lured him from his sleep, and he had sought its genesis for a hundred nights. He’d found nothing but the murmuring sea and the silent moon. Still he ventured to the shore, bewitched by that midnight chant. Clay Aiken always followed his voices.
“Who’s there?” Clay’s voice wavered like mist. “Who is it?” His words echoed into the boundless night and he sighed, dropping his hands against his homespun trousers. He squinted, watching the sea. Unless he was dreaming, there was something moving through the water…
“Is anyone there?”
“I am.” Clay’s breath caught in his throat and he looked around, eyes wide and darting like fish. He saw nothing but lamplight twinkling against the proud hills and the still deep below him. Had the voice been the whisper of the waves?
“Look below, fair boy.” Her voice floated on the wind, euphonic. Kneeling, Clay placed his trembling palms against the rough wood, and looked down.
It was a woman in the water, looking up at him as though he was a dream. Her hair hung in spirals of glistening gold down her shoulders and into the water. Her lissome body looked to be sculpted of soft ivory pearl, and her virescent eyes shone deep and yearning. A pretty baby girl rested her head against the woman’s shoulder.
His eyes widened, but in marvel and not disbelief. “It is you who call to me every night.” She inclined her head. Her lips trembled as she gazed at him in moonstruck wonder.
“Are you a – a” Clay fumbled for the word from memories of stories in his mother’s lap. “One of the merrow-folk?”
She twisted, raising her lacy fins into the air in assent. Droplets of water flashed golden in the starlight. He watched her, curiosity suspended in wonder.
“Have you a name?”
“Zara.” She whispered the word.
“Zara.”, he breathed. The name felt soft on his tongue. “Why have you brought me here for one hundred nights? Why do you show yourself now?” Zara’s white hand caressed Niamh as she sought words.
“I have sung for a thousand nights and none heard. You were the only one to seek me. The only one who heard, fair boy.”
He remembered the tale of Brenn, a town sailor never seen after he steered his boat toward night music. He licked his lips. “Am I chosen to die?”
She shook her head and twisted her hands into a heart, warding off bad luck. “Never. I do not know why you heard the song.”
“Why do you sing, Zara?” When he spoke her name, it sounded like an endearment.
“I love to sing. For three moons I have sung to bring you to the shore. I watched you searching for me.”
“I thought I was dreaming, or hearing the wind song.”
She smiled at him, and he felt full of light.
“Fair boy, I revealed myself tonight because this is the day you needed me.”
“Clay.” His voice was hoarse. “Call me Clay.”
“Clay, I saw you and those other boys before sunset. You were almost broken.” Now, her eyes were wide, staring into his imploringly. He reached out a hand for hers, startling at its warmth.
“They mean no real harm, Zara. They are sons of the women who hate my mother. Their stones are ill aimed. Do not trouble yourself.”
“I wanted to undo their blows as you lay on the sand.” He blinked, rubbing the red wine contusions on his arm.
“My mother salved me. Please, forget what you saw.”
Zara didn’t speak, but her eyes were eloquent. Clay knew that she would hold his every expression in memory. He lifted a knee; it was sore from his genuflection, and chilled by the cold wood.
“The tyke – your little one is very pretty.”
Clay thrilled when her face blossomed into a smile. “Her name is Niamh. It means radiance. I named her because she is like a little golden pearl. Like your sun.” Niamh slept, pillowed against her mother’s skin and rocked by the waves.
“She’s darling.” Zara trembled under his unspoken spell, wistful tears wanting to fill her eyes. The sight of the sky broke her enchantment. The stolen hours had almost waned. She dared not linger.
“Clay, I must return.”
“Wait. You will come back to see me again.”
“I shall try.” He held her gaze captive.
“You will. Please.”
“I have sung for you these hundred nights. I will not leave you now.” Zara moved away from the pier, barely rippling the surface.
“How will I know if you have returned?”
“Listen for me, as you always do.” She lowered herself so that only her head floated above the water, and the baby was already immersed. “Farewell.” She kissed her fingers to him and Clay watched her sink into her universe.
~*~
If Zara’s call had been alluring before, it became irresistible now. Clay spent days teaching the children, and nights at the pier, listening to his Scheherazade. Some nights she brought Niamh, others, she came alone. Clay liked it better when she was unaccompanied, unburdened. Then, her smiles were untroubled, and she would listen to Clay speak of the children he taught and the way they all quieted when he sang them songs.
Zara, who often sung him tales of the sea, told him that his voice must be enchantment, and begged him to sing for her. He protested, but one evening, he relented, and the night was full of his melody. Zara was bewitched.
