MeatCanyon

Other times, we'd share a nod at the market, his eyes never quite finding mine, constantly darting towards the sea as if it spoke his name.

Once I watched him mend fishing nets at the rocks, his hands deft and silent, humming that same foreign melody only the gulls seemed to answer.

People spoke rarely to him, but children watched from behind fences, trading chronicles of his magic, or his curse.

but I remember clear as the night his light went out.

The beam, so constant, suddenly vanished, and our harbor became shrouded in black.

It was the same night the first body was found.

Face blue, eyes wide, the bells were deafening.

No one slept.

By morning, the lighthouse door was bolted, the keeper nowhere to be found.

Must have sheltered himself inside for reasons unknown, ignoring all begs and demands that met his doorstep.

No more than a few nights later was when last I saw my stubborn sister.

When the sun had barely slipped beneath churning waves, I awoke to the sounds of the bedroom doors snicking shut.

At first, I believed it was a dream, and the familiar wind was rattling on the latch, but when I felt across the bed, her side was cold and indented, and the front door was swinging open.

I failed to call her name as my bare feet met the sandy path towards the shore.

There, at the border of a restless surf, I saw her as she walked gently into the sea, her white nightgown trailing behind her like a wisp of a cloud.

She gave not one look back at my frantic waves and gestures, not a word.

The water swallowed her, quick and silent, before I could even reach the pier.

They found her days later.

What was left?

Her face bobbing along the water's surface amidst a foaming froth.