DARKNESS SETTLES ON ROOFS AND WALLS
BUT THE SEA, THE SEA, THE DARKNESS CALLS
THE LITTLE WAVES, WITH THEIR SOFT, WHITE HANDS
EFFACE THE FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS
Boudika rises dripping from the sea; in a wild toss of her head she displaces dangling strings of kelp and, gnarls of fishbone. The woman who once kept her mane cropped so close no longer bothers with such aesthetic concerns; no; the copper-bright strands hang limp and tangled. She snorts once, twice, three times—and each exhalation sprays saltwater from the orifices. It drips from her eyes and she tosses her head, shakes her body, sends droplets flying wayward through the air.
One might assume the transition from water to land is shocking, or disorienting. But Boudika carries her momentum from the surf, striding out into a gallop as her hooves hit the shore. Each long stretch is thunderous, powerful—and as she runs free and bright along that summer shore, she catches an unexpected scent; it fills her nostrils on a breeze and is then gone, but not before she jerks to a stop.
The water horse may never grow accustomed to the visceral urge to hunt; the bloodlust that fills her with strange, primordial hunger. Boudika staves it off with fish, seals, sharks, and always the wistful hunger returns for more, more, more. The kelpie licks her lips and abandons the shoreline, venturing into a fortress of cliff-tossed rocks. They are jagged; the sand squelches underfoot; gulls careen overhead. The world, for Boudika, remains in sharp focus. It is not difficult to follow the tracks of another horse and, after a few minutes, Boudika trails the other mare to where she wanders toward the mainland—
Words fit poorly in Boudika’s mouth. The sea is singing, singing, singing her back—but somehow, choked with water, with want for something irresistible, Boudika asks tremblingly, beautifully:
“Hello. Are you new here?” Boudika does not know what strange instinct drives her; she presses closer, lifts her head. Her ears twitch and face toward the mare, and for all intents and purposes her body language is open, nearly inquisitive. There is something foreign about the mare, something Boudika imagines she once expressed herself; and yet she bears all the markings, the fins, of a water horse.
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