Seaflash

By R. L. Nguyen

Most who sail the sea are afraid of enduring a storm. I’d not be anywhere else for all the gold on all the islands, because I only see him when lightning strikes the ocean.

Raindrops plummet down my neck, each dying quick deaths in the jade-dark waves. Night thickens around me and my coracle bobs beneath, rolling me away from my own ship at my back. My eyes scan the torrent-scarred horizon for the first white flash.

I can never decide whether the lightning draws the ghost vessel from below the surface, or places it there from above. I had asked him once; he said he could not tell. Even when his ten years are up and he can set foot on land again, it’s likely the mysteries of my husband’s servitude will only come to me like echoes in a seashell. A captured reflection of the ocean and not the ocean itself. But that does not matter when the storm rives the sky and his ship appears.

I press forward—my love is waiting. These oars are not made of a size for a woman, but those who scoff at my strength would cease laughing if they saw me row. Cold rain stings my arms, but they burn with exertion and with hope. Hope keeps us both afloat, him and I. Me, sane when I should be mad; him, alive among the dead.

Another diamond flash illuminates the prow of the ghost ship. How do I look from his vantage-point? Like the souls he ferries to the other side, just before they drown?

Rising over my little boat, fingers of frigid water claw my body and snap, drenching me further. I shake them off, blinking away their icy touch.

You will not have me. I board his ship alive.

The storm laughs back in a crash of thunder, as if it heard me. I hope it can. I hope it tells the sea that it can curse my husband, but not take him from me. For seven years I’ve cheated it in exchange for the fleeting, forbidden moments we share on board the ship of the lost before he must send me away. I can survive three more.

The next bolt is meant to frighten me, I know it. I spit salt, whipping my soaking locks out of my face and heaving my shoulders back. The sea answers, rearing its head, and for a moment I see the horses the ancients believed pulled Poseidon’s chariot.

Do your worst! I’m a fool to shout it, except I’ve survived its worst already.

Faster than sight, the lightning beacons the way once, twice, a dozen times, helping me even as it threatens me. Thunder crackles, but the roar in my ears warns me of another wave.

Nearly there. With a haul of my arms the boat clambers up a tilted wall of water, tipping upwards as the billow stretches out translucent green. My heart spills out of place and the oars bite into my hands—but with a splash we drop on the other side. A few more strokes…

Wind tackles me. A second swell catches the coracle, and it roils. A third hurls me into midair. The oars tear my skin as the sea sucks them below.

I hit the water.

My body spins downward. Every nerve screams against my gritted teeth. My hand breaks through to the rain-specked air before the sea claims me again, trying to bury me without earth.

No!

The lightning shows me the way up. I climb towards it, hand over hand, kicking myself free, lungs writhing.

Air, air, air…

Air. My head shatters the surface. I gulp oxygen and rain, both burning my throat. Waves pound my body but I am free. Before I find my bearing my shoulder slams against crusted wood. The ship.

Something slaps the water, snaking dark and twisted through the froth. A rope! It slips through my numb fingers, and I snatch again, the effort searing my arm. The coarse hemp scrapes my palm and I cling with all my strength.

The rope tautens, drawing me upwards against the stinging torrent. White light plays like hearth-fire on a face above me. I gasp as hands grasp me and I tumble over the side.

His arms tighten around me. Strong. Safe. Warm. Murmuring my name, his hoarse whisper cuts through the bellowing of the gale. His tattered coat circles my shoulders with his familiar smell of salt and smoke.

He leans his head back to gaze at me.

“You shouldn’t have come.” The trails of wetness on his face are more than the storm’s blood, as are those on mine.

“Where else would I be?” I bury my head on his shoulder, and his roughened fingers tangle in my hair.

“Look!”

Calling me out of my shelter, he points out across the distance that nearly swallowed me. The last broken shards of my coracle collapse beneath the ocean’s buffeting and disappear.

“Your boat’s lost,” he says. “Lost at sea.” He speaks the words all sailors dread with a fierce quietness.

“What does that mean?” My cheek leaves the sodden linen of his shirt.

“It means you are, too.” His fingertips trace the curve of my chin. “On this ship, only those lost at sea can stay aboard.”

“What?” I glance from him to the place where the coracle sank, and back again. “I—”

“—can stay.” His brow touches mine. I catch my breath.

“Forever?”

“I’m not captain forever.” The joy in his voice reaches my bones. I wrap my arms around him, his solid frame the antithesis of the shifting and treacherous ocean. Three years at sea is a short enough voyage, compared with the eternity I’ve just crossed.

The lightning shines brighter on us than starlight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. L. Nguyen is a child of immigrant parents who found her place to belong in fictional worlds. Her classical education and studies at the Author Conservatory feed her quest after truth and beauty. When she’s not writing magical characters finding victory in darkness, she can be found reading Shakespeare, singing opera, and training her dogs in rural South Carolina.

You can hear an audio narration of “Seaflash” on the Finding Fantasy Reads podcast.

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