65. Palm

The torchlight flickered over my shoulder onto the bluff rock on my left, making it seem like a wet wall of flame, the orange light contrasting with the blue of the moon jellies below me.

I continued to trudge in the water, grateful it was still only the beginning of fall and the sea was not freezing.

“Please,”

I whispered again.

“I ask that you spare this boy’s life.

He made a childish mistake and do we all not make those?”

It occurred to me that my naked honesty had been effective in the field ten days prior and certain only my husband could catch snippets of my speech, I said, “You know I have made mistakes.

Many mistakes.

And I believed many lies.

You know this of me.

For you know me, goddess.

Am I not your daughter? Much like that boy is that man’s son? Please.

Please spare him.”

My feet worked faster in the water.

A swell was blossoming in my breast and I did not know what it was, but I could feel something inside me, pulling, guiding.

Soon, I was running in the surf, my bloodied hand scraping along the bluff, likely opening the wound even wider.

I could not stop.

The faster I ran, the lighter I felt, the more a fire stoked in me.

Behind me, Alric said, “Be careful of your feet, Edith.

There are rocks in the sand.”

I laughed and over my shoulder I said, “I cannot see them in the night!”

I chased elation.

I knew the search party behind me to be confused, but on I went.

“Tell me.

Tell me,”

I whispered to her, panting, nearly unable to speak from exertion.

“I claim this boy’s life as still tied to this world.

You will show me how to rescue this Oliver.

His name is Oliver.

He is not nameless.”

I swore I heard her scratchy cackle over the slap of the waves.

And while I had thought myself running before, now I sprinted, ignoring the shouts behind me, my left palm practically flaying on the rock, blood pouring down my forearm, over the pattern of ferns there that I could only just make out by torch.

I spared a thought for how my palm would heal and wondered if my little quill tattoo would look the same afterward.

My legs were burning.

These were not conditions in which someone could run, the sand sucking my feet under with every step, the now knee-high water batting up at my lower thighs.

But I kept on, my heart a wolf in my chest, howling and hungry.

And then I heard it, that croaking right in the shell of both of my ears.

Here he be, girl.

“Here!”

I said, completely breathless, leaning up against the bluff rock.

“He is behind where I stand.

He lives.”

I could not stand up and slid down the rock wall into the sea.

I looked up at the rippled surface above, satisfied, not minding that my body was sliding into the sand.

It seemed a natural place to rest, the blue of the jellyfish a soothing glow, the sand pulling me down.

A wavy shape above loomed over me.

Alric’s hands broke the surface and then arms came around me, almost like an embrace, and he lifted me out of the water.

We stood in the frothing tide for a while, moon jellies swirling around us.

We were both short of breath, his arms still under mine.

I was barely able to stand.

My hands met behind his back and I pulled him close to me, my face buried in his neck, despite my boots dangling on either side of me from where they hung.

Around us was shouting about which entrance to the caves was closest.

I moved to leave and join the effort, but Alric would not release me.

“You have done enough tonight, wife,”

he said into my ear.

“You are done.”

Chattering, now fully wet and swiftly becoming cold without the goddess warming me, I said, “My hand aches.

I do not mean to be so weak, but—”

and my voice broke.

“Your palm will scar after tonight,”

he said bitterly, removing his arms from around my waist to cradle my left hand in both of his.

“It is still a beautiful hand,”

he whispered.

I gave a cough, out of breath.

“I thought you didn’t like that word.”

“I could learn to like it,”

he answered, his breath skimming my forehead.

I leaned into him and said pitifully, “I feel like I can barely stand.”

“Then you will lean on me or I will carry you.”

“I told you I am too heavy for you.”

I was trying at a jest.

“And I told you, I am thin but strong.”

I smiled at him, but the stars in the sky were behind his head and they did not shed enough light on his face.