sanctum | short stories

aqua regia | part one

"No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren."

~ Henry Taylor

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Loneliness lives in the echoes of my present. I can feel it when sitting on the porch at night, casting my gaze over the long empty shore, and when standing mindlessly on the beach, alone, the surf caressing my ankles more alive in the moment than me.

I'm the only one left at the beach house now. My sisters have long since moved on from their childhoods spent here, collecting seashells and chasing each other around with gritty handfuls of wet sand or the odd unfortunate starfish. Last I heard, Alex became some big shot lawyer living in the city and is building a name for herself that she could never have achieved had she stayed. Tiffany lives just in the next town over, having married a close friend from high school a couple years after they graduated. But despite the miniscule distance between our locations, I'm always the one to visit her. Neither of them want to come here anymore. Since our father drowned in an inexplicable boating accident when we were nine, and our mother abandoned this place and all the memories it held for her, her children included, less than a year later, the bach lost what made it home in their eyes. Even under our grandfather's care, they could hardly wait to escape when they turned eighteen. Now, they're gone. Grandfather too, having kicked the bucket the previous year after his wavering case of pneumonia finally prevailed. My only company here to date is that of the ghosts they've left behind.

It's not terrible, though. I have a basic routine that I tend to follow to help time pass. But amidst searching the shore for shellfish, cleaning the house from top to bottom, and painting coastal scenes to sell and live off of, the quiet does start to eat away at me. It's hard to imagine days before childish laughter and the rambunctious thud of feet hurtling down the stairs was replaced by the creak of old wooden walls straining against the ocean breeze.

Sighing mournfully to myself, I take a tentative seat on one of the large rocks in the cluster of rock pools to the right of the house. It's cold and slightly damp through my pants, but it's nothing in comparison to where my bare feet dangle in the icy water. The sky above is darkening, streaked with flares of lilac and orange as the sun starts to recede behind the horizon, but I don't want to return inside yet. Out here, the roar of the surf is too loud to ignore, and despite being bitterly low, the temperature is still somehow warmer than the dead silence of the bach.

Besides, out here I don't feel quite so alone. With all the life visible in the rock pools, I can't be.

I'm watching a pair of shore crabs engage in a light tussle when something akin to sandpaper brushes against my toes. Panicking, I haul my limbs from the water with a shuddering breath, drawing them to my chest and holding them there tightly. I know for a fact that sharks' skin feels a similar way, but I haven't ever witnessed a shark venture into this bay before. It's too shallow, and being private property, there's never any people besides myself (and once upon a time, my family) here to draw their attention. Nevertheless, I edge further inland, training my gaze on the surface of the water as I move back, my heart in my throat.

A body appears beside the rock lower to the waves, and my joints lock in place, refusing movement of any kind at the sight. As well as the gills lining the sides of its neck and the webbing between it's clawed fingers, it has human features. A human torso, arms (although the flared fins protruding from its forearms can hardly be called as such) and head with a mop of dark hair and an undeniably human face! It's eyes flash in the retreating sunlight, liquid silver in colour, and my breath hitches upon seeing the second set of translucent eyelids that appear when he blinks.