One morning I rambled down by the sea shore
The wind it did whistle and the waters did roar
I heard some fair maiden give a pitiful cry
It sounded so lonesome, it swept off on high
I never will marry, I'll be no man's wife
I expect to live single all the days of my life
The shells in the ocean shall be my death-bed
While the fish in deep water swim over my head
She cast her fair body in the water so deep
And closed her pretty blue eyes forever to sleep.
When Clay’s voice faded into the stillness, Zara’s lips trembled.
“Did I sing it wrong? I’m sorry, I’ve never sung to anyone alone, I mean to a woman alone, you were my first; I was coltish and couldn’t help it, Zara--”
He was silenced by her unspoken plea, her stricken gaze crying for absolution. “It was enchanting.” Clay watched her fine hands twist like seaweed. Her voice shook. “Thank you. You were beautiful but I – I musn’t.”
She rose so far from the sea that only her fins grazed the water, and tried to kiss his cheek. Clay turned. Zara’s kiss crashed against his mouth and filled him with surrender. She tasted not of salt but of something sweet, something lingering like rose juice. He wanted to let her lead him into the swirling depths and awaken where she would always be.
She broke out of his embrace and cried in alarm as he almost tumbled into the sea. She steadied him, fearing his feverish glazed eyes.
“Zara – I must come with you. I must. Take me with you.” The words rose unbidden from his breathless throat.
“I cannot.” Her voice was broken, wistful. “Stay and live, fair boy. I can give you nothing.”
“But I need you.” Dazzled by the tears in his eyes, Clay leaned forward as Zara sank into the sea.
“Because you kissed me, you will always pine. It is a cursed magic. But you will live. You cannot die of longing.”
“Yet you have made me love the sea that was once my enemy. Surely there is blessed magic in that.”
“It is a white curse.” The tears finally escaped Zara’s eyes. “Forget me. Someday I hope the wind will bring you a new love. I can never be yours.” All she could hear was his exquisite, scraping breath.
No fury marred his voice, only a fog. “Then all this was for naught.” She shook her head.
“Not to me. Sometimes a memory is all we are given, fair boy.”
Zara let Clay enfold her hand in his, and hallow it with a kiss. “Farewell.”
“Blessed be.”, she whispered. And lingering, Zara pulled her hand away and sank back into the sea. Clay watched the ripples of her golden hair trail behind her as he first tasted the bitterness of eternity.
~*~
Clay lay awake many a night, longing to hear faraway music. It never came. He went on teaching, but the glamour of his dream had left his eyes. He was empty, only smiling over his little scholars but never singing.
His mother watched him, seeing the lag in his step and lethargy of his once beaming smile. She knew what must entrap him, she, too, had been lovelorn. When a slice of lima bean pie went uneaten, she pushed away the stack of books before him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Clay?” He lifted his desolate gaze to his Ma’s beloved old face, puckered with sorrows for him.
“Yes Ma.”
“Are you well? You’ve been so quiet and when you were a child, quiet was the first sign of an ill wind.”
“I might have a chill.”
“I don’t wonder that you do, when you go traipsing to the seaside every sunset and coming home with wet feet.”
He shook his head, as gold drops of lamplight bounced against the wall. “I don’t stay long anymore.”
“Good. You’re too busy these days to play by the shore. But you’ve done good work with the children. You ought to be proud.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Then you mustn’t sorrow so. Unless you’re figuring on becoming a poet. Then you may muse all you please.” She ruffled his rusty locks, and he giggled.
“Mama.”
“There’s my leprechaun smile.” Ma smiled back. “Won’t you tell your Ma what’s troubling you? Is it the boys?”
“No.” He caught the truth before he could tell it. “I haven’t seen them.” His palm touched the flannel sheltering the dark, distorted flower that bloomed keenly against his ribs.
“I’m glad. Is it little Brigid you’re worrying over? Her mother has left old Tom. She and Brigid are quite safe at Fiona’s.”
“I know. She told me today.” He gave Ma a tiny smile.
“If it is not the boys or Brigid who are the trouble, it must be a woman. Which girl is fortune’s favourite? Is it Eileen? Or her sister Mary? They’re both such lovely girls, and you were sweet on them at school.”
“Ma, they’re lovely girls, but they’re fancying Matthew.”
“Patricia then. Or Kimberly. Such lovely smiles…”
“Ma, let it be. It’s not them.” His laughter trailed like a cord of pearls. “Nor is it Meredith or Anastasia or Janet or Kelly or any of our village beauties.”
“Then who?”
“Her name is Zara. She lives in Emarys.” Ma’s eyes widened.
