WAVES
“This I hold true, as God be my
witness,” the sailor declared, slamming his palm upon the table. A regrettable
action, as his hand landed in the middle of a large ale puddle, splashing
himself and Zachariah rather liberally. Zachariah pursed his lips, but said
nothing. His clothes were due for their bi-weekly wash as it were. Besides, his landlady was sure to scold him
for sousing himself with the drink, whether it be on him or in him.
“Call me a
drunkard, a gadabout, even a lickspittle,” the sailor continued, wiping his
hand on his shirt, but not without first licking off the ale upon his palm.
“But a liar never, for the seas hold a great many wonders undreamt by these who
never venture out by ship. Any who say I
bear false witness had better procure proof most indisputable that he were
there as well, or he shall find himself sporting a blackened eye and perhaps
worse.” The sailor paused, squinting around the smoky interior of the pub. When
he spied the serving-maid, he let out a bellow. “Ho there another pint of ale
for me and-” he peered at Zachariah. Zachariah quickly help up his
half-depleted tankard.
“I am not
in need of another draught just yet, thank you,” he assured the sailor. The
sailor grinned and called out to the serving-maid once again.
“As I said,
another pint of ale for me, and for me!” he laughed boisterously. He leaned
towards Zachariah, intending to whisper conspiratorially, but instead continued
bellowing. “I got coin enough tonight and as I may not have much time left on
this earth, I see no reason to endure the tedium of sobriety!”
Zachariah
smiled wanly. “Indeed,” he murmured, darting his glance around the crowded
interior, but any hope he might have had of relocating to another table or even
an available stool was immediately dashed. The Three Acorns was filled to
beyond capacity on this unusually cold and blustery August evening.
“Do pardon
my departure from the tale at hand,” the sailor continued, settling back into
his chair. Zachariah nodded slightly raising his eyebrows to suggest interest.
After all, there was naught better to do until he had drunk his fill.
“We were
pointed easterly, having just begun the return to home port here, which was a
good fortnight’s journey. The hour was perhaps but a score past midnight, and
the moon at nearly full wax. Being due for the end of my post up in the crow’s
nest in ten minutes, I’d already climbed out.
I spent the better part of these ten minutes hanging from the rigging
just below the nest, waiting for Slow Dick to relieve me of my watch.
This was
the happenstance which allowed me to perceive what I would well have missed had
I waited out the full watch before descending all the way down to deck. While
swinging from the rigging, I saw this flash of – well it was bright. I possess
not sufficient knowledge of the rarer hues of this world to name the specific
color I saw there in the sea, but it was a color I would know at once should I
clap my eyes upon it again.
So you may
be sure I brought all of my attention to bear upon this vision. I assure you,
sir, that this was no vision of the mind, but a vision of loveliness. As God is
my witness, there was a female in the water. She was clearly in no distress of
any kind, and she was also clearly in no clothing of any kind, if you take my
meaning.
“There she
was, swimming in the brine. The most curious thing was, she swam like no mortal
I ever saw, but more like a creature of the sea, do y’ken? Like a rather
beautiful fish. A dolphin.” The sailor sighed, shook his head and took a long
pull from his tankard. Zachariah waited a while, turning his head to study the
child who knelt in the straw a small distance away, but there came no further
discourse. Zachariah glanced back at the sailor, and started slightly to see
that the sailor was gazing at him with great interest. The sailor inclined his
head at the child, a boy.
“The boy
yours?” the sailor said, spirits now beginning to slur his speech. Zachariah
had to lean in closer to catch the words. Once done, Zachariah pressed his lips
together into thin discontent. He nodded in silent reply. The sailor leaned
back in his seat with a grunt. “Hard luck, sir. Has he been afflicted since he
was born?”
Zachariah
pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger nodding tiredly. “Yes,
and his mother did not survive the birth,” he added. “I have had the sole
burden of raising him alone.”
The sailor
exhaled loudly shaking his head. “God’s will. It may be a mystery to us, but his
Divine plan is not ours to question, sir.”
Zachariah
tipped his own tankard to see if there was any ale left. There was not. He
briefly considered calling for another but there was a sour taste in his mouth,
and it was not a result of the ale. The hour was also growing late. “I must
take my leave, sir,” he told the sailor. “The boy needs must be put to bed.”
