Ballad of A Sailors Wife

The woman was a tragedy. Ever since she was a young girl, she had feared the water. The soft foam gathering on the gaping mouth of the shore, the crash and roar of waves fighting within each other, and the sickening grayish-green color which polluted the entirety of the sea sent a sickening disgust into her core. And yet, within the safety and comfort of her emerald green hills, she had been drawn, unbeknownst, to her arch nemesis.

She had met him at a tavern in town. He was almost otherworldly in his presence. A tall man, well built but able to hide his strength under some loose clothes, with brown hair and haunting hazel eyes. He had a way with words, capable of the rare talent of talking about his vast knowledge in such a way to inspire within yourself great confidence. His name was Finn, and she had only discovered the next day after they were already engaged, that he was a sailor.

She took the news by sobbing, certain of his demise. He took his arm over her shoulder and soothed her with soft kisses across her brow. 

“Don’t worry my dear. The sea has always been my kindest friend” he would whisper, pushing her hair off the side of her face and leaning into her ear. He would tell her of his travels, of the magnificent world he had seen. Cities of red brick roofs and stained glass windows, where angels flew upon the ceilings. Tall mountains, where the grass grew up to the evergreen glaciers upon their peaks. Vast deserts of unending yellow sands. There was a dreamy look in his eyes when he spoke of these places he’d been. It was the wonderment and excitement of a child, pure in his wonder of living. She couldn’t help feeling soothed.

So in two weeks, the two were married, and a week after that, he sailed off to Spain. For a year, the two of them continued like that. With her waiting patiently just as all the other sailors’ wives did, watching the thing she so detested from the widows walk. Waiting patiently for her love to return.

But at night, as she would fall asleep, she was haunted by nightmares of the great water that stood ever present at her door. It always went the same way. She had walked onto the white sands in a matching linen dress. Her feet exposed as she walked slowly, calmly, in a trance to the water. She would then continue deeper, and deeper into the salty deep until she was completely submerged. Then she would breathe in, a single breath, feeling the water enter her throat, and make her way deeper towards her lungs…

She’d wake up panting and full of sweat before she could complete the breath. When her husband was in port, these dreams would leave. Her life would resume to normal as he slept beside her. She wouldn’t stand on the roof gazing at the ocean, wouldn’t dream of drowning. She’d simply get up, go about her day, then return to kiss her love good night as she slipped into a sound and peaceful sleep. But then he’d sail off again, and the nightmare would return. 

Now as was said, they continued this way for a year. The news came on the anniversary of their wedding day. A boy from town came solemnly holding a letter that would never be read. She had read the boy's face. She knew what had happened. Finn would never be coming home from sea. 

She thanked the boy for coming to tell her, then excused him back to town as she went into her home. She began to toss the letter into the fire before hesitating at the last minute, then clutching it closer to her chest as she made her way onto the roof. Finally, as the latch behind her shut, she collapsed into a ball and began to sob and wail, screaming at the water which took her love and clawing at the emptiness inside her core. 

She was so lost in her grief that she had not even realized the time until it was almost dark. She began to realize the toll her pain had taken on her. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically. She sat down upon the wooden boards of her home, crusted tears all across her face and her throat shredded from hours of screaming. She stared out across the great sea.

There were clouds along the horizon. She tried not to think what storm those clouds might have been from. The sun was across the threshold, halfway between our realm and the underworld, and a strange figure stood staring at her from the sky. 

It was a horse, made of jet black cloud, with eyes the blood red of the setting sun. It consumed the whole sky and shot lightning from its dark snout. It was a foreboding presence, and it seemed to tease her. You loved him, didn’t you? It seemed to say. He meant so much to you, and all it took was a simple storm to destroy your whole world. She became enraged at this malevolent force and sought the shelter of her bed.

She lay there restless for hours before the fatigue had its way with her and she dozed to sleep. When she awoke, she screamed. There had been no nightmare. 

For days she wandered lost, beginning tasks and chores around the home she would never finish. She was barely even present, hardly able to understand what was around her. Her mind was consumed with thoughts of the horse. And she felt for the first time in her life, a call to the sea. 