“Emarys.” Her voice was buoyant with wonder.
“It’s a small town far from here. She came visiting one night in spring.” The remembrances shimmered in his eyes like fountains. “She sings like a si—like a nightingale.”
“I’m sure she does.” Her voice caught, like gossamer on a rose thorn. “What has happened to make you lovelorn?”
“Her universe is not mine. I can never see her again.” Clay leaned his cheek on his hand. Ma heard what he left unsaid.
“Never lose hope.” Ma leaned over her tall son and kissed his forehead. “If you’re so bewitched, there’s a hope for you and this girl of Emarys.”
“Oh Ma.”
“Eat your pie. You’re frail.” She patted his shoulder. “Try and sleep soon.”
“Yes Ma.”
As she drifted into sleep, Ma prayed that his hope should remain unfulfilled.
~*~
The night of his twenty first birthday, Clay followed his worn path to the sea. He wanted to give Zara a message. His foot stumbled in a rut, and he winced, flames of pain licking at his sore abdomen. The boys had shown him few kindnesses that afternoon. Robert and Frank’s boots had bruised his head. There had been a moment under the bloody sun when he’d imagine Zara and his mother through the kaleidoscope of his shattered glasses.
He’d washed away the crimson from his face with stinging brine. Ma hadn’t noticed the swelling under his hair or that he’d put on his old glasses. He almost wished she had, though she was powerless to help him. Her pleas to the boys’ mothers would be met with stony faces, for her words were weightless in this village. A mother’s sins lived in her son.
Clay reached the pier’s edge. He pushed the cork tight into the bottle holding his scroll. With a wish, he tossed it out to the deep. The bottle was cradled in the waves now.
“May you find it on this fair night.” He whispered to the sea. No answering song met his ears.
He turned to leave; Ma worried so if he didn’t return before moonset. It was his birthday. She would have cake and rose juice and stories of his babyhood to share. He did not wish to deprive her of her small joys.
He heard footsteps, and when he looked up, he saw Robert. Three young men weaved behind him, and tendrils of whiskey scent wafted from them. Clay’s breath seemed to suspend within him but he was not afraid. Clay stood tall, and fought his destiny.
When Robert’s gang left him, Clay was broken on the shore, and impossible to save. His breath had stilled forever.
Weeping, Zara wrapped her arms around him and pulled him back into the tide. His mother who loved him should not see him like this. She caressed his beautiful waxen face and bright hair with lingering fingers. Her fair boy only lived in her memory.
Where Zara’s tears fell, his skin glowed pink under the freckles. Tear blind, she saw nothing but water. In Emarys he would be honoured.
The moving water rippled his hair, and made his chest rise and fall. Zara laid him on the coral bench and rested her head against his arm. Her tears floated onto his fingertips.
As she wept, his fingers delicately stroked her hair.
Like a dream Zara lifted her head, and saw him smiling at her. His eyes were drowsy, but his legs had grown into a fish tail, and when Zara laid her hand against his chest, she found a heartbeat. He was breathing the water, unsurely yet unmistakably.
“You – you are of our blood.”
“This is why I heard your song.”
She threw her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “You were broken on the shore. I brought you here to be honoured, and you returned to life. Clay, if you only knew how I had longed for you…”
“I do know. And I for you, even when I should have forgotten.”
She turned shining eyes to him. “Was it your mother or father who lived among us?”
“My father is dead. I do not know.”
“Some of us have the power to become human and live amongst your people. Some who leave never return, because a love or child binds them. I was bound to the sea because of Niamh, for she is all that remains of my husband.”
“Now, we can live as one.”
Clay rose from the bench and floated to her. She began unbuttoning his shirt. He clutched at it, laughing and licking his lips.
“Zara, what are you doing?”
“You wanted to live as one.” His mouth fell open, and she laughed silvery at his expression. “Nobody wears such coverings in Emarys, Clay.”
The tips of his ears flamed. “Oh.” He wrinkled his nose. “Fine.” Zara laughed softly, and he smiled too.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re bashful.” He touched her cheek, and her eyes widened. His lips crushed hers like velvet full of static sparks. Nothing on land or sea could come between them now.
“I told you there was hope.”
Clay turned at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Ma, you…”
She glided to Clay and hugged him tight. “I did not know whether my gift would live in you. Forgive me for not telling you.”
The slow smile illuminated his face. “It doesn’t matter.” Ma kissed Zara’s forehead, and she raised her eyes in gratitude. Clay took Zara’s hand and kissed it.
“Thank you for bringing us where we belong.”
the end
Tags: Clay Aiken, writing, fiction
