The Sea, It Beckons

The beach was full, an odd sight; not because there was never anyone on it, but because it was the dead of night, so dark that it was difficult to tell the black water apart from the black sky, since they were both dusted with stars and filled with the tinsel-silver light of the moon.

Someone had taken care to set up lanterns closer to the shore, determined flames in wicker and plastic lamps stuck to poles dug deep into the sand. Their light carved rosy haloes out of the darkness. There were more lanterns in the festival, strung up between the noisy stalls on the boardwalk. Nimue walked just beside the boardwalk, where she could smell the sea, where the water was no more than twenty feet from her. She’d never thought the sea smelled like salt and tonight it smelled almost wintery with its freshness, as though the dark pulled from it every summery note.

There were several silhouettes on the beach, dancing in front of the lanterns. A few couples were walking in the surf, their shoes dangling from their hands. Nimue had abandoned her own shoes long ago and tucked them into her mother’s bag while she walked. She’d left Tristram to debate whether or not taking off his shoes was worth it, and then to argue with their mother about how wise it was to remove one’s shoes if one were staying on the boardwalk. No one had broken a bottle on it yet, Nimue noticed. But she hadn’t wanted to be a part of their argument.

None of the silhouettes were familiar. Nimue almost didn’t notice the ones approaching her until they were only a couple yards away, and then she wondered how she could have missed them. She wondered for a moment, with some dread, if someone from school had recognized her alone in the festival. But it was no one she knew; a band of five people stood before her, and as soon as they realized they had her attention, they began to dance and sing. Nimue was so shocked and stunned by the abruptness of their routine that she did not realize for a moment that it was not all of them singing at once, only two of them, or three. The resonance in their voices sounded like the hiss of the sea, though she couldn’t remember if it had been that loud a moment ago. She recognized none of their words, but the song was arcane, lulling, and oddly hungry. Their dance was odd to watch and would have been embarrassing if she did not see the ripple of muscle in the lantern-light. They leapt over the sand, trailing it from their toes, from the folds of their clothing.

“The hell?” Tristram’s bare feet pounded on the boardwalk. He dropped into the sand, fumbling with the laces of his sneakers, twisted together in his fingers. He wobbled unsteadily as he strode toward his sister. “You said you were going to look for a drink. Of course you’re down by the water- what?”

“Dancers,” Nimue said, as though Tristram weren’t staring at them.

“Really,” Tristram said. The look he turned on the performers was at once inviting and dismissive. Their mother often said Tristram could charm the birds out of trees, and it was apparent in every feature of his face, in the wide smile and his fine-boned nose as he tilted his head down. He had laughing eyes, bright and amused, though one couldn’t be sure, looking at him, if they had done something to amuse him, or if he had found his own amusement outside of present company. He swept his gaze over the dancers and his smile widened. One of the dancers, a singer, Nimue thought, watching her lips move, glanced at Tristram’s smile and returned it, with several degrees more warmth. But she did not cease her singing. Their voices were less the hiss of the ocean and more a swell, rising and falling together as though buoyed on a wave. Tristram leaned forward and spoke lowly in Nimue’s ear. She almost leaned away from him; he smelled of cider and his whisper was cold and pointed as an icicle. “Are they homeless? Do they want money or something?”

Nimue did not think it was money that they were after.

Tristram moved Nimue and himself further from the boardwalk, or at least turned them against the stares of anyone who might notice that they stood before a band of nimble but disorganized dancers. They were a little closer to the sea and, as if the sea were climbing the shore toward them, Nimue smelled sand and waterweed and the nearly bloody scent of water. Nimue could still smell cinnamon doughnuts and ginger cake and lemon tea from the boardwalk. Tristram had one hand holding his other elbow, his shoes still dangling by his side, though he was swinging them almost rhythmically, though Nimue didn’t think the song the performers sang had a rhythm. Nothing consistent, anyway. It seemed to skip and flow, as though they sang around rocks.

Something fluttered at their feet. Nimue let herself look at it for a moment and realized, with some surprise, that it was a fox. Though she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a fox that colour, starry white and mottled with grey like the skin of a seal. She stared at it hard, trying to figure out if it had been there before. Its paws were dug deep into the sand, as though the beach had shifted around it. It returned her look with a hint of cleverness and tilted its head as though to tell her listen. The song’s not over.

Nimue nudged Tristram to try to point to the fox, but he knocked her hand aside and continued to gave politely at the dancers. He looked away once, to the watch on his wrist. It was an hour behind but it told Nimue that she had been listening to the song for nearly twenty minutes. She frowned, aware that the performers could see it. She hadn’t realized she’d been listening that long.

The song began to wind down. Nimue was not sure how she knew, only the it was like a rolling tide slowing and gentling. When it finally came to an end it seemed to linger like salt spray. Tristram nodded and clapped his free hand against his leg in an approximation of applause. “Nice. That was great.”

