T
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?”
..but nightmares are dreams too.
