Going Home

The morning sunlight gave the rocks beneath the ancient lighthouse a rusty look, ghosts of all the ships that had run aground over the years, following her song.  Selkie still heard the groans of the men as the life had swirled out of them and into the black currents, the clank of the anchor chains dragging them into the depths, and relived their agony.  She wondered yet again, if the rust was somehow mixed with the blood of the lost. 

The dead had always called to her.

Selkie could not breathe the sea, and with her two legs she could not keep up.  At first, her mother would visit, swimming in the shallows with her child, but one day she just never came back.  Selkie then spent most of her days and nights wandering the paths around the lighthouse and all over the island, many years, since the last lightkeeper had died.  Alone.

The dead would sometimes appear beside her on the path around the island, sad faces gliding silently over the rocky terrain.  Selkie could ignore them, if she chose, but she was lonely, and the dead her only companions. Sometimes she would speak to them quietly, reciting Bible verses she had heard from when the old lightkeepers still lived on the island. In this way she passed the years.

There was anticipation in the salt of the air this morning, and the cries of the seagulls seemed almost joyful.  The dead gathered around her as she walked, their ghostly energy raising the hackles on her skin.  Selkie felt a lightness within her bones, and in her head a joyful singing thrummed.  The sea called to her.  She approached the edge of the island, knee deep in the water.  Out on the horizon, her mother waved.  Selkie stepped off the island, and let the current take her home.



The prompt is the third definition of the word 'rust'.



 Prompt:

 

I’m not sure what the picture has to do with being halfway, but it popped up in the creativecommon.org search for halfway and I couldn’t stop looking at it. I hope it speaks to your muse.