Chapter 30 Storm’s Edge
Storm’s Edge
That brass lock never moved again. It seemed that Lir was never far off from the shoreline, even through the murky black water I could see his glow outstretching from the tumultuous sea foam.
This morning, I come down to find a fresh fish Lir has brought home for our meal.
Its scales mirror the colors of different glass bottles he’s found out in the ocean, their blue and green hues bounce prisms around the inner lighthouse halls, warming the gray and brown bricks into a secret garden of light.
We like to read the far away places and factories pressed into their glass.
How far away were these manufactured, in both distance and time?
To think of the vastness of the world, surprisingly it doesn't make me feel smaller, but like the tides are stretching their arms out to bring the world directly to me.
Lir has a special penchant for finding bottles with notes trapped inside. They often pique his interest in the human world, listening intently as I read him sorrowful love letters of hope and desperation. To find some small outreach that could cure the disease of lonesomeness.
He is always more and more curious about human love and human care.
Though I am also inquisitive about his world, he always changes the subject to some shipwreck or great sea creature migration he had tacked onto.
Looking out into the never ending lapis depths which consumes up everything it can, I get the feeling he is keeping something from me.
Maybe he thinks there is no place for the two of us in the sea’s cold arms. I fidget the letter in my hands, trying to keep my anxiety lulled with the texture of the worn paper.
“Humans seem pretty stupid sometimes,” he exclaims after listening to me read another heartbroken note.
I scoff, “Oh, yeah? What brings you to that conclusion?” I ask as I re-roll the paper into its bottle, tucking it back into its home with care.
“They have all this love in them, or at least the desire for it. Enough to throw this bottle out begging for anyone to find it, to understand them—but all they do is fight with the people right next to them. At first it was swords, then cannons and now bombs.”
I have to agree with him. I’ve seen the atrocities of one war, I can only imagine what Lir has seen across the world thus far in his long life.
“Andrea, why do they destroy everything? I could understand if it was in the name of anything that mattered but money or power? They all seem pointless compared to the damage inflicted on the world and on themselves.”
I wish I had answers for him but I don’t. I too want the world to be a perfect place, one without heartbreak and death, but if it was—well, then I wouldn’t be on this island in the first place.
“I find it all stupid too, Lir. That’s why I came out here. It’s hard though, just like you can see from all these notes, humans need love. Babies born and not held will whither away. Don’t mermaids need love, Lir?” Our faces now close together again. I’m searching for that answer in his eyes.
He looks out at the ocean, lost in thought. I know not if it is the waves that mirror the churning of his thoughts or by some magical way the other way around.
“Wouldn’t you love your child, Lir?”
The speed in which his neck whips towards me could blow sails into tatters. His eyes widen as if he’s never even considered the thought. “A child?”
“Yes, you know. It looks like you or me, but—” Moving my hands about a foot apart. “But, smaller.”
“I have always wanted—“ His words fall short though, pausing he looks down at the kelp swirling around him, at the school of tiny fish that swim by his hip.
“I have always wanted, to share with someone—“ His grin upturns at the corner like someone is pulling on it with a fishing hook.
“With now—you. I want to share how beautiful, and kind…and good the world actually is, how it could be. A world that is so much more than everything you have or have not been offered on land.” Grasping my hands, the cold water only stings for a moment before his warmth scorches through it.
“I would want to show every iteration of you that new world.
I want—“ In his eyes I can see that world, I can see it spiral into infinity.
“A family.”
I start to tear up, picking up a warm stone no larger than a florin. I cradle it in both my palms even though it isn’t heavy in weight, but because it is still a burden to hold.
“Are we a family even if it ever just the two of us. There were almost two Eli’s—but, they both died in water, water of the sea and water of my womb.
” My hands shake as I release the pebble into the pool of water, watching it drop into darkness that I cannot see the bottom of.
“You’ve said mermaids are difficult to make—but perhaps, so are Andreas. ”
“Oh, Andrea.” His thumb traces my jaw which quivers ever so slightly.
