A girl scrambles down a scree covered cliff. The sharp costal grass cuts into her palms as she slips and slides over the gray stones. It's too foggy to see what's at the bottom of the cliff but if she stops for a moment she can hear the distant crash and roar of a cold ocean.
She doesn't think about where she's going, just that she must get there soon. The fog settles thickly around her like a damp blanket. It fills her lungs and clouds her eyes. A faint light flickering through the haze pulls her forward. She takes step after step, clinging to the merest tufts of grass. Knees bumping into loose stones sending them cascading into the waves far below.
She takes a leap of faith toward the light. Her feet hit something that starts to give way. She finds herself rolling down a cold sand dune. When she stops she lays in the coolness of a thousand crushed boulders and stares up into the immensity of the sky. Needlepoints in the onyx tapestry of the night that bathe the world in cold, silver light.
She gathers herself up and makes her way though the dunes and reeds that grow among them towards the light. As she nears it she can hear merry voices singing and instruments being played. Hear the prance of feet spraying sand and the crackle of a fire. Closer yet and she can smell the smoke, the salty, hollow scent of driftwood and something else, something sweeter. Once she reaches the top of the last dune she can finally see it; a small bond fire surrounded by a small group of people. The flames illuminate a pale stucco cottage with seashells pressed into the walls. It rises tall and luminous, glowing in the combined light of the fire, moon, and stars. Behind the house and all around is the crashing roar of endless sea. The girl slides down the dune and makes her way towards the fire and music. As she nears she can see that as the company dance around the fire they toss pages of a book into the curling flames. As they spot her they each give a cry of greeting but do not stop their dance. The girl hesitates, unsure of what to do next. Whatever force had been dragging her forward had left her and all that remained was a hollow place quickly filling up with questions. It dawns on her for the first time that she doesn't know why she's here. The cold sand pricks her bare feet and a cool breeze blowing from the sea teases her face with a salty kiss that flushes her cheeks. A woman who sits on a salt bleached log rocking to the melody gestures for her to join. The girl approaches, careful to not interrupt the revelers in their dance. She sits herself on the log and the woman offers her a blanket. As she sits and watches smokes curls itself around her, unfurling in her nose and coiling around her hair.
The complex dance continues, a stomp and a clap here, a twist and a twirl there. Weaving in and out of each other in a perpetual spiral around the fire. Book pages glide in and out of them like flower petals catching fire and shooting like rockets into the sky before burning out. The girl watches swaying in time with the hypnotic rhythm of the music. Her eyes feel glazed over and dry from the fire, her feet feel heavy and slightly sore from plodding through the sand. She feels her head nodding slowly lower as the darkness and dimply flickering light of the fire lull her into a sort of trance. As her eyes close questions start to flash across her eyelids. What am I doing here? Where am I? How did I get here? Who am I? She shakes herself out of the stupor and sits up. The woman next to her watches with polite amusement as if she could read her confused mind. Just as quickly as each question appears the seemingly obvious answer for each disappears until she is left without an answer even to the last question. Name, she thinks, what is my name? The music rises to a crescendo. She feels a word perching on the tip of her tongue. Its shape is familiar but before she can wrap her mouth around it, it leaps off into the night just as the last page of the book explodes into sparks in the dark sky. The girl furrows her brow, name name, name she thinks but no name is coming. No names.
Her mind is empty.
The girl looks up at the vastness of the inky sky just as one of the brightest stars begins to fall leaving a trail of stardust in its wake. Make a wish, she thinks. But with a blank mind there is nothing left to wish for. Just as she is about to speak up the woman next to her produces another leather bound book, it's pages yellowed, but only at the edges. She hands it to one of the dancers who have never ceased their movement. The music becomes louder and suddenly pages are gliding and fluttering again sending puffs of ash and smoke into the air. The girl looks back up into the sky to see