Salt for the Returning

The first time Elin came to the shore, she brought too much with her.

But it was a lantern, full moon. Bread wrapped in cloth. A knife she did not know how to wield. A little jar of honey, which spilled on her coat pocket, and stuck sandy to everything she came into contact with.

She stood at the brink of the wave, and watched the water receding off her feet, and advancing again, as though irresolute, in an indecisive fashion.

People said the sea listened.

Following the absence of a body, people said many things.

Waiting till the water had got to her toes she said his name.

Nothing answered.

Nevertheless, the following night she returned.

And the night after that.

The ritual was simplified by the seventh evening.

The lantern stayed at home. The bread too. It was all that was left of it, as someone had once told her that sweetness traveled more far than sorrow.

She emptied a little into the water.

“Come back,” she said.

The sea did what it always did. It moved. It breathed. It ignored her.

But the act made things straight within her. Waiting was less difficult with form.

So she returned.

Same place. Same hour. Just after the tide turned.

After the first month the villagers ceased to ask questions.

People are not comfortable with loss. Repetition even more so.

Their voices were brought down as they watched her go with the jar in her hand. Some pitied her. She was not approached by others at all, because sadness may be contagious.

The only person that spoke straight was Old Tomas who mended nets close to the docks.

The sea keeps what it has got, he once said to her.

Elin nodded.

In the evening that very night she carried salt rather than honey.

The transformation was not anticipated.

The water was not as cold as it was supposed to be. Not by much. Only enough to be felt when it got round her ankles.

She stood still, listening.

She listened with momentary silence without knowing what she overheard, below the sound of waves. Not a voice. More like movement. On something moving where it should not.

She did not tell anyone.

On the following night she came with honey and salt.

Rituals grow quietly.

First of all she started coming earlier, to see the tidal coming in. Then she began to talk instead of whispering. Small things at first. Memories. Complaints. News from the village.

You would despise what they have done the pier.

The baker roasted up the morning lot.

I straightened out the window you never managed to do.

The ocean only responded with foam.

Still, she kept talking.

It felt rude not to.

Winter came hard that year.

Ice was formed along the rocks and the wind made cuts in her coat. Twice or thrice she almost turned away.

The idea of disliking the routine horrified her even more than the cold.

One night when she was pouring the honey into the tide she felt herself brushed up the wrist.

She jerked back.

Nothing was there.

The water flowed in the same way as ever.

but she arrived home trembling, no knowing whether to believe that she had imagined it or not.

The following evening she came back with a lantern once again.

She began to notice changes.

The wave appeared to be nearer to her. The water stayed a longer time around her feet. The waves paused too long, listening sometimes, when she was talking.

Hope crept in quietly.

Hope always does.

She stayed later each night.

The villagers had started locking their doors earlier.

There were rules to the ritual by spring.

Honey first.

Then salt.

Then his name three times told.

She had never remembered making this decision. The order itself was simply right.

She once had attempted to run away with nothing but honey.

The water went farther along the shore after her than ever.

She never repeated this error.

The initial sight of him made her barely know him.

It was dusk. The tide low. The horizon was lost in haze.

There was a figure where the water was deeper.

Not moving.

Watching.

Her breath caught.

She jumped forward and her heart racing.

The form was changed with the movements, elongated, disrupted, re-united.

A trick of light. Of grief. Of wanting too much.

All the way home she told herself this.

The following night she rushed to the shore.

She ceased talking of the present afterwards.

Only memories now.

The manner in which he laughed when the storms came in. The scar on his hand. The song he was never to complete.

The figure appeared nearer every night.

The water rose up each night about her knees.

Cold stopped mattering.

One evening Old Tomas stopped her.

“You look thinner,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

You must not go out there by yourself.

“I’m not alone.”

Here she could not help uttering the words.

Tomas stood and stared at her.

The sea returns, he said slowly. “But never what you lost.”

Politely she smiled and went by him.

The same night she had lingered till the tide had covered her waist.

The touch came again.

This time it was not lost.

Something twined around her wrist somewhere under the skin. Not tight. Not painful. Just present.

Familiar.

She laughed, breathless.

“I knew you’d find your way back.”

The water rushed, and strained her equilibrium. She fancied that she was going to fall, while the pressure held her together.

Guiding her.

Inviting.

She fell home hours later and her clothes were wet through, and the jar of honey had disappeared.

She could not recall her falling.

The ritual was altered afterwards.

No more honey.

Only salt.

Only his name.

The sea no longer ignored her.

It waited.

It was high tide on the eve of which the last saw her.

Her voice was blown across the water by the wind and was sure and sure.

Witnesses later on testified that she strolled into the surf without stopping and that she was as though she had met someone who had been late.

They said she smiled.

They all said she stretched out her hands.

No one followed.

At the mornings now with the tide receding the fishermen often find fair strings of salt left running along the shore.