a bit of a try at magical realism; another piece for my fiction class. really pleased with this one.

Fire Island

(April 03)

The sky was still that strange light grey of early morning over the water. There was a family with two small girls sitting across from me. They looked excited, but exhausted, as if they had been up all night in anticipation of the morning. I was on an early ferry to Fire Island, riding the calm bay waters. I had been to Fire Island as a child many years ago, probably when I was about the age of one of the girls who was prancing around her family in the aisles of the boat. My best friend's parents had a house there, and we spent most of that summer running back and forth between the house and beach with every ecstatic discovery. That summer was just amazing; we had such great fun, and they were like my real family. I was always glad to get away from my own mother. Her constant scolding left me the scapegoat for anything that didn't go her way long past when she had any control over me. This time I only had one day to visit the island; I was in town for the funeral of a distant, though near-by, relative, on my mom's side, of course, and I was treating myself to a quiet day exploring before the dreary proceedings.

The wind off the water ruffled my gauzy clothes with a chill as I stood to lean over the railing. I watched the gulls flying overhead. My friend’s parents used to call them "bay gulls" because they weren't on the sea, and joke about their similarity to our favorite breakfast. The water was very calm, and the small waves lapped a clear green at the side of the boat as we cut our path from shore to shore. Our short journey was almost over; it was only a quick hop over from Long Island, and the weather was good for this sort of travel. I breathed the smooth, salty air, deeply filling my lungs and soul with its serenity. The two small girls hurried their parents along, already waiting by the gates before we had docked. I watched them giggle, visiting memories through the gates of their uninhibited excitement.

The beach was quiet. It was still early in the season, and many of the children were suffering through the last warm, lazy weeks of school. I walked slowly along the shore, nodding to passing seagulls wandering down the beach on their awkward feet. The waves crashed in, their swirling white foam making sand eddies right up to my bare toes, but not quite touching them. The sand was wet and cold and made the bottoms of my feet feel numb. I ran my hand down through the water and caught a dozen tiny shells in the net of my fingers. There are always clam and mussel shells around here, but I really wanted to find one of the curled ones you can hear the ocean in. I had one when I was younger, but it's gone off with all the lost socks and too-small clothes and old, forgotten toys. I needed to take the sea home with me this time. Sure, I've got mountains, but I grew up with the sea and I miss it like a long-separated part of me. There's nowhere like Long Island to take the water for granted and see seagulls in squads on mall parking lot lights and incurably sandy soil as just another everyday normalcy.

I absently picked up shells as I strolled along the shore, now with my toes in the cold early-summer water and the wind ruffling my hair to tickle my bare arms. In May, the water's freezing, but come September, you could still run right in, as long as you could brave getting back out into the chill air. I heard a rough voice behind me, but when I turned the beach was still empty save a few gulls picking their way through the sand.

"Why don't you to put your jacket back on," the same rough voice said. "You could catch your death out here on a nippy day like this," it mocked in a high tone. I looked around the beach again, but found it still as empty as before. I turned to the water, looking for a figure floating off-shore, but I couldn't see anything but boats far out in the waves, out of hearing range. The nearest seagull cocked its white head to look in my direction with a look that would have been called quizzical had it been on a human and not a seagull.

I took my haphazard collection of shells and sea glass that had caught my drifting fingers' fancy and sat myself down on the nearby rocks, looking still for the speaker. Though the rocks were low enough they offered little protection, I checked behind them as I sat, making sure the mysterious voice wasn't coming from someone hiding there. I turned back to the beach, hoping my new vantage point would grant me some insight, but after a few minutes of squinting my eyes in the sun reflecting on the water, my gaze got lost in the rhythmic flowing of the waves.

I was startled out of my ocean-induced daze by the sound of a small cough. This sound still seemed to be coming from right next to me, but I couldn't see anyone for it to belong to. I was completely alone on the quiet section of beach.

"You never listened to me. You're still not listening to me," the voice accused. I found myself speaking out loud as my eyes quickly scanned for anyone just joining me, defending myself against the still-invisible accuser.

"Of course I'm listening! Why should I listen to you anyway? Who are you?"

"Don't you recognize the voice of your own mother?! I can't believe such insolence from my own daughter!" But my mother had been gone for years, thank goodness. I really hadn't expected to find who knew me well enough to try to trick me like that on this small beach, and I still couldn't see where the voice was coming from.

"Look at me when I talk to you!" the small, harsh voice screeched. The shells next to me rattled like someone had sat down and they were all jostled in response, and I looked down at what I'd collected for the first time. A small clamshell wriggled on the rock, pushing all the shells around it.

"That's better," the voice coming from the shell said. "Now, I'd like to have a little chat with you." Uh-oh. That kind of thing coming from my mother always meant bad news. But wait, this wasn't my mother. My mother was dead and buried in some rich-town cemetery in Connecticut, where she and her second husband had made their home.

"You never did visit your old Aunt Frieda, did you," the voice coming from the shell scolded. "And now look, you can't visit her anymore. Didn't I always tell you when you visited the Island to go look in on your Aunt Frieda?" God, this really sounded like my mother talking. She always wanted me to check in on her boring, stuffy relatives because my place in the city was an hour closer to the Island than where she lived. I picked up the shell to get a closer look. The outside was the familiar light blue-grey color of clam shells, curved lines making notches mirroring the lip at the edge. I had seen hundreds. This was the first one that had talked to me, though. I attempted prying it open, but almost got my fingers snapped off.

"Greedy child! There's nothing in here for you," the shell scolded. "But," she added, "You take this to your Aunt for me. Now, you make sure it gets there. I'll know if it doesn't." The shell opened up and spat out a small, rough pearl. I rolled it over in my hand, my fingers exploring the creamy surface. I caught myself urgently trying to think of somewhere safe to keep it so I wouldn't get in trouble, and reminded myself this voice in the shell, or my mother, or whoever was playing a nasty trick on me really had no way of knowing what I did with the small prize. And I remembered my jeweler friend on Long Island, the one who had designed my best friend's wedding ring. He could work magic with his tools. I probably still had time to catch him at work. I gathered my pile of seashell memories and walked back across the beach, still nodding at seagulls and the occasional person enjoying the day, and headed towards the ferry.

***

"That's a fascinating necklace, darling," another old Aunt gushed. I was surrounded by the critical eyes of old relatives, far from the calm beach world of the day before. "Where on earth did you get it? Maddie, look—she's got the whole shell intact on that chain. It looks like it just grew with that little silver bit hooking it closed." I smiled at them and excused myself from their fussing. I walked over to the casket and closed the pearl into the half-open hand of my Aunt Frieda.