I remember that day you came for me as if I dream it every night. Ten years ago, and I was only eight. Ten years ago and my father was a fool, my mother was dead to your arms and I was thinking I would be the same. We in the village saw you often, of course- you rested on our shore and raged against our rocks. You took our fathers, our sons, our mothers. Don't be sorry. I have since forgiven you.

I remember- my father in disgrace- he'd gone to the sea once more for her, for her revenge. Once more searching for the Loreley. The last time. He promised it would be the last, but we all knew he'd drive himself to ground and never stop for such the searing pain he harbored in his chest. He knew he'd killed my mother.

She had found them together.

After that she felt nothing else, I'm sure of it for I was always closer to my mother than the others. I knew the blinding white that blistered in her eyes. The hollow space of blackened air that hung suspended in her chest. She used the strength she drew from that to pull herself atop the cliff, her last graceful movement ending as soon as it began. My wee brother Cillian knew not what was happening, thinking she’d only gone atop to dive, to hit the sea and then return. In that moment of silence- when everyone had stopped to watch, to realize- his laugh broke into all of us and froze our blood as it moved.

My father broke with her, against those rocks. You told me later you had felt the shock of their impact. It almost broke you.

Almost.

Bless him mother. He knew not what he did, for she were a witch o’ the sea. He’d fallen under her curse and couldn’t think of anything but what she offered. And oh, how he mourned. He forgot everything. He forgot us.

He almost forgot me until you came to him. I almost never came to you. I thank the gods for my poor bumbling fool of a father.

My father thought he had the strength to die, to be reunited with my mother. He was mistaken. In grips with you his ship moaned and creaked, wood bending and sails cracking. He thought that no one would be able to hear him as he muttered, as he bargained against his life with mine. I think he thought of me for how much I was like my mother. Feeling gracious, you had given him a moment to make penance and he infuriated you with his cowardice. You faced him, this salt wearied man, on his knees with fists gripped and eyes screwed shut, you faced him and granted his desire. Far worse punishment, you thought.

Far better to us.

He found his way home after the winds died. My brother and sister ran to greet him on the shore, but I held back. Something in me lit the moment he had licked his salt-dried lips to speak, and I had known the truth long before he made his way to shore. Before he made his way to me, and fell, weeping to my feet. I placed my hand upon his head only for my siblings. Were it just me I would have gone to you then, and never turned back. Were it just me I would have gone to you the moment my mother’s broken body washed to shore.

We sat up that night, the dark falling all around us. My father sat across from me lit by candle light, his eyes weeping blood and salt water. With his first footstep over the hold of our house, he found he could not stop. Poor Cillian was so scared of him he would not speak from then on, though you told me that the blood did stop once I had gone. Once everyone had seen him in disgrace.

We waited till well past the sun set. Hush in the house, and hush on the shore we heard nothing- but I felt you coming. I felt the water slip under the door and rise to my ankles. So cold I went numb before I had time to think. My older sister, Sinead, made as if to stand but found her feet entwined in kelp. It was all I could do to rise and walk towards the sea. Towards you. As I walked the water swirled around my ankles, pulling and pushing. It pushed me towards the boat you left upon the shore. I did not look back, I did not need to.

Ten years ago and I was only eight. Ten years ago, my father a fool, my mother dead to your arms- myself rocked to sleep by you every night, and every night you whispered in my ear, setting all my senses to fire.

I’ve spent ten years in this boat, with naught but the cry of gulls and the waves lapping the hull. Ten years and I’ve learned to catch rain water as it falls. You brought me conch and abalone to use as basins, you brought me kelp and cress, clam and shrimp. Once you bore me an apple so bruised, and with a crust of salt thicker than that of any cured meat, but the inside was still sweet and I savored its sugars on my lips for days.

My clothes have long disintegrated, my skin has burned and healed, and long ago my thoughts were closed to land I knew you would not steer me towards. The night sky is so much brighter here, and though I am alone, I do not long for human company. I have you. Finally, we have each other. I am your Aisling, your dream. And you are my Aigéan.

My sea. My beast.

You are my heart.

Ten years until this point. Afloat still, not realizing that today marks our release. After ten years you whisper, slán leat. Midnight and you find shore. I sleep, but troubled by your farewell even in my rest, I cry out. Ten years, I did not realize even my fool father would not bargain with the entirety of my life.

Morning and I cannot bear it. I will not leave the boat. I tell myself, not to the shore, but you make the boat remember its age, and though I stand amongst the tired broken wood, your waves push me back. Away, and I fall into the surf, sand and tears and skin and all of me refusing what you want.

I will not have it, instead, I rise to face you, for I will not lie broken in defeat, like my mother, nor will I allow you to deceive me, like you did my father.

You have always been the air and earth and sky, but most of all you've been the sea. A beast, but still something more. You're the sand and the kelp, the urchins and the rays. Your voice is a storm breaking on the horizon but your eyes are the stars that lull me to sleep.

You push me away as I cling to you- but the break in the rhythm of your breath deceives you. Our souls are more than entwined, they're amalgamated- and standing here, barefoot on lava rocks and the bits of broken shell that all belong to you, I know that you're breathing me in. Every little bit you're breathing and longing and aching.

As am I.

I seep back into you, and the shock of me is too strong for you to fight against. You have no choice for I have given myself to you. For ten years, never to see your face, and ten years wishing to embrace you. I must be mad, but I know I heard your voice. I felt you in my dreams. I’ve left my broken family, my broken life, and now I wish to leave my broken useless body here amidst the rocks.

Release me beast.

Release me.

Go scaoilimid mise.

You cannot ignore my plea, for it is my heart and my dream that you love.

And so, you rise up. Everywhere around me, in me, through me, you raise me up, too, and bring me crashing down until my breath is done.

And all I can think about is what it would be like to sever his tail from his body. I imagine it would be incredibly satisfying, like burying your arms deep down into the mud of the marsh, only more so. You only have to watch them to understand what I mean. That tail is what propels them through the water so fast that catching anything, even a six year old boy, requires no effort at all. I think that maybe if I can remove the tail, I'll stop dreaming about the leftover pieces that I kept finding for days afterwards.

I want to render him powerless. As powerless as I was when my voice and breath caught in my throat- nowhere to go but back inside of me strangling my heart and darkening the outer edges of my eyes. As I watched those jaws snap shut, I froze. And for years, that was all I was. Years and minutes and moments and nothing but stretching time- seeing nothing more than water stained with what had been my son.

But I am not frozen now. And all I can think is how will I catch him, how will I get past the bone, how will I feel, once it's over? Is there a release- will I feel sorrow, and not just ice flowing through my veins?

Or will that darkness come back to take all of me this time? Will it push me down to rot beneath the mud and silt?

Spear in hand, I wait along the river's edge, holding onto roots to stay in place. With the water high above my head I surface for air only when I remember. Time now is the same as always- it stopped for me so long ago.

I wait until what I think are just shadows and the difference of darkness and light, quickly turn to limbs and claws and jaws so powerful my skull can feel the threat. From the mud and silt of the river bed, my feet slipping, heart pounding-

I do not lunge.

Instead, I find myself eclipsed. The late afternoon sun shines down on the water and silhouettes him- so that his eyes, brown but still so clear, catch the light and fragment it back through the current. His tail pushes him lazily along, and I watch, entranced and powerless by what I yearn for. As I watch him go, my breath grows short, and I rise slowly to the surface knowing that it's over. For the first time in months, I feel warmth spread through my body as I pull myself by reed and root up onto solid earth.

And lay here panting. Satisfied, and digging my arms deep down into the mud of the marsh and crying and gasping and underneath it all, overjoyed.