Mother's Silent Song

Mother used to sing me a song...a tuneless, chanting mutter:

There be no sound in the deep blue sea.

There be no light in the dark.

They fools gone muddy our crystal waters.

Crazy dancing, they no hearing our soundless song.

I didn't understand it then, but I wish I had.

***

People in the village used to laugh and point at her...whispering behind their hands at her pale silver hair and her light blue eyes. The same hair and eyes that I shared.

"She came from the sea," they said. "The crazy woman who lives in the shack on the cliff."

It seemed that mother had only learned how to speak words snatched from the odd sailor passing by. She'd mutter these stolen words into my ears every night while we stood on the beach, watching the waves lap the sand like curling white tongues...as if the sea was trying to eat us...to take us back.

"Isa, remember...sea ain't friends. Sea is danger."

Till the day she died, Mother had not allowed even my toes into the deep, dark mystery that had been her home. Nor did she ever let me see when she slipped into its cold blue embrace even though I did suspect it now and then.

She died when I was eight and then a stranger came to the shack on the cliff.

Reluctantly calling himself 'Father,' he took me away from the sand...away from the rushing sound of waves on the shore. He claimed he was a gentleman who had had an improper moment. A lapse. A spot on a slate that had once been clean. Beguiled by my mother's soundless song as she swayed under the moonlight, he'd had his words stolen away .

And so, I learned what it meant to be the daughter of a proper gentleman. I learned a proper human sound...a language filled with words like 'demure' and 'obedient'. Learning such things did not stop the village whispers, but my father's glares and his wealth made them less loud at the least.

Years passed blankly as I hung between boredom and self-preservation, shuttered away from the deep blue. When my eighteenth natal day finally came, Father came to the annex house where I lived only to say that I would be debuted and then engaged.

I merely nodded my head, the perfect picture of a demure and obedient daughter. Yet, my fists hid in the voluminous skirts that covered my legs, in the clothes that concealed a wooden hoop cage.

Perhaps he had expected a different reaction, for Father put his hands on my shoulders. His fingers curled into my silver hair as I turned my head to the side, but he grabbed my chin, glaring down into my blue eyes that were so unlike his own. I flinched under his stare.

"After all these years, have you nothing to say to me, Isabella?" he grunted, frowning .

"Thank you for your care, Father," I responded, gently detaching myself to make a proper curtsy. "I am very grateful."

"As you should. Although the Duke is a bit older than you, you'll live like a queen for he commands a great fief containing many riches.  After the ball, you'll board a ship to Angara."

A ship to Angara? I thought.

"Yes Father," I said.

My mind raced. A ship to Angara.

"As it is the last time I'll see you before the ball, is there anything you might require?"

The sea, my heart whispered. The deep blue sea.