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headcanonsandmore · 4 years ago

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Hermione and Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Weasley

Summary: A Romione WLW AU, with Hermione and her best friend Veronica 'Ronnie' Weasley, the sweet redheaded girl who... well, who Hermione finds herself very confused about.

This fic was inspired by a similar AU scenario fic by @hillnerd. As with everything Hilly does, her fic is amazing, but hopefully my fic doesn’t look too bad by comparison.

Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~~~

Hermione Granger had a problem.

Well, not so much a problem. More of a…. confusion. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

And it had to do with her best friend. Veronica “Ronnie” Weasley.

Ronnie was funny, sweet, kind, and athletic. Over six foot tall, with a mane of long red hair and a mass of freckles, she immediately caught the eye. The boys couldn’t help but notice her, and many of the girls either admired her or felt jealousy towards her. Hermione had lost count of the time she’d seen Dean and Seamus staring at Ronnie from across the common room. On a few occasions, she’d even seen Neville blush after Ronnie had smiled at him.

Not that Ronnie noticed any of this. The redhead had always felt lacking, either to her older brothers or to her younger sister Ginny. Ronnie was, like all her siblings, good at schoolwork, but she had never felt like she could stand out. She had confided to Hermione that, even if she had done well, no-one would ever think much of it, since her brothers had all done it before.

And then there was Ginny. Ronnie’s little sister was about almost a foot shorter, and with more of a nervous energy than that of her older siblings. Hermione had often wondered whether the Weasleys all had a set amount of passion, and that those of a shorter persuasion tended to be more on-edge than their lankier siblings. Granted, this theory didn’t necessarily explain why the short Charlie was so relaxed, while the taller Percy was the exact opposite. Maybe the Weasleys all just reacted differently to their circumstances.

Ronnie was not an intense person. In fact, Hermione found her almost supernaturally relaxed and affable. More prone to telling a chuckle-inducing joke as opposed to an over-the-top prank that was the preferred tactic of Fred and George.

Hermione preferred Ronnie’s way of doing things. Hermione liked a lot about Ronnie. Even if Ronnie personally thought her own matey-ness with people made her unattractive, Hermione couldn’t imagine why such friendliness and kindness could be considered unappealing.

To boys, of course. Yes, just to the boys.

Hermione had the distinct impression that Ronnie felt lacking compared to her little sister. Maybe it was Ronnie’s lack of interest in “girly” things, or her seeming-inability to act with “decorum” (as Hermione’s parents would have put it). It was common for Ronnie to wear a pair of hand-me-down school trousers instead of skirts because, as she herself put it, she hated having to worry about whether people could see up her legs.

Hermione always found herself flustered whenever Ronnie joked about this. Ronnie did have very long legs after all.

She had been friends with Ronnie for years, ever since the Halloween of first year. They hadn’t exactly gotten along before then but, since the incident with the troll, they had become firm friends. It was nice being friends with someone else in the girls dormitory; Lavender and Parvati had never really clicked with Hermione. Ronnie was the first female friend Hermione had ever had.

And then third year had happened.

The two of them had fallen out over their pets. Crookshanks and Scabbers had never gotten along and, at one point, it had looked like Crookshanks had eaten Ronnie’s rat. It had been really lonely not speaking to Ronnie for all that time.

But they had become friends again, and things had settled back to how they had been before.

Well, not exactly.

Ronnie had always been a good friend, but Hermione hadn’t understood why she had missed Ronnie so much when they weren’t speaking. She certainly hadn’t missed Harry in the same way, which was even weirder considering that Harry was a boy.

Hermione had missed Ronnie’s smile, her laugh, her beautiful red hair, the way she would throw an arm around Hermione’s shoulders as they walked to class, the way she would bound up to her and hug Hermione tightly, and the way she would stretch out in the common room so that Hermione couldn’t help but notice her-

Yes, she had certainly missed her friend Ronnie. The same friend who made butterflies appear in Hermione’s stomach whenever Ronnie smiled at her. The same friend who began to inhabit Hermione’s dreams in ways she was becoming very confused about.

Hermione had hoped that… whatever this was would disappear over the summer holidays, and she could just enjoy her friendship with Ronnie with no extra complications.

No such luck. Fourth year had just made everything even more confusing. Harry and Ronnie hadn’t spoken for a while after Harry’s name had appeared in the goblet of fire. Hermione had desperately tried to patch things up between them but, in the end, they had worked it out themselves after the first task.

It was good for them to be a trio again. Although Hermione, Ronnie and Harry had always been a bit unusual. Parvati and Lavender had always been giggling over it, asking both Hermione and Ronnie about which of them Harry was dating. Hermione had always rolled her eyes at this. To her, Harry had always been like a younger brother. Like all younger brothers, he was always getting into mischief and being annoying, but he was her brother nonetheless.

Ronnie had always laughed her head off whenever this question was proposed by Lavender and Parvati. Harry was “her best mate”. End of. Nothing more to say.

But… well, as the Yule Ball approached, suddenly Ronnie stopped laughed and started blushing, avoiding Hermione’s eyes.

‘It’s none of your business,’ she had mumbled, her ears flashing their tell-tale pink.

Hermione had felt her heart slowly sink, although she tried to avoid thinking about why.

Sure enough, the day before the Yule Ball, Hermione had asked Harry about who he was taking, and the boy who lived had blushed scarlet.

‘Er… I asked Ronnie.’

Hermione dropped the book she was holding. The two of them were in the library.

‘What? You mean… you…’

‘I-I don’t know, okay!’ Harry stammered. ‘It’s just… I needed a date for the Ball and Ronnie’s my best mate, so it made sense.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

At that moment, someone tapped Hermione on the shoulder. It was Viktor Krum, the Durmstrang champion.

‘Excuse me, may I have a vord?’

Harry looked at the Bulgarian suspiciously.

‘Yes, it’s fine,’ Hermione said, leading Krum away into the next aisle of bookshelves. ‘Which section are you looking for?’

‘No… I… er…’

‘Krum?!’

Ronnie’s face looked horrified. It was several hours later, in their dormitory.

‘Well, it wasn’t as if I was going with anyone, so why not?’

‘He’s eighteen, Hermione!’ Ronnie said, urgently. ‘He’s way too old for you!’

‘He’s not dating me, Ronnie,’ Hermione replied. ‘He’ll be more like a chaperone than anything else. Besides, it’s just one ball. It’s not like he’s asking to marry me.’

‘I should think not!’ Ronnie’s face was strangely angry. ‘You’re too good for him.’

Hermione felt her cheeks blush.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Er, congratulations about you and Harry, by the way.’

‘You… you know about that?’ Ronnie asked.

Hermione nodded, wondering why the mood suddenly felt so tense.

‘Yes, he told me earlier. It was nice of you to go with him.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes. I think you’ll have a great time.’

Hermione hoped that her voice didn’t sound as falsely-cheery as she suspected.

The Yule Ball was something of an event. It was interesting hearing from Viktor Krum about what Bulgaria was like, but she found herself distracted. Possibly due to the fact that Ronnie and Harry were sat only a few chairs down the table, and kept giggling over stuff. Ronnie was wearing a very lacy dress that Mrs Weasley had only managed to get third-hand; since Ronnie was so tall compared to most girls, her clothes had always been a bit… well, difficult to acquire on a budget. The dress was a few inches shorter than her normal summer shorts were, and Hermione had got the distinct impression that Harry was trying not to stare too much when they had walked through the crowd with the other champions and their partners.

Hermione probably would have enjoyed the dancing too, except that she kept looking round to see what Ronnie and Harry were up to. Ronnie’s hair was long and had a sweet flowery scent that seemed to follow it around the room. Her smile was wide as she danced with Harry, and the way she kept laughing made it difficult for Hermione to concentrate on her own dancing. Why was she so distracted?

‘Vould you like a drink?’ Viktor Krum asked, after a very fast song had finished.

Hermione nodded, and he left for the buffet table.

At that moment, Hermione noticed that Harry and Ronnie were walking towards the balcony area.

Deciding to catch up with them, Hermione darted between several other couple, and poked her head out through the curtains.

Her stomach turned to lead.

Harry was kissing Ronnie on the mouth, and Ronnie was kissing him back.

Stumbling backwards through the curtain, Hermione pushed through the crowd and began to make for the exit. However, she bumped into Ginny and Neville.

‘I’m… feeling a bit unwell,’ she mumbled. ‘Could you tell Viktor Krum that I’ve had to leave?’

Ginny and Neville nodded, but looked concerned and a little confused.

Hermione didn’t stop hurrying until she had arrived back in her dormitory. She washed her make-up off, changed into her pyjamas, and climbed into her four-poster bed.

She had started crying before her head even hit the pillow.

‘So… yeah.’

‘Bit weird, but… well, that’s it.’

It was the next day. Harry and Ronnie were talking to Ginny about what had happened. Hermione was eating her breakfast without looking at any of them.

‘So… are you two dating?’ Ginny asked.

Ronnie laughed nervously.

‘No; but… well, we’re gonna see how things change. If it’s not our cup of tea, we can stay friends instead.’

‘Yeah,’ Harry said, cheerfully. ‘Take a bit more than kissing for us to stop being best mates.’

‘Yeah, but…’ Ginny said, her eyes darting to Hermione and then back to Ronnie. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Er, yeah,’ Ronnie said. ‘H-Hermione, what do you think?’

Hermione blinked hurriedly.

‘Oh, I’m sure you two will be very happy,’ she said, a little too cheerfully. ‘I hope you don’t me being a third wheel, then. Anyway, we need to get to first period now.’

Harry nodded, and stood up.

Ronnie remained sitting, looking at Hermione with a slightly confused expression on her freckled face.

Ginny gave a sigh, and went back to her breakfast.

The next few weeks were not fun for Hermione. Ronnie and Harry had always been a duo and, now that they were sort-of together, Hermione had never felt more like a third wheel. Even though both of them were clearly trying their best not to exclude her, she couldn’t help but feel miserable.

