The Sea Witch - Part 1

A serialized short story.

This is the first short story I ever wrote.

It’s a little embarrassing to be re-releasing it so long after it was originally finished. The whole time writing it, I was high as a kite on the enthusiasm-meets-disbelief of actually having something on the end of the line—something that pulled and fought like an actual story as I tried to reel it in, something that had recognizable characters and a discernible ending when I finally landed it. An absolute rush. And I still have a great deal of affection for it: the protagonist’s voice gets stuck in my head, and there are some parts that I’m genuinely proud of.

Still—as a whole, the story betrays that first-time rush of enthusiasm. My thesis around magical realism has evolved quite a bit since this was written. Not to say that my actual technique has gotten better, which is part of why I’m re-releasing it now: this is the “Before” picture that gets hung on the wall before starting a new fitness regimen. I’m looking forward to cutting out the flabby bits and strengthening the connective tissue as I continue to improve.

All the same, it’s a neat little story, and I hope you find something in it to enjoy. - R

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She wakes at dawn in the little cottage by the sea, feeling the storm behind her eyes.

Just a few more minutes, she thinks.

Scraps of dream drift and dissolve in her mind: a sailing ship, a long-dead friend, a message inked on parchment. She's trained herself for years to remember her dreams with crystalline clarity, sifting them for bits of prophecy immediately upon waking. But not with her energy at this low ebb.

She can't be arsed.

Still with her eyes closed, in the shadows of the makeshift curtain that separates her sleeping nook from the cottage's single room, she knows without looking that the sunrise will be shining into the windows, making the old rippled glass glimmer. The light will be copper-colored, filtered through the heavy air of the approaching storm. The ocean breeze carries the smell of roiled seaweed from far off the coast.

One more day, then, before the storm makes landfall.

One day to gather herself back together.

She can feel its ferocity from over the horizon. In her two years living in the cottage on the cliffs, storms of all sizes have swept across the rocky island. Most have behaved like petulant children: noisy, but harmless. Some have sulked across the small island like surly teenagers, throwing tree branches out of boredom. A few storms during her short tenancy have been full-grown and furious, hurling themselves over the sea and stomping onto the shore in a rage, leaving broken fences and scattered shingles in their wake.

This one feels like a storybook giant. Full of cold malice. There is nothing inside the storm when she reaches toward it with her mind—nothing but swirling, light-swallowing hatred. Not just indifferent to the lives it threatens. Vengeful. Intent on doing harm.

And her home is in its path.

On the other side of her down comforter, the late-autumn chill waits patiently for her bare skin. She stifles a groan and takes stock of her body. Her fever seems to have broken. Sinuses are clearing, allowing her to breath freely for the first time in days. Cramps still present, but better. 

Just a few more minutes.

"On your feet, child," she says to herself, her smoke-cured voice rasping from days of disuse.

Her eyes open.

Savoring a few more seconds beneath the warm covers, she runs through a mental list of tasks. First: sprint to the woodstove, get the fire going. Then coffee and a cigarette. Prayers at the altar. Feed the chickens. Collect fresh herbs and a few other offerings. Prepare for a hike to the standing stones.

What day is it?

In the haze of illness, she's lost track. Hopefully not Saturday. Fair weather on Saturdays brings a clutch of clients to her door. As much as she needs the money, she has neither the time nor the energy for a parade of fretting housewives and embarrassed farmers up from the village.

Cow-eyed fools, she thinks, and immediately tries to call the thought back. They're good people, for the most part. Baffled by a world they only barely understand, sure. Like toddlers in a cathedral. Quick to dismiss her work as old-fashioned superstition—until they need a good luck charm or a fortune told. But polite, at any rate. They haven't burnt her at the stake yet. And their custom keeps her coffee tin full.

Coffee.

"Up, you useless, scabrous sea-wench," she commands herself, and throws the covers off, hissing at the air's frosty embrace. Wrapping a sheet around her body, she quick-steps across the cold floorboards to the antique cast-iron stove, skirting around the edge of the scarred wooden table that sits in the middle of the floor.

Inside the firebox, last night's coals have been snuffed out by the damp air. She curses. With the bed's warmth quickly seeping from her bare feet, she shoves paper and kindling through the stove's little door, then strikes a match against the box.

The match snaps.

A bad omen.

She curses again, strikes another match.

It breaks.

She squeezes her eyes shut, takes a breath, and carefully takes out a third match.

"Help me out here, please," she says to the match as she strikes it.

Flame sparks.

