The Stilled Sea

Inky clouds tore over the churning ocean, their roaring collisions spitting lightning into the water. Chill salt wind clawed through every crack in the house, clattering the shutters of the bedroom window and banging the front door’s iron knocker.

Whimpering and tearful, Saffi clung tightly to her husband, his broad arms solidly circling her slighter frame as they took refuge together beneath the thick woollen bedding. His warm whispers gradually cleared the fog hanging over her senses and pulled her back to their raft of comfort and home, the smells of woodsmoke and one another’s bodies comforting and rich.

‘You’re awake.’ he murmured, his midnight stubble scratching against her.

‘I am. Not sure I’ll sleep again. Not with that outside’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he murmured, rubbing gentle circles across the small of her back. ‘You’re safe, Saff. I’ve got you. Nothing can hurt you here.’

‘Oh, my Jess,’ she shifted her head closer into the crook of his neck, basking in the heat of his gentle strength. Her back tingled in the wake of his rough fingers. ‘Was I thrashing again?’

‘Only a bit.’

‘I’m sorr-’

‘Don’t be. ‘s not your fault,’ his lips feathered a soft kiss against her temple ‘What did you see this time?’

‘Me, the old me. How I was before.’

‘You mean…?’

Something hollow and wooden clattered down and across the cobbles outside. She leaned back, catching his silhouette against the rusty halo cast on the wall by the hearth’s embers.

‘I do,’ she half-whispered. ‘I turned back. Then you threw me out.’

‘Oh Saff, I wouldn’t ever have done that.’

‘I know.’

There were no further whispered confidences. They lost themselves and one another in their unspoken thoughts until the rising of the storm and their warmth weighed them back into troubled, fitful slumber.

*

Saffi woke suddenly, reaching into the space where Jess had been and finding herself alone. Shallow winter sunlight was slipping through the shutters and all seemed still. Quiet, but not calm. A coiled tension hung in the air, lightning still lingered. Her skin prickled, the sensation snagging her breath. She sat gingerly, expecting it to be painful or difficult to rise, and dragged the course blanket up around her shoulders. Bracing her feet on the threadbare rug she hauled out of bed.

Their room seemed as it should. The little wardrobe was ajar, overfull as it was with both their clothes. Her mother’s dresser had the clothes she had laid out for herself the night before still folded atop it, and the spot for Jess’s was bare. The door stood open. Shaking both sleep and alarm from her head, she hurriedly dressed and stepped downstairs, then out into the yard.

He was standing at the other side, atop the steep slipway. Yesterday he had dragged their neat little boat away from the shore and any harm likely to be meted out by last night’s storm. He had his back to her, and was looking fixedly out to sea. The earthy brown cable-knit jumper his first wife had made him gave little definition to his square frame, and she noted the ends of his hair caught under the high collar. Time to sit him down for a haircut, seeing as they were outside already. Something routine to distract her from her creeping sense of unease.

She pulled her cardigan closed and softly called his name, expecting him to turn and smile, but he stood as motionless and charged as the air around them. Alarmed once more, she stepped further into the yard, following his gaze, and gasped. The button she had been fastening fell from her hands, and for a moment she thought herself in bed and dreaming. But when she looked again, she still saw the silent sea towering monstrously above the shore in a madness of vast and jagged crenulations, suddenly and impossibly frozen at the tempest’s wildest heights.

Only when she reached out and took his hand did he turn.

‘What….?’ she gestured helplessly.

‘I don’t…’

He shook his head and stared back at the water, bark-brown eyes alternating between wide and narrowed. Saffi clutched at his sleeve, gathering the loose material in her palms in mute need of the sturdiness and surety she had come to expect from him. After a long, quiet moment she realised that this time it would not be forthcoming. He stood like a sail without wind. It was up to her.

‘Let’s find out.’

The steadiness in her own voice surprised her. She gently slipped her hand down to his and led him down the slipway onto the shore. Side by side they crossed the shifting pebbles, heaped into a new and more treacherous instability by the storm’s force. Loath to approach the twenty-foot cresting waves, they instead neared where the water had been washing back away.

Saffi hesitantly put out her hand and moved to touch the glassy surface. The sensation was unlike almost anything she’d ever felt. Her palm came away feeling damp and cold, but when she had pressed against the surface, it was as though she had tried to submerge her hand in quicksilver. The water had simply refused to move. She looked to Jess, who had likewise failed to push his hand into the surf. He turned his hand over, running his fingers over his palm in consternation.

‘No vessel could get through that, by the looks,’ he said. ‘Whatever magic is at play here, it either pays us no mind, or wants us where we are.’

‘What should we do, love?’

