Seagirl

 Seagirl

By Selina De Luca

Written for a teen writing competition

That’s what she was. A seagirl.

“Yer pa found her after a storm, near dead. We brought her in and nursed to her back to health,” Grandma told me. To her she said, “One day, ye’ll have to go back, girl.”

The way Grandma said “girl” sounded like “gull”, and everyday when we went to the sea we would throw our heads back and watch the same six seagulls soaring in the wild wind, and imagine we were flying with them.

But our neighbour’s son threw rocks at the gulls and called them “ugly.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly, do you?” she would ask him.

“No,” he admitted.

“Well, I’m one of them,” she said. He laughed at her. I was indignant.

“She is,” I insisted. “And one day, she’s going back to join them.”

He didn’t believe us, but we wouldn’t let him take the wind out of our sails.

But one morning, Papa said to me, “Don’t go outside today. The tide’s real high, and there’s a bad storm brewing.”

“Yes, Papa,” I said. I could see her through the window, dancing with the seagulls.

“Grandma,” I said, wishing I could go out, “did Papa warn her?”

“Yer pa don’t tell her nothin’, child,” Grandma replied. “She knows. Now move away. You don’t want to see what you might see.”

I did want to see, but I obeyed her. I waited out the dreadful storm, and when it was over, we all went to find her. Her body was lying in the sand, washed up by the waves.

“She’s—dead,” Mama choked.

“No, look,” I pointed. In the mist I could see the gulls, and there were not six, but seven. “She’s there.”

They took off, soaring through the air, and she swooped down to us, circled once, then flew away with the others, crying the strange cry of the gulls.

I smiled through my tears.

“She’s saying goodbye, and thank you,” I said, and I waved until the gulls were out of sight. I was not sad, because I knew she would come back—and come back she did, everyday, with her six friends trailing behind her.

Photo by Jason Pischke on Unsplash