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Arabeth dreamed she was on a sinking ship and when she woke, she knew her love had died.
For the next week, she braved the southern winds to stand at the edge of a bluff overlooking the sea. The mists of early morning, waves below obscured, lifted by midday to reveal... nothing. Nothing of note, at least; water and more water rippling like millions of kite tails all the way to the horizon.
Several village women took up to her baskets filled with smoked salmon, dried blueberries, and roasted turnips. They stood beside Arabeth with woolen scarves wrapped high around their necks, caps pulled low, winter coating them as a lark's song paints the morning.
They took turns keeping vigil for the most vigilant among them. Arabeth dreamed their men's ship had sunk. They all knew what this meant. They all had someone to mourn, and all of them bore the same stubborn hope, a hope they'd held before.
This was not the first of Arabeth's dreams...
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The first dream came months ago when the southerly winds blew a gentle breeze over the slope their village was nestled in and the days were as long as the nights were now. Their men had been out past Agate Island, a treacherous part of the sea that took pride in turning the island's young women into young widows. Arabeth had woken in the hazy heat of midsummer, her fingertips blue and numb, as cold as the ocean floor. She knew then, as inexplicably as she knew now, that her husband's ship had capsized during a storm.
All was lost... except for a stubborn belief that it wasn't.
Arabeth climbed to the top of the bluff that summer morning and looked out in the direction of Agate Island. It was farther than the eye could see but it wasn't eyes with which she sought her lost love, her dear Rob. She stood there until a woman named Kale spied her while washing laundry in a stream at the bluff's base. Kale revealed later that at first, she'd thought Arabeth to be one of the deities painted in time before memory deep within the caves that lined the shore; her dark hair shimmered like the moonlit surface of the ocean.
It had been Kale who questioned her, who found out about the dream, and that her brother, Eagan, on board the ship with Arabeth's dear Rob, had most certainly perished. Kale denied the possibility, of course. It was just a dream. She told the other women, the old men, the young children – anyone who would listen: Arabeth had a bad dream, a nightmare she wished upon the whole village by making of it more than what it was.
Arabeth asked the wives, the sisters, the mothers and fathers of her dear Rob's crewmates for two things; the mirror from the village's common house. And patience. Out of bemusement as well as love for their sweet, eccentric, misguided Arabeth, they granted her request.
Arabeth carried their mirror, framed in driftwood, down from the cliffs and out onto the beach. She stood with her bare toes curling into the sand of the tidelands. Holding the mirror to her chest, she angled it up to catch the sun, shining its light out towards Agate Island, towards the ocean grave of a village's young men.
Through the coming years, Kale would recount many times how Arabeth appeared like an ancient one, her gaze set, chin moving up and down as she spoke words no one could hear over the lap of waves against shore.
After watching Arabeth for a long while, it became apparent she would do no more than stand there holding the mirror, skirt wicking seawater up its linen folds as the tide came in, only to dry in stiff ridges as the waters receded again. The villagers left the beach, going back to their daily tasks unchanged by Arabeth's solemn determination to do something they could not understand. Still, that night they peered from their thatched-roof houses at Arabeth's silhouetted form as she continued her beachside vigil. Then there was the slightest doubt planted in their minds, the what ifs that accompanied a reality in which Arabeth's belief in the truthfulness of her dream was not delusional; a reality in which it was right.
When dawn came, Arabeth picked up the mirror she had set aside for the night and turned it towards the sun once more, aiming its rays as best she could towards far off Agate Island. Kale brought her a basket filled with bread and hardboiled eggs. She cracked the eggs for Arabeth, coated the bread with butter and handed everything to her in bite-sized chunks so the mirror could remain in position while its mistress ate. At noon, Sariah and her son, Brynn, brought her boiled potatoes from their garden.
People came and went, but there were fewer smiles now, less laughing, and more wonderment. It had been a day-and-a-half and still Arabeth would not quit, would not let go of this silly notion of hers. Her seriousness began to wear on the town. It began to wear off as well. By the next morning, a group comprised of over half the villagers gathered on the bluff where Arabeth had stood. Set upon their goal, they made their way down to the beach. Arabeth waited, sniffling and twitching her sunburnt nose. Two days at her post and the salty air never ceased its sting.
Enough of this, the villagers said to her. You can't possibly know what you can't know. Sariah's son, almost old enough to go to sea himself, made to grab for the mirror, but Kale held him back.
There is no need for violence, the villagers told him. They turned to Arabeth, heads cocked in false sympathy. But we need this to end.
Arabeth, who knew what they couldn't possibly know, knew also that this would end. She continued to repeat the words she'd chanted for the past two days, but now she said them in a voice intended to carry over the ocean.
"The depths can no longer hold you."
Those simple words, spoken by a voice made hoarse from days spent on the edge of the sea, held a quiet power.
Everyone stilled; out on the horizon, a brown speck appeared. The morning wore on and the speck grew until there was no question that it was the ship and with it, their men. They had returned earlier than expected, but still, they had returned. Arabeth had been proven wrong. Even she must be happy that was so.
The ship dropped anchor; weary men slowly made their way to shore. When they set foot on sand, their wives, their sisters, their mothers and fathers, the whole village embraced them. How happy they were that their men had made it home safely. They'd had a scare – side eyes in Arabeth's direction – but all was well now.
Their joy was nearly complete until one of them, Kale's brother, Eagan, looked around him and in a voice that cut through the crashing waves, said, "How long was I dead?"
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Author's note: This story was originally included in an anthology that no longer exists. I've been meaning to give it a home on my profile for a while now, so here it is. It's a short piece, just under 4,000 words, and I'll be posting it in four parts. I hope you enjoy it and thank you so much for reading!
