STARLING'S HOUSE BY THE SEA

Starling loved the sea. She loved it in all its moods—tranquil, boisterous, angry, storming, soothing. She often walked along the shore looking to see what gifts the sea tossed up for her to find.

She lived alone in a small silent house nestled amongst the palm trees that lined the shore in clumps. She found the house on one of her wanderings along the shore. At the time, she hadn’t expected to stay on the island, but then the telegram arrived and her world changed forever. She had no home or family awaiting her return. All were lost in the ravages of the most recent hurricane. Sometimes she was engulfed by sadness and sometimes by guilt that she had been away from them all when the storm came. Some days the weight of both sadness and guilt was almost too heavy to be borne. The sound of the sea was the counterweight to her grieving. Walking along the island’s shore, untouched by the hurricane that had so savagely attacked her homeland, she remembered seeing that silent little house by the sea and discovered it now had a for-sale sign adorning it. She called the realtor, liked the asking price, and bought it. She hoped it would be a place to heal. She hadn’t done one drawing or written a single word since she made the silent house her home, despite her editor’s constant reaching out to her with supportive thoughts and royalty checks from previous illustrated books of hers that his company had published. All she seemed to do was walk along the shore in her waking hours and wander amongst dream realms rocked by the rhythms of the sea when she slept.

One day after she had lived in the house for a year, she realized that she was beginning to heal from the tragedy of losing everyone and everything she loved. The realization dawned on her that morning when she awoke and did not begin her day with crying her eyes dry. Later, the same day, she dug out one of her drawing journals and began to make little sketches of the house and the sea and the palm trees along the shore.

The silence of the house combined with the sounds of the sea lapping against the shore, the call of the gulls, and the wind rattling the palm trees all soothed her and steadily sparked her imagination into life. Every day, she walked along the shore and felt the energy from the sea’s ebb and flow within her.

One day upon returning from her walk, she sat on her porch with her journal and pens and began to sketch without thinking. She even closed her eyes at times and let her fingers meld with her imagination. She was surprised when she looked at what was appearing on the pages of her journal. There were characters from her imagination, nameless, but there. Some were sort of humanlike, some were fantastic imaginary creatures like none she actually knew. Some had tentacles, some wings, some scales and some webbed feet. She had no idea how long she had been drawing, but there they were entities from her imagination appearing for the first time since the tragedy happened.

She looked around her and realized she had moved at some point from the steps of her porch and ensconced herself in a weathered porch chair she had found abandoned on the beach and dragged to her house soon after her arrival. It was a wide comfortable chair she had filled with cushions. Some nights while star-gazing, she fell asleep in it and dreamed. So, she had come to call it her chair of dreams. 

Starling smiled to herself as she realized that creativity was working its magic within her again. Her imagination had led her fingers to produce these characters. She wondered who they were. Would they reveal their stories to her? She chuckled and clapped her hands. She would welcome their stories if they chose to tell them.

It had been so long since she had been engaged with characters who appeared fully formed from her fingers and imagination. She tingled with anticipation. She carried the journal and pens into the house which seemed to be holding its breath awaiting the rush of creativity that was aborning. Starling loved these moments on the brink of a story coming. She went through the motions of making a pot of tea and some cinnamon toast and settled down with it keeping her journal and pens at hand. As she sipped her tea and nibbled at her toast, one of her fantastic creatures nudged its way to the tea table. This one was a winged seahorse with legs adapted to land.

He introduced himself with grace saying, “Hello my name is Inkubus. I would enjoy a spot of tea if you have some to spare.”

Starling replied, “It’s nice to meet you, Inkubus. Of course, I’m delighted to share tea with you.” She drew a cup of tea on his page and showed it filled with steaming tea. Inkubus, now sitting at the table across from her was sipping his tea and blinking at her nodding his pleasure.

“Would you like to know my story?” he asked.

Yes, please,” she answered and continued, “may I take notes?”

“Of course,” he answered and launched into his story.

Once upon a time I lived in the sea not far from here. It was a marvelous life swimming with my herd in and out of the kelp forests snacking on this and that along the way. Then, the kelp forests began to thin out as whole trees died. Less forest, less snacks. The herd gathered together to have a conflab about what to do. We decided to use our collective power of regeneration. Some of us worked on envisioning all of us with long legs like our namesakes called “horses” on land. Others worked on envisioning us with wings. Interestingly, those of us, I being one, who worked on generating wings had the wings done before the legs were ready for a test on land, so naturally, some of us took to the air to test our wings. They worked. Just a bit of correction here and there and we all became capable of flight, but we knew we were small and it’s hard to hide in flight so we joined with the leg makers and lent our envisioning power to theirs. That cut the time to finish by half. Just in the nick of time, our herd walked wings folded onto the shore. We made our way to dense tropical shores such as these where you now reside. In fact, in long ago days, some of us, me included, knew this house before it fell silent.”

Inkubus said no more and sipped his tea.

“Oh, thank you, for sharing your story,” Starling said smiling with delight. She was about to ask her visitor a question when suddenly another one of her characters came to the tea table.