Finally, it grew too much for her, and she knew she must go. It was late in the night when she went out, dressed only in her linen nightgown. She walked the cliffside path down towards the beach, her feet getting scratched by the rocks and twigs. Finally, she felt the sand beneath her toes. She began to walk into the waves, flashes of the nightmare that had stayed with her so long running through her mind as she went deeper. There was something new though. Off in the distance, where the waves crashed against the cliffs, she could see the shadowy figures of horses, half dissolved in the foam, with eyes red as the devil. 

She continued on deeper. The water was at her shoulders now, and the waves were slapping against her face. Finally, her foot slipped down deeper, and she was fully submerged. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. 

She had never gotten this far in the nightmare, and when she felt the water in her lungs, burning, ripping her apart, she opened her eyes and gasped desperately for more air, only to make the burning even worse. She started climbing desperately to find a way back to land when she thought she saw the shadowy figure of one of the horses from the corner of her eye. But before she could react, she felt a sharp, painful kick to her head, and the last thing she remembered was falling into the seaweed bed.

* * *

When she awoke, she was in the remains of an old wrecked ship. And sitting in front of her, was a woman, with feet like a duck, a long white and gray dress made of a soft, smooth fabric that she’d never seen before, and the face of a person with feathers protruding from behind her head like hair, wild and frenetic. 

“Who are you?” She asked in fear at the sight of her. 

“I am Clara, the queen of the seagulls.” She said, folding one of her legs over the other. “What do you remember last my girl?” 

It was only at this moment that she realized that Clara did not have arms, but rather large regal wings attached to her gown. 

“I was walking off into the sea when I slipped, and I began to drown. Then suddenly something dark, I think it was a horse, kicked me in the head, and I…” I stammered off as I tried to remember what else had happened.

Clara took a deep breath and looked out the window of the decrepit captain's bay she had made her throne room. “It sounds as if you’ve had an encounter with a kelpie. In which case, I may know how to help you.”

She opened her wings wide and lifted herself off her throne, then as she made her way to the door, crossed her wings over behind her head as she pulled off what appeared to be a feather cloak, and revealed a regular human man, holding his breath as he used his hand to open the door before donning the cloak again in a swift and smooth movement and reappearing as Clara. 

“I found you drowning while I was out flying last night,” she said to me as we swam away from the ship. “You were easy to see as your gown glistened in the moonlight. I enlisted the help of the selkies to protect you. It’s in their kingdom we now reside, and it’s one of their extra coats that you currently wear to breathe under here.”

She looked down at herself and was shocked to see that she was no longer a woman, but rather a seal. In place of her arms were fins and her legs a tail. She even touched her fin to her face and felt the whiskers of a seal. 

“Were, the selkies those things I saw? The horses?”

“No,” Clara said. “Those were the kelpies. Evil water spirits, who pray upon sailors and their wives. Those are the people who have what you are searching for.” 

“What is it that I’m searching for?” She asked confused. 

“Your husband,” Clara replied.

“But, he’s dead. He died in a shipwreck just a few days ago.”

“He may not be,” Clara told me, “The kelpies are sadistic creatures. They enjoy torturing humans, teasing them, and causing them suffering. So every so often, they’ll keep one of the humans from the ships they sink as a pet. There's a chance they've kept your husband alive for this purpose.”

“So, Finn might still be alive?”

Clara nodded. “You must be fast though, the kelpies have short attention spans, and they will lose interest in their toys quickly. You must find him before they kill him from boredom.”

Clara stopped along the edge of a deep-sea trench. It was deeper than any cliff she’d ever seen, and the darkness at the bottom of it was the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. From below, she thought she could hear the sound of sick laughter. 

“That is the realm of the kelpies. You must go down there to find him. Be strong, firm, and confident, but also be careful, the kelpies are sadistic beings, and will bite at anything they perceive as weakness.”

“Wait! Before you go!” One of the seals was swimming towards us, holding something wrapped up in its fins. She handed it to her, and enclosed was a shiny dagger with an intricately carved hilt of gold. “It’s a special sort of dagger. There’s no way to kill a kelpie, but this can harm them. Make sure to use it wisely!” she said before swimming off.

