Sea Silk

My eyes stared listlessly up at the blurry glow that I knew was the moon. I can’t spell moon. I can spell cat and dog but not moon. But I don’t suppose you have to be able to spell when you’re dead, and I don’t think I can last much longer. The water caressed my skin, nipping playfully with its cold teeth, pulling me down to stay with it forever. Encased in the clinging walls of the cove, I watched the bubbles escape my lips and swiftly dance around each other, returning to the air far above. I hardly noticed that they held my last breath.

Do you like it here? Will you stay?

My mother will miss me, I thought.

She has other daughters.

My bare feet bounced against the ocean floor and I floated above it for a second. My chest burned.

Where is the air? I need to breath.

Hidden.

I need it.

The air is too dry.

I can breathe when its dry.

Stay with us. We will show you everything.

Who are you? I parted my lips and tasted salt. Fire blossomed in my lungs.

We are the ocean. Do not forget us.

I shut my eyes slowly and barely hear the faint splash from the surface above me.

I opened my eyes in my grandmother’s tough and weathered arms and tried not to cry. I had failed. Again. The moment I dove, I had forgotten everything she had told me and let the water take me. Her eyes were hard but she didn’t look angry, like she had all those countless times before, but sad and resigned.

“Sorry gam…” I coughed weakly, “Sorry…”

“Quiet.” She set me on my feet on the shore and tied down the boat. I stared at my feet and shivered, trying not to listen to the urging of the gentle waves against the shore.

“I told you she was too young, mum.” I looked back and saw my mother. Her hair was wet and glittering in the moonlight, her white tunic was soaked and torn. Her voice lilted as she spoke. My grandmother glared,

“She’s been too young for the last seven years, Cassandra, I learned to dive when I was three! The child is plenty old.”

“Sorry mum…” I scrambled across the rocks and hugged her knees, whimpering. She sighed.

“Maybe she’s just not the one.”

“No, mum…” I jerked her dress urgently; she took my hand off of the tunic gently and dropped it.

“Cea, I need you to try harder. If you can’t learn then we will have to give the inheritance to one of your sisters.”

“Sorry, mum, sorry…” I cried, “I’ll try harder, I promise.”

“Good.” The sea’s chosen silk seamstress looked down at me, her heir. The lights and shadows of the night danced across her skin making her look almost ethereal. I knew I was insufficient, I couldn’t be her, “But you’re not to bother gammie anymore. She’s getting old and can’t always be here to save you. From now on, you teach yourself to dive. When you’ve learnt, come to me and I will teach you the next thing.”

“I’m getting old, am I?” gammie challenged,

“Yes, you are, mum, now come inside.”

So, they left me alone in the dark by the sea.

“If I go in, will you let me out again?” my quiet voice was swallowed the stillness.

You have only to ask.

One : Seamless

Four days.

I stood on the rocks, the water licking my bare toes, begging me to come in.

Four days.

The silk must be harvested.

It wasn’t a voice, and I didn’t hear it, but it was there. It was there with the dance and chaos, the mirror and the calm. The crashing and the rippling, it spoke to me.

“She may still come back. There can only be one. I should wait.”

I had put on the seamless white tunic, worn from years and years of salt crusting against it as it left the ocean. But it could still be returned to its shelf

She is gone.

I already knew, but I wish I didn’t. The men had come bearing gifts, but they did not like her answer. They took her and she was gone. I was chosen. The sea silk seamstress.

The sea was restless, the fibers waited uncut, I held my breath, stepped forward and let myself sink. I hardly had to swim. The water took me where I needed to be. The light of the stars barely filtered through, just enough to light dim patches of the great shells’ bellies. The giant ancient clams were covered in the finest of hairs, soothingly swaying back and forth as one. I could only cut a few at a time, so this would be the first dive of the hundred I would have to make tonight. I moved quickly, almost mechanically as I cut and swam to the surface and dove and cut and all with the small silver scalpel. The water grew faintly agitated at my tension but I couldn’t relax. Only one woman in the world could do what I was doing and it wasn’t my mother. Not anymore.

I barely breathed when I reached the air, just dove again and ignored the burning. The water was my home. And it had been since that night when I first spoke to it. I cursed my body for its dependency on land, its deep lust for dry air. In the sea, I didn’t need to be anyone, I could just be part of it.

But now, I couldn’t be Ocean, no matter how my mother named me. Whether on land or sea, I was the last sea silk seamstress and that would dictate my life.

There were so many rules. I have to wear the white tunic when I dive, and dive only at night. I could cut only a few hairs with each dive. I had to use the silver tool. I was practiced in the spinning and embroidering of the golden thread. I could make such patterns as no one in the world could have. The whole world would covet it. And if I ever sold it, I would forfeit my life to the sea’s curse. It could only be a gift.

Mornings and evenings, I would commune with the ocean. Some called me crazy, some said it was a perverse worship of the water. Nonsense. I was the water’s servant, but it was not my god. I just knew it better than most and spoke with it.

I used to do none of these things, and I thought when I did, I wouldn’t be so alone. But my sisters left years ago, and the current took my gam soon after. Then the men came with the gifts for my mother and took her when she wouldn’t break her vows.

So, I was alone. But I was sure not for long. The men would be back. Still looking for the sea’s silk. They would find yet another seamstress. With the same answer as the first. But there would be no one to replace me.

And still, I couldn’t run away. Here was home, and there was spinning to be done.