And that wasn’t even getting into the way her heart would thump painfully whenever she caught Ronnie looking at Harry.

It was ridiculous. Hermione couldn’t be jealous! What was there to be jealous of? Harry was like a brother to her, so it clearly wasn’t that.

No, it was something else.

It was Ronnie.

Hermione was in love with Ronnie.

She tried to not think about this. Which normally would have been difficult. But luckily, they were both helping Harry about the second task, which took up a lot of time and mental headspace. And their coursework was so time-consuming that Hermione barely had time to think about her feelings for Ronnie.

Could girls even fall for each other? Hermione had read about that sort of thing happening, but she never would have imagined that it would happen to her.

The day before the second task, she (along with Ronnie) were helping Harry with his preparations for the second Triwizard task, when the Weasley twins arrived.

‘Ronnie, you and Hermione have got a message from Professor McGonagall.’

‘What?’ Hermione asked, confused. ‘She can’t seriously ban us from helping Harry, can she?’

‘No, she just wants you and Ronnie to go to Dumbledore’s office.’

Hermione exchanged confused glances with Ronnie.

When they arrived at Dumbledore’s office, they were not the only confused people there. Cho Chang was also there, plus a young girl speaking in fluent French who was presumably Fleur Delacour’s little sister.

Dumbledore explained about what the second Triwizard task was, and how it would include all of them. Each of the champions would have a hostage, who would be in an enchanted sleep at the bottom of the great lake. The hostages would be perfectly safe underwater, and would return to normal once they were brought back to the surface of the lake.

‘Professor,’ Hermione asked, raising her hand. ‘I don’t understand; why has Harry got both me and Ronnie as his hostages? And where is the hostage for Viktor Krum?’

Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

‘Miss Granger, you are Mister Krum’s hostage, not Mr Potter’s.’

Hermione’s eyes widened in confusion. Viktor Krum? She was his “the person he would miss most”? Why? She’d been to the ball with him, but that was it. She hadn’t really spoken to him much since, aside from apologising for leaving the Yule Ball early. Why was she his hostage? Surely, he had friends from Durmstrang that would be a better pick?

Hang, on. Ronnie was Harry’s hostage. The person Harry would miss most.

So, that meant Ronnie was…

Hermione felt her heart sink. She couldn’t even look Ronnie in the eye, but she felt the redhead tense next to her.

Maybe Harry and Ronnie will become a full couple after he rescues her in the task, Hermione thought, miserably, as she slipped into unconsciousness from the sleeping spell Dumbledore had casted, I guess there never was any hope for me…

The next thing Hermione knew, she was treading water in the middle of the great lake. Viktor Krum was pulling her towards the shoreline. Her uniform felt heavy and sodden.

‘Where’s… where’s Harry and Ronnie?’ she asked, as Madam Pomfrey bustled them over to a tent nearby. ‘Haven’t… haven’t they come back yet?’

Madam Pomfrey patted her hand in sympathy, and tutted under her breath, as if she’d quite like a word with the person who came up with the idea for the second task.

A portion of pepper-up potion later, plus some warming spells, and Hermione was stood on the shoreline with Cho Chang and a very worried-looking Fleur Delacour. The French girl’s hostage was still down in the lake. Cho had put an arm around her.

‘They’ll be fine,’ the Ravenclaw was saying. ‘The judges won’t let any harm come to- oh, hello, Hermione.’

‘Hello. Have… have Harry and Ronnie got back yet?’

Cho shook her head.

There was a shout from the crowd, and Hermione looked round. Three people had just surfaced in the middle of the lake. Hermione could see a mane of very familiar red hair. Dashing past Viktor Krum (who seemed intent on chatting to her about something), Hermione wade into the shallows of the water. Fleur Delacour and Percy Weasley joined her.

‘I’m fine, Harry,’ Ronnie was saying, as Harry helped her towards the shore. The two of them were stood awkwardly in the shallows. Percy had stopped fussing over Ronnie, and had gone to find them some warm blankets, followed by the Delacour sisters.

Harry leaned forward and kissed Ronnie on the lips.

Hermione felt her heart sink and, turning away, she walked out of the lake, ignoring Viktor Krum’s renewed attempts at conversation, and left for the castle. People looked at her in confusion as she pushed past. She was glad that she had been given the pepper-up potion, as the February wind whipped through her.

Before she knew it, she was lying in her four-poster bed, crying her eyes out. She had somehow managed to close the curtains around her before she broke down completely. When was she ever going to get over this? She had no “claim” on Ronnie; after all, Ronnie liked boys, Ronnie liked Harry. And, next to Harry, why would Ronnie possibly look at Hermione? A bookworm. A girl. Just the best friend.

‘H-Hermione?’

Ronnie. Oh, god, Hermione thought, she can’t see me like this…

‘G-go away, Ronnie.’

‘What, and leave you miserable? Not on your life.’

‘I’m-I’m fine, Ronnie. J-just a bit exhausted from the task.’

‘Did… did Krum do something to you?’

‘No!’ Hermione exclaimed, pulling back the curtains of her four-poster. ‘Of course not! He’s barely even held my hand! What… how could you…’

‘W-well,’ Ronnie said, her ears turning pink. ‘You were “the person he would miss the most”, after all.’

Hermione stared at her for a second.

‘I don’t see Viktor Krum like that,’ she said, earnestly. ‘He’s… well… like a chaperone.’

‘He fancies you.’

‘You mean like Harry fancies you?’

Ronnie looked as if Hermione had slapped her.

‘You… you saw him kissing me, then?’

Hermione nodded.

‘Is that why you’re crying?’

Hermione mentally cursed. Her cheeks were still wet with tears.

‘I’m… I’m very happy for you both.’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Hermione,’ Ronnie said, hotly. ‘You’re clearly upset about it. What, you fancy Harry or something?’

‘What? No!’ Hermione said. ‘Harry’s like a brother to me! Why would you-’

‘Well, what’s your problem, then?!’ Ronnie exclaimed, coming to stand barely a few inches away from her.

‘Don’t be… it’s… well…I-’

‘Hermione, what is it?’

‘It’s not Harry that I fancy, Ronnie; it’s you!’

There was a deafening silence.

‘I… I shouldn’t have said that,’ Hermione mumbled. ‘Sorry, forget I-’

‘No, what do you mean?’ Ronnie asked. ‘Do… do you mean that?’

‘Y-yes,’ Hermione whispered. ‘I’m sorry. I know you don’t see me like that. I’ve ruined our friendship-’

Hermione stopped talking. Because Ronnie had suddenly leaned forward and was kissing her on the mouth. Hermione’s brain seemed to disengage. Ronnie’s lips were soft and delicate as they pressed against Hermione’s. The redhead’s body heat felt like a warm fire against her, despite how little they were touching.

A few seconds later, although it could have lasted for hours for all that Hermione knew, Ronnie pulled away slightly.

‘Do… do you really mean that?’ Ronnie whispered, her hands tender as they interlaced with Hermione’s. ‘You… you really fancy me?’

Hermione nodded, feeling very confused.

‘Yes. Ever since… actually, I don’t know when. But… why…’

‘I… I fancy you, Hermione,’ Ronnie said, softly. ‘I… I thought you didn’t feel the same way.’

‘You fancy me?’

‘Er, did I not just kiss you? Would have thought it’d be a giveaway…’

Hermione giggled.

‘Okay, I believe you. But how-’

The door opened. Harry poked his head through.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Ronnie said, cheerfully as she held Hermione’s hand. ‘She’s okay. And so am I.’

‘Cool. And… did you both…’

Ronnie nodded.

‘Fantastic!’ Harry said, grinning. ‘I’m so happy for you two!’

‘W-wait, what?’ Hermione exclaimed, utterly at sea. ‘Harry, did… did you know?’

‘I guessed. Besides, me and Ronnie work better as friends anyway.’

‘You… you two aren’t a couple?’ Hermione gasped, looking between them both. ‘I thought… after you kissed at the lake-’

‘You are one daft maid,’ Ronnie chuckled, pecking her on the cheek. ‘But that makes two of us, eh?’

Hermione smiled, as she held Ronnie’s hand. Maybe, on occasion, the best friend did get the girl. Even if they were also a girl, too.

~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed it!

#romione #ronmione #wlw!romione #femme!ron weasley #veRONica weasley #harry potter fanfiction #romione fanfiction #romione fanfic #tw: food mention #alternative universe #harry potter au #romione au #au #ron x hermione #hermione x ron #ron/hermione #hermione/ron #what if harry and ron went to the yule ball together?

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insomniac-dot-ink · 4 years ago

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She Walks on the Beach at Dawn

Words: 13k

Genre: wlw modern fairy tale

Summary: A woman sees a strange figure walking on the beach every morning. She seems to lack a shadow, and disappears after Claudia blinks. However, Claudia can’t seem to help herself: She can’t stop wondering about the lonely figure.

After many weeks of waiting she ventures toward the other woman and brings her a small present. And a strange and twisting tale of an unusual woman on a beach and her admirer starts to unfold.

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She walked on the beach at dawn.

She had loose ink-black hair that swayed down past her hips, and an airy foam dress the color of pearls and ship sails. It was sleeveless, long, and exposed a long swath of her dimpling back. She had eyes like iron ore, and freckles of gold that spanned her shoulders and cheeks. Her footsteps were light, bare, and quickly washed away by the morning tide.

I noticed, I always noticed, that she did not cast a shadow as the sun rose bloody orange across the ocean front. I never approached.

She sang as she walked: a jaunty, endless tune that tripped and dallied its way down the melody with the speed of playful hiccups or a prancing horse. She was slow as she walked, her head bowed, and her eyes downcast. There were no other houses near that stretch of beach. My grandmother had the only small white cabin for miles.

The cliffs were too rocky, and the water was too cold to attract anyone but grouches who hated company and delicate wildflowers that dotted the hillsides. She walked in the sunlight with her song as thin as spread butter, and I watched. I never used to get up at dawn.

