She knelt in silence beside the moon silvered ocean. Hair as dark as death's veil draped her bare shoulders as she wept tears of bitter rue into the brine. Her hand trailed in the restless water and wavelets tugged at her fingers like the beseeching mouths of small greedy fish.
Far out at sea her sisters called, but she could no more respond to their cries, than she could charm the mackerel between her jaws or raise a storm at night, for the man had stolen her voice along with her true form.
She remembered nights, long years ago, they'd lain entwined beside their driftwood fire, safely nestling between protective dunes, their tongues tasting of wine and smoke. The man's eyes were bright with fire and imagination, his bookish words laden with honey, his hands soft and persuasive. She'd never thought him capable of treachery.
He'd burned her skin, he told her one fraught day, his hand raised in anger, his voice harsh from whisky and disappointment. She'd known he was lying. Such a sundering surely would have killed her. The cold welcome of the waves called to her always, but she was as stranded as any netted catch.
The man watched from the rocks as his wife bowed her head to the water. The seal skin, finer than mist and more fluid than water, ran between his fingers, to pool, mottled silver and grey, at his feet. He'd let so much slip through his hands; his education, his poetry, his dreams of a fine life away from this island. His future forsaken for this lithe elusive siren, this savage passion, this possession, a rude cottage by the sea and a meagre subsistence scratched from the stony shore.
He thought about discarding it all, and clenched his fists around nothing.