This newly arrived one sat down with a squishy sound because she was dripping sea water since she had just made her way into Starling’s house after swimming in the sea. She had long dark hair tied up with a golden rope and iridescent scales glittered all over her body. She shimmered and shifted her shape until within a few moments she settled into the shape of a barefoot amber skinned young woman wrapped in a pearlescent turquoise trimmed cape.

Stunned though she was by the loveliness before her, Starling recovered. “Where are my manners?” she exclaimed. “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please,” came the whispered reply. Starling drew a steaming cup of tea on this newly arrived character’s page.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Lily the Great Seer, though I was not always so. It was a long swim through time and seas to reach you here, but worth it to find you here now at tea.” She picked up her teacup, nodded her thanks, bowed her head to Inkubus, and silently sipped her tea.

“Would you like a towel?” asked Starling.

“No thank you, I’ll soon be dry. My inner furnace will suffice,” Lily replied without further explanation.

“I’m so glad you came,” Starling said with her best manners.

“You called me forth with your drawing,” Lily stated. “I really had no choice but to come.”

“Hmmm, I see. Do you have a story to tell me?” asked Starling.

“I do. I will tell it now as I know it from beginning to end. The end being now. I shall try not to get lost in the telling,” she said inexplicably.

“Please do begin,” Starling responded and Inkubus nodded vigorously.

“Certainly,” Lily stated.

Once long ago and far away I lived with my father-the-king, my mother-the-queen, and my brother-the-prince. I was not quite two when the events I am about to tell you transpired and changed my life forever. 

You see my father-the-king was not a good king. In fact, he was quite cruel to his people and very greedy. Behind his back, the people had fomented a revolution. One day I awoke a young princess and by the end of the day, my father, mother, and brother had been slain. I was told the sword of the Revolutionary General, or RG, was held above my head when I lifted my face to him, dropped to my toddler knees and said loudly and clearly, “Mercy, please.” Those were the first words I ever spoke. The RG swept me up in his arms saying, “Mercy granted.” He handed me to his aide standing nearby. I never saw the RG again. I was passed from hand to hand until finally I came to live with an elderly couple who lived in a small country village far from the palace. They raised me as a foundling, and I never knew about my royal beginnings until many years later when the Great Seer happened into our village on her way to the Capital City. I was standing with the other villagers delighted to watch the progress of the Great Seer. When her carriage pulled even with me, she ordered the driver to stop. She stepped out of the carriage and crooked her finger for me to approach her. I did so.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“I am called Lily,” I answered.

“Where are your parents?” she asked politely though she already knew my answer.

“I never knew them,” I answered for indeed all memory of my early royal life had vanished from my mind. “Those who raised me as their own died last spring, so I am Simply Lily.”

“Ah,” the Great Seer murmured, “Simply Lily, then you shall come with me. I sense great power within you. I shall train you in the ways of power.”

Before I could say a word, she raised her voice and addressed the villagers, “Any objections if I take Lily here under my protection and away from this village?”

No one objected.

Thus, I began my new life with the Great Seer. She was true to her word and trained me. When she deemed that I was ready to become the next Great Seer, she named me her heir and then died quietly at peace.

It was from her that I learned of my royal life beginnings because, of course, she had known of them from the moment she first saw me. As she had done before me, I served the people of that far away land and long-ago time well and honestly. The passage of time is different where I was and here where we are now. There I had become quite old, wrinkled, and stout. I had trained my own replacement, and my time to transition was near. I was napping engaged in a dream realm when I saw this House of Silence by the sea. I heard your call. I did not hesitate. I swam through time and seas to come to you now and so my story has come to an end here and now. What happens next is up to you.”

She leaned back in her chair and sipped more tea.

Starling looked at her characters so real sitting with her at the tea table sipping tea and telling her their stories. She could feel their need to be loved, respected, and cared for. She knew they had come to her so that she could once again draw and write her way back into life. She stood up to clear away the tea things. She smiled at them and they smiled back each in their own way. She carried the tea things to the sink. When she returned, the only things on the table were her journal and her pens. She wasn’t surprised her characters had vanished. She was only grateful they had come and shared their stories. She knew what to do. She turned to a fresh page in her journal and began to write.

Once long ago and far away in a silent house beside a bright scarlet sea there lived a Lady of Magic known as Lily the Great Seer whose steed was a gorgeous winged seahorse who could fly, swim, and gallop like the wind along the shore of the scarlet sea.

Starling wrote day and night for a fortnight. She made a clean copy, bundled it up, and sent it off to her editor in whom she had every confidence. He would be the first reader, but not the last, of her story gifted to her by the visiting characters sprung loose from her imagination and captured with pen and paper in her silent house by the sea.

In fact, over the years, Lily the Great Seer and her steed Inkubus appeared in more of Starling's books and became beloved by young and old. Starling herself became a literary legend and lived in her house by the sea until one night after her hundredth birthday, she died quietly while dreaming rocked by the rhythms and sounds of the sea.