I never used to watch sunrises or chase the retreating silhouette of lonely stray girls. I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t that type of person, or at least, that’s what I told myself. Nonetheless, there was no denying it: she was the strangest and most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

She walked for several long minutes with her back straight and voice carrying. I would watch safely from a distance until I would blink or accidentally sneeze and look away for an instant, and she would be gone. ------------------------- “Grandma,” I came back into the kitchen with the backdoor clattering shut behind me. “Have you taken your pills? I laid them out with the yogurt.”

A bent old lady with her curly white hair like cotton fluff atop her head squinted back at me. “Where have you been?” She said tartly. “I had to put the coffee on myself.”

“Sorry.” I said breathlessly and went to the counter to check the coffee pot and get out two mugs. One with kittens and the other big enough to fit a bowl of soup in.

“Don’t tell me you were at the beach again.”

I didn’t meet her eye and instead busied myself with the creamer and sugar packets. Those two were for me since grandma liked hers black as midnight.

“I told you not to go down there,” She sniffed. “Break your neck on the cliffs down that way.”

I glanced over my shoulder finally and finished pouring the coffee. “And did you take your pills?”

“Yes, yes.” She said and waved a hand dismissively. “Did you take yours?”

“It’s a patch, grandma.” I went over to kiss her forehead. Something in me exhaled from that comment alone even after all this time. “And I did.”

“Good.” She said and her sharp bluebell bright eyes swung to meet mine. “I don’t want you out there again.”

I shrugged, and started to sip my coffee. It was as bitter as you like it even with sugar, and I was humming to myself the same song I had heard almost every morning since I had been there. A song from the girl on the beach.

Grandma scowled darkly and muttered something to herself before drinking her own coffee in a way that suggested she didn’t even taste it. ------------------ The morning air smelled sharply of salt and ozone from the rumbling dark clouds in the distance. Grandma Lettie had been saying for hours the day before that there was a storm coming.

I still had a tradition to maintain though. I went to the crevice of a beach just alongside the cliffs and I ducked behind a set of boulders. It felt wrong, the hiding alone made my skin prickle in a way I hated, but it had been three months alone in this corner of Maine with barely any contact.

A few friends still emailed and texted and called, but it seemed less frequent and sometimes less friendly. Most of them were chums from the law firm with square sturdy jaws and white teeth made for the courtroom. Men with family bank accounts established in pilgrim times and women whose eyes spoke of hunger and procedurals. Each one of them would usually offer up a friendly “good for you” when I told them the news, and then wouldn’t meet my eye for a while. It didn’t matter.

I squatted on the beach with my hands twisting together. I had a ribbon in my hand, and that felt wrong too. For a moment, I worried she wouldn’t come or that the storm would bulldoze across the ocean in a flash and ruin everything. I knew I couldn’t do this drenched. However, as if on cue, a funny little melody burst to life and I peeked out.

The woman stood with her shoulders sloping and freckles golden in the first of the light. Her long black hair swayed and I could only just make out a twisting design on her back. I always was a sucker for tattoos even if I had refrained from getting them for my “law career.” That didn’t matter anymore either.

I crawled forward as I watched her dainty footprints mark time across the ground. My heart throbbed in my throat as I stood and it felt like some sort of test I hadn’t studied for. A roller coaster no one buckled me in for. What was I doing? She turned toward the light and her hair was pushed aside by a strong breeze.

I made out the tattoo. It was of an eye with long lashes and two circles spreading out around it in a spiral. It was dizzying to look at. And beautiful.

My hand shook as I lifted the ribbon and maybe I should have run then. Perhaps I should have dove into the water myself and let the ocean claim me. “Excuse me,” My words shook and I hated this. “I have, um, this.”

She twisted around at an unnaturally fast speed, and her eyes went wide. There was a darkness there that I didn’t expect and she hunched over. “For your hair.” I said and it felt much stupider than I had planned.

The song was gone from her thin lips and she leapt feet-first into the water while my mouth hung open. Oops.

“Sorry!” I called. “I’m really . . . sorry.”

I put the ribbon under a large stone I had found and scrambled away from the beach as fast as I could. My grandma commented on my “dour face” when I walked in through the back door and it was all I could do from breaking down into tears.

I didn’t go to the beach the next morning. ------------ It was a week later when I found it.

There was a village two miles inland where we bought our groceries, visited the doctor, and picked up medicine. I had no appointments that day, but managed to snag a whole chunk of parmesan cheese for a spaghetti dish I wanted to try making. There wasn’t much else to do in a cabin isolated with your grandma but learn to cook.

I ended up packing up all the groceries into my basket and meandering past the shops with little tight windows, lacy curtains, and knickknacks on tables outfront. I fingered a rouge dress outside one of the shops. It was bright as cherry lipstick with tiny white flowers sewn into the skirt. It was lovely as a spring day, and even had pockets and a modest neckline.

I bit my bottom lip and wondered if I was going to be brave today. Would the woman inside give me a look like I had grown a second head if I went inside and tried to buy it? I hated being looked at. I hated being seen since I was young and my mom tried to get me to sing in front of strangers at her parties.

I almost puked from their eyes landing on me and my mom boasting about my rendition of “You Are my Sunshine.” I put the dress down. I sighed, you already own that blue one from Fran with the white stripes and that purple lacy one. I reminded myself.

I wore them in front of the mirror in my room and thought about date nights and summer movies on the beach and returning to civilization. I turned to go home, but something caught my eye like a fish hook through the mouth.

There was a painted rock holding down a pile of fliers inside. The fliers seemed to be for a music night at a bar nearby or something. However, painted in heavy brushstrokes on the rock was an eye with long lashes and a twin spiral coming up from the center. I rushed inside with a sudden gust of energy.

The shopkeeper was a greying old woman with a white kerchief tied in her hair and a bright orange shirt that didn’t suit the petulant frown on her mouth. She was thumbing through a magazine when I banged into the room. She looked up slowly and I pointed wordlessly to the rock.

“What’s that?” I stammered when I remembered language.

She looked me up and down and I had to remind myself not to bristle. “Local band night.” She licked her finger and turned a page in her magazine. “Seven O’Clock.”

“No, I mean,” I picked up the heavy gray stone and brought it toward her. “This.”

She tilted her chin up with a fierce little movement. Her eyes were dreary slate-gray and her voice was throaty like craigs in a mountainside as she spoke. “You up on Sugar Hill?” Sugar Hill was what the locals called the cliff-top where my grandma lived.

Apparently, it looked like a lump of sugar in the winter when it snowed. It snowed often.

“Yeah.” I nodded and turned the stone over in my hands. “With, uh, Miss Sampson.” I tried to make my voice higher and less intrusive. I hadn’t spoken to anyone but my grandma for a few days now.

The shopkeeper nodded. “So you don’t know.”

“Huh?” I ventured and wished she could just hand me a pamphlet of local iconography and spooky symbols.

“You can have it.” Was all she had instead. “I’ve got more.”

“But what is it?”

She let a stream of angry air from her nose. “Keeps favor.” She said simply, “Don’t want the spirits chasing you.”

Spirits. I flipped that over in my headspace like trying to finger a hole in my pocket until all of the seams burst and my hand fell through. “Spirits.” I repeated and wondered if my confusion alone would be enough for her to elaborate.

“Yep.” She said and turned the page of her magazine which I saw now had a star chart inside. She also had an astrology chart fixed on the inside of her space and a crystal ball tucked away by her sleeve. Of course. “Spirits.”

I opened and closed my mouth before leaving the shop with the rock in tow. I wasn’t sure what I had gained-- if anything at all. ------------------ I sat staring at my barely chewable soup I had made for the night. I was experimenting with heavy stews, but the broth was thinner than I wanted and the meat was thicker. I stirred the contents around before my grandma huffed.

“What’s wrong now, Claudia?” She said. She had finished the soup in record time which was truly impressive for someone bordering on 90.

“Um.” I contemplated the beef very thoroughly. “Do you think girls . . . like ribbons? As presents.”

“Sure.” She said and squinted. “You meet someone in town? Be careful. They’re all superstitious kooks in Summervale.”

“Sorta,” I didn’t meet her eye. “But I think I scared her.”

The muscles around my grandma’s mouth tightened as she seemed to search for the right thing to say. “Then she’s not worth your time.” She finally settled on, but I think she might have misunderstood me.

I looked away. “Sure.” I sighed.

“Try the wildflowers,” My grandma contributed with something that was almost a smile. “Nothing like our flowers anywhere else. And if she still doesn't like ya’ after that-- then buy yourself a nice dinner and don’t look back.”

“Oh. Flowers.” I sat up straight in my chair for once. “Ours are nice.”

Grandma snorted as if that was obvious. I stood to go scurry outside before all of the light died for the day.

On some level I knew I should let it go. There was no point in chasing girls who dove into oceans. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get that image of her out of my head. A lone woman with her feet marking the earth and a song about nothing floating through the air. That sight every morning was so lonely it made my chest ache.

And by then I knew dearly about loneliness. -------------------- “Maybe she’ll try and eat me.” I muttered to myself. “Maybe evil spirits are real and she’ll be the avenging kind . . . Or maybe you just shouldn’t harass poor girls on their morning walks.” I chastised myself.

I walked around in circles. I gnawed my lip to smithereens and I almost went home twice. I held a dozen white wildflowers to my chest. They were wrapped in blue string and held a very simple note that only read: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.

“Normal women don’t leap into the water to get away.” I kept going. “And you don’t even know what’s going on here. I mean, I don’t believe in spirits of course, but what if she’s . . .”

I never finished the thought as a prayerful kind of song was rising with the light. It was one I had never heard her sing before. I froze in place and hunched my shoulders. I listened for a moment. The melody was syrupy and filled with woeful long notes. I started walking toward it as if possessed.

“So, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why do you come here every morning?” I practiced what I wanted to ask her. “I’m sorry if I bothered you before. I just thought, well, that’s a lot of hair. What about a ribbon? I love long hair. I’m growing mine out and, um, um.”

I came around the bend and stopped mid-stride. She wasn’t walking this time. She was standing on our tiny beach with the enormous gray rocks beside her that led up to the cliffs. Her back was turned to me and her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail.