‘No idea Saff. This is witch’s work if I ever saw it, and you know more ‘bout the Craft than I ever will. Too much iron in my blood for the likes of this.’

‘No witch I ever met could have done this. Not even the stories have witches that could.’

‘We should get back inside,’ he said, ‘something warm will set us right.’

She took his offered arm, glancing back at the diamond droplets of foam hanging impossibly in the air as they glittered in the cold morning light.

After a subdued breakfast of overnight oats, Saffi took a stool out to the yard, and sat Jess down for a haircut and shave. She stole glances over the water as she sharpened the razor and lathered the brush. As her hands deftly drew the steel along the familiar contours of his jaw, she considered what exactly it was that was so bizarre about the way the waves looked, aside from their lack of motion. She wiped clean and folded the razor and planted a kiss on his now-soft cheek, before pulling from her apron the set of shears he had made for just this purpose. Standing behind him, she clipped at his wavy, steel-coloured locks.

‘I think it’s the light’ she said at length.

‘Hm?’

‘Don’t move your head, dear. The sea. Why it looks wrong. I’ve never seen waves that size with a clear sky.’

‘Huh, right you are. Nor me.’

She carried on quietly for another minute or so.

‘I should check with Verken, or Lowenna. See if there’s news.’

He gave a single, half-dismissive huff of laughter.

‘Doubt there’s anything an Alderman or his wife can do about this.’

‘Branok?’

‘He’s a safer bet. Like I said, witch’s work.’

‘I’ll see him, then. Temple’s on the way to the big house anyway. Owen coming in today?’

‘Yes. I’ll get the forge lit when he arrives. Bound t’ve been damage people want mending or fixing after last night.’

‘Don’t forget those hinges, mind. Marisa-’

‘Marisa paid up front, I remember.’

She took the sheet from around his shoulders and shook it out, stealing a kiss as he bent to pick up the stool.

            ‘I’ll let you know what I find out when I get back. I love you.’

            ‘And I love you, Saff. See you later.’

Sparing the beach another long look, she left him to his work. The forge was a little outside Evannia, the village council having decided to rebuild it away from other buildings after the fire. That was twenty years ago, and she only dimly remembered the event. Only the forge and its attached house had been destroyed, but only quick reactions had saved nearby homes.

She knew that Jess thought about the fire every time he made the walk to town. He had come this way on the day of the fire, then barely older than she was now. Twenty-six, and his father, elder brother, and wife all burned to death by a blocked chimney. He’d gone from a fisherman who begrudgingly apprenticed under his father to the island’s sole blacksmith, and one without anything in the world but the family boatshed. All in an afternoon.

He hadn’t handled it well, at first. He passed his infant son to Saffi’s mother, unwilling or unable to raise him alone. It was the sudden presence of a younger brother that she remembered best of the whole affair. That and the new building by the boatshed slightly around the bay. As the years went on though, Jess had begun to see more of the family. Waving at her as she peeked out behind a doorway. Laughing at one of her father’s jokes. Helping her when he died. Understanding why she needed to make her journey to the Mountain once Owen was grown up, and welcoming her when she came back.

That was when things started to change between them. Owen was his own man, and what had been her parent’s house was more home to him than her. She knew it was hard for him when she left, and harder when she came back. Besides, she’d been more parent than sibling to him, and what young man wants that hovering over him every day? So Jess had let her stay. And then things had, in fits and starts, bloomed between them. His rough hands and quiet manner weren’t the dashing princes she’d read about when she was young, but they spoke to a straightforwardness and depth of love she found comforting. He wore his troubles and his triumphs on his face, laughter and worry and care etched into his skin.

She smiled to herself, only stopping when she realised that she’d overshot the temple and had to double back. It was the oldest building in the village, and one of the largest. It was all stone, with no mortar holding the cleverly interlocking granite blocks together. The door was much newer, and she privately enjoyed the familiarity of her husband’s work as she raised the knocker.

Before she had the chance to knock, village witch Branok opened the iron door. A man around ninety, he was the second eldest on the island by his reckoning, and easily the eldest by anyone else’s. His back was hunched, slightly diminishing his once-impressive stature, but his voice retained its careful articulation and impressive resonance.

‘Come to collect me, little witchblood.’

Saffi startled slightly at the question said as a command. Abruptness was not usually Branok’s way.

‘No time for pleasantries, witchblood. There’s High Craft in the air, and the Ironers need reassuring. Help me with these steps.’

She had already helped him down two of the three before realising she hadn’t yet gotten a word in.

‘Are we go-’

‘Yes, the big house. Verken has already sent someone for me, and this nonsense can’t take up more of my time than it must.’

‘Why not, witch Branok?’

‘Because the Malan will come tonight.’