Anneliese

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“He smiled, and his face was like the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The sea witch’s name was Raven. She sat by the hearth, winding twine into poppets while I hid in the corner, tiny and trembling; I didn’t know where I was. She said she was named after the birds of her homeland, and opened a mouldering book to show me a photograph. She was patient. Gentle. Finally betrayed by curiosity, I peeked out from my hiding place.

‘Took this from a fine young man,’ she said. Her ancient eyes twinkled just like the bird’s in the picture, wide and wild and cunning. ‘A seafarer. A beautiful one.’

She gave me pringlea in cold broth and said that the sailor had had a broad nose, and strong hands, and mumbled in his sleep. She loved him. But he loved the ocean more than her, and so she took his compass, blankets and books. She had taken the chairs, pots and tables of the shack from the duchess, with lovely lips and hair so soft it felt like down. The fine woman had been lost at sea.

The windchimes—they had been made by the selkies.

Raven brought me blankets. They smelled like her: of sweat, earth, and decay. She told me stories of her heartaches. I played with the pretty birds in their cages. My fear dwindled with the weeks as I began to feel sad for her.”
― Christy Anne Jones, The Mercy of Sea Foam

“Time does not exist for the island that the conquerors missed.

If you walk the wrong way around the island quickly enough, time will turn backwards.

But I could never make it. At a brisk pace, the frail bones of my shins would pinch; my body was not meant to move that way. Whenever I made it past the needle rock, the one at the top of the island’s strange hill, I would collapse. My ruined body crumpled in the ancient grass, the damp, salty air stinging my cheeks and lips, tasting of forgotten sea shanties sung by dead sailors whose bodies sink, still, somewhere, not too far from here.

Today, I meandered across the rocks and craggy cliffs, passing the home of the prehistoric petrel, whose beak is hooked like the pterodactyl’s; the albatross, wider than waves; the mischievous skua, claiming the carcasses of her siblings from the sand. When summer returns, the king penguins will roar back, covering the beach like burnt breadcrumbs under melted butter.

Today, like every day, I found myself drawn to the sand. I sat. I waited. I watched the waves and listened to the language of the sea.

What else was there to do when my tasks were complete?

Beneath that chorus was the dull ringing of windchimes, mildly muffled by the bellow of waves assaulting the sand. I noticed how long it had been since I’d noticed that eldritch melody.

The routine fractured.

I saw something far out in the water.”
― Christy Anne Jones, The Mercy of Sea Foam