The Sea Wolf

      “Wind speaks of a storm.”

           Kit glanced at Irving, and just at that moment, the light hairs on his exposed forearms lifted with the sigh of a cool breeze, drying his sweat slicked skin. Finally granting him a reprieve from a long day’s work on the sweltering deck. He turned his gaze out to the sapphire waters of the Atlantic, loping in small lazy waves that barely elicited an undulation of the ship, then looked up to the spotless sky. Another vast sea of blue, blue, blue.

           “It looks perfectly fine to me,” he said. Peaceful, if he were being entirely honest.

           Irving whipped his head to face Kit, the movement so fast, there was an audible crack. “Listen here, lad,” he growled, but Kit only rolled his eyes as the man’s cadence was already slurred by drink. “If you plan to survive on the Sea Wolf, then you must learn to respect the powers of the sky, the sea…” Then after a moment’s pause, “And the wind.” Kit was startled to notice how the older man’s tone softened in reverence, the way his blue eyes—cloudy in the throes of impending inebriation—seemed to smile. As if he were speaking of a lover.

           It was almost enough to eclipse the way his brown leathery skin had grown ruddier and ruddier by the moment. By the fact he was clearly speaking nonsense.

           Because Irving was exactly what he appeared to be: a drunk, old, and crazy.

           He took a listed step closer, rum scented breath wafting into Kit’s nostrils and he said, “The powers at be know all. Every thought, every action,” he jabbed a wrinkled finger into Kit’s chest in punctuation, “every step you take? They know. But it’s not just the human self that they know. No.” He shook his head, then said, “They know the soul itself.”

Kit was frozen, a flicker of fear jolted up his spine as his gaze stayed etched onto the drunken fool before him whose finger was still prodding into his chest. All the while a single thought rang in his mind:

Does he see them too?

Irving slowly nodded, satisfied he finally had the young lad’s attention. “You see,” he continued, “Sea and Wind are inexplicably important because they are the mirrors of oneself. What you believe you feel, you feel. What you believe you see, you see. What you believe you are, you are. Sea is the heart, while Wind is the mind. Emotion and intellect. Yin and Yang.” And perhaps it was the trick of the light, but Kit could have sworn that for a moment Irving’s eyes had glowed.

Kit recoiled, knocking the old man’s finger away as he lurched back. The spot on his chest burning as if he’d been branded. He pivoted, stumbling away as if merely breathing the fumes of Irving’s rum riddled breath had muddled his senses.

All the while he could feel the old man’s stare searing into his back.  

He’s crazy, he reassured himself. Enchanted by superstition. Driven to madness by his one too many bottles of rum. He couldn’t possibly know. There is simply no way.

But all the same, flashes—not for the first time since stepping onto the Sea Wolf—from something Kit couldn’t quite place raced through his mind.  A pair of green eyes that looked at him in hatred. A trembling hand lifting a pistol as if it were the weight of a mountain as the barrel pointed forward and—

BANG!

Kit flinched, eliciting a few stares from his crewmates. He did his best to ignore them as he tore past them, stumbling down the stairs below deck. Their noncommittal whispers sounding an awful lot like murderer, murderer, murderer. He found his way to the washroom—if he could even call it that, for it was merely a barrel of old musty water that left a bitter taste on his tongue and a coat of grime on his skin.

Despite that knowledge, he cupped the dirty, cloudy liquid in his hands and splashed it on his face. It wasn’t cool in the slightest. And instead of snapping him out of his panicked state, it only plunged him deeper. His skin felt hot, feverish. And it felt as if eyes were on him as he stared down at his blurred reflection. And as he stared, he watched in horror as the young familiar man gazing up at him took on the form of an older man—one who looked quite a lot like him—laying on polished wooden floors as a blood pooled around him, breaths gasping and stuttering as his mouth opened and closed seeking air.

A phantom breeze kissed his skin, ruffled his hair.

And a voice whispered, There is more. Seek more.

