XXXI

Helen finds the sunken cathedral at the bottom of the sea, tangled in dark seaweed, its windows crusted over with dull shells and patterns left from the anemones, the snails and sea urchins that have moved on, and though she is bruised and sore from her own drowning, from the tumult and the weight of the water, from the explosion of her lungs, she swims beautifully toward it, her hands grown webs, her legs fused. In time she might rise to the surface of the water to sit on a rock and wreak havoc with the sailors, but now there is no hurry, the sea suddenly peaceful, her mother’s voice so distant as to no longer be heard above the chiming of the cathedral bells or maybe that’s only the wind; it might be only the wind above; there is now only wind.