“Impossible,” Lythina huffed. It was impossible, right? “Why would it just… show up when… when I was born.” This wasn’t happening, there was no way! First a prophecy, now this?! She was starting to hyperventilate. “It’s… probably just… a… coincidence.”
“Possibly, but the stars never lie,” Hildabrand countered.
“Sure they do,” Lythina panicked, “what day did it appear?”
Hildabrand pointed a long, thin finger at the start of the map. “October 10th.”
Lythina squeaked, and dropped her tea cup, shattering the mug and sending tea flying into the mantle to hiss inside the fire.
Continuing to row her little boat, Lythina’s face flushed with embarrassment. How could she lose her composure like that? She recalled how she apologized to her grandmother and quickly cleaned up the mess. Hildabrand, however, had only giggled. Afterward, they had sat for a while going over Hildabrand’s notes, scrutinizing her drawings for any indication of an alternate cause, yet the only conclusion they felt was true was that the appearance of the sealight had something to do with Lythina’s birth. They didn’t know what that was, but it was written in the stars, as her grandmother had put it. Undoubtedly, Lythina’s anxiety had doubled since she had first learned of the sealight.
Glancing once again to ensure her heading, Lythina noticed that she was almost to the wall of fog. She could see the sun shining dimly through the mist as she gazed up at the towering grey mass of moisture. It was intimidating, no doubt, rowing willingly into this abyss, but she forced herself to keep her thoughts steady, concentrating on her objective.
She remembered her last moments at Flowerpatch Inn, earlier that morning. Her grandmother had helped her solidify her voyage by reviewing the path that she would keep, taking care to show her where the sun and the moon would be so she could follow them. Afterward, she helped Lythina pack all of her supplies into a cold knapsack. And once they reaffirmed all the details, they had carried the provisions, though Lythina carried most of them, down to a small boat docked at a jetty on the coastline.
She recalled turning to see tears in Hildabrand’s eyes, and how she rushed to hug her small body. Lythina and her grandmother had embraced for a long moment, reveling in the comfort that they knew was short lived.
“I’ll be alright,” Lythina had said, attempting to reassure them both.
“I know you will, love,” her grandmother had sniffled. “It just that… I can’t help but feel like I won’t see you again.” Her tears fell to the dock.
“Oh, Hildabrand,” Lythina had started to say, but the words caught in her throat. She gulped, and they’d stared at each other, just smiling.
After a moment, Hildabrand had beckoned her into the dinghy, and she waved as Lythina pulled out of the jetty. The two women continued to gaze at each other, Lythina mechanically moving her arms to keep momentum, until all they both could see was the ocean.
And, as if to punctuate her sorrow, the fingers of the Forgotten Sea fog curled over Lythina’s shoulders, sending a chill down her spine, as she rowed into the misty void. The fog muffled the distant chirping of the gulls, and the water splashed reluctantly against the boat. In the misty gloom, even the sea seemed afraid to move.
The sun became an orange glow that illuminated the mist as Lythina paddled further into the abyss. She remembered what her grandmother had said about following the sun, and she kept it just above her right shoulder the entire time. The ghostly atmosphere that surrounded her boat seemed to diminish the further in she rowed, and she soon realized that the sun was beginning to set along the western horizon. Before long, twilight fell upon the sea, casting Lythina into a diffused luminescent purgatory as she rowed toward the last noted position of the sun, waiting for the mysterious light to appear.
Quietly, slipping the paddles into the sea she slid her dinghy along the ocean. Just as the last remnants of twilight were fading from the mist, she stopped rowing to pull out an oil lamp that her grandmother had provided for her. She lit it at once, and a soft fiery glow pressed against the curtain of fog that surrounded the boat. She couldn’t go any further out to sea without some sort of guide. The ocean would carry her where it willed, and if the sealight never appeared for her to follow, she would have to wait for the sun to rise as a beacon toward land. Any further paddling on her part would just send her deeper into the Forgotten Sea.
Lythina shivered, more out of response to the lonely abyss than the actual temperature of the chilly fog. As if the water itself was an illusion, an overwhelming uncertainty began to bubble inside her spirit. Quite suddenly, her mind conjured up the image of herself, sitting utterly alone inside a tiny boat, floating completely lost to the world upon a forsaken ocean, like a speck of insignificant dust against a starry sky.
And just then, a notion occurred to her, one so obvious that she didn’t know why she hadn’t realized it before. Since she’d heard about the sealight, all she could imagine was that the people from Flowerpatch who went in search of it had all found it. Never did she assume that her grandmother was right about them; maybe none found the light; maybe they all got lost out at sea. And she would be next…
“Ridiculous,” she said, shaking the thought from her mind. “I just have to wait for the light, and then I’ll row towards it until I find out what it is.”
This comforted her slightly, but the silence that pressed against her ears began to infest her mind. Her arms and her back were screaming from the duty of rowing, so she tried to relax herself as she pulled a small jug of fresh water from her knapsack and sipped it. The wetness washed some of the salt from her lips, and she pulled out a piece of sweetbread to chew.
But her hunger was short lived. The immense claustrophobia of the void was numbing, and the still water gently rocking the dinghy seemed to enhance the loneliness. She had no idea how much time had passed because time itself seemed suddenly nonexistent all together, and she glanced around a few times looking for the sealight, but to no avail. She had been suppressing the notion that rowing to find the light was a bad idea, but as she sat alone inside the impossibly dense fog, that realization began to creep forward into her mind. If she had only waited until later, when the sealight was actually lit, then she could’ve used it as a beacon. But against her grandmother’s wishes, she had insisted on getting a head start while it was still light outside. Perhaps she should’ve heeded the wisdom of her elder with a little more tolerance.
She wearily glanced around once more at her misty abyss. The light started to make different shapes dance in the fog: images of fairies and spirits, of hideous creatures with crooked fingers reaching out to snatch her into the void, all twisting and curling in the depths of her vision. She felt like the loneliness itself began to lap at the sides of her boat, waiting to splash its freezing hands upon her. Suddenly, she remembered the ethereal hands that were groping for her right before she entered the Inn.
“It wasn’t the light at all,” she whispered, because the demons of death could’ve been waiting just behind the glowing curtain of fog and she didn’t want them to hear. “It was the sea pulling me in.”
The lonely silence, the cold orange infinity beyond, the soaking crypt of her nightmares, they were all formed before her inside the fog of the Forgotten Sea. Her mind began to collapse, and the fog began to close in around her, swirling with a surreal pleasure as if to delay her watery death as long as possible. Her breathing accelerated out of her control, but she willed it quiet so the demons wouldn’t find her. Crouching into a ball, she fought unsuccessfully against the horrific panic, frantically searching her mind for some form of relief.
But none came.
“Stop it, STOP IT,” she hissed to herself, “They’re not real!