Longing

The ships left early in the spring and, with them, Fraja’s heart, pulling it out to sea and away to the East Ocean where it would stay until the first bite of autumn. Fraja detested the summer months. While shorter, they felt like too many lifetimes lived and died, compounded one on top of the other; lonely and bored and filled with breezes that felt like melancholy sighs against her skin.

The heat, when it came, twisted like a garrote around Fraja’s throat, lumped in the cradle between her collarbones and pressed into her flesh like the squeeze of a giant's hand trying to wrest her soul from her body.

The lake where she and the man she loved made their fondest memories held little appeal when Fraja was alone, but she made the effort to go, if only to feel closer to him, to wallow in the impressions he had left behind. She was adrift without him, casting to and fro with nothing to anchor her.

She would never say, knew that the ocean toss called to him every year, that he loved it almost as much as he loved her. Fraja didn’t want her love to believe he left her yearning on the shore, wilting and waiting as the days passed for the distant silhouette of a ship in the distance, so she did what she could for distraction.

There were stories from the East Ocean; tales of monsters and Elven ships and lost treasures negotiated for with mermaids who sang men below the cresting waves and into the abyss. When asked, Fraja’s love would reassure her that, I leave everything I am here, Fraja. The only thing I take with me is my body. A mermaid cannot lure a man’s heart if he doesn’t carry it with him.

Fraja wondered, not for the first time, if she’d be beckoned instead should a mermaid try to sing her love to the bottom of the sea, as her heart had made its home in his chest. She didn’t think so, but one could never be sure where mermaids were concerned.

-

It was the end of summer; the heat had started to recede, and the days were shorter. Fraja was caressed into wakefulness by a cool breeze, the smell of brine and hot, damp sand dragging her from her bed. The earliest curls of dawn splashed pink across the sky as she crept through her father’s house, tiptoeing around the creakiest floorboards toward the door.

She felt it the instant she was outside, the breeze stronger and more persistent, shepherding her down the narrow pathway toward the shore. Every part of her was drawn by something she could not yet see, her soul turned completely to the gently lightening horizon like a flower opening for the sun.

Finally, when the sky was barely blue, just as the world began to stretch and yawn its way into a new day, Fraja saw a smudge of white in the distance. Closer and closer it came, its shape becoming more pronounced and as it did, Fraja’s whole being snapped back into focus. She felt, for the first time since the early spring, at peace. Complete.

At last, Fraja saw white sails and dark wood and the movement of men on the deck.

“Kiernan,” She whispered like a prayer, a message for the wind to carry to the ship and to her love. She had no doubt it would do her that kindness for it had been her only company for too long.

The wind returned swiftly with the echo of laughter that wrapped Fraja in a familiar, welcome embrace, cool and salty and perfect.

Her heart was home again.