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Myna and Ronan sat together on the rocks, repairing Alfred’s nets. Ebba played in the sand, right on the edge of the rocks. At the water’s edge, other village children splashed and chased each other, and Myna wondered why Ebba didn’t explore the ocean as the other children did.
‘Does Ebba get her reticence of the water from me?’ she asked, glancing at Ronan.
Ronan looked up.
‘It might have something to do with it,’ he said.
Myna squashed down her guilt and set down the net. She strode across the sand to her daughter.
‘You want to paddle in the sea?’
Ebba looked down to the water.
‘You and me, let’s paddle our feet.’ Myna held her hand out and Ebba glanced up, first at Myna’s outstretched hand, and then at her face.
‘But you don’t like the sea, Mama.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t like it, Eb.’ Myna gave an encouraging smile, and Ebba stood, brushing the sand from her trousers. Holding hands, the two walked to the sea edge. They waited in the damp sand for the receding waves to turn tail and wash back up.
Ebba squealed and leaped backwards as the chilly water met her feet, but Myna held her ground. Once again, the waves receded and returned. Now Ebba was giggling, twisting her feet this way and that to sink her feet in the sand.
‘Is this fun?’
‘Yes!’ declared Ebba, kicking her feet to splash Myna.
‘Shall we go deeper?’
Now Myna was here she felt again that pull to be submerged in the sea. The ocean was safe. It wouldn’t hurt them. It would be good for Ebba to learn that.
Ebba nodded, trusting.
Myna led her daughter deeper. But knee-deep for Myna was waist-deep for little Ebba, and Myna had to hold her daughter’s hand tighter lest Ebba be knocked over.
Ebba squealed again, but the sound had lost its joyful shriek and instead held a hint of fear.
‘Mama!’
‘Shh...it’s all right.’ Myna picked up her shivering daughter.
‘I want to go back.’ Ebba clung to her mother’s shoulders.
‘Just a little farther.’ Myna cooed, taking another step, and then another.
Soon the water was around her waist, and then her chest.
‘No more, Mama!’ Ebba shrieked as the water splashed her face, and she tried to climb up her mother’s torso to get farther from it.
‘Shh...’ Myna soothed. ‘We’re safe. The sea won’t hurt us.’ She took another step, and another.
‘Mama!’ Right in her ear, the scream snapped Myna out of her trance and she looked at her daughter, red-faced and wet with tears and sea spray.
‘Oh. I’m sorry, Eb.’ She turned back to the shore, realising just how far out they’d ventured. Now she saw Ronan, trousers rolled above his knees, already shin deep in the water. The few other families on the beach had stopped and were watching her.
Heat rose in her face. Ebba reached out for her father as they drew closer, and clung to him, sobbing into his shirt.
‘What were you doing?’ Ronan was furious. ‘Are you mad? Do you want her to be afraid of the sea as you are?’
Myna lowered her eyes. How could she explain she wasn’t thinking about land at all, but about water and sea and life under the waves? How could she ever explain such a thing to him, without first explaining who she was, and what that meant?
He strode ahead of her across the sand, scooping up the net and basket. Myna retrieved their boots and followed behind.
Maybe I am mad. Tears welled. Maybe Wayanna is a figment of my imagination. She wished she could convince herself it was the case, that the appearance of the skin was just a coincidence, something her mind was using as evidence of a crazy story concocted by a mind desperate for answers.
