I am Julia

She arrived in Malta on a windless summer Tuesday morning. Valletta shimmered under the sharp Mediterranean sun, her limestone buildings like bones of ancient saints. Julia moved through them with the light-footed silence of someone used to walking alone. She had always liked travelling that way — invisible, weightless, unanchored. No one to explain herself to, no one to compromise with.

She had come for the sea, not the cities.

Three days later, she boarded a small boat from Ċirkewwa and headed to Comino — the smallest of the three Maltese Islands. She told no one. There was no one to tell. Her parents were used to her digital absences. Friends had long stopped asking where she disappeared to. That was how she liked it. Untethered.

The sky was pale and cloudless, the sea lying flat like oiled silk. Tourists laughed around her, sun hats already strapped tight, sunglasses perched like armour. Julia sat at the rear, where the engine noise muffled the world. Her fingers brushed the peeling paint beside her, and her eyes lingered on the distant cliffs of Comino rising ahead, sun-bleached and indifferent.

The boatman glanced back once, then again. When their eyes met, he gave her a brief wink and half a smile, more habit than flirtation, then turned away without waiting for a response. Julia looked past him, to the island drawing closer.

Comino, to her, was a whisper. Just 3.5 square kilometres of rocky quiet. No cars. No rush. No noise, save the sea licking at the limestone cliffs, and the wind threading through wild fennel. Tourists came for the Blue Lagoon, for the turquoise water photos that looked filtered by a god’s eye. But Julia didn’t care about the perfect beaches. She wanted the edges, places that others skipped past.

When they arrived, most of the tourists rushed off toward the Blue Lagoon. Julia took a different path, climbing the jagged cliffs and walking until she found solitude.

By mid-morning, she slipped into the sea. Mask, snorkel, fins. The world above peeled away.

Beneath the surface, everything slowed. Fish flicked like silver strokes in the water. Sunlight poured down in columns. She kicked farther along the coast, past ridges and shadows. And then she saw it.

A cave. Small, discreet, tucked into the rock like an eyelid half-closed. She hesitated, breath catching. The mouth was narrow, but manageable. Something called her. She dove forward.

Inside, the water grew darker, cooler. The cave opened slightly after the entrance, just enough to tread water. She removed her snorkel and floated, the ceiling low above her. It felt sacred. Silent. The way a cathedral would feel if it were buried underwater.

At last, she turned to go.

The current shifted, just slightly, as the sea outside pulled at the opening. She didn’t register it at first. Only when she kicked forward did she feel something had changed. Her knee knocked against stone. She tried to adjust, but the opening had narrowed. She swam harder. Her thigh scraped. A sudden pinch at her hip, then pain. She had wedged herself between two rough edges of rock. She twisted, but the motion lodged her deeper.

The water lapped higher.

She stilled her breath. Tried to think. Reached down, pulled at her leg. Nothing. Pushed against the wall. Her foot slipped free for a moment, then locked again. The ceiling was just above her now. She could feel her ribs rising against it. Salt stung her eyes.

The tide was rising.

She broke the surface, barely. Gasped. “Help!” Her voice fractured against the stone. Outside, the world went on. She imagined laughter rising from sunlit cliffs, the churn of boats in the Blue Lagoon. No one knew she was here. Her phone, her bag — they were all on land. Useless.

Another wave pushed in. She swallowed water. Coughed. Cried out. Her voice collapsed in the rock-thick air.

She clawed at the ceiling — slippery, worn smooth by time. Her palms bled. She kicked again, harder. Her leg shifted. Flesh tore. She screamed, voice scraped raw.

The water climbed higher. Her chin dipped beneath it. She jerked upward, slamming her shoulder against stone. Her lungs burned.

Time slowed.

She surfaced. A breath. Then under again.

She fought. Rose. Gulped. Her strength thinned. Her hands floated. Her mouth opened to sea. She coughed, choked. Her mind shouted at her body to move, but her limbs refused.

The ceiling, so close, so constant, pressed down with a quiet finality.

Her face slipped beneath the surface.

She didn’t rise.

The water rocked gently in the cave, as if comforting her now that it had taken her in.

And above — silence.

Evening came, and the last boats left Comino.

No one noticed that she never returned.

Not that day.

Not the next.

Her parents thought she was off the grid. But after a week of complete silence, even on social media, something in her mother snapped. When every call went unanswered, she contacted the authorities. A search was launched. Alerts were issued. Her face — quiet, curious, half-smiling — began appearing in newspapers and across online platforms. A young woman, missing in Malta.

Luca Sciberras had ferried tourists to Comino daily for nearly a decade. He knew the sea’s moods better than most. Knew Comino, too — every cave, cliff, and patch of salt-bitten scrub. But people? He didn't notice them much anymore. They came and went. Hundreds, thousands. Blurs of sunburn and laughter.

Except for one.

He had noticed her.

She boarded his boat six days in a row, always early, always alone. Sat in the same place, near the rear, where few others ever chose to sit. She never took photos like the rest. Never spoke. But she watched him.

Sometimes he felt her gaze on his profile, as if she were about to ask something but always held back. There was a particular stillness to her — like a statue remembering how to breathe. He hadn’t thought much of it at first. Some people simply preferred silence.

Yet by the sixth day, something tugged at him. Quiet, persistent.

He noticed that although he carried her across to Comino each morning, he had never seen her return. Most people didn’t go back to this island more than once — there wasn’t much there. A beach, a kiosk, some sunburnt walking trails. One day was usually enough. He’d assumed she was getting another boat. The Blue Lagoon was busy, full of comings and goings. Maybe she was working with an NGO, tagging turtles or clearing plastic from the far-off coves.

Still, something stayed with him. A detail out of place. Something he hadn’t meant to notice but did.

That morning, as the boat rocked gently on its moorings, he scrolled through the news on his cracked-screen phone while the first passengers waited on the pier. And then — there she was.

Her name. Her face. The missing girl. Julia Rowe, 28.

His blood stopped moving.

It couldn’t be. He had seen her just yesterday, quiet as ever, eyes searching the water like it held secrets.

When he looked up, the passengers were boarding. And there — she was there. Same seat. Same faintly windswept hair. The girl from the photo.

Luca swallowed.

He approached her, heart hammering like a wave against stone.

"Are you Julia Rowe?" he asked, voice cracking.

She turned to him. Her eyes shimmered like moonlight through water.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice.”

His mouth dried. “You — you’ve been missing. People are searching for you. Your photo…”

“I know.”

“I thought…”

“You had to notice. That was the way.”

He blinked. She didn’t move.

Then, like mist, she vanished.

There was no sound. No shift. Just empty space where she had sat.

His head spun.

And in that instant, her body lifted through the water, breaking into light.

Two tourists kayaking near the far edge of Comino spotted something in the water — a figure floating face down, long hair spreading like seaweed, arms drifting wide. At first, they mistook it for driftwood. But as they padded closer, one of them screamed. It was Julia.

The sea had finally let her go.

Her body was pulled to shore. The police arrived. Photos and other records were matched. The search was over. The cave had emptied its silence.

News of her discovery spread like wildfire. Luca sat alone on his boat, staring at her face on his phone while the sun beat down on his skin.

He would never forget the way she had looked at him.

He would always wonder what would have happened if he had noticed her just one day earlier. If he had spoken. If he had asked.

But ghosts wait for the right moment.

And sometimes, they wait until you’re ready to see them.

Long after they’re gone.