One of the dancers, a fair-skinned and raven-haired man so tall that he seemed to bend forward out of habit of speaking to everyone shorter than him, leaned forward and blinked silky black eyes at them. “Thank you. That’s kind.”

“I’ve never seen a dance like that before,” Tristram said. If anyone else had said it, it might have sounded like an invitation to share. When Tristram said it it was a polite and detached observation.   

The black-haired man turned to Nimue. The fox in the sand turned with him. The performers assembled in front of Tristram and Nimue like carolers. “I would like to know what you think, love. Did you enjoy it? Did it please you?”

Nimue folded her arms over her chest, felt the uncomfortable stickiness of her skin in the summer heat, and dropped them again. “I don’t really like the share the things that please me with complete strangers.”

Tristram’s elbow was sharp in her ribs. He hissed, “Nimue.”

The black-haired dancer did not look offended, though. He smiled, his dark lips stretched widely. He tilted his head at her, as though she had won something. Nimue tried to recall if he’d been one of the ones singing, but she couldn’t. “That is your right, Nimue.” When he said her name a shiver rolled over her shoulders, as though someone trailed icy fingertips from one shoulder blade to the other. The dancer’s gave drifted from Nimue to the woman beside him. She was older than Tristram, though only just, with raggedly cut hair and hawthorn-berry lips. There were flowers strung through her hair, white, like narcissus, though Nimue didn’t think narcissus grew anywhere near them. They hung on dark green strands, like dried waterweed. The woman looked back at him for only a second, but the fox trotted closer to them. It turned an identical gave on Nimue.

Tristram was patting his pockets, as though he’d only just remembered what he’d told Nimue and realized that because the dancers had performed for them only, he had to offer them something. “I don’t have any change on me,” he said. “I mean, if I found our mum I could buy you all a drink or something. There’s cider and ale. There’s a good pint back down the boardwalk. But you performed for the wrong people. We don’t carry anything in our pockets.”

“We’d accept another singer,” said one of the dancers. She had definitely been a singer. She had a face wizened as an old rose bush. Her hands moved lightly through the air. Her hair drifted and slipped over her shoulders. She was wearing a wispy white shirt, one that looked like the sort of thing Nimue’s grandmother might wear, but it was sprayed with salt. The wet patches were just visible in the lantern light where they clung to her arms and ribs. Nimue saw that her nails were softened as beach glass, glittering as if with sugar. “We’ve been losing singers for some time. Dancers we’d also accept, but we need voices with us.”

The fox bowed its head and looked for a moment as though it might burrow its head into the sand. Then it leapt on something in the sand, though Nimue hadn’t seen anything move. The performers looked sad and fierce, like a band of knights afore a cave. But the darkness was behind them, the dark ocean heaving in the dark sky. Nimue wondered how many of them there had been to start, of it there had been a start. If they’d been shedding some of their number and making them back so long they could not know themselves where they started.

Tristram opened his mouth and Nimue could tell he was about to say something that would reveal how absurd he found the request, how he believed, truly, that they were joking. So before he could, she said, “You’re not from around here, are you? And you’re not travelling by car?”

Tristram tapped Nimue’s elbow and almost scowled. “Don’t be stupid. They didn’t walk here if they’re from out the city. They’re not travelling on foot.”

“They could, if they don’t have too much luggage,” Nimue said.

The black-haired performer raised a brow and turned. The other performers stepped aside and pointed down the beach, where there was another silhouette on the sand, closer to the surf than the boardwalk, undisturbed and black against the lantern light. There was a sled resting atop the sand, a collection of suitcases on it. They looked as though, full, they would be too heavy for a single person to cart across the sand, even on a sled. But there was only one figure at the hind of the sled, hands curled around the sled’s handles. He was turned forward, away from them, but there was a stillness about him that spoke to Nimue of intent.

Nimue’s stomach twisted and flipped as she tried to look more closely at the shadowed face, then looked at the shape and length of the fingers on the sled instead.

“You really are hitchhiking, huh?” Tristram said. “Christ, that’s bold. What about in the winter? It’s the summer and the nights get cold anyway. How can you dance, or even travel?”

“Tonight is the shortest night of the year,” said the blonde dancer with hawthorn lips. Tristram looked to her instantly, taking in the soft angles of her face and icy beauty, but the dancer was looking at Nimue when she spoke.

“Obviously,” Nimue said, watching the figure at the sled. The figure didn’t look at her, but Nimue thought she saw the slightest tilt of the figure’s shoulders, as though she had been heard. She wanted the figure to know that she knew what night it was, that she knew a lot.

“Look, if you wait a minute, I’ll bring my mum over, honestly,” Tristram said. “She didn’t see your dance but she’s got our money on her. I’ll buy you a round if you want. Or something to eat. Maybe you can sing again for her, yeah? She’s just a little bit back on the walk. She’d be totally- wait just a minute.”

