Fulfilling My Sea Hag Destiny by Gabrielle Griffis
Associate editor Allison Peters on today’s bonus story: If you saw your younger self, how gentle would you be? How honest would you be? Would you recognize God if she were standing right in front of you?
Fulfilling My Sea Hag Destiny
For my birthday, I bought a dress covered in non-wilting blooms guaranteed to withstand as many washes as the fabric. Cotton covered in peonies and Zagreb tickseed. The cone of possibility had changed before the final event, fulfilling my sea hag destiny.
On the morning of, I went to the ocean, ready to shrivel like porphyra, and encountered my ten-year-old self. She was concerned with her immortal soul and the gaze of the Lord.
“Terrible to be always watched,” she grumbled.
The tide was coming in. Seagulls circled overhead. Plovers scuttled along the shore searching for worms and crustaceans. We sat on a stone jetty.
She played with the white streaks in my hair. I told her not to worry so much about the thoughts of others. It was the summer solstice. Spring ephemerals melted into the ground, decayed daffodils and tulip stalks.
There was more life below ground than above ground, I explained, rhizomes, roots, the ugly parts of plants no one wanted to look at.
“Most flowers around here are only pretty once a year. Otherwise they’re hiding, dreaming in darkness, waiting for their moment in the sun,” I said.
I had a list of things she should be more concerned with: floral anatomy, lunar cycles, songbird migration, seasonal patterns. I detailed all the things that would disappoint her, movie theater dates, the Ferris wheel, topsoil erosion, realizing you’re nothing special.
“As an accident, much of your fate is sealed, written out before you. The lack of investment in your future will be viewed as inherent inadequacy on your part. Best to hang onto flowers, their beauty is both appreciable and predictable.”
“Like the crocus,” she replied. A March favorite, after a long muddy winter, purple blooms promised spring.
***
We walked down the beach holding hands. Sea foam washed over periwinkles and pirate’s toenails. Algae swayed in the sun. Sand glistened.
“My face changes every year, I never recognize myself,” she said.
She always wanted to go to the ocean, but her parents only took her to the river. They spent summers floating down the current. Cardinal flowers and lupine grew along the banks. She recalled drifting with her mother towards a tiger lily. Silver minnows and algae covered rocks. Youth was a path to the ocean, something her parents rarely let her glimpse.
People will try to delay your maturation, to slow their own clocks. Life wears on.
“You’ll have a certain number of cemetery walks between the ages of ten and twenty, and you won’t be aware which is the last.”
***
We put seaweed on our heads, pretending to be ancient female Methuselahs. We speculated on the aging secrets of immortal jellyfish and four-hundred-year-old quahogs. Brine was an essential part of becoming a sea hag. Uncertainty loomed in the clouds overhead. Inklings of degeneration, skin maturing like tree bark. Blue crabs crawled along tidal pools, starfish consumed sand dollars.
Somewhere in the distance, runoff was choking sea life, fertilizer, and cruise ship septics.
Beyond the reeds, animals received death sentences, scrub pines axed for seaside views.
We built a sandcastle, using shells and stones for windows. She said we were the castle, every year an additional room to be filled.
She asked what brought me to the beach.
“This is the threshold to my destiny,” I explained. “Why are you here?”
“I’m dreaming,” she shrugged, “What exactly is our destiny?”
“Decay,” I replied.
She already knew that.
***
I bought her a bubble gum ice cream. She asked if I wanted any, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I couldn’t eat it, part of degeneration, microbial imbalances catalyzed by medical error and antibiotics.
“There will be a time in your life when no one thinks about you as much as you think about them,” I said.
“You mean like right now,” she replied, counting the number of people who thought about her on her hand. “Not very many,” she sighed.
***
The day was getting late, we gathered driftwood and built a fire. She asked if God was going to show up. I said I didn’t know. Smoke rose. Ashes flickered and smoldered in the air. Evening settled over us, stars emerged in the sky. Human years weren’t enough to make sense of anything, if there was any sense to be made. Attention was limited, distorted by desire and fate.
My ten-year-old self laid her head on my lap. I wished I could be the mother to her that she needed, take her for hikes, tell her plant names instead of leaving her alone in her room. She hummed as I stroked her hair. Reeds and beach grass shuddered in the wind.
In the morning, I would walk across a threshold, and she would go back to being ten. The waves kept coming, shadows waded in the water. I looked for my elder self beyond the fire, hoping a sage would emerge from the darkness.
Gabrielle Griffis is a musician, writer, and multimedia artist. She works as a librarian on Cape Cod. Her fiction has been published in or is forthcoming from Wigleaf, Split Lip, Monkeybicycle, XRAY, NecessaryFiction, Psychopomp, Matchbook, and elsewhere. You can visit her website at gabriellegriffis.com or follow her at @ggriffiss.
