"Aleece" by Emily Kirsch

Waves crashed upon the rocks beneath her, stray spray flicking up and kissing her cheeks. The torrents of wind and rain that had driven the clouds over the sea side town earlier had subsided, leaving a simple, elegant fog that was pierced every so often by a stray, golden strand of sunlight to hover over the ocean. Even brighter than the sun was the music that was swirling up from the depths of the seabed, as gentle as a breeze when it fluttered up against her ears, but as strong as an instrument that was played right next to her. It wrapped her in its genteel embrace and she closed her eyes to the faint rain that pattered around her, giving into the serene voice that was singing in notes unable to be reached by human vocal cords. She swayed on her feet as the tone of times once sung about by bards sank into her skin, telling her she would remember. She hadn’t a choice but to remember . . .

The song brightened and words formed, of a language she could not recognise, but one so beautiful it made her knees buckle and caused her to drop forward on her hands. She opened her eyes and looked through dark eyelashes and across the sea’s wide breadth to the horizon, feeling a smile form on her lips. Her heart swelled when the music did and the near-silent harp strings were plucked as surely as the ones of her soul were. They disappeared into the backround so only the voice remained, chanting a sweet, lilting name – Aleece. A feeling of complete content swam over her body and the music quieted and melded with the clanging of church bells in the backround; them seeming discordant after the sweet aria that had just graced her ears. She lifted her chin and carefully pushed herself from the edge of the rocky cliff, the rain’s noise not sounding quite as sweet as it had before the voice had drawn her.

She knew she should feel some form of amasement as to what had happened, but every single crescendo and decrescendo of the song already rang deep inside of her bones, familiarity echoing even after the notes had been quelled. She even found herself humming the melody as she walked up the planked path, her voice undulating with the absent swaying of the sea of yellowed grass – more of a golden colour in the rain slackened light. She was aware of how each breath of wind seemed to be calling her name, how the persistent tug of the waves nagged at the back of her heels, pleading with her to turn back. Instead of obliging she continued forward, dropping her humming to a tender low.

Her feet carried her into the small cabin that her family had stayed in before they had left for a life more inland. She couldn’t stand staying away from the ocean for more than a few days, so had chosen to continue her life there, as a struggling poet and bard. Neither brought around much money, but on days when the streets weren’t decked with rain and when her muses offered a dance a fair amount of money was brought in to help her remain standing when the sky cried and her muses sat out. She tossed storm cloudy eyes to the table where papers were stacked neatly, a slender golden pen resting atop of them, but she moved past and went about readying herself for sleep.

She shrugged into a robe after she had undressed and put her nightclothes on, for the planks that made up the walls never succeeded in keeping drafts out. In but a moment a fire waltzed in its stone encasing and she was sitting in the lone chair near it, watching the embers flare then die, flare then die -- a somewhat ironically rhythmic chaos. She leaned up from the back of the chair and drew a few shards of paper, the pen, and an old, worn book into her lap, settling down deeper into the cushions after they were positioned correctly. Her eyes unfocused every so often but she shook her head to keep herself awake, resisting the temptation of letting her heavy eyelids close against the pattering rain and the flickering flames. After she shifted a few more times in the chair she glanced from the fire and to her empty paper, but her muses refused her.

The corners of her lips began to sag and her lids felt even more like dead weights, as if they’d already joined their partners in a night of swaying and drinking. After a few seconds more of resisting she found her body succumbing to the beckoning of sleep, and she allowed herself to follow along, conscious drifting away . . .

But an indistinct calling sounded in the distance, luring her from the temptations her dreams supplied. She rolled her neck back along the chair’s padded head and sat up once more, tilting her chin to the side to catch what summoned her from what was so inviting. After a moment it sounded again, and she recognised a string of notes that blended upward than down, fading into the now-screaming winds that made up the background. Raucous pronunciations of her name made up the other half of the sound, and even in their ungainly state they held a certain dignity that carefully lined each measure of the call. She rose from her seat, transfixed, and moved to the door, stepping out into the whipping night without another thought to her safety.

Her feet carried her down the crude steps that were carved into the sloping cliff, taking her to where the waves met the shore. Icy winds bit at her bare toes and neck, tearing her hair about her face without even a small amount of consideration. She stumbled across driftwood and clumps of moist seaweed that had washed ashore, taking an idle care not to step upon any shells that assured to tear through the fragile skin of ones foot. Her arms pinwheeled about herself in effort to keep her standing against the jarring wind, and once her balance was regained she threw all caution to the wind and sprinted across the remaining length of rock and sand between her and the ocean’s waves. The cliffs swarmed above her, blocking out the moon – should it manage to tear through the thick rain clouds. She ducked beneath crevices and over jetties and dunes, uncaring and unnoticing that she had left almost half of her robe on jagged edges of the rocks that obstructed her path. When she finally made it to the waves edges the strain flared into view, as if a beacon of light was shed from its mouth to her ears, inviting her to cross the sea and join it.

Another voice joined it in its song, rising to a tear-inducing level. She stood, awe-struck, and her mouth dropped open as if she was ready to respond to its call at any moment. Without realising it her feet moved forward and were almost immediately attacked by the waves’ furious crashing, the water soaking her clothes through to the knee. Although she wanted to hesitate, to turn back to the safety of the shore, the calling was far too strong.

The waves swept her into their arms and she was pulled out to sea, even though not once did the surface enclose her head. She swayed in their embrace and felt her arms swing with the melodious pulse the singers sent. She twirled beneath the waves and a delightful aria was formed between her movements, the winds shrieking, the ocean’s writhing and the music that surrounded her. A clear euphoria spread throughout her body as she felt herself sinking, enshrouded in a state of peacefulness but a pressing, exciting urgency that demanded to be sung from the highest cliff. She flung her neck back and bellowed to the skies.

Her feet kicked along the ocean’s bed and she flung her arms to and fro, unable to stop the incessant dance. The sea had taken her hand and it refused to let go until it had tired itself, uncaring as to what her own physical state was. She shut her eyes to clear her head, to, perhaps, wake up – but found not her fireplace and pad of paper when she opened them, but the glittering outlines of buildings seen through a wall of sheer water. People whose skin was tinged blue waltzed along with her, mimicking every drop of chin and lift of elbow she made; every swing of hip and twist of foot she performed.

"Aleece," they called, and she felt her heart throb with the music’s implied beat.

"Aleece," they chanted, and she felt her eyes shut against the serpentine dance.

"Aleece," they whispered, and she felt her senses dull with the pounding, surging call of the ocean.

"I’m here," she responded, and felt the sea close over the top of her.

Nights later she found herself strewn upon the rocks of the cliff she had been standing on the first time her ears had caught the call. She had screamed herself hoarse until some villagers had came and helped her to her cabin. Her legs had been shattered and mutilated beyond repair, and the muscles in her arms were so strained that she could not lift them for more than a few months. Her heart ached with the remembrance of the call, but she could not answer it any longer. The torturous, relentless summoning of the sea taunted her every night. She found the only way to keep herself from the edge of insanity was to write herself to sleep, and even when her mind was on her words and not the call the faint ‘Aleece’ still sounded clear inside of her head, and the siren’s song was as clear as the morning’s sun.

She had danced with the waves. She had danced with the waves, and the waves would forever dance with her.