Kit yelped, shoving off of the barrel, tripping over his feet in the process. He landed harshly on his rear, the back of his head banging against the wall. All the while chanting, it’s not real it’s not real. He hung his head between his legs, shoulders shaking as sobs raked through him, and then somehow found himself sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The sound of the world cleaving in half. Kit jerked awake, gaze darting around his darkened surroundings, awareness blurry from the depths of sleep. And for a moment he couldn’t discern if he were on a ship or somewhere far, far away in what felt like another world.

He blinked, the remnants of grasping dreams slipping away just as the ship violently lurched. The barrel of water teetered precariously, sloshing the murky substance over the edge and splashing onto his boots.

“Ugh!” Kit pulled back his legs just as the ship listed again, the sounds of alarmed shouts and the thud of boots pounding above him.

Wind speaks of a storm.

Irving’s words rose to the surface like one of the large whales Kit had gazed at in wonder days prior, spraying him with startingly clarity. Because perhaps the old man had spoken the truth after all…

Kit hurtled from the washroom, darting to the stairs and using the wall to brace himself as the ship lurched once again, the wood creaking in protest. It felt as if it took years for him to reach the deck, and once he did…once he crossed the threshold, the sight before him had all of the blood draining from his face in a single heartbeat.

They had sailed into the midst of a tempest.

The once vast sea of blue, blue, blue had been ripped away and replaced with a blanket of powerful darkness, interspersed with bolts of lightning flashing all around them in quick successions of Bang! Bang! Bang!

The wind tore at his clothes, ripped through his unbound hair, snapping and whipping around him like a fierce beast. As if he were in a trance, Kit watched as the crew of the Sea Wolf scattered about like ants, each dedicated to a task to keep the ship afloat as waves crashed over the sides. Then, he watched in horror as one of his crewmates attempting to pull the sales down from high up on the mast was wrenched away from a powerful gale, his screams swallowed by the force of the tempest as his body sunk into the swell of a wave that was so high, it far surpassed that of the ship.

“Oh god,” Kit chocked out as the wave slammed into the side of the ship. He was swept off of his feet, hurtling down the deck as the ship turned onto its side.

Then he was dangling over the side, hands clenched around a drenched rope, grip slipping with each frantic heartbeat.

“Help!” He screamed, but his hope dwindled, because there was no way anyone had heard him. Kit gasped and sputtered as rainwater and seawater alike swept over his form and down his throat, terror tightening around him like a noose.

The feel of a hand gripping his forearm. And all of a sudden, he was pulled back onto deck, knees smarting as he crashed down onto all fours. His lungs screams as he expelled all of the water that had taken foreign residence within him.

The flash of green eyes looking at him in hatred. The trembling of a hand as it raised a pistol

“No!” Kit’s throat felt raw, voice hoarse as he roared with all his might. All the while the wind ripped around him, the ship listing and lurching as it battled each wave.

An older man laying sprawled on the floor, acceptance in his eyes as he took his last breath.

“Stop!”

Then,

“Wind speaks of a storm.”

Kit stilled, chest heaving as he stared down at his hands, hair hanging around him in wet strings. For though the voice had spoken softly, it ricocheted through the air like a clap of thunder.

Slowly, he lifted his head.

There, standing at the bow, was Irving.

And he was staring right at Kit.

He was utterly still, seemingly unaffected as the tempest raged around him. Not a strand of hair on his head moved. Bright blue eyes that were once murky by drink now startingly clear like a cloudless sky.

And they were glowing.

“What…”

“It is time to wake up, Christopher,” said Irving. And Kit watched in confused terror as the man standing before him transformed from a drunken old fool to one not much older than himself. His brown leathery skin smoothed and firmed, gray hair turning as black as the darkness around them, back straightening with a snap. And as he kept his gaze etched onto Kit, he said, “It is time to remember.”

A blinding pain lanced through his skull. Kit cried out, falling to his side and curling in on himself as more flashes surfaced, then solidified into a single memory…

He was sitting behind a desk, looking down at papers discussing what appeared to be a business. Something about it strikingly familiar, yet the words held a tinge of blurriness to them, as if he weren’t wholly there. Then, as if time had sped up, the door to the office crashed open and a young man was standing before him, face purpled in fury, spittle flying and landing on the papers as he roared and raged about being cheated out of what was rightfully his.