“A good
night to you, sir,” the sailor retorted, raising his glass. Zachariah bowed
slightly, and stood. He walked over to his son, who held a stick in his hand,
drawing letters in the dirt beneath the hay. The boy’s actions could not be
called “writing” as such, for the boy did not understand language. He merely
drew the shapes he saw everywhere on signs and papers. As Zachariah bent to
grasp the boy’s shoulder, he saw what the boy had drawn: NGAKOOWL. Indeed.
The boy
turned his head, startled by his father’s touch. “Come,” Zachariah told the
boy, already knowing his words meant nothing to the child, “it is time we be on
our way.” He pulled slightly on the boy’s arm, and the child got to his feet,
dropping the stick. Good, Zachariah thought to himself, the child was tractable
this evening. He oriented himself towards the door, and then stopped. He
approached the sailor, who apparently had ordered another pair of ales for
himself and himself.
“Pardon me
sir,” Zachariah spoke inquisitively, “but you piqued my curiosity . . . what of
the woman? The one in the water?” The sailor looked up, and Zachariah blinked,
surprised at the depths of sorrow and fear within the drunken man’s eyes. In
vino veritas, Zachariah mused even as the sailor spoke with a voice raw with
private agony.
“No woman,”
the sailor said, shaking his head. “She was a siren. The Greeks spoke truly in
their stories.” Zachariah waited for the smile, the guffaw. There came none. He
nodded slowly, readjusting his grip on the increasingly restless boy.
“Very well,
if you choose to immerse yourself into alcoholic fantasy, that is your choice.
Good night,” Zachariah snapped. Before he could turn away however, the sailor
slammed his fist onto the table.
“No fantasy!
Did I not say call me a liar never? ‘Twas a siren, by sooth, and it destroyed
all the crew but me, who alone survived. And now for eight fortnights, the
damned creature has followed me from port to port. It comes here, even as we
speak, and I fear truly for this colony, for I have not found ship’s passage
from here. If it should discover me here, then there shall fall a doom upon all
of us,” the sailor nearly screamed. “Leave me be!”
Zachariah
shivered. The night air must be quite cool. However, when he turned to look at
the entrance, the door was firmly closed. Without any further waste of time or
words, Zachariah pulled his boy along with him as he stepped outside.
Later that
night, when most of the colony’s populace was abed, a shimmering creature rose
out of the water by the docks. It appeared to be a human woman, and yet not so
human that it looked out of place in the seawater. Its nostrils flared and it
bared its sharp shark like teeth as it caught the scent of its elusive quarry.
A few more sniffs informed the siren that the quarry was still present in this
colony. With a silvery laugh, the siren swam as close to the shore as possible.
Then it began to sing.
The song
filled the minds of the slumbering populace as much as it did the late-night
people, drunk and sober alike. At first, it was all the men only who rose from
their beds, from their tables, from the street gutters, to walk towards the
docks. But as they began to splash their way into the water, eyes blank and
mouths open, the siren did not see the sailor she sought amongst them. So it changed
its song. And the women and children followed.
And the last of the men, including these unable to walk on their own. These
last few; they dragged themselves to the edge of the piers and fell headlong
into the water.
Still the
sailor did not appear. The siren sang for another hour, but its quarry never
appeared. It had no way of knowing that the sailor had drank himself to death
only a few hours before, and now lay stiff and cold. The siren screamed and
gnashed its teeth. Finally, it dove underneath the water, shoving aside the
corpses of the colonists aside with fury as it headed for the deep.
In the
morning, the boy awoke. He wandered through his home, searching for his father,
but could not find him. He made a meal of the fruit and biscuits in the larder,
and then went outside to entertain himself. Within a few hours he had
ascertained that he was alone in the colony. Tears streaming down his face, he
burst into homes and frantically searched for people. He began to moan, a high
keening noise escaping from his lips continuously as he continued his vain
quest for any signs of humanity.
Nearly two weeks
later, the boy had exhausted all available edible food he could find. He had no
knowledge of preparing food or gathering edible plants or hunting, so he began
to starve.
Stomach
wracked with pain, and the crushing weight of loneliness upon his shoulders,
the boy barely had strength to divert his own attention from his plight, but he
tried. Upon discovering a penknife in one of the abandoned homes, he went
outside and carved some letters into a tree. The effort left him utterly
exhausted.
The day came
he could barely see for hunger. The sun sparkled upon the water, and he waded
into the water to drink the seawater, even though he knew that it was bad for
him. As he bent forward to scoop the briny water into his mouth, the scared,
filthy, emaciated deaf child stumbled forward and under the water. He never
rose up for air.
The colony
was still, the homes empty. All that remained were the letters the boy had
carved upon the tree: CROATOAN.
