And star and I and wind and deer,
Are in the dark together,—near,
Danaë cannot hear the whisper of magic early evening’s story-teller told her to look for on the beach. If there is a whisper of Caligo caught in the conch shells littering the shore she cannot hear it beneath the roar of the waves and the howl of the wind. Echoes of that story are still lingering in her heart like the distant drums of war telling her that she must hurry, hurry, hurry. The sand still does not whisper when her walk grows faster, and faster, and faster until she is streaking across the shore (and it feels more like through than on).
In the bellies of dead clam shells she can only see the glitter of pearls and dead caught stars bursting through the sand. Children make wishes on each of them as they press their lips in salted kisses to the dead sea creatures. The roaring sea and the howling wind carry away the words of the wishes so that she cannot catch them as she wanders between the clusters of children. But for each wish that lingers where the roar meets the howl she grows a ghost pipe in the pearl belly of a child’s treasure. In each claw of a crab that’s already started to rot she grows an orchid that blooms towards the moon instead of dappled forest light. In a tree forgotten by both the forest and the sea a redwood seedling grows by inches instead of eons.
None of the small lives in the barrel of death catch her interest as she stalks the shoreline. She’s too lost in trying to catch the whispers in the sand, in the shells, in the moonlight gathering cool as star-water on her cheeks. One ear curls towards the children playing in her wake, straining to hear a whisper of the beauty, of the secret, she cannot understand.
Danaë strains so hard that it starts to feel like hunger, and need, and wrath.
And maybe that’s why, when she stops to lay her cheek against the weathered ribcage of a whale, nothing grows from the bones she rests her cheek again. Even when her hound races away from her game of gulls to lay her sandy nose against Danaë’s hock, not even a single moon-white rose grows.
There is only hunger, only the roar of the sea and the howl of the wind, when she turns to look at the horse that joins her.
ummer is a time of love, or warmth: of peace in the world. Greenery and flowers, the fireflies and cricket-songs at night. Cloudless night skies colored like dark oceans with a myriad of stars spattered across the vast expanse. Trail and rocks alike are wet from the passing rain and moss and loamy earth are heavy on the wind. Summer is supposed to be magical, a time of life and happiness. But why is she dreaming of rotting flowers and crying ghosts?
She is still thinking about winter, because despite all that summer has to offer her, Elliana still finds that there is beauty in the way an avalanche comes hurtling down a mountain. She is a child of winter, the biggest different between herself and her summertime mother.
Elli walks along the beach. There are party goers playing games, telling stories, she can only hear murmurs of them, and still she cannot tell if it is the living or the dead in their shadows that are speaking to her. She thinks she does not care to know. She walks until her feet meet the water and she pulls back. It kisses her hooves before pulling back out, only to reach up to touch her again. ‘Like a toxic lover,’ she would think if she were older and wiser, but as it were, she sees nothing but an ocean.
What would happen if she swam out there? Would it let her pass, let her explore its depths, let her climb onto that distant horizon? Just then it grumbles and roars and it growls, and Elli who is not sure of so many things thinks no, it would never, it would never. It swallows you whole the ocean, it wants its prisoners (there are so many its prisoner already, planting sharp teeth in their gums, and coaxing fins from their bodies). But it wants more, it always wants more. It is why it gobbles ships and sings to women and prances for children to come and join it. Where it goes though—
And she sees a skeleton, arching ribs, wide and gapping. And she sees a unicorn. “I was wondering where it would take me if I let it,” she whispers and turns her gaze back to the ocean. “It seems so hungry,” she murmurs “doesn’t it?” She says, though it doesn't sound sad. Elli turns blue eyes to the unicorn. “I’ve missed you, I think.” Elliana cannot remember she stopped being so sure of things. Somewhere between a forest with a grave and boy with a magic light.
And star and I and wind and deer,
Are in the dark together,—near,
If the tide is going either in or out she cannot tell the difference in the cry of a gull as it swoops upon a crab caught in the weeds. She can read no secret in the waves where they curl upon each other and die where they race into the current. All Danaë can hear is the howl of the gulls, the laughter of true-children, and the steady lub-dub of Elliana’s heart that yet beats in the cage of her chest.
She is surprised Isolt has not yet made a freed hummingbird of it. But she finds her gladness at the hum of it a fragile, wavering thing that neither goes in or out like a tide.
Anara, indifferent to strangers, curls around her tail-blade as if the weapon is just as soft and pillow-like as the sand dimpling beneath their hooves. Part of her is jealous of the ability to be a silent thing, a predator-thing, who has no care in the world for children, or gulls, or rotten crabs with legs of ivy. If only (if only!) she could feel that same calmness bloom in her when she looks between sea and horse as if she is not counting the beats of her heart.
And if there is a secret, like the ones hidden in the bones beneath her cheek, she does not know that it turns ruby-hard in her gaze before she blinks. “It seems so because it is.” It is the same feeling, the same almost-seeming, that she can feel like an ache when the moonlight and the sun-light gorge themselves upon the spirals of her horn.
“It would take you into the black bottom of it. You would be lost with the ships, the ancient whales, and barnacles instead of lichen.” Her cheek misses the warm hardness of the rib bone when she lays her lips against Elliana’s skin. There she whispers, as she moves from neck to ear, “in the belly of the sea I would not be able to grow a rose in your heart, Elliana.” And she wonders, as she inhales and exhales against the shell of the girl’s ear, if she sounds more like a unicorn or more like the sea.
She does not say that she had thought of missing her too. Because all she has missed was the sound of a hummingbird begging for flowers instead of a gilded cage.
he moment that the gull takes the crab within its grasp, Elli’s blue eyes find it, watch it, because she knows, they both know what is to come. She wonders, on the other side, what will happen to it. Are there beaches there? Will it even know? Elli likes to think that the crab will simply wake up, find another ghostly shell to crawl into and live out the remainder of eternity, content to bury itself in the sand, without the fear of gulls any longer.
Maybe she is truly more like her mother than she thought, with the optimism that hums in her veins at such thoughts. Thoughts that hold her blue gaze to the creature until it is carried out of sight and the shiver no longer rushes down her spine. It is done—they have crossed over. And as a final ripple pierces at her chest, she knows the gull is not far behind.
She had not been searching for her or her sister, she tells herself, she had just been hoping they would cross paths. And when rubies met aquamarines, she is thankful their path (littered in poppies and Chrysanthemums) have met once more, even if beneath the arch of a rib bone. (One of the Dusk story tellers said the gods created a horse from a rib bone, and Elli tries to count them, but grows dizzy before she finishes.)
There are shadows created by the waves, and they whisper, whisper, whisper. They tell her run, run, run. Though Elliana stays, stays, stays.
She merely smiles (a drifting, wayward thing). Why does she always come so close to her? So, so close. She breathes. Imagine the shadow spirits that live at the bottom on the sea, where the light cannot touch and all that can exist are shadows themselves. “It would not be so terrible.” Her voice is as delicate as smoke rising from a fire. She takes a flower from her own mane and places it in Danaë’s. “Or maybe, I would be terrified,” she says. Blue eyes look past her shoulder and back out at that hungry, hungry sea. “What would you be?” She asks turning back to her.
In the belly of the sea I would not be able to grow a rose in your heart, Elliana.
She still imagines it, a rose instead of a heart. The delicate petals with twisting thorns around it. “Maybe not a rose,” she says, agrees, sadly, blinking her gaze away from her. “But what about a garden?”