“Well, that was kind of her,” she said wrapping up the dagger in the folds it came in. 

“Indeed, those are hard to find,” Clara said. “It’s your time now. I cannot follow you into there, so from here on out, you will be on your own.”

She nodded and thanked her for her help. She then swam to the edge of the trench. She took a deep breath, grasped the knife close to her chest, then dove into the darkness.

It was even scarier the deeper she went into it.  As she dived further and further from the surface of the water, the daylight grew dimmer and dimmer, and a strange red glow from the walls began to take over as a light source. There were pieces of animals and people scattered all along the edges of the ravine, surely past snacks for the kelpies. Still, she steeled herself and swam closer to the sound of the laughter.

Finally, as she began to reach the seafloor, she saw a whale carcass, with what looked like many pale women with dark red hair lounging around it, clothed in dresses of murky shadow. They were laughing, and nibbling bits of meat from bones that she had to keep telling herself were fish. They grew silent as they noticed her approaching. 

“Now what's a puny little selkie like you doing down here?” one asked, a grin on her face revealing her fangs.

She took a deep breath to ready herself. She stood up straighter and said, “I am a woman of the land, and I am looking for my husband. He is a sailor, and he was taken in a storm. His name is Finn, and I have come to collect him.”

A silence grew once again over the group of women before a burst of great laughter broke out amongst the women. “Do you think us creatures of mercy?” The one who had first spoken to her yelled out. “We are the kelpies, we don’t keep your pitiful men saved and waiting for you. He is dead! Just as you surely shall be in but a moment.” 

The laughter grew louder as they began to swarm her, poking at her stomach and remarking upon how wonderful it would be to eat her. How there was so much blubber on her, and that the fearful look in her eye made things even more fun. 

She tried to keep calm, to stay strong, and not show them her fear. But she was still a tired, beaten-down woman, and eventually her posture slackened, and her heart dropped. And it was at this, that the kelpies made their move. The leader of them, the one who had been speaking to her, grabbed at her with its hair, wrapping it tightly around her like tentacles, and drawing her closer to it as its face began to distort, growing longer and sharper as it prepared to feast.

The other kelpies also began to transform, this time back into horses with long black manes and burning red eyes, and sharp, white, predatory teeth. She tried squirming at first, but slowly accepted she was trapped, just as they began taking bites of her. Their teeth stung, and with every bite, she slowly began to revert to her human form. Each breath began to feel heavier, and she knew that if the kelpies did not finish her quickly, she’d die by drowning. 

But something glimmering caught her eye. Off the side of the ravine, there was a light. Not red and ominous as the rest of the place was, but gold and bright. It awakened something in her. Some sort of confidence, no, some strange sort of hope. She frantically snapped back to the moment at hand. She needed to find a way out. She saw her dagger floating just a few feet below her face. She mustered all her strength,  then used her tail to toss it towards her mouth, where she cut the hair that was trapping her, freeing herself and escaping from the leader's grasp. She swiped at the hissing kelpies as she swam towards the light, which she could now see was a cave.

She finally lost them from her trail as she swam into the cave. It was covered in Greek tiles, making beautiful sparkling mosaics along the cave. The tunnel went up and up until finally, it reached a cove, where she could tell there was an air pocket of dry land. She wrestled with her seal coat before finally managing to pull it off. Now back in her form as a human, she climbed into the small room, and carefully began to stand on her two feet, wobbling at first as she adjusted to it, then began to travel further down the tunnel. 

The mosaics continue, getting more intricate and bright until suddenly, they grew shades of gray and blue like night and led to a dome at the very end. 

It was built like a night sky, with all the zodiacs and most of the constellations designed stunningly into it. It was a wonderful piece of art, but she had issues focusing on it. Because laying in the center of the room on a pile of navigation equipment, maps, and globes; was Finn. Bloodied, thin and pale, but alive. He turned to look at her and his eyes lit up bright again.

“Hello dear” He said, slowly trying to lift himself to sit up, “What tragic circumstances we’ve found ourselves in, haven't we?”