The ribbon I had placed on the beach was tied in it like a shining blue beacon. I swallowed painfully and almost turned around again.

She must have heard my steps crunching in the sand however, and quickly turned to look at me in that unnaturally fast way. My mouth was hanging open and she smiled. I had never seen her smile before. It was breathtaking.

“Oh,” I fumbled gracefully. “Hello.” I forgot every other word in my vocabulary.

Luckily, she didn’t run away and instead turned with the rising sun behind her and hair fluttering like a living field of dark kelp. She put her hand out. “Hello.” Her voice was smooth and seamless like a river rock. “Are those for me?”

I presented the flowers to her. I suddenly wished I had worn anything other than the ratty long brown skirt I had been trying out, and a white blouse with smudges on the sleeves. On some level I wasn’t sure I believed I would meet her.

I wished I was someone else with better words and a sharper wit and hair fully grown out. It only reached my chin so far.

She kept staring at me and I realized she was waiting for the flowers.

“Yes,” I squeaked and wondered when I had become so bad at this. “Flowers.” I put them in her hands and her smile somehow grew wider.

“Why?” She asked and it was a lovely edgeless word.

“Oh,” I wiped my palms down on my ratty skirt. “I, um, you live in the area, don’t you?” I asked in a way that resembled a person.

She laughed and it was rustic and almost chaotic in sound. “Close enough.” She said, “Do you give all of your neighbors flowers?”

Only you.

“No.” I admitted. “We don’t have any other neighbors.”

She laughed again in that shameless close-to ugly way. I wanted to bottle it and sell it to the heavens for good favor. “Thank you.” She said slowly and shifted from foot to foot. “I’ve never gotten a ribbon before.”

“You haven’t?” I heroically kept going.

She shook her head and took a step back. “I appreciate it. And the flowers,” She crushed them to her chest before looking over her shoulder. “I should go soon. What’s your name?”

“Claudia.” I blurted out. “Claudia Samson, I live up on the clifftop.”

“I know.” I should have been much more creeped out by her saying that. “Will you come again?”

“Yes!” I swore it and there was an almost sad look on her face.

“Come again at dusk. Be careful of the cliffs.” She said in a way that was unnerving. And then she dove into the water headfirst this time and I wondered if my flowers even survived that.

I collapsed onto the beach and watched the sun shine as if my entire world hadn’t just been shifted and led to something that felt breakable and breathless. The woman on the beach didn’t look me over like I was about to start speaking backwards.

She just looked at me-- simply and wonderfully, and it was all too good to be true. I stumbled home after that and my grandma kept asking me why I was smiling like a fool.

I kept telling her that I didn’t know. Sometimes good things just happen. Sometimes you get to be a fool. ------------------ I had never thought to meet her at any other time but the dawn when I first spotted her the morning of one endless, sleepless night. She had just been a peculiarity back then, but now she was a full blown mystery. Where did she live? What did she do for a living? What did she think about in the morning when she woke up and what did she like to eat for breakfast?

I wanted to know everything. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way her lips curled into a cheshire grin and the way she asked if I was going to come again. I was definitely going to go back.

I put on the purple dress that showed-off my calves. I took off the purple dress and found some jeans that were at least unwrinkled. I put the purple dress back on and groaned at the mirror. Finally, I went to my grandma.

“Grandma Lettie,” I called and I knew she was in the television room watching her game shows or Animal Planet. “I have a question.”

Grandma Lettie lifted her chin and the gloom of the living room almost made me claustrophobic. She always watched TV with the lights off for some reason. I sucked on my bottom lip before turning on one of the duller lamps. “What do you think of . . . this?” I offered weakly in the purple dress with lace at the bottom.

“Let’s see it.” She said curtly.

I turned in place and it didn’t seem any better. “I know, it’s a little much.”

“This for the girl in town?”

“No.” I said truthfully. I was better now at telling the truth than when I was a lawyer. “Just someone.”

She hummed deep in her throat, “You taking her somewhere?” I shook my head and my grandma made a disgusted noise.

“I gave her the flowers. She liked them.” I answered shyly, “We’re just . . . meeting.”

Grandma shifted in her stuffed pink chair. She was thin now and her cheeks were gaunt and slightly haunting to look at. Her gaze was still razor-sharp and intelligent though, “Are you bringing something to do at least?”

“No?” I stuttered. “Should I?”

“Haven’t you dated before, woman?”

“Not like this!” I turned and stomped to the next room. “It’s not that easy.”

“Bring her wine!”

“What if she doesn’t drink?”

Grandma just snorted. “What kind of woman is that?”

“Grandma!” I whined and Grandma Lettie shook her head.

“She should at least like a good German beer,” she smacked her lips. “Or a little italian wine! I have some in the pantry. Make her a better woman yet.”

I rolled my eyes. I wanted to ask if that’s what grandpa did for her, but I knew it would be a sore subject either way. They were both unhappily divorced in a ceremony Grandma described as “making me a worse Catholic and a better person.”

I crept into the pantry for the wine and an ideal sparkled in the back of my head. “I’ll make a picnic!” I said brightly. “That’s like, a nice thing. Picnic’s are nice.”

“Wine is better!”

“Grandma, hush, I have to concentrate.” I started to think of inoffensive dishes to make for strange girls on the beach. Tuna sandwiches? No, it had to be better. It had to be something that would make her smile again.

I started cooking.

“You are a terrible nurse, Claudia.” Grandma grumbled when I didn’t share the food with her.

“But a good granddaughter, yeah?” Grandma just smiled and let me borrow a neat white blanket from the shed to sit on outside. ------------------ I rushed to the beach just as the sun was setting and my heart was threatening to burst and leave me dead. I managed to struggle my way down through the boulders just in time to see someone slipping across the sand. She was facing me this time.

“Claudia!” She sang. Her hair was still tied back and the foamy dress swaying in the wind, but she looked different. Her eyes were darker and face slimmer somehow. Her golden freckles seemed silvery and mouth quirked in a new direction.

In a fit of extreme embarrassment I realized I hadn’t asked for her name at our last encounter. I trembled. “I brought um, well,” I gave a nervous laugh. “Do you want to picnic?”

“Yes.” She said instantly. “Oh yes!” She clapped her hands. “So many people do that, yeah? They used to come all the time in the summer to picnic here.”

“So you’ve been here a long time.” I was still clutching the basket to my chest. “Were you born here?”

“Yes, yes,” She nodded. “I like your dress very much, Claudia.”

“I, yeah, thank you.” My cheeks flushed and felt somehow exhilarating and perfect to be told that. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t think I asked your name before.” I stood transfixed to the spot and tried not to wind myself up into a panic attack.

“Ah,” She just nodded. “I’m Rommel. It’s nice to meet.”

“Rommel.” I said fondly. “That’s unusual. It’s good.”

She shrugged. “It’s mine.” She swept to the side, “Let’s eat, I have to be home soon.”

“Of course.” I nodded like I wanted my head to fall off and my hands only shook slightly as I spread out the blanket. “I made two avocado sandwiches with spinach doused in a little lemon and a tomato. And a fruit salad, and oh, uh, wine.”

“Wine?” Her face split open. “Wine, yes, magnificent.” Her words were somewhat fast and bled together like mixed paint. “I’d like that.”

I poured us the wine first and she beamed when I handed her the paper-towel wrapped sandwich. She took one enormous bite before putting it down-- her mouth smudged with mayonnaise as she did. “Are you a chef?”

“Oh, oh no.” I said and hesitated to bite into the sandwich. It seemed menacingly large as I looked at it again.

“What are you then?”

I almost choked. “Well, I’m looking after my grandma now.” I clarified. “She lets me live there for free while I, well, I kinda quit my job and decided to start my life over.”

“That’s fantastic!” Rommel was obliterating the sandwich with a speed I had never seen in another person before. “I love your cooking. You should be a chef.”

I gave a wheezy little laugh. “I’m not sure about that.” I nibbled on the outside of the sandwich. “What do you do?”

She gave me a sly look. “What do you think I do?”

“I don’t know.” I shifted in place. Rommel started to drink from the wine now. Her cheeks were flushed and raw and I couldn’t look away. “Singer? Um, tax accountant?”

She rumbled with laughter. “Definitely a tax accountant!” She shook her head, “Tell me about your grandma then. Do you get along?”

Rommel was full of questions. She wanted to know who my grandma was and why she was such a grouch. She wanted to know about the house I lived in and how many dogs I owned growing up and any funny stories about the neighborhood kids. She wanted to know everything.

It was a brilliant half-hour that I wished lasted a lifetime. I wasn’t used to talking about myself-- I used to erasing myself in the name of manners and good standing and a family name I no longer wanted. “So, um. I tried to be a big shot lawyer, but never actually showed up in court.” I chuckled, “I can’t believe my parents even wanted me to go into it. I had a stutter growing up! How could they see a kid like that and go: lawyer. Definitely should be lawyer.”

“What should they have said?” Rommel was giggly and bright-faced.

“Oh maybe dentist.” I said and it felt so good to speak freely. “Or perhaps part time as a professional koala bear.”

“Koala?” She shook her head. “I don’t see koala in you.”

I shrugged, “I love eating things that are bad for me and doing nothing.” I joked.

“What do you think I’d be?” She stuck her chest out and she seemed to like to play guessing games.

“Horse.” I said directly. “Or one of those funny little seabirds.”

She stuck her bottom lip out. “Seabird?” She whacked me on the shoulder. “You aren’t getting any flirting points.”

“Points?” I sat up straight as if electrocuted. “Jesus, am I being graded? Don’t tell my brain that. I’ll start hyperventilating like I did in the fifth grade during spelling bees.”

“Oh no worries.” Rommel said with ease. “No grades here. Though grade school has a lot to teach us, such as about the alphabet. And sharing.”

“You know a lot about gradeschool, eh?” I tried to probe for facts about her.

Rommel shrugged. “My mother is a teacher of sorts.”