Tristram turned and trudged up the sand, leaping onto the boardwalk. He didn’t bother to put his shoes back on but walked on the worn wood. The boardwalk was loud, but as though he’d closed a door between the beach and the boardwalk, it was quiet on the sand. Nimue could hear the sea breathing on the edge of the sand. They hadn’t gotten closer to the sea, but it seemed louder anyway. The black-haired dancer’s eyes followed Tristram away, then returned to Nimue when the crowd had closed in on her brother.

“Will you sing with us, then?” he asked. “Or dance? I think you’d prefer to sing, though.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” Nimue said. “I don’t want you to ask me-” She nodded at the figure behind the sled. “I want him to ask me.”

The performers turned back again to the silent one holding their belongings. The figure reminded Nimue almost of the ferryman that brought souls across the river of the underworld. She saw now that the white and grey fox at the performers’ feet was not the only one. There were a couple more on the sleigh, though their fur was wet, plastered to them like a pelt. Their black eyes flashed as they turned toward and away from the lanterns.

“He won’t speak to you,” the older singer said. There was a huskiness in her voice as though she did not have the energy for anger. “That isn’t his purpose. He is here to bring us where we need to go, that’s all.”

“Where is that?” Nimue asked. “To my brother and I? To me? What for?”

One of the singer’s looked taken aback, but the black-haired dancer spoke calmly. “We did not choose you, exactly. We ask every one for a singer. We go up and down the water to ask. We try to collect singers and dancers. Every summer. We dance. We sing-”

“We have to go back before the winters freezes everything over,” the blonde dancer said. Nimue wasn’t sure that the dancer was worried about “everything”, but she didn’t ask what the dancer really was worried about, or if it had anything to do with her.

“I know you,” Nimue said, speaking from a memory. “I remember you last summer. You came to the docks and sang. My dad was on his boat. He heard you.” They didn’t ask after her father, and she didn’t tell them who he was. “You had more then. And it wasn’t you. Different singers and dancers, but it was your kind, wasn’t it?” “Your kind” didn’t seem polite, but the performers were noble and unbothered by it.

On the boardwalk, as though sound were bleeding through the invisible door between the festival and the beach, Nimue’s mother sounded annoyed and as though she were fighting Tristram, who was probably pulling her down the boardwalk. The figure behind the sled slid his hands back so the heel of his hands were nearly pushing against the handles. He tapped a finger once. Nimue saw it, though she did not hear it.

The performers did not see it. The elderly dancer nodded at Nimue. “We are using up the night. There is only so much of it left. We need to leave now. Are you coming to sing with us?”

“Are you going to bring me back?” Nimue said.

“At the end of the night, maybe,” said the black-haired man. He exchanged a look with the fox, who looked judging and hard. “Maybe in the winter. Maybe next summer.”

“Maybe next summer,” Nimue echoed.

Tristram was almost upon them, with their mother. Their mother sounded aggrieved to have been pulled this far along the boardwalk, and more aggrieved to be led toward the sand. “I did not agree to talking my shoes off. Tristram- Tristram! I’d rather you were getting drunk with your friends if you’re going to spend the night dragging me hither and-”

“Do you really need me?” Nimue asked.

“I don’t think I should share with a complete stranger what I do or do not need,” the black-haired man said.

Nimue almost appreciated his words. It made the thrumming in her hands lessen, but she could not stop from fidgeting with the bangles on her wrist. “Next summer, really?”  

The figure on the beach gave the sled a push. It moved a few inches across the sand, not far at all, but enough to send a jolt through Nimue’s chest. The performers took a step back across the sand. Nimue thought maybe the figure had heard the hesitation in her words and wished that he hadn’t. She wished he would give her another minute, but he moved the sled another couple of inches. The ocean suddenly seemed hungry behind him.

“It might be,” the black-haired dancer said, gently. But no one looked as though they believed him.

“You’ve only just asked me,” Nimue said, frantic and angry at her jitteryness. The performers were moving across the sand toward the sled, with much more organization than they had danced with. The lanterns on the shore rendered then like ink. The ocean heaved onto the shore.

“And now you have just to decide,” one of the dancers called back. Nimue could not tell which it was, and she was distracted from trying to deduce who it was by the fox throwing itself toward the shore. It cleared the front of the sled, then turned abruptly and sped back to it, as though something in the water had spooked it, though Nimue saw nothing on the shore. The other foxes on the sled moved restlessly, looking less like a nest and more like a tangled, shifting knot. The sled’s driver whistled at them, clear and colourless as water, and the foxes settled. The one that had raced toward the water still looked that way, its ears pricked up in the warm wind.

Tristram pulled his mother to the edge of the boardwalk and hopped into the sand. “Here, mum.”

“What did you and Nimue want to show me?” Their mother asked.

Tristram and his mother looked at the empty sand and the couples crowded around the lanterns on the shore.

Tristram looked up and down the length of the sea. “Nimue?”

Art by Barbara Florczyk

Textby Lucie MacAulay