Sea Story Part Two
Posted: Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
14 comments |
Weak sunlight, filtering in through the window, woke her and for a moment she wasn`t aware, really, where she was...still in the dreaming world her mind lingered for a space, and flashes of images played their way across her mind before vanishing in the mundanity of her room...sea green eyes, deep, bone chilling water and a flash of fin in the darkness ahead of her...
Stretching, she got up, aware at once of the lack of her hound...no whine to be let out for the morning, no bright eyes staring frankly at her asking so blatantly for food, no skittering paws across the kitchen floor til she reached her dish and began to nose it across the tiles til it reached her feet...
That emptiness gave rise to such a fierce pang of loss...
swiftly, she saw to the other beasts, feeding, watering, tending, on autopilot, not chatting to them as she normally would whilst the hound ran around the field and byres investigating every new scent and every nook and cranny as she`d done the past hundred times...
Skipping breakfast, she changed her clothes and wrapped against the chill morning air, walked out the door and was about to set off down the track to the road when a tang of salt caught her and stayed her from taking another step..salt where there should be none. Outside her window...
Along the stone walkway that passed the length of the house, she walked to the window and stooped to lift a still damp piece of seaweed from the path...
fresh still, as if it had come straight from the sea...but how could it have gotten here..she was three quarters of a mile from the sea, with fields, a track and road between house and ocean...
And she looked, past the walkway, onto the lawn, seeing the trail of seaweed cross the grass, go through the rose hedge and beyond...
So, what to do, but follow the trail....
Only, whatever had made it must have been impervious to rose thorns, for she had to detour around the hedge, and climbed the fence into the field, picking up the weed as she went, not looking up, just lost in the strange fascination for a trail that shouldn`t be, here...
The seaweed stopped at the fields end beside the bottom of her track...puzzled, she looked around, seeking more, seeking a point to this...and doing so, a flash of black caught the corner of her eye...and running, dropping the bundle of weed, she reached the ditch and looked, her heart in her throat...
And let out a high keening, kneeling, for there in front of her was her beloved hound, a black and white, twisted and bloody mess....
Dry eyed and pale, she lifted the body of the collie out of the ditch, stiff and unyielding, and laid it on the grass before her.
Whilst part of her mind grieved for the loss of her hound, her friend, her eyes saw the injuries, those inflicted, so obviously, by a passing car, too swift to stop and too uncaring to return and pick up the collie, look for the owner.
Carrying the body of the hound home, she never saw the eyes within the waves watch her progress, never saw the slice of fin cut the waves, never saw the shifting shadows under the water as they followed her progress slowly up the track, around the corner, and into one of the byres...
In the gloom of the byre she laid the hound down, gently, on the straw covered floor. Motes of dust spun lazily in the light filtered through the beams overhead, glittering and sparkling as they landed on the dirty, bloody coat of the hound.
She felt empty. All night..all night the collie had lain in that ditch...had she suffered? Was she killed outright? All night...as she had lain with her head on her arms, dreaming of seafolks and strange glowing eyes...
Moving heavily, dry eyed, she draped a barley feed bag over the body and went to fetch the spade.
It took her an hour to dig, in the stony soil of the garden, a space big enough for the hound. By that time, the haar had risen from the sea and rolled across the island, and she shivered in the chill without realising.
She planted the spade in the soil beside the hole and went to fetch the hound.
Wrapped in the barley bag, she carried the hound out to the garden with difficulty...bumping into the doorway of the byre and those to the outside with a grisly knock of paw against wood, claw scraping like it never would again, upon the tiles of the kitchen floor...
She laid the hound in the grave, and turned the collies face to the North, 91热爆, and clipped a few strands from the rose hedge to lay upon the still bloody coat...and without even thinking,nor aware of passing time, she shovelled the dirt back in, over the once sleek coat, over the dulled eyes, the still shining nose, over the now flattened ears...
patting the last shovelful of earth into place, she straightened up and looked at the small mound. In a few weeks, weeds would grow over the wound of the soil, grass would thrive as the hound bled nutrients back to the earth, death making the patch of ground fertile again.
But she felt as if nothing would thrive in her heart again. Now, she had no-one...
and still dry eyed, she put the spade away, and attended to work and the tasks of the day, always aware of the lack of her hound at her heels.
And the sun rode across the skies and twilight came, before she allowed herself to stop for food.
Half eaten, she lifted the plate back through to the kitchen, and it wasn`t until she realised she was piling dog food into the bowl and reaching for the dog biscuits, that the tears came, hot and scalding and running down her cheeks and down onto her neck, and she leant upon the countertop and grieved, quietly but fiercely, for the loss of a friend.
Until the tears stopped....
and with a heavy weariness, she left the dishes in the sink, and unable to bear the silence of the empty house, she lifted her coat from the peg by the door and put it on as she began to walk down the track to the road, towards the shore.
Darkness fell quickly, but she needed no torch, a familiar road this was, and there was a moon, pale and bloated overhead, and she let her feet slip and slide over the stones and onto the hard sand of the beach.
Where before, she would have walked the length of the shoreline, collie chasing waves ahead or rabbits in the marram grass, she got a yard or so and felt it futile..what the hell was she doing here, this time of night anyway?
