seals #4

It was the first thing Billy had said since they rounded the headland. He sat with his head down staring into his rucksack. Ellen didn’t know what to say or do. She was stuck between rock and water and the dark matter of the world seemed to be gathering in her stomach. She couldn’t take her eyes off Danny who was still throwing stones and refusing to come up to the cave.

She was all too familiar with this side to him. She thought maybe this whole seal fascination had changed him, and this new person was his true form. It wasn’t Billy’s fault of course, it was just the first time since Danny’s birth that she had allowed for the possibility of someone else between them.
Billy was so great with Danny and that was all that mattered to her. He slipped Danny out of his skin in a way she could never do. She could protect him, but she sensed he needed more and Billy was that extra thing. Billy was her gift to Danny.
Or so she thought. This big day for them all had suddenly turned as barren as the shoreline. All they were left with was the sound of the waves shooshing at the silence between them and the odd piercing cry of a gull high overhead in the big blue.
Something her Granny had said was running through her mind on this last little trek up to the cave. It was of the day she had skipped in to her house after school and said she was going to be a Hollywood film star because she was in a play at school and the Drama teacher said she excelled.
“Ach,” her Granny said, ”don’t get yer hopes up lassie. That’s the wan thing that this world’ll wallop ye for! Big fancy words indeed !!”
She stood there for a moment as her Granny went back to watching the telly. She waited a minute for more, but that was it, so she turned to the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea.

It came quietly at first but soon great sobs came bucking out from deep within Ellen’s chest. It rose and the nearby cave collected them, it amplified and offered them back out to haunt the rocky shore. It seemed like the cliff itself was wailing. The sounds rebounded and met Ellen’s fresh cries, building into a discordant ululation of sorrow. Such a sound as might split a world.

Billy and Danny looked up from where they were. They stood a moment and then ran to her. They reached her and tried to hold her but she wouldn’t be comforted. Her whole body rocked with the raw energy escaping her. Danny tried to stroke at her hair.
Billy looked up and out over the sea to the distant horizon. Suddenly he jumped up.
“Wait a minute !” he shouted, “I’ve just remembered!!”