The boy removed his oar from the water and let the boat drift. He placed a shield across his knees and set a spoon shaped stone in its centre. He felt dizzy as he focused because the boat was bobbing up and down on the sea. There was no moon, only stars in dense clusters, the Serpens constellation rained jewels on dark water. By this light, he aligned the spoon handle with one of eight markings spaced evenly around the rim. The boat was veering off course.

The boy swept the oar left and right. The sea was calm. Water lapped at the stern, dripped from the oar, and splashed with every incision made on the surface. He thought about the creatures swimming underneath. Thousands of them. He began to scull faster, adjusting his course. The air was fresh, he could taste the salt when the wind picked up.

As dawn broke, the island rose like an emerald whale. On the island, a rock towered over trees. A black tooth, an obelisk.

He counted six small boats on the beach. When his oar hit the seabed, he dropped into the water and pulled the boat towards land. Here there was gravel and the boat scraped noisily as he hauled it onto the shore.

He stopped to breathe. He was feeling exposed, unsteady on his feet as though the land were alien to him. He looked ahead to a line of trees and watched for movement. Nothing. He listened to the waves sluicing stones and the gulls circling overhead. He rubbed the hinges of his jaw where it ached, shivering as his sweat dried cold.

Between the trees, concealed under a green canopy, a stream snaked a course through the fir and pine. He stayed low and close to the water, where the sound masked his footsteps. Mud sucked at his feet and tore the sandals from him. As he moved through the lifeless forest, he thought of his mother waking to the sound of sparrows.

After a time, he came to a ruined church. On top of a crumbling wall, the waist of a dirty gold bell swayed in the wind but made no sound.

He reached a clearing, a round altar of grass. His heart quickened, making his blood feel sharp. A dark figure stood in the centre. He panicked, struggling to collect his thoughts. He reached for his sword, fighting the urge to flee.

A breeze shook the long grass.

The boy approached the figure, lowering his shoulders. It was a man of equal height. He looked into his hard grey eyes, running his fingers along the rough details of his face. He recalled a rhyme from his childhood:

Dust breath

Rock bone

Life death

Flesh stone

He said a prayer for the man and left him to follow the stream for another mile or so, into the forest. He counted five more statues, their movement frozen, locked in time.

In a copse of silver birch, a tall tree was creaking, supported only by the branches of another it had fallen in to. At the base of the trunk was a collection of dirt where it had torn itself from the earth. As the boy moved away from the tree, he could feel the roots of the forest hard against the soles of his feet.

Something was burning, he could smell it. Soon smoke hung in black webs among the wretched forest and he could see the cabin. Wooden bones burned black in the heart of the fire, the flames looked strange in the daytime. He thought of his own home as sap snapped and cracked above the continuous roar, before the frame collapsed in a storm of vivid sparks.

As he turned to leave, it started to rain. When the land began to slope downwards, the sound of the waterfall came upon him. He watched it tumble from the rock he had seen from the boat. The stream merged with a pool below, where dark water plunged to die in clouds of white foam. Behind the waterfall, he could see the cave.

Perhaps she was sleeping.

The boy rested, taking shelter under a tree overlooking the pool. The rain dripped from dry leaves and there was the constant roar of the waterfall. He tore a rag from his tunic and slowly rubbed the shield in polished bronze arcs. He looked at his tired reflection.

Then I thought of how I might kill her.

I enter the cave as she lies sleeping. My path is lit by remote light, where water falls in sunlit slow drops. The shield guides me, walking backwards but always toward the abysmal stench, the disrupted breathing, her clicking snarl. She is close. I follow the rock wet and black until her sound no longer echoes and the smell becomes unbearable.

I stop in the gloom of the alcove.

Slowly I raise the sword aloft, closing my eyes tight. In an instant I spin round to drive the sword hard into flesh, down into bone, hacking, slicing and sawing blindly until her head drops heavy onto the floor and rolls at my feet.

The boy opens his eyes.

His image is green, distorted, a shadow passes over the shield and her head rolls into view. They are both smiling. How tired he looks. Her eyes are black planets, her hair is alive, she screams midnight until his ears burst and he can feel her breath on his neck, catching his throat: he turns to say, ‘Mother,’ but knows too late his final error, when the tightening starts in his feet and speeds through his legs; his heart fighting to beat under vast pressure, until the darkness constricts him, flooding his head so his eyes roll white in a skull of stone.

*

Days without end.

The dark figure.

The ruined church.

Wind strokes the long grass like animal fur.

A woman emerged from the trees, into the clearing. He did not need to see her face to recognise her. Soon she embraced him, weeping, running her fingers along his face. But he could not feel her touch, could not smell her smell, could not turn his head to watch as she left, to follow the stream, clutching a small dagger.

The church bell chimed once.

He remembered that sound from long ago, perhaps from when he was born, so that for one cruel moment he had dreams of a future fading into the air, with every dying echo.

September 2018