Road To The Moon [one-minute stories]

Leaving St. Kilda

"We'll die if wae stay," I heard between my pleading cries not to go. Choking on my tears I looked up to my mother.
Wrinkles carved a saddened mask, her pale skin worn down by the hardships life had thrown at her. The only evidence of her once fiery nature was her hair, shining like the flames of the peat fire that was burning in the middle of the room.

"Die?" I whisper, afraid the mere mention of the word will be my end. Just month's ago death seemed such an elusive term. Ethereal, like the puffins in flight.

"But I don't wantae leave th' island," I grumble under my breath.

With a deep sigh, mother kneels down before me. Two loving arms pull me into a warm embrace. "I can't let th' curse take you too, Rachel."

Her voice carried my name with such sweetness it made me forget I loathed my Hebrew name. Always envious that my brother was given the Gaelic name, Aden. A name that suited him even if he took after our Jewes father. A name that would never mark the trench in which he lay.

The curse of St Kilda, all my life I was told it was merely an old wives tale and all of a sudden I had to leave my home because of it.

Crops will perish when there is no man left to weed,
Birds will leave when the sea starts to bleed.
Soil will be bare when mother and child perish as one,
When the last born dies on the island, St. Kilda will be undone.

The last words made my mouth run dry, for I was the last born, barely 8 summers old.

I looked around the house one last time before following my mother to the doorstep. The thick dry stone walls blackened by soot, filled with centuries of memories, roofed with turf. Its simple build with only one small window and one doorway may have seemed ancient to any others, but it had been the home of my people for centuries, it is my home.

Mother placed an open bible in the house, encasing it in a circle of oats before we both stepped outside and prayed. From the corner of my eye, I could see Nola and her mother, in the neighboring house, reciting the same ritual.

Our eyes locked as soon as Nola finished her prayer, but she did not speak. She joined the rest of the women as we descended to the dock.

The sky was hopelessly blue, the sun calmly rising out of a sparkling sea.
It warmed the impassive cliffs of Oiseval. Its green field twinkling in the sunshine, making parting all the more difficult.

After a while, the familiar outline of St. Kilda grew faint and the island fell back onto the horizon. The pending silence broke as this severing from our ancestral homeland became a reality and we all gave way to tears.

Word count: 495

A/N: The inspiration for this story was drawn from the real-life evacuation of St. Kilda on the 29th of August, 1930.