Nessie Sings the Song

By Rebecca Morgan

Inverness, Scotland 21^st April, 2023

My grandfather told me stories of the Loch Ness Monster. Or Nessie as he lovingly called her. How she surfaces in the spring when life is new and the waters are warm. He saw her once, when night’s cloak had descended. Head thrown toward the moon, she gave a mournful call for a mate. But Nessie is the last of her kind. And when her years are spent, she’ll pass out of time and mind. Hidden among legends and lore of forgotten things. I want to see her before she does.

The wildness of my ancestors flows through my veins. A song that makes my heart pound, pound, pound.

“Remy,” Fiona’s lilting voice falters. “We’ve been here for hours. Can’t we go home? It’s getting dark.”

The notes crash down around me, snapping me out of a trance. In the soft glow of the Highland Club and Boathouse I see her chin quiver.

“I never thought you were serious about your grandfather’s story.”

My heart drops.

Insane, my father called him, resenting that grandfather went back year after year to find the elusive creature. I resented he wouldn’t take me.

Nessie never surfaced again for him. And my grandfather died a broken man.

“Such beauty you’ve never seen. A display of God and His marvelous creation.”

“Remy,” Fiona pleads again.

Grandfather’s stories sing through me. Of beauty, longing, and of a country so small and yet so vast, her whole history couldn’t be contained in a book. My heart splits in two. Torn between the known and the unknown.

I squeeze Fiona’s hand, standing. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Carefully picking my way through the rocks, I stop just short of the water. Gray clouds hang low and heavy. The dying sun reflects pale and watery on the loch’s surface.

The water parted for her like the Red Sea.

But the loch is still and quiet, its water undisturbed.

Standing here where my grandfather did, disappointment and anger claw their way through me.

“You’re not even real,” I whisper, grasping a rock in my hand. Something solid, heavy, and undeniably real.

Unlike an elusive creature that killed my grandfather.

“You’re not even real!” I yell again, throwing the rock into the loch.

Kerplunk. The sound snaps across the still air as the water shudders and ripples.

The song fades as I turn my back on the loch and all that it means. I walk past Fiona, but she doesn’t follow.

“Remy.”

“Come on, we’re leaving.”

“Remy.” She raises a shaking finger. “Look.”

I turn around.

The loch parts like the Red Sea, a great force driving it in two as the roaring tears through the night, coming closer. Neither of us moves. The lights from the boathouse seem to shine brighter as the force comes to a stop. A creature rises from the water.

Nessie.

Deeply terrifying and beautiful, just as my grandfather said, Nessie towers over us, barely a meter away. Her long, pointy face reminds me of a horse as she studies us, nostrils flaring. Water glistens on her evening-blue scales.

She’s real.

What grandfather failed to mention was the teeth.

Very long, very sharp teeth.

Fiona whimpers as the song in me roars higher, yearning to touch a legend. Nessie’s brown eyes focus on me as I step forward, stumbling on the rocks. She inhales sharply, the air hissing through her nostrils.

I stand still. “Do you remember him?” I whisper, extending my hand. “My grandfather?”

Nessie’s breathing steadies and I advance, hand still outstretched.

Fiona gives a small cry as Nessie lowers her head, nuzzling against me. The song reaches a crescendo as I caress her face. She’s smooth and flawless under my touch. Nessie studies me.

“Fiona,” I exhale. “Come closer.”

“No,” she replies, voice edged with fear.

I let Fiona be. “I always knew you were real…”

Nessie rumbles deep in her throat, pulling away. Leaving me cold and lonesome. A piece of me goes with her, and I finally understand my grandfather’s insistence to return. Alone.

She splits the air with her call as she rears back, sending a cascade of water that knocks me off my feet.

Fiona screams.

And then all goes black.

“Remy!”

Pain pounds behind my eyes as Fiona pulls me to my feet. The world spins as hazy memories dance beyond my reach.

Fiona tries to pull me along. “We shouldn’t have come for a myth. My parents are going to kill me.”

Her words sting and I freeze, knocking her off balance. “Fiona, don’t you remember? We saw her.”

“We saw nothing.” She replies firmly, leaving me behind.

“But we did.” Joy and delight sing a symphony. “I touched her.”

“Remy,” Fiona says irritably as I walk back down to the loch, searching for evidence of what I know to be true.

But I see nothing.

Panic fills me as I kick over rocks, hunting for a print. A scale. Anything.

Your grandfather was a crazy old man.

“I thought…” Not even Fiona believed in Nessie. Or me.

Despair drowns the song in my blood as I turn to take Fiona home. Maybe my grandfather and I are both crazy.

Far across the loch it comes. A lament for a mate that will never come.

“Fiona, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” She snaps.

It comes again. Melancholy notes that reflect the magic and beauty no other place on earth can rival. She sings of a haunting wildness. Highlands and Lowlands. Purple heather. The Hebrides bathed in a golden glow. Of things long lost. Of love unrequited. She sings of a great creation and an even greater Creator.

Nessie sings the song of my ancestors.

The song in me reaches to sing the chorus with her.

Inverness, Scotland 3^rd April, 2082

My grandfather told me stories of Nessie and the song she sung. Tonight, I’ll go and see if she still sings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca Morgan has been writing stories since before she could read—or at least, she thought she was! All these years later, she is definitely writing, having written four novels and countless stories and poems. Rebecca aims to write stories that heal and bring healing through the written word. Besides writing, Rebecca loves cooking, reading, journaling, blue oceans, and salsa. She lives in the South with her family.

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