Bound to the Sea

Part 9 - A Promise

The woman followed the fisherman out into the main room of the cottage. He leaned one arm on the mantle and pushed his other hand through his hair in an agitated motion. The moonlight from the bay window bathed half his face in silver, while the light from the fire cast the other half in gold.

"He's a lovely bairn." The woman said. She twisted a lock of black hair around a finger nervously, looking anywhere but at the man's face. "And this is a lovely home."

"Thank you." Ellis whispered, finally tearing his eyes from the fire to look at her. He quirked an eyebrow up, and a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "You sound like her." A blush stole across her cheeks, and the smile touched his eyes. "You look like her too, except your hair, black as the devil. Hers was red as Ronan's."

"Look like who?" The woman was again aware of a nagging sense of déjà vu, something about the house and the fisherman, this conversation even.

"My wife, Saoirse. I can't believe it."

"Saoirse? Her name was Saoirse? But that's..." The woman said, studying the cool eyes of the fisherman for confirmation. "How..."

Something kindled in Ellis' eyes. He straightened up and pushed away from the mantle. "Wait here, would you?" He brushed past her, making a beeline for the small bedroom on the opposite side of the house. When he returned he was holding something gently, almost reverently, in his hands. He held it out to her.

The woman eased the framed photo out from his fingers. Her eyes pored over it hungrily. It was her face in the glossy image, but it belonged to someone else. A serenely happy woman with fiery hair, wearing a bridal gown.

"Your wife." She breathed. "She's gone, then? How long ago did she..." The woman swallowed hard. "When did she...?"

"Five years ago."

Five years. Five years she had passed as a seal, winter and summer and winter again, and before that... nothing. Every time she searched for the past in her memory she came up frustratingly empty. It was a black void in her mind, but here was a clue to her missing history. This fisherman's wife in a wedding dress.

"Could it be that I...?" Her voice wavered. "I think I belonged here once." She hardly dared to believe it. She cast her eyes about the room again, taking in the worn furnishings. It was as though she was throwing out a fishing line and hoping it would catch on something. "If your Saoirse and I are one and the same, that would mean... the boy... he is mine, isn't he? And you..." She looked Ellis full in the face then. His bright blue eyes were shadowed with dark circles and creased with laugh lines. Dark hair curled over his brow, and his lips turned up into a hopeful half-smile under his neatly trimmed beard. "You were mine too." Her heart fluttered like a bird in a cage.

"Aye, darlin'." Ellis caught up her hands in his. Her hands were cold and clammy, like a pair of freshly caught fish. She twitched at the touch but stayed rooted where she stood. "But how? How did you come back? And why did you go? Where did you go? Saoirse, I can't believe... I just... it's been so long, love..."

The woman saw logic trying to reassert itself in Ellis' mind. "Hush anois." She soothed. "It's late. Maybe next time I visit I'll remember more."

"You'll come back soon?"

"Aye." She replied. "And I promise not to steal any fish." Her hands slipped from his, and she was through the door and out of the cottage before he could even protest. He was left alone again, wrapped in the silence of the sleeping house with more questions than answers.

Ellis did not follow her, but he did not lock the door behind her either.