Some part of me exhaled at that. She had a normal, teacher mother who probably lived nearby. She was a normal woman-- even if I still couldn’t pinpoint her shadow behind us. “And this for instance,” Rommel started tracing words into the sand. “A good learning moment from grade school.”

I almost choked on my wine and had to start coughing and beating my chest after a second. It was not elegant in the least bit, but in my defense Rommel had traced words in the sand. They asked: Do you like me? Yes. No.

“Well?” She put her hands on her hips. “What do you say?”

I crawled over and checked the yes. “You are quite tricky.”

She laughed. “Tricky like a fox!” She whooped, “Not a seabird.” She looked over her shoulder where the last of the light touched the purple seas.

“You are a lady of layers.” I grinned.

“Yes.” She said. “Would you like to do this again?” She asked quickly and cocked her head to the side. “Go on dates?”

“YES.” I stood up all at once and brushed the purple skirt off. “Yes, yes I would!” It was absolutely the sweetest thing in the world to be asked instead of doing the asking.

She nodded. “Have you ever been into town? I’d like to go.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been. They have . . . music nights and craft shows sometimes and all sorts of things.”

She smiled prettily. “Good. I have to go now, but when you come next I need you to bring me three things, and then we’ll go into town.”

“Anything.” I said and I meant it.

She tilted her chin down. “Three drops of your blood, a lock of hair from a land dweller, and a piece of shadow from a mountain stone.”

“Uh, what?” She smiled and I looked around me to see if I was about to be pranked or something. “What does that mean?” I turned to ask for more details, but she was gone. I was left alone in the dark with an empty wine glass and my head spinning.

Maybe she wasn’t such a normal woman after all. ------------- I paced back and forth in my room. That can’t be right, I thought to myself. She doesn’t really want my blood. That’s ridiculous.

I had heard her ask for it of course. I had her say “three drops of your blood.” I had seen the look in her eye that was neither humorous nor lighthearted.

It felt like preparing to take the LSAT all over again: questions with no right answer and answers that barely made any sense. I retrieved the rock I now kept in the drawer of my bedside table. I examined it carefully and chewed on my bottom lip again.

What if Rommel was something else? What if there is something more to this world?

I had been raised with rationality held to the highest esteem. My sister had been teased mercilessly by the entire family when she went to see a fortune teller at the carnival. My mom threw out some Tarot cards I had been given at a birthday party as a “sad gift.” We were raised with facts and hard reality and capital “t” Truth. I was one of the reasons I was bullied into being a lawyer-- as well as so many other reasons.

But what if I got to peek into something Beyond us, capital “B”?

It didn’t make any sense. It didn’t seem to have any logic behind it. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine not seeing her again. It felt right. It felt like relief, being a potted plant that had been dying of thirst for years now and finally watered. Was it just because she was the first pretty girl that talked to me? Was it just because it was the first time I talked to a pretty girl as . . . myself? Was it all a sham done by gooey unknowable feelings I had developed somewhere in the plane ride between here and Manhattan?

Rommel. Rommel. I flopped onto my bed and kicked my legs in the air. “Rommel.” I said her name out loud and my cheeks flushed. It felt like the kind of crush I had never allowed myself in the past.

I beamed until my face hurt and my grandma called out. “Claudia!” She yelled in her dusty voice, “Claudia, come here!”

I rolled out of bed and my eyebrows rocketed up. “Grandma,” I quickly went down the stairs and to her room on the first floor. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I would be if my nurse had helped me get tucked in.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you needed--”

“I’m kidding, Chicken,” She said fondly before turning on her bedside table lamp. Her face was bathed in its quiet glow. She smiled, “I wanna hear about your date.”

I hid my smile behind a hand. “Grandma.”

“An old lady has only so many thrills left! I heard you prancing around up there.”

I rolled my eyes before grinning. “It went well. Really well,” I leaned on the doorframe and I felt girlish and like I wanted to start twirling a pigtail. “She asked a lot of questions. Very, uh, spunky.”

“Fine, good.” Grandma lifted her chin up. “Did you kiss?”

“No!” I took a step back. “It was only like, a first, or second? Date.”

“Then kiss her next time.”

I remembered what I had to bring her and almost balked. “She did ask for something . . . weird.”

“I don’t wanna know.” Grandma waved a hand through the air. “If she asks for something behind closed doors then at least humor her. People will surprise you with their affinity for wax or spanking--”

“Grandma!” I jumped and almost left the room. “Nothing like that.” I burned brightly in the dark. “Just, um, something a little out of the ordinary.”

Grandma shrugged. “Did she ask for money on the first date?”

“No, of course not.”

“You’re fine then.” Grandma lay back down.

“You think I should bring her the things then?” I asked while trying not to reveal too much.

“Sure,” Grandma huffed and turned over in bed. She had obviously gotten tired. “Alright, I’ve confirmed that you didn’t self-combust or have a shot-gun wedding without me. I love you, Chicken. Go to bed now.”

“Oh,” I squirmed in place. My parents hadn’t been ones to say those words so easily. “I-I love you too.”

I scurried back to my room and tried to think about anything too deeply. Sometimes you shouldn’t try to break a good thing before you have it. ------------- I ended up getting all three things from my room. I cut off one of my brown curls, and then retrieved a small geode I bought at a mountain in Colorado on a family ski trip. I didn’t know what she meant by “shadow” of it, but a simple rock was going to have to do.

I wasn’t so sure about the blood since I wasn’t too fond of the stuff. I ended up perching on the toilet in our bathroom and taking deep even breaths. I was able to prick myself after two tries and my eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Ow.” I grumbled and put three drops of it on a piece of tissue.

I had slept through dawn by accident that morning so I would have to wait until dusk to see Rommel again. I had to fetch groceries in the afternoon first, and was almost late coming home. I would have been on time, but I had snuck down the street and picked up the red dress.

The old woman hadn’t even blinked when I bought it. She simply said, “Like the stone?” I nodded.

“It’s fine . . .” I didn’t meet her eyes as she checked me out.

“Best to keep it in a sunny spot.” She said cryptically.

“Sure?”

“There’s another concert at the bar tonight.”

I grinned. “I know.” I said slowly, “I think I’ll be there this time.”

She raised one bent old eyebrow. “$14.99.”

I paid and ran back home. I needed to do makeup. I needed to find stockings. I needed to spray my curls down and I needed everything to be perfect-- even if I also needed blood for everything to be that way.

I made it just in time as the evening arrived and she was standing on the tiny beach with her face tilted toward the sky. She reminded me of a dark reticent owl.

Rommel barely looked up as I breathlessly scrambled down the hill and held out a little package. “Okay, so I got these.” I said and she snatched them out of my hands in that lightning quick way. “Is this, um, like some sort of test?”

Rommel smiled pleasantly. “It could be.” She took the small geode, looked over her shoulder, and placed it in her pocket. She inspected the hair next before placing it in her other pocket. She frowned at the drops of blood. “Sorry,” She said with what sounded like real remorse. “It needs to be fresh.”

She looked over her shoulder again as if checking for something.

I blushed deeply. “How fresh?”

She put her hand out as if to take mine. “I’m really sorry.” She said quickly, “Do you mind?” She grabbed my hand and lifted it up. Some part of me replied: You can do anything you want to me. The other part of me replied with a series of question marks. I didn’t say either of that out loud.

“Um,” I said instead. “Okay.”

There was a brief sting on the pad of my finger and then the kitten-lick of her tongue. I nearly burst into flames and fainted like a lady from an old pulp fiction magazine. I pressed the memory of that moment away and looked back at her. “Okay.” I said dumbly. “So?”

She beamed and took my hand that she’d just bitten. “Let’s go!”

“Can you tell me what all that was?”

“Later!” She cried out. “Let’s go to town first.”

I was helpless to do anything else but follow her and follow her and follow her. Her black hair streamed behind her and bare feet slid across the summer grass. I was smiling and barely knew why.

Something tickled behind my left ear and words drifted from afar. I brashly and fiercely ignored those soft words behind us, and a voice that shouldn’t have been there. I ignored everything as I chased after Rommel. ------------------ We arrived into town just after the sunset with the night thick with muggy air and lightning bugs hovering over the long tendrils of summer-sweet grass. The strip of shops glowed like a string of welcoming Christmas lights and I navigated us toward two open wooden doors.

We were still holding hands by the time we reached the bar and I hadn’t become any less aware of that. Was I holding too tightly? Was my palm too sweaty? I felt incredibly rusty at all of this as we found our way to the bar.

It was a two-story wooden building that looked better suited for a tavern in a medieval video game or else a knockoff Irish pub. The windows streamed golden light out of the small windows I could hear commotion and chatter streaming out from the inside.

I hesitated. Rommel tugged. “It’s so charming.” She gushed and she seemed to be full of adjectives like “charming” and “amazing” and “fantastic.”

Being with her felt like chewing on a piece of sugary gum and never wanting to spit it out again. I stumbled in after her as we reached the doors. A middle-aged woman with long bushels of brown hair and a round belly handed us a pamphlet as we walked in the door. “Bar or table today, ladies?”

I buzzed with the force of her words. “Table, yeah?” I unexpectedly answered first as Rommel had let go of my hand and was poking around the area.

“This is so cool.” She said and tapped on a picture with a generic looking mountain in it. “Where is this?”

“Alps, I think.” The woman shrugged and I felt strangely embarrassed but that wasn’t new.

“They have wine here, Rommel,” I offered as I guided us across the crowded room. It smelled like bitter beer and split cider along with two dozen bodies squeezed together into one small space. The band was already tuning their fiddles as a golden-haired singer tested her mic.

“Do you go to these places often?” Rommel said and kept looking over the fairy lights and long wooden tables lined up throughout the room.

“No.” I said truthfully. “Maybe a little back in college, but I’ve always been . . .” Waiting? Nervous? I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Rommel was gleaming and shiny as a new coin. She tugged on the waitresses skirt after we sat down, “Two wines please.” She asserted quickly, “best in the house.”

“Best?” I tried not to let my panic show. I still had money from my law firm days, but it dwindled quickly when you lived with two people with medical expenses.

