52. Morna (1/2)

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The salt water rushed against her stomach, inviting her further in. While her legs walked ever onward, her mind thought of the shore where Afton watched, ready to jump in if she needed him. She wanted to return there, have him take her away. She could deal with the sickness she knew would envelope her after such a strong pull. It was far preferable to what she did now. The ocean waves pushed against her and then sucked her forward. A few more feet and it would be too deep to stand. This was the place she dreaded.

The sand dropped off under her toes, and she treaded water for a moment, one last effort to stay in the world she always wanted to be a part of. Her last chance to pretend that the water was not calling to her. But then her clothes weighed her down, and her legs, tired from the journey, would not kick against the waves any longer. Slowly, she sank.

It was rough and dark. When she opened her eyes she only saw a blur of gray and brown as the waves kicked up sand. Her arms tangled in her dress and her feet scraped along the bottom. She wondered if she'd just killed herself, and even more if she'd stolen her baby's future from it. Yet, even as she thought of the days it might never live, she also thought of the days that it might inherit from her. Days where it laid in bed and tried not to vomit because there was not a body of water nearby. Days when it would be taken too close to a fountain and find itself submerged and unable to do anything until someone noticed and helped.

A minute passed, then two. She ached for a breath, but the water held her under. She wondered how long Afton would wait before coming to save her. He'd been foolish to think she could see what the water wanted and live to tell the tale. She'd been foolish to hope he'd been right.

Her lungs could no longer be still, and she breathed in sharply. And instead of choking on the water, she realized that nothing happened. Her lungs still burned, yet she did not do what she thought drowning people must do. There was no passing out or pain. Just... a stationary limbo. She breathed, yet she didn't.

Right then, light filtered down from somewhere above her, making rays in the water. Morna watched them with a detached interest, and then the water swept her along the bottom until she stopped in front of the impossibility of her father floating in the water in front of her. She blinked a few times, knowing he could not be there. Not only was he dead, but his body had to have been burned or buried somewhere by their home. He could not be in the ocean, hundreds of mile away in Anjeluund. It just was not possible.

And yet there he was, clearer than he should be, and seemingly unaffected by the current that moved Morna gently back and forth a few inches at a time.

"Papa?" she asked, and her voice rang true. She didn't wonder at this, when Papa being a few feet away from her was much more mystifying. "What are you doing here?"

"I've come to talk to you," he said, and she remembered what his voice sounded like. Home. She'd have cried if she wasn't underwater.

"You're dead," she said, as if he might not have realized.

Papa looked down at himself and shrugged. He did not look dead. In fact, he looked almost exactly as she'd last seen him. Yet, something was strange about him, something that was not like the Papa from her childhood. He wore a dark suit that looked almost as if it were made from seaweed, and his hair was longer. He wore a thick beard and his feet were bare. She recognized him, but somehow she knew he was not quite the man that she'd loved so much once upon a time.

"I know that you have always wondered why it was you who was called to water, Morna," he said, sending shivers down her spine. "Why not Brenna? Or Adair?"

Morna nodded, silent.

Papa sighed and folded his hands in front of him, as if he were calmly discussing the weather during a garden party instead of floating at the bottom of the sea. "The truth is that all of you were called to something. Water. Power. Coldness. These claimed you, though perhaps Brenna and Adair's were not as easy to spot. Yet you all fought against something that burned deep inside of you. The calls were different, yet all strong."

Morna swallowed, somehow, through the water. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to," Papa said, reaching out and placing his hand on her shoulder. It felt so real. "I came to tell you that you have fought well, but that you must let go."

"I'll die," she said, her hand moving unconsciously to her stomach. Papa looked at the mound beneath her dress and nodded his head.

"You may think that, but death is not the answer. You think there is no other end to your plight, but there is. Morna, you've spent your entire life running from a large piece of you. All of you have. Brenna, Adair. You all run, hoping to somehow outrace the problems that follow you. Your sisters are beyond saving at this point. They've made their choices, all the bad ones, and their running has led them to the ends of their paths. But I can still help you."

"What do I need to do?" Morna asked, her voice cracking. She leaned her cheek against his hand, wishing that he was not here in the ocean but back in that house she'd abandoned so long ago. She remembered the way he'd carry her when they went walking in the meadows, and the way he and Mama would sometimes read to her. She wanted that life back. A normal life, one that she could pass along to the child within her.

"Stop running. Let it catch you. You are stronger than a mere bit of water, are you not?" Papa said, smiling. "Answer the call and do not be afraid."

He pulled his hand away, and the water shifted, lifting him up. He drifted farther and farther away until the murk claimed him.

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