X-Marks: Hiding Shadows

Oceans

The waves crashed against the jagged rocks of the ocean shore. The white foam of the waves edges settled deep into the white sand. The water was swallowed whole and then built up again, over and over until it gathered above the rocks in a sweeping crash.

We had arrived at the last home that was built right along the ocean. It was like nothing I had seen before, and the more I thought of this, the more I remembered, there was someone who knew just how amazing this would have been to see.

We carried Ocean for the night, our clothes dried stiff with her blood and smelling of iron. Her body was cold like fragile glass, and her soft neck rolled in its socket as we carried her over every hill on our way. After a day, the pungent smell soaked from under her clothes onto ours. Our only solution was to wrapped her blanket tighter, concealing every part of what was once our friend.

Once we arrived at the new home, we let her body settle on the edge of the shore on that clouded day. The blanket, a navy fleece, was coated thickly with clumps of sand.

Evee stood far from us all without any movement. Her hand at her mouth to bit her lips and eyes locked on the clumps of cotton and sand that was once our friend.

Behind her, on top of a ledge of piles rocks, was the home that was promised to us. The house we never had planned to visit. It was a boxy white home with long clear windows that faced the open ocean ahead and a wooden porch that wrapped around the first floor.

Through my shaken nerves I couldn't help but scowl and feel every sickening feeling that was brewing within me.

This was all her fault.

I caught Evee's stare from the side. Her eyes reflected the same blame on me.

My fault?! I dug my heels and sunk lower and lower into the sand. I couldn't stand here anymore. I couldn't stand any of them anymore, but I had to. We all had to. For her.

To do what I had promised. To bring her to the ocean.

Mat, with delicate fingers, brushed the clumps of sand from the blanket. It had been her blanket all this time and still held her scent of the wildflowers she would collect in her pockets as we traveled. I gripped tighter onto the last piece of her. The silver binder of the book reflected under the soft orange sun through the breaks in the clouds.

As Mat opened the blanket, I saw the tip of her hands. Freckled blue as if she had been bruised. I had seen many meet their ends, but never forced to stay, to watch as I had to this day. I had never had it burned in my memory like this.

After the blanket had been pried open to reveal her in full, I moved from behind the others, clutching the book in my clammy hands. I stood above her stoic body. Her face was as I remembered it being when we were young. Full and round. Her dark eyes were just as still, looking beyond everything. I wished they were closed.

I peeled her firm hands from their locked position and settled the book beneath them and onto her chest. This close I could see the gash at her temple that faded into the edges of her hairline. The wound was blackened at its edged and a gleaming pearly white jutted from the center of the crater. Her head had cracked like a fragile egg.

I pulled back, as quickly as I could. Relieving myself of the sight and smells that twisted my insides. It didn't feel right to see her this way as though she could wake at any time but my weighted heart knew better.

Evee and Nate had left for a moment and returned with handfuls of wild blue cornflowers. They placed the blossoms around her head, masking the wound that had ended her. The crown set beautifully against her dark hair that was still shiny as if she were still here.

Mat wrapped the blanket around her again, his eyes red and worn. It hadn't occurred to me until now, how much she must have meant to him. Ocean was the water to Mat's flame, and now his hardened shell had been hit at its core.

Mat wiped his hand against his already filthy pants, "Anybody have something to say?"

His eyes were pleading. He needed someone to say what he couldn't.

A tickle itched up the back of my throat. I felt the same plea wallow in me. I didn't have anything to say.

How could we say nothing?

A small voice came from behind Nate.

"You were loved, Ocean," Evee said with hoarse voice over the waves, "You are always loved."

I had never heard such few words mean so much.

We repeated Evee's words to the small heap of fleece and flowers that we loved so much. Mat slipped his hand under her back and cradled it deeper and deeper into the wade of water until it was at his waist. Here her body began to float. Her plump face peeking from the top of the fleece.

She was where she always wanted to be, the ocean.

We had made our promised to her, but not the way we would have ever wanted.

We failed her.