“Only if you want it of course.” Rommel buzzed. She on her own level, “I can pay. I mean, is alright if I pay for you?”

“Oh.” I sat up straight. This was different as well. “If you like? If that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay.” She patted my hand and it felt somehow more real and solid than anything else in the world. “I’ll get this round. That’s what they say, right?” She muttered the last part under her breath, “Yes, I’ll get the whole night.”

“What do you say was your job again?” I quirked an eyebrow up. Maybe I truly could become the trophy wife of my wildest dreams.

She winked. “Treasure hunter.”

I studied her face for a moment before turning toward the stage as the first bursts of music began to play. It was a fun and upbeat sound that resembled something celtic and old world. Rommel began clapping her hands along to it, “I love music!”

Her smile was infectious. “You’re quite good at it yourself.”

“They’re glorious though,” Rommel gushed, “So good.”

“You’re very . . . positive, you know.” I observed softly.

“Gotta be.” She said and swayed back and forth to the beginning of some folk ballad. “It’s an unpredictable world. Enjoy it while you have it.”

I hummed deeply at her unexpected depths, but maybe I should have expected them all along. She had said she was layered. Rommel was quick to down her expensive wine and then order another.

She was red-faced by the third song and clapping the loudest of any person in the room. I wanted to hide under the table as people threw bemused looks our way. In order to assuage my own nerves I ended up drinking my own wine in record time.

Rommel wiped her forehead the moment the next song was over and the break began. “Do you dance?”

“Not typically.” I was focusing on a spot on the wall. I glanaced shyly over to her disappointed face, “But I can be convinced.”

She rapped her knuckles against the table. “And how would you like to be convinced?”

I snorted. “You seem to think you have some power here.”

She shrugged nonplussed. “I am quite powerful.”

I smiled despite myself. “I believe it.” I could barely hide my awe at her.

A wild disjointed night unfolded. Rommel ate messily and sang loudly and by my third glass of wine she had me up on the table. People seemed to enjoy stomping on top of the wooden tables and hoping from one to the other in a kind of dance.

Rommel pulled me up before I knew what we were doing and stomped alongside them. It was the most fun I had had since before I could remember. The fiddle wailed away and we twisted and clapped and sweated buckets as we sang along and mouthed to the hectic sounds.

We held hands and twirled and the red dress spun out around me like a flower opening up and if I was going to use the word “perfect” I would have used it right then and there. I would have used a thousand words and traded every single one of them for one more second of that night.

Rommel was sweaty and smelled strangely of something fishy as she got down from the table and howled. “Thank you everyone!” She waved like she was their best friend now and took a messy drink from someone’s beer. The man didn’t seem to mind even as she was evidently absolutely tossed by that point.

She reached for her pocket and put two hundred dollar bills on the table. They were slimy and covered in something moldy and green. They looked like they had been soaked in water twice and dried using a weed whacker. The waitress scowled at it for a moment before checking for its legality and waving us off.

We swung our arms back and forth as we departed back into the warm night. I had no idea what time it was anymore, but I was giggling.

“I can’t believe you kicked that girl's drink into her lap.” I guffawed. “You’re so lucky you’re charming or she would have licked you!”

Rommel flexed her arm. “I coulda taken her.” She announced before swaying in place as we tried to stagger home. “I really am sorry I knocked it over though. I gave her some money too.” Some part of me was afraid it was another hundred, but was too nervous to ask.

I watched Rommel sway back and forth. “Went a little hard, I see . . .”

Rommel shrugged. “No point in holding back is what I say.” She tipped her head up to the stars to watch them twinkle. “It’ll all be over in a blink.”

Her existentialism had returned. I followed her gaze upward, “Does that make you sad?”

She lurched forward. Her toe snagged on something and she almost fell into my arms. “Yes.” She said and looked up. Her black eyes swam and some absolute sorrow swirled beneath the surface. “God yes.”

She covered her mouth and I didn’t know what to say. I patted her head instead, “It’ll be okay.” She gave me a grim smile and stood up to continue our unsteady trek toward the cliffs.

“Can I walk you to your place?” I asked timidly as Rommel’s moods seemed to be swinging wildly from one direction to the next.

She scuffed her feet in the grass and wilted in place. “I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?” I said gently and tried to nudge her toward the cliffs where she must live somewhere. My feet crunched on the sandy beach as we arrived at our usual spot. “You’re very drunk though, so whatever you say I won’t hold against you.”

She shook her head almost childishly and her eyes were wet again. “You should get away from here. You should not come here again. You should move.”

“What?” I took a step back and the blood drained from my face. “Did I, did I do something wrong?”

“I was selfish.” She seemed to be starting on a tirade. “And you’re sweet.”

“Rommel.” I reached for her in order to close the growing dark gap between us. “Look at me.” I realized that’s all I really wanted. For her to keep looking at me in that way.

“I was stupid.”

“Please,” I begged as the colors of the world started to fade. “I’m sorry if you stayed out too late. I’m sorry-- are you going to be in trouble? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” She said solemnly and then turned quickly and started running.

I didn’t know what came over me, but I pivoted and started trailing after her. “Wait!” I said with a strained voice. “I don’t want to leave like this.”

Rommel looked over her shoulder as she reached the water's edge and her chest was heaving. “I’m sorry.” She said in a small voice.

“Wait,” I wheezed and delicately reached for her. “I want to make it up to you.”

“Don’t follow me! Don’t you realize?” She said in a whispery way. “You’re not the problem.” She tilted her chin up and her face was dark and shrouded. “I am.”

There came a crashing behind me and I turned just in time to see a wave so tall it could have taken down a large horse. It foamed at the mouth and the voice was back: Don’t, hissed something ethereal and larger than life. Touch my daughter!

I had no time to react as water as cold as heartbreak washed over my head and I was dragged toward the darkness. I thrashed against the wave just as Rommel screeched, “Don’t touch her!” She said, “She didn’t do anything wrong!”

It was too late. I clawed at the cold depths, kicked uselessly, and my eyes stung as the light faded. I was being dragged down, down, down into the dark by my ankles as I choked for air. My lungs gave a fiery, angry pulse, and salt poured down my throat. I was too drunk to fight for long, and the world submerged into a decaying empty nothingness. --------------------- A bird cawed overhead. Sharp light pierced my eyes.

It made a sour high-pitched whining noise. My head throbbed and my throat was so parched it felt like it could be used for sandpaper by school children. It took the last of my strength to wrench my sticky eyes open where they had been gummed shut. I turned over and quickly threw up.

I blinked a couple times and stared down at what was mostly sea water. I rubbed at my face haggardly and reminded myself this was why I rarely drank. It took a long moment for me to fully remember the night before.

“Rommel?” I flipped over to look across the small beach, but it was empty and serene. My red dress was filthy and ocean-crusted. Had we taken a swim that night? Had she left me on the beach after I passed out?

Everything was a fuzzy blurry mess and I stood with creaky knees and a hurt back. I sniffled pathetically, “Rommel?”

She still wasn’t there. I didn’t know why, but a hollowness ate me from the inside out for it. I turned to grope my way home and climb into bed. ---------------------- “I told you.” Grandma was not happy. “I told you not to go near the damn cliffs.”

I sucked on the chicken noodle soup weakly. I couldn’t even taste it. “It wasn’t the cliffs.” I drooped. “I just . . . took a bad swim.” Where had I gone wrong? What had happened?

Grandma clicked her tongue. “You got a fever?” She didn’t wait for an answer and her hand snapped out to feel my forehead. She tutted again, “You’re fine, Chicken. Go take a hot bath and treat yourself to dinner. She isn’t worth it.”

I was ready to drop to the floor again. In the fetal position. “She seemed so . . . good.” I said lamely, “It seemed like she liked me.”

“I’m sorry.” Grandma patted my hand with her cool palm and then turned toward the windows. “But life keeps turning. Turn with it.”

“I guess.” I blinked away some growing sorrow burbling up. “She had a laugh like . . . a ridiculous motor. And she said everything was fantastic! And great!” I face-planted into the wood of the table, “Rommel . . .”

“What?” Grandma barked. “What was that name?”

“Rommel?” I repeated. “She’s the woman from the beach.”

Grandma heaved a breath like her lungs were giving out. “Don’t.” She said dangerously. “Don’t ever go to that beach again.” Her eyes were sharp and far too intelligent to ignore.

I tried to listen. ------------------------ Grandma was a heavy sleeper.

I snuck out before there was any kiss of light across the water. It was that kind of ghastly vacuumed-sealed time of night-- the hour of ghosts and in between things. I slipped down to the beach with my head bent and my heart a noisy battering ram in my chest.

I just had to see her. I just had to say one or two things and then I would be done. I would never bother Rommel again, I would stick to the small town, and maybe never leave my bedroom again. I would get over it.

I almost tripped as I hurried my way onto the beach where the first purple of dawn graced the flat horizon. I could smell the summer heat rising before the day began. It was going to be another hot one.

I held my breath and looked in both directions. I clenched my hands together and tried to make myself small. I waited. I kicked up sand into my shoes and paced back in forth from one side of the cliff walls to the next.

It skimmed time off my life to stand and wait there with a certainty I was about to be rejected or told off. However, she never came. Her feet never pressed into the soft sands and no voice was there to yell “Claudia!” or “Wonderful!” At anything else.

Somehow, that was the worst possible option. I hung my head and turned just as the sunlight was freckling my skin. It was almost past 7 now and grandma would be up and about and asking questions.

I heard the barest sliver of something on the breeze and whipped around. “Rommel!?” I called loudly into the thin air but nothing answered. I heard just the hint of her song coming from what could have been an entire lifetime away.

I searched behind boulders, waded into the ocean, and tried to lean forward to look beneath the cliff face. I scanned the hills and even went inland to check behind trees. I ran back home where Grandma had finally come out at around 9 O’Clock to behold my sweaty face and heaving chest.

She gave me a hard scowl. I didn’t care.

“She’s gone.” I announced miserably. “I can’t find Rommel anywhere.”

