Wandering Souls

The darkness was incomplete, a few lonely celestial bodies poked out from the clouds that attempted to hide them. I looked out at them and felt as if I were one. A lonely star in the dark sky.

“Hey you!” The voice was harsh, probably drunk, “Trash! Get out of this side of town.”

I shook my head and walked around the being that had just been thrown out of the pub. He was halfway covered in his own mess, barely managing to stagger to his feet.

I might be looking for a fight, but not that badly.

He tried to grab at me, but it would have been a miracle if he had managed to catch an elder that was fat and crippled unless they were also drunk.

I meandered down the road, walking slow enough that if anyone else decided that I looked like an easy prey, they would try it. Unfortunately, no one did.

Perhaps I had passed this road too many times, perhaps my clothing was too poor. Whatever the case, I walked alone. There were figures wrapped in blankets in one street corner, a couple of cats that were rummaging through waste buckets were startled at my approach, and a few rats crossed the street in front of me, but nothing that promised to pull me from the darkness inside.

The wind picked up a little, it rustled my cloak around me, and started the clouds moving again in little wisps. More stars would peek out from the clouds now, as the wind moved westward.

I looked back at the night sky; the stars were still barely discernible with the lanterns lit on this part of the street. If nothing was going to happen tonight, I might as well go to the wharf where the sky would be open.

I threw a copper into the tin of the figure in the corner. They barely stirred.

The closer I got to the wharf, the stiller the streets became. It was eerie. A fog was rolling in over from the ocean, and the visibility grew worse. That didn’t bother me, perhaps someone would take a greater risk in the fog.

The stones on the road grew slick. A couple sprites began shaping the fog into faces and items by a lantern. They glanced curiously at me, but didn’t stop. One giggled and drew a face with long hair that might have been me. There was a splash that might have been a fish jump.

The fog reduced the stars to mere smudges before erasing them.

There came sounds of footsteps which came from a dock directly to my left. I decided that was my best bet if I wanted trouble.

I followed the sound to a rugged skiff. Despite the old wood and its desperate need for fresh pitch, she had good lines that showed what the craft once was.

I touched the splintering rail with my glove but I couldn’t pierce through the fog to see the person making the noise.

A lantern was lit on the bow of the skiff, revealing the outline of a person huddled under a storm cloak. They seemed to be carrying something awkward.

I stepped back from the light, staying concealed.

The figure pushed off from the dock and into the water. I, having nothing else better to do, found an empty skiff and decided to follow.

The boat I chose was only tied on with a stout rope, which I loosed from its mooring and launched as only one born on a sea shore can, quietly following the other skiff into the night.

The further we got from the wharf, the clearer it became. I knew that soon I would have to create distance or the one I was following would note me.

Even after I made the distance, I could see the figure clearly from to the light she had lit. She was an elderly lady, with white hair that escaped her cowl in white coils that hung about her aged face. The burden was the case for an instrument.

The lady brought her skiff far enough from the wharf that no one would see her, but close enough to shore that it would not be threatened by the large swells, and threw down her anchor.

Carefully, she pulled a shingle out of the bottom of the boat, sprinkled something on it, and placed the lit lantern on the shingle before pushing it out into the sea. It drifted away from her, followed by curious water sprites, which glowed brightly.

Then she opened the case and pulled out a large harp, threw back her cowl, and began to play.

As soon as she began to play, I knew that she was special. The harp began to hum and dance under her hands with a melody that sang of home, and then she began to sing.

It was as if she were possessed by the Siren herself. Sprites began to circle her, creating a sphere of light around her that reached out to her lantern.

 She sang of a home in the plains where a girl knew home was fresh grain, who followed the wind and fell in love with a boy of the ocean. She sang: of how the boy followed the wind into the sea and didn’t return, of the girl who spent her long life searching for the boy, leaving the fields of grain far behind, chasing every wind, until age dripped from her face like water from a cloud. She sang of how the girl searched until she could search no more, unable to return to her home on the plains, forever separated from everything that she had loved, but the wind.

As her song ended, I wept. I knew in my heart that this woman was the woman in the song, and that she wished to return home.

I could not leave this woman out here alone. I let my boat drift into the light created by the sprites as we watched the lantern sail towards the stars.

“Do you wish to return to the plains you sing of?” I do not know why I asked, it was clear that she did.

The woman was not startled when I spoke, and I wondered how long she had known that I was there.

“My husband died a long time ago; it is time I accepted this. Soon I will join him in the stars, and there is none who can take me. I have lived a full life, despite my wanders, but there is no one at my hearth. I wish to see my home once more, but I cannot go alone, so I must stay.”

“Where is home?”

“Far away, a place called the Paramean plains. No one waits there for me either.”

That struck me, and I wondered if I would end up as her when I was old; alone, wishing to return to the place I was born, even though there was nothing there for me.

“Tell me about them,” I ventured, “they sound lovely.”

So the woman began to tell me about her home in the Paramean plains. She smiled as she reminisced.

Together we floated under the now clear sky, the stars reflected on the sea around us. In their multitudes, they did not seem lonely to me anymore.