Salt and Sorcery 🌊 (Furious Fiction submission

I entered the Furious Fiction competition for January 2025! Here was the criteria we had to stick to:

Your story must take place at a beach.
Your story must describe at least two smells, two sounds and two textures.
Your story must include the words KISS, HABIT and SQUARE. (Longer variations, e.g. “kissed” or “squaring” are acceptable.)

‘All magic is drawn from the sea,’ she had said, ‘even the power to raise the dead.’

The sough of the white caps was deafening, and made him think longingly of his Mary. He wondered if she was watching him now. ‘But she can’t be’, he thought. How he longed to kiss her once more, to be enveloped by her rough, salty lips. But she was gone.

Grainy sand crunched beneath the balls of his feet sending vibrations up his shins. His toes disappeared beneath the bubbling water that rose to meet his ankles. As he walked along the shore he saw a glimmer of the fire they had made late in the night, high up in the dunes. The wind had made the flames crackle, and Mary had summoned the Great Rijkler, the fearsome mythical creature of the deep. Speaking on the ancient lore of her people had become a habit, a past time with which to enjoy one another’s company, amongst other things.

‘All magic is drawn from the sea,’ she had said, ‘even the power to raise the dead.’

Gary had promised her: ‘when we are old and you pass on to the next world, I will bring you back.’ Little did he know he’d be making that attempt much sooner than spoken.

The pungent scent of seaweed blew over him as he reached the cave. Thick strands of slippery kelp lay tucked in corners of rock where an unusual square opening rose before him, a giant rock orifice away from beach goers eyes. He called with a sudden ‘coooee!’ into the darkness, splitting its silence in two. This was definitely the place she had meant—it bore all the marks of magic, including the unlikely scent of myrtle.

Soldiering forward he eventually reached solid rock under his feet, each step triggering a gentle slapping sound that echoed along the walls. He rose higher into the hillside with each step, turning one last corner into a streak of sunlight, the altar.

There, at its base, grew a small myrtle bush, lonely and swinging in the wind flowing in and out of the cave.

‘Once you’re in the cave you must show respect, by showing that the palms of your hands bear no weapons’, she had instructed.

He followed her guidance and flashed his empty palms to whatever being was willing to observe. No response felt like the best response, so he took the silence as indication that he had been admitted into this sacred space. He thus continued Mary’s steps, placing the palms of his hands on the wet and hard rock at the base of the myrtle bush. The stone felt surprisingly warm, and it vibrated with a gentle buzz. He spoke the first incantation. He continued on, step by step, until he was prepared to say the final incantation facing the path by which he had arrived, the myrtle shrub at his back. With one swift movement he lifted his palms higher and yelled: ‘Ultaris!’. A deep silence followed until he saw someone approach him from the shadows.

Thanks for reading this story!

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