And in that moment, Kit knew that this young man was his grandson.

He pleaded with the lad, attempted to explain that his decision to not pass on the business to him was not out of spite or hate, but out of love; because now, in his advanced age and looking back on his life, he could see how it kept him from his family. From what he could not—in his youth—see what true happiness was.

The eyes that stared at him in hatred were swirling pools of green, green, green.

His grandson’s arm snapped up, and Kit found himself staring at the barrel of a pistol. But then he was looking through his grandson’s eyes, crying out at the waves of wrath, betrayal, and confusion as his arm shook with the weight of what he was about to do.

He watched his grandfather open his mouth and whisper, “Christopher.”

BANG!

Kit was looking through his grandfather’s eyes once again and there was a strange feeling in his chest. He looked down, watching in a dazed state at the small hole blooming in bright crimson.

Then came the pain.

He was laying on his back, chest cleaving in half as his heart stuttered with each failing beat. The knowledge that he was about to die a distant terror creeping ever closer. And yet, when he looked over at his grandson—when Kit was suddenly looking through his eyes down on his grandfather in horror at what he’d just done, the only thing he could feel emanating from him was, love, love, love.

Christopher, a soft voice whispered, it is time.

Kit’s eyes opened in a flash. He was back on the Sea Wolf, standing in its center.

Irving was still at the bow, except now his arms were moving as if in a dance. Kit watched as with each movement, the sea rose and fell around them. The waves undulating and swelling, and each moment they were about to strike, would suddenly fall away.  

“Your eyes are finally open,” he said to Kit. “Can you say that you remember?”

“I—” Kit swallowed thickly and shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t know who I am.”

Irving came to a sudden stop, arms dropping to his sides. And as he stilled, so did the sea. The swells of the waves frozen around them, the crew gone from sight. “You,” he said, and began to walk toward Kit, “Are Christopher Fraser. And what you just remembered was the most significant moment of the life you had lived because you had made the decision to take the life of another. Of one who loved you dearly.” His dark hair that had been laying untouched past his shoulders rose around him as if he were floating underwater, the wind whirling around them in powerful bursts. “You lived for another fifty four years after that fateful night, and instead of facing what you had done. Heeding the pleas of your grandfather’s last words to experience true happiness and live, you chose to forget. And forget you did…until your own death had claimed you.” Kit chocked on the air, shaking his head in denial as Irving continued to prowl closer. “And now as you teeter on the precipice between the physical realm and the spiritual, the guilt that had been festering within you has now taken precedence.” Coming to a stop before Kit, he said, “It will no longer be ignored.”

And all of a sudden, Kit was yanked back by the wind, Irving growing smaller and smaller as he was thrust into a sunlit field. His gaze falling upon a young boy squealing in laughter and happiness as he ran through gleaming brambles to an older man crouched down on his knees, arms outstretched.

The image shifted, and the same boy—now a few years older—sat across from the man at a chess board, looking down at the pieces in concentration as the older man watched him with love. Then they sat on horseback, trotting through the same sunlit field as the older man spoke to him about responsibility, integrity.

Kit watched in tearful awe, as memory after memory came rushing back with the force of a tempest. As all of the love, happiness, and ineffable guilt that he just couldn’t take slammed into his chest and he felt as his heart opened in painful clarity. The wind whirled the memories around him like a cyclone, so fast until they were a blur of shimmering colors.

We cannot escape our emotions. Irving’s voice spoke in his mind. Neither can we escape our thoughts. Sea is the heart while Wind is the mind. Emotion and intellect. Yin and Yang.

Kit gasped, a sob tearing out of his throat. The salt in his tears rivaling the sea’s.

But, said Irving, you now have to make the same choice once again. Will you forget, and choose what you think you desire over what you truly want? Or will you choose love and happiness? To forgive yourself for losing your way out of the eye of the storm?

The colors came to a stop. Memories in time frozen around him like pictures. Then, one by one they withdrew. Until standing before him, was a man he thought he would never see again…

The man who raised him.

The man whose life he’d taken.

There, looking at him in everlasting love, was his grandfather.