Setting Sail

 

by
Kristine Kruppa

 

 

The wind was strong that day, a shout of defiance charging in off the frothing bubbles of sea foam that rode the waves.  It flung strands of salt-crusted black hair in front of my face and into my mouth that I chewed with nervous vigor as I watched the proceedings.

 

Berkane, the head of the Council, stepped forward and wrenched at the door, struggling against mounds of rough sand that had blown against it.  With a massive heave the wooden shed surrendered and creaked open, rusting hinges complaining loudly at the second disturbance that week.  The interior was enveloped in shadow, too deep to allow in any of the meager sunlight that managed to weave its way down between the brooding clouds.  I saw something shift far back in the shed, as if the sound of the door had woken her suddenly from sleep.

 

I tilted my head downward surreptitiously, allowing the wind to sweep my hair in such a way that I was unable to look into the shed, unable to see whatever my sister had become.  She must be so thin, with jutting bones like the orphan children had and dark, haunted eyes like the ones of the mothers who were no longer mothers.  I imagined her terrified gaze sweeping over me, begging for me to do something, anything, to stop this.

 

“We have gathered on this day to witness a punishment,” began Berkane, his voice loud enough for all the villagers to hear over the wind, ”Rhell, daughter of Tali, shall on this day be given to the waves as a consequence for her transgression.”

 

He continued the prepared speech, but I had stopped listening, focusing only on a single broken seashell at my feet.  It was a scallop, as I had learned from Rhell when I was younger, known easily by the ridges that ran along it like sand in the shallow water that the waves pushed into tiny likenesses of themselves.  She had played a lot with me in that water, teaching me how to swim and how to best win a splash fight against our older brother.  Odd, I thought, that the water of my childhood should be the same that would end her life today.  As if I, for having enjoyed what it had given, was somehow to blame now that it was time for the ocean to take something in return.

 

If only I could go back and tell Rhell what I knew now.  That she should have just gone with it, simply been part of the marriage no matter how much she hated it, as long as she would be allowed to live.  The laws of the Council were severe, and killing a man, especially one’s own husband, was certainly not permitted.  Fiand had been so much older than Rhell, true, but also so much richer.  Rich enough so that our family would have been ensured a comfortable life from the moment of the marriage that the Council had ordered.

 

But Rhell would have none of it.  She insisted that her heart lay with another, even as the Council forced her into a wedding dress and walked her down the beach into Fiand’s waiting clutches.  That night, the entire village was woken by a scream like that of an animal, long and saturated with the mad terror of the hunted.  Fiand had been slain in his own wedding bed, a kitchen knife driven through his heart by none other than his new bride.

 

I felt a hand rest on my shoulder and glanced up out of my reverie into my mother’s mourning eyes, gray and windswept as the sea.

 

“Come,” she whispered, guiding me from where I had stood, frozen.  The villagers had drifted down into a crowd at the foot of the water, just close enough for the highest waves to barely clutch at their toes.

 

The tiny wooden boat was already there and next to it stood my sister, obediently lifting her sleeves in order for the shackles to be attached.  She was not as I thought she would be, after crouching in dark dampness of the shed for a week with nothing to eat but crabs that occasionally wandered in and nothing to drink but the mist of the sea.

 

Rhell’s head was held high and proud like that of a queen in the midst of mere commoners, raven-black hair whipping about her in a blazing nimbus.  It reminded me of when I had watched a tornado come down across the hills, swirling and sweeping away everything near enough for it to touch.  My sister was a storm of sea foam and hail, defiantly staring down the water that would soon be her death.

 

I, a mere peasant to her queenly gaze, looked upon her in silent awe at the sheer courage of her spirit.  So ferocious, so defiant, fighting until her last breath against that which she did not believe in.  I have heard it said that, when people are about to die, they finally reveal the true nature of who they are.  Cowards run, brave men fight, betrayers yank down their comrades, and my sister stands straight-backed against it all.  Shackled with heavy chains to the tiny boat, she sits as if in a carriage as the carpenter bores careful holes into the damp wood.  Holes that are large enough to sink the boat, but small enough to do it slowly, gratingly, while the criminal sits within and screams.

 

When they push her out past the waves she does not look back, but stares straight ahead at the foggy horizon.  The mist and salty water reach up toward her, pulling at her hair and clothing, dragging her downward.  I watch as she drifts into the distance, never glancing anywhere but forward, never letting a single noise pass her freezing lips.

 

When she is nearly out of my sight, just a low-sunken point of color against the gray sky, I almost believe that a boat comes to her and pulls her aboard.  I imagine them sailing into the distance far beyond the reach of my mortal eyes, too far gone from where I stand, motionless, on the windy beach.