“Yes, we are still a family. Even if it is just one of us wandering the earth or ocean, even if we have been completely forgotten by time because there was no one to pass on the memory of our names. We would still be connected you and I.” His hands fill mine, replacing the stone.
“Don’t you think? Even if is actually I who cannot give that to you not the other way round?
“I think Lir—that we are no less valuable. For a branch, without fruit—was no less apart of the tree.”
Squeezing once again, I rest my cheek on top of our intertwined hands. With my eyes closed, I whisper to him a promise. “I will be your family, Lir.”
Even if it’s a promise I can’t keep—No, even if we do have to part someday. Just as he says, even if oceans, land and time moves between us, I will always have some part of myself now with Lir.
Moving from those far off places in the world he speaks of, I can tell a warm breeze is picking up.
A strong spring storm building within the billowing clouds rolling in.
They are rutting their hooves like bulls preparing to charge upon our defenseless shore.
My job is more important than ever now. I wish I could drag Lir into my hiding hole atop the lighthouse but we are still divided by doorways he is now too large to fit within, along with stairs and my duty to the lens.
“I’m going to swim down deep while this storm passes, it’s the safest place for me so I don't end up back caught in the rocks,” he replies to my thoughts.
My eyes trace all the scars left behind along his body and fin.
“This channel will probably become a crashing river when the tide comes this far, so you might not see me for a few days, a week…” Our eyes lock in this sensible goodbye.
“But, as you are safe at the top of your post, I am safe sleeping at the bottom of the sea, watching the waves go by from deep depths below.” He wipes a tear from my cheek and licks it up from his thumb.
”And do not cry, or fret, or worry—because I will be soundly dreaming of you. ”
We kiss softly, the ambient space between us feels electro-charged as the warm air meets the cold sea and our lips part away.
He begins to swim down our moat into the ocean, but turns back to wave and yell, “Guide all those ships safely, Andrea! Don’t let a boat crash into me while I’m trying to nap on the bottom, okay? ”
Through the bitter sweet frog in my throat, I am able to squeak out a laugh as I scream, “Don’t crash into the big ass rock again! You’ve got the whole ocean to turn around in!”
He disappears into the depths, his tail like a shooting star fading and burning up into the everlasting cobalt twilight.
The wind begins to howl through every protruding shard on the island, catching their edges to play its ominous tune.
I gather up the bottles on the porch so they don’t shatter and roll away, the ones hanging from the covered eve clink and clank begging to not be forgotten.
After latching but not locking the front door from Lir, I run upstairs to shut the windows now blowing salt and book pages around the bedroom.
The generator must be filled before I start up my post, candlelight will be useless in this storm.
The window sill drafts will keep any candle from staying lit and I will have to rely on the light of the lens itself tonight.
The waves grow in their speed and size, similar to that of the storm which crash landed Lir here in the first place.
They encompass the lighthouse in a cruel wedding veil of resounding blasts.
My shoulders sit above my ears, braced for every crash and bang.
Every knick knack and bottle hums in vibration within the staircase, turning the entire lighthouse into an echo chamber of fear. We all shake in our boots together.
I watch the water for any signs of life, any glowing fleck as my light scans its treacherous godly wrestling matches. It is as if heaven and sea must battle for which will rule over the earth, both pushing as hard as they can at their exact meridian.
It goes on for days, the sun never shines, the stars never show their little faces.
My job ends at day break, but what if it never rises again out of this churning storm?
Am I to shepherd the lost herd of nothingness forever.
The theory of boats begins to break my brain, I start to see ones that aren’t even there, ghosts of time as they pass along the horizon.
Even the seagulls, with Little Bird along with them, have moved to further isles to haunt a soul who can still be taunted within this reality, not just some lighthouse keeper trapped within this alternate state of never ending darkness in this storm that seems to go on into infinity.
Here it’s only me—and the lighthouse, the radio static—
And, the occasional glimpses of that ominous orange light out at the furthest stretch of the horizon.