So she sat upon the sand, not minding the damp of it, and gazed at what she could see, out to the water where the moon laid a silver path, tiny waves dancing and shimmering softly.
An hour, perhaps, she sat there, and the moon shifted his own path across the waters, and she let her mind drift, through her worries, her cares, her hurts, through her memories, bright and dark, until she reached that quiet place where only a dull awareness exists.
And her grey eyes looked out, still, over the waters.
And watched, fully five minutes, the green glow of other eyes gaze back at hers, before what she saw registered, before awareness came back to her....
rising slowly, she walked toward the shoreline...the green eyes never wavered, but kept upon hers, just beneath the surface of the water...and fixed upon them, she reached the waveline and stopped, trying to see what lay beneath the waves, unable to see anything except those emerald seagreen eyes, watching, steady, not bobbing or flowing with the movement of water, but still beneath it`s surface.
One blink and they flickered...then slowly, with grace, a head rose from the water...a dark shock of hair, smooth pale skin, thin lipped, expressionless, only bright watching eyes alive in that face, watching her....
and that face moved forward, toward her and she saw strong shoulders, gills, and along the ridge of the back, spiked fins, glistening, shining soft and silken..webbed fingers pulled the figure forward toward her until he stood up from the waters, a naked, gilled, finned creature, human but not, of the sea depths, skin shining with iced and chilled droplets of water, and he walked toward her, not speaking, that strange, smooth, expressionless face, eyes on hers...
Maybe she dreamt? Maybe that was all that kept her there? Whatever it was, she wasn`t ready to be grasped and dragged into the bone biting cold of the ocean, the shock of the chill making her gasp and finally, cry out, trying to pull back, feeling the strength of that wet grip upon her arm, feeling the rush of water and the tug of current around her legs, then her hips....
Struggling, she tried with every ounce of strength to pull away, gasping with the cold of the water, panting with fear, sobbing to be away from this waking nightmare..but the creature walked on relentlessly, never releasing his grip, sliding through the water as if it were air, not heeding her cries nor struggles.
As she felt the weight of the water in her clothing, she felt the panic of approaching death, and drowning, and began to scream...
at that, the creature turned, and silenced her simply, by placing one webbed finger against his own lips...a shhussshhh.......
in shock, it worked...and as she quietened, he put that hand behind the back of her head, almost caressing her hair, and with one hand on her arm, the other behind her neck, he quickly sank, pulling her down with him....
(it`s still no` finished, sorry.)
Posted on Hermit Life at 18:39
Comments
okay when the next installement? make it quick--i've just flooded the house out with my tears!!!!!
carol from knee deep in water
I can't wait until the next chapter! Was hooked this morning when reading this.
Carol from IBHQ
HL that was really good, in the same way as the first episode ... The only thing I felt I wanted to mention is the use of the word 'autopilot' when she's feeding the other animals - it jars on the senses a little and wrenches you back from her world into a much faster one ... Do you think ...?
soaplady from used to proofread many years ago ...
I'm 'panting' for more
duncan from brum
"Just a story, Barney". But a very good one, HL! Subtle flavours from "Beowulf" mixed with Sanday's own special scents. Thank you for your time and effort.
Barney from Swithiod lovin' it
Such a tantalizing story, but...why oh why must the hounds always die?
AZ from USA
AZ: good question, why?
carol from over here
perhaps the hound will 'come back' ...? that's the good thing about fables, folklore, and ethereal stories ... :-)
soaplady from remembering Bobby Ewing in Dallas ...
Soaplady:who's bobby ewing? i've never seen dallas--don't laugh its true!
carol from over here-
Oh I read that holding my breath. I nearly cried when she found the hound and then when she went to put food out for it...ah, too sad. And then you went and didn;t finish it! what happens next? what? finish it !!! (this is defnitely one of your best) XX
GerCelt from Dublin, Ireland
I echo GerCelt's post...finish it!!!!pleeeeease. ;-)
Ellie from here
Dallas was a lush and opulent (for those days anyhow) american soap opera about texas oil tycoons ... (Do you really not recall the whole 'Who Killed J.R.' thing ...?!) They killed Bobby Ewing off towards the end of the series, but at the actual end, his widow stepped out of the shower, and started telling him about this strange and very long dream she'd had about him being dead ... So he was 'revived' ... probably the first time this effect was perpetrated on telly, and it caused a fairly big hoo-ha at the time ... :-)
soaplady from feeling her age ...
oh! Bobby Ewing! The shower scene, woohoo! I remember it all well...HUGE Dallas fan here..Carol, it was from an eighties series about wealthy Texas oil barons...all big hair, shoulder pads and the brilliant Larry Hagman with a laugh that always made me grin....showing me age now, I am. SL, you`re right about the `autopilot`, that was me writing on it though, hee..couldn`t think of another word to fit. ;-)
Hermit from Sanday
Soaplady and HL: of course i've heard of "dallaas"falcon creast" but i am not a television fan and my husband would have changed channels if a "soap came on" Even now,being widowed i put the box on for the news which 8 times out of Ten i end up following asleep except for a "telematin" which is on french tv from 6h30 til 9h45 which is mainly news its about the only programe i watch from start to finish
carol from over here
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