Grandma beckoned me back home. I looked over my shoulder as I trudged up the hill-- I swore I could still hear her song coming from the ocean itself. -------------- The water sloshed against the side of the boat and I squirmed on the wooden bench. I clenched my teeth so hard they ached and the sailor man gave me a once-over that I hated even more than the dingy itself.

“You sure you know how to man this thing?” He was an older gentleman with sea salt hair and bad tobacco-stained breath.

“I’ll be fine.” I righted my enormou floppy hat and knew in my heart I was finally taking things too far. Grandma thought I was in town treating myself to a dinner and not looking back. I was looking back.

I grabbed the two oars in hand and grunted as I sunk them into the waters. This was going to be harder than I thought.

“Well alright.” He scratched his head and watched as I struggled away from the pier and toward the cliffs. “Be careful!” He called as he must’ve seen where I was headed. I turned my face away and ignored the man who’s dingy I was borrowing.

My wrists ached and I swore I was already getting blisters on my hands from the rough wood. I held on nonetheless and watched as the dusk swept across the land with lungfuls of purple and pink light.

It glittered across the dark ocean and I held on as the waves rocked me back and forth in place. I was not doing what any doctor would order me to do after getting hurt: I was going right back to the source.

I couldn’t sleep though. I barely wanted to eat or cook. I heard her song day and night and knew for certain where it was coming from and it was not the land. I rowed with all my might for what felt like an hour.

I glanced up as the sun plummeted off the edge of the horizon and I was losing the last of the sunset. “Dammit!”

I was below the cliffs now and staying just far enough away from the rocks. I twisted in place to look behind me. The pier was a long ways off. I sighed and moved my oars back into the water just as a sudden anemic lovely sound coursed through the air.

A song I recognized.

“Rommel?” I whispered and there was a figure on one of the rocks nearby. How had I missed her before? She was faint and strangely hard to look at. She was sitting on a sloping lichen-covered rock with her back turned to me and her feet submerged in the water.

I splashed the oars in and out excitedly and furiously moved toward her. “I’m here!” I cried with a sudden unexpected joy. “I made it. I missed you.” I gushed before I knew what I was saying.

Her head snapped around and her face was slimmer and less freckled. She frowned in my direction with her whole entire face. “Claudia,” she whispered. “He will kill you.”

I shook my head, drunk on my own victory. “Please,” I put my hand out to her. “Can we talk? I just want a few words with you and then you never have to see me again.”

“Oh,” She said heavily with her brow scrunching up. “Do you want that?” I realized her eyes were shining. “Because it’s so rare I even get to come on land. It’s so rare any of you can see me. Do you want to never see me again?” Her voice broke on the last words.

She was suddenly far less shiny than before, and thin streaks of dark tears trickled down her chin. They were strangely oily and grey.

I looked down at my lap. “You’re not a normal woman, are you?”

She shook her head with forlorn and pointed. I followed it into the water where her feet were shackled in heavy iron chains. “I’m not.” She finally said, “I was tricking you. I’m not like you.” She hiccuped and wiped at her face, “You should leave.”

“I . . . don’t want to.” I said truthfully and rocked the whole boat by leaning toward her, “Maybe, um, I like being tricked. Maybe I don’t mind that you’re not normal.” I chuckled to myself, “By all accounts I’m not that normal myself.”

Her eyes went wide and they were strange and dark as ever. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew.”

I sighed heavily. “Try me.”

She looked toward the enormous rocky cliffs with their clean drop-off and ugly jutting stones. “You have to ask him.”

“Who?”

“You have to ask my father if you can date me.” She moved her ankles, “He is already punishing me for daring to wander outside of his protection.”

“I know about overprotective fathers.” I tried. “I mean, mine was more the distant and gruff type, but you know”

“Please, Claudia,” she said thinly. “Do you actually like me? Do you really want this?” She gestured loosely to herself.

I calmed my galloping heart and met her gaze head-on. “You know when you look at me,” I hunched over slightly, “I feel like I’m more. I feel like I’m stronger and better than I actually am.” I chuckled. “And I have fun for once. Look, I understand what it’s like to . . . be alone.” I lifted my gaze to meet her eyes. “And I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“I’d-I’d,” She hiccuped and kept wiping at her soaking cheeks. “I’d like that too. I’d really like that with all my heart, Claudia.”

I reached out to her and this part was at least familiar. This part at least felt right. “Wait,” She put her hand out. “I can be with you. I can become mortal, I would love to become mortal, but only with my father’s permission.” She pointed loosely, “My father, the shadow of the cliffs.”

“The . . . shadow of the cliffs?”

She nodded solemnly without any humor. “The tides met the shadows of the cliff and fell in love. They bore a child of the ocean dawn and dusk. And so it was.”

“Wow,” I tried to process that in bite-sized chunks but it felt more like choking on an entire meal with no silverware. “So, um, a child of the dawn and dusk, huh?”

“A creature of the ocean.” She said and she was looking off into someplace I couldn’t see. “A creature bound to her home or bound to death.”

“Oh, well . . . I can help. I can ask.” I swallowed slowly, “Do you want that?”

She nodded furiously. “I have spent centuries watching humans come to our cliffs and laugh and swim and frolic,” she sniffed and her face was clear again. “I have spent all this time watching them be in love with each other.” She stated simply and openly.

“Okay.” I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Here,” she reached out to hand me something. “The ocean will not toss you into the cliffs if you are wearing this. Go toward the caves and you will find him. Ask for me by name.”

“Uh,” I could feel myself getting in over my head. “I won’t,” I cringed. “This isn’t like . . . it’s not like me asking for ownership is it?”

She smiled gaily, “No. He just needs a reason to let me go.”

I swallowed and nodded. The bracelet was made of lumpy luminescent pearls strung together. I slipped it onto my thin wrists and grabbed the oars again. “I’ll give him one.”

I angled myself toward the cliffs and started to row. I prayed that the bracelet would work and I wasn’t making my way toward my death-- still, there were worse ways to go. I watched as Rommel waved at me before fading into the night like a dream. ----------------- The cliffs loomed much larger than I expected as I drew closer with one lung after the next. They were sturdy, impressive beasts with proud powerful spines of stone and an ocean that thrashed against their base.

The caves were simple black inlets where it felt like I was about to face the devil himself. I couldn’t stop my heart from jackhammering away, but neither could I stop rowing. The waters churned around me, but seemed to lose their power inches from my boat. They licked at the sides, the currents raced, and I could hear the crash of one wave after the next beside me, but my boat remained untouched. It was dark now and the only light was from the silver of a half-moon that smiled down from above.

I rowed until I was almost delirious with ache and exhaustion. I could see the mouth of the cave, but barely seemed to be making any progress toward it. Finally, I shouted. “Rommel!” I called, “I’m here for Rommel.”

In a sudden surge the boat was pushed toward the dank and cold opening with a swift tug. And then it was quiet.

The brilliant moonlight was to my back, and the rest of it was silent as the grave and twice as dark. My skin crawled and a prickle of dead-cold crept across my neck. Goose flesh rippled across my arms and the sensation of being watched was hot across my skin.

The world was very small and suffocating at that moment. “Rommel.” I remembered myself softly. “I’ve come from Rommel.”

Something moved in the dark and I didn’t blink.

It slithered and heaved with moist wheezing breaths from somewhere deep within. For a moment I thought perhaps I would drift deeper and deeper into the darkness and disappear forever.

“You,” A voice like smooth baseless wells and the echo of thunderstorms spoke from within the darkness. It laughed cruelly, “You’re the one who wishes to take my daughter?”

I lifted my chin boldly despite my shaking hands. “She wishes to be released.”

“Bah!” The word was enormous and seemed to raddle around inside my skull. “She doesn’t know what she wants. Mortality is cruel and mortals themselves are far crueler.”

“I know.” I said softly and something panged in my chest. “But we could . . . keep each other company. We could make it worth it.”

“Fool.” He seethed, “You are in love with the shadow of a person, a perfect replica, her humanity would make her just as slow and dull as the rest of you. She was created in perfection that should outlast all of you-- without that she is nothing but more meat meant for dying.”

“It’s what she wants.” I responded steadily. “That’s what matters.”

“Little cretin, will you still be enamored with her when she isn’t the dawn? The dusk? The ocean’s beauty itself?”

“But,” I stammered and groped for the right words. “Yes, fine! So she’ll be a little . . . more human. I don’t mind. I just want to spend a little more time with her.”

“Pathetic.” The darkness hissed. “But she gave you the bracelet so I will give the test nonetheless.”

“Test?”

“To prove your worthiness. As I have given to many before you.”

I suddenly felt like the ill-prepared heroine in a fairy tale. “Alright.”

“There is a bucket on the top of my cliffs,” I could almost feel the shadows grinning wide and cheshire. “Fill it.”

I waited and let the gloom cling to my boat as I drifted deeper into the cave and lost the hope of light. “That’s it?” I finally said and the voice laughed.

“That’s it.” The shadows rippled like an erupted star and the dark waters finally stirred. “NOW LEAVE.”

The boat gave an enormous creak as a wave arose and drove me back out into the middle of the ocean. Stunned, exhausted, and utterly at a loss I somehow managed to row home. And decided very thoroughly that I had a bucket to fill. ----------------- I slept like a corpse.

My arms were lead weights attached at the shoulder and my grandma had to bang on the door to wake me. “I thought you were going out to treat yourself!” She sniffed loudly, “Are you hung over?”

I just groaned.

“Well, good girl.” She said hotly before leaving me alone again.

It was almost midday by the time I fully remembered the past night and bolted to my feet to run outside and toward the top of the cliffs. Wildflowers grew in droves and my bare feet stung and scraped as I moved.

I scanned the grassy ground over and over. Perhaps he’s lying, I thought to myself, or maybe I’ve truly lost it.

I swept the area piece by piece, and just as he promised, a bucket stood right atop the cliff. It was an ordinary wooden bucket with a handle and a round face. I turned it over in my hands again and again, until I paused and looked into the bottom.