"Bless you," she says, exhaling, and gingerly lights the pile of paper and twigs. Holding her chilled hands out, she waits for the fire to catch, then feeds in a split stove-length of wood before closing the stove.

A three-match fire does not augur well for the day ahead.

She pushes an errant strand of silver hair behind her ear with a sigh. Turning to the narrow counter along the back wall, she takes down a copper pot from its hook and holds it to fill beneath the sink's faucet. "Don't you give out on me now," she mutters, working the hand pump. The faucet gurgles. Nothing. Just as she's about to declare the whole day damned and return to bed, water splashes into the pot. "Praise be," she says, pumping the handle gratefully. At least there will be coffee.

The old radio watches her silently from the shelf above the sink. "I bet you think this is very funny," she says, glaring at it.

Brian, the delivery boy, had given her the radio in exchange for a spell that would help him pass a school exam. Her initial distrust of the crackling thing had faded when the radio caught a strong signal from the local folk music station. Once she'd gotten it rigged into the solar panel that powered her refrigerator, it sat comfortably up on its shelf, dials glowing cheerfully. They'd spent a pleasant few months together: she would listen to it in the morning when she made her coffee, and in the evening while she cooked and ate her dinner, humming along to old favorites from when she'd lived out in the world, occasionally singing out lustily when a particularly rousing sea-shanty came on.

Then, one day, the radio had informed her that the most vile man in the country had been elected prime minister, ensuring yet more misery for the struggling folks in the village. She had promptly taken the radio outside, and shot it with the police revolver that she used to keep predators away from the chicken coop. The now-silent radio returned to its shelf, bullet holes and all, as a reminder to keep the mundane world at a safe distance.

Sometimes it glares at her reproachfully. Like Banquo's ghost.

"Don't think I can't kill you again," she says, pointing at the mutinous appliance.

Time for a piss. She considers the outhouse, or a quick squat in the garden—good nitrogen for the plants, and a warning scent for prowling foxes—but chooses the cracked-enamel chamber pot instead. No need to brave the cold morning just yet. 

As she pulls up her nightgown and hunkers over the little pot beside her bed, she wonders if she's been hexed. The broken matches and the illness just before this terrifying storm could be simple bad luck. Or they could be a curse working its way under her skin. 

She considers her list of enemies. There are plenty in the village who might wish her ill: Protestants; Tories; bored housewives who imagine that she might stoop to enchanting their flabby husbands away from them. None have the power to bring her low by magical means.

Or perhaps there's a new sorcerer on the island—hiding themselves, plotting to muscle in. Wanting the standing stones for themselves. But no. A sudden shift in power on her patch would have resonated with her, even through her sickness.

More than likely it's just a mischievous spirit: an imp, a wandering intruder, stirring up trouble for trouble's sake, hoping to feed off her frustration.

Standing, she closes her eyes and reaches out with her mind, sifting through the energy around the cottage. There is a slight discordance, like familiar music played slightly off-key, but it slides away from her when she tries to apprehend it. She shakes her head briskly as her eyes open.

Coffee first, she thinks. Have to check the wards around the property and ask the cards about trespassers. More chores.

She draws the cotton nightgown up over her head and picks up the clothes from the wooden chair beside the bed, where she'd left them the night before.

Or two nights before? How long was I in bed?

Behind her, the dented pot rattles on the stovetop as the water boils.

First things first.

She pulls on long woolen socks, patched black workpants, and a charcoal fisherman's sweater over an ancient t-shirt, carried all the way from her old life, where it had been worn by a former lover.  With the fire crackling in the stove, the low-ceilinged cottage heats up quickly; she gathers her hair into a thick cabled braid, then hurries to make her instant coffee, already starting to sweat in the thick wool.

Lord, but a cigarette will taste good. How long has it been? Gods burn it all, what fucking day is it?

Clay mug of coffee in hand, she walks to the shelf beside the door where her keys, cigarettes, and matches sit; absently stuffing her feet into heavy cowhide boots, she thumbs open the pack to check her supply.

Two left.

Fuck me running.

Brian had dropped off a half-carton of Marlboros last week, just like he did every Saturday. Unless it was a real banger of a week, requiring a bicycle ride to the village for a re-supply, five packs would last her until the following Saturday. Being sick, she'd smoked less this week, not more, which means—

It's fucking Saturday.

"God's bones," she says, wrenching the door open. The radio watches her from across the room. She looks at it balefully. "One word from you, and I will end you with a hammer."

The door slams shut behind her as she steps out into the blustering morning.