The bottom was completely black, depthless, a fathomless shadow in its own right. I had a terrible feeling about this challenge. ----------------- I tried water first-- obviously. I tried water from the tap. I tried milk from our fridge, I tried filling it with stones and grass and anything I could find.

There wasn’t so much as a thunk or a splatter with each new item. It just disappeared into the black hole at the bottom of the bucket. I reached my arm down once and all I could feel was a coolness against my fingertips and empty space.

I tried plunging it into a full bathtub but it simply swallowed all of it and left the tub bone dry. I even went all the way into town and bought Rommel’s favorite wine. I knew on some level there had to be a trick to it-- there had to be some special move.

Even after wasting good wine on sentimentality the bucket remained drained. It was well-past sunset when I stumbled home blurry-eyed and spent. The hem of my brown skirt was filthy from running around all day and my body ached in places I didn’t know I could ache.

I almost stopped for a short cry. I had no idea what I was doing.

The second I stepped into the kitchen someone cleared their throat from the dining room table and I looked up. Grandma Lettie was sitting hunched and frowning at the table with something in front of her.

“So,” She held up the painted stone from my bedside drawer. It’s eye looked at me with a cold indifference. “You’ve been messing with the spirits.”

My mind went blank and I shifted in place. “I don’t know what you’re--”

“Sit down.” She gestured to the seat next to her. “This is worse news than when you took that silly law firm job.”

“Oh.” I dragged myself over to the chair. The bucket was still clutched in my arms and I had to place it down on the floor to truly face my Grandma. I flinched slightly as I looked into her sharp blue eyes. “I can explain.”

“You better, Chicken.” Grandma Lettie clucked. “Because you shouldn’t mess with the old spirits of this place. Bad things happen to people on the cliffs.”

“You knew?” My eyes went wide.

She shrugged. “I know many things.” She glanced down at the bucket with a sneer on her lips. “I know you’re in over your head.”

I rubbed my hands roughly across my swollen eyes and worn face. “Yeah. I really am.” My voice almost broke over the words.

Grandma gestured loosely, “Well, let’s have it.” She sat back in the chair and her sly grin almost returned. “Tell me a story.”

So I told her a story of a woman who met a stranger on the beach and felt something like love for her. I told her of trying to give her ribbons and flowers and how she seemed to stream light from her with every movement. I told her about going dancing and feeling more than I ever had before.

I told her about being dragged under.

I told her about the woman chained to the rocks and the shadows that hissed from the darkness. I told her that I had apparently discovered the spirits of this place. And had been given an impossible task.

Grandma simply hummed and nodded in several places. There was a long silence when I finished the story and my head was in my hands. The silence yawned and ate me up from the inside out.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Grandma cleared her throat and her next words were like a gut-punch. “Do you love her?”

I peeked up through my fingers. “I,” My mind worked with the wheels spinning and gears grinding along. “I don’t know.” I said truthfully. “I know I want to spend more time with her. I want to see her again-- and keep seeing her. I don’t want her to be alone anymore.”

Grandma nodded solemnly. “Is this all what you want, Chicken?”

I nodded again. “This is one of the only things I ever wanted.” I said with a rumble in my chest and my eyes unfocused. “I’m certain of that.”

Wouldn’t it be nice? To hold someone. To walk along the beach with them. To laugh with them and show them the expanse of the naked world. Wouldn’t it nice to not have to fight to be seen, but simply exist as you are with someone else?

I exhaled.

Grandma reached over and patted my hand. “She’s got two parents.” Grandma relented, “Go ask the tides for the answer.”

“I’m pretty sure the tides tried to drown me.” I grumbled and remembered the sting of puking up sea water.

Grandma tilted her head up gravelly. “You’ll just have to speak her name then, won’t you? Tell her what you told me. Tell her that you want to help her daughter.”

I furrowed my brow. “Speak her name?”

Grandma sighed and gestured for me to lean in. “You learn a few things getting this old.” She murmured, “Come here.”

She whispered a name into my ear and I closed my eyes. My battle wasn’t over. -------------- I went to the beach at almost midnight. It was low tide and the summer breeze smelled of cut grass and sun-baked earth.

I closed my eyes before taking my first steps and raising my arms up. “Great mother!” I summoned and water licked at my toes with a cold lash. I tried not to run. “I don’t come to fight you.”

The ethereal drone was immediate. “Others have come before you.” She said in a voice of tumbling water and a push and pull of vowels. “You are not the first.”

I lowered my head and peered down at my bare toes. “I don’t mind.” I said and something fluttered in my chest. “Rommel should be freed. She wants to be mortal.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants.” The water snapped up toward me and I winced.

“I care for her.” I said softly, “Mother Irah.”

The water receded back into the surf as if burned. “Where did you learn that name?”

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” I whispered. “Let me free her.” The water stirred and churned with the only the light of the moon to see by. “A parent shouldn’t keep their child hostage!” I yelled this time with more force than I expected. “A parent should let their child be who they’re going to be!”

I would know about that.

The waves heaved in a disturbed frenzy before finally evening out into a dull expanse. A sigh came from within like the rolling in of mist. “Bend closer little one.” She said softly, “And I will tell you how to fill the bucket.”

“You won’t try and drown me?” I asked softly and the water gave no reply. I took a deep breath and lowered my face toward the ocean spray. It started to whisper.

The world became slow and syrupy as I listened. I stood up robotically afterwards and turned toward home. My thoughts bare and empty as I went into our shed and got out a saw. It took me barely a few minutes with the bucket to finish the job.

And I was ready to face the shadow of the cliffs and the ocean tide. --------------------- The gleaming hints of dawn pressed orange and fiery red across the horizon. My eyes throbbed with a dull pain from lack of sleep, but I didn’t care.

It was quiet, like the land was holding its breath and the last of the stars were watching as I walked down from the top of the cliff for what felt like the last time. My feet padded softly against the grass as I looked out over the strip of plain white sand.

I held the bucket in my hand and felt surprisingly calm as I approached the water’s edge. It was empty and a stillness grasped my bones and shook my insides. I lifted the bucket above my head and faced the cliffs.

“I’m here.” I said softly, “I’m here for Rommel.”

There was a figure sitting on one of the rocks in the distance. She didn’t move, but her long black hair was swept back behind her and her head was bent.

Something dark and slick moved along the cliff. It slithered across the places you cannot see and inked its way to a place you cannot comprehend.

“Arrogant.” It spat. “The bucket is not even partially full.”

I nodded. I held it up and the bottom of it was cleanly sawed off. The black hole still lurked in the bottom of it as I raised the bucket in the air. “Let her go.” I said and my voice didn’t shake for once. “Let her come to me and do as she wishes from here on out.”

“You wish to bring death to my daughter.” The shadow called and the waters churned. “You wish to make her chained to a finite life.”

I gnashed my teeth. “I wish to let her make her own choices!”

“Foolish knave, you think you are the first to ask for her hand? You are nothing but another pearl on a necklace of lies and treachery to deceive her, ruin her, take her.”

“You’re wrong.” I said simply.

The shadow laughed. “And you think you’ll win? Still? The bucket is empty. And no man has ever truly won her heart. No man has ever--”

“I am,” I thundered with a force that shook me to my marrow. “No man!”

I slammed the bucket into the water and held it under. The water started pouring in from both sides: it infinitely coursed into one side and infinitely went in the other. One infinity met another infinity and they embraced to make a single whole.

The bucket trembled against my palms before sinking to the ocean floor. The tides snapped around me as if in victory and a dark hiss came from behind me.

“You impertinent, cowardly--”

“Yes?” I smirked.

“Mocking, heedless, idiotic--”

“I said yes.” I stood up fully straight. “I am the impertinent coward. I am the mocking, heedless idiot.” I spread up wide, “And I just filled the bottomless bucket.”

The air itself seemed to crackle and fizzle with some unseen force. The shadows lurched and seemed to heave toward me as if to strike. But it was already too late. I had found the loophole as any good lawyer should.

I heard a splash in the water. I turned my head and sudden lightness spilled through my chest. A figure was waving and splashing through the water. “Claudia!”

I bounded into the surf and let the salt water spray my face as I ran. “Rommel! It’s really you!”

She was running. Her ankles were free. Her air was loose and the world was smothered into that one moment and that moment alone. She crashed into me with the force of a small train and I spun her around with the sun blooming into life behind us.

She pecked warm kisses across my cheeks and wrapped her arms around my neck as I spun her.

“You did it!” She cheered. “Oh Claudia, I never thought,” she said breathlessly, “I only thought.”

She looked deeply into my eyes and I realized her black irises had turned brown. Her straight white teeth had dulled slightly, and her front two teeth were slightly bucked. Her freckles faded into a normal summer-brown color and her hair turned wilder and less sleek.

She touched her face hesitantly as if she was just feeling it herself. She exhaled, “I am mortal.”

I leaned toward her hesitantly. “How does it feel?”

“Oh.” Her breath was ragged and she shook slightly. “It feels . . . a million ways. A million ways!”

“Is that alright?” I was smiling now and wasn’t sure if I would ever stop smiling.

“Yes,” her eyes filled with a brilliant wetness. “Yes! Claudia! Yes! Unless,” she gave me an impish look, “You’ll only have me as a dawn maiden.”

I shook my head. “I’ll take you anyway you give yourself.” I whispered, “If you want me.”

She pressed in close and I could feel the force of her. She was all lithe muscle and slippery damp limbs. She grinned for a moment before answering.

Her kiss tasted like citrus light and a world of strangeness I couldn’t understand. It was pulsing warmth and blew me apart with the gentlest of touches. We stood in the surf and kissed as my head spun and my world realigned. It shifted like stars in the heavens to make a new constellation.

A new light to be guided by, a new way to be myself.

She pulled back, pecked me hard on the lips again, and then slid her hand into mine. She tugged me back toward dry land. “Come on,” she burst out. “I want to meet your grandma.”

Suddenly, in a way I had never expected. I was no longer alone.

And there were two women walking on the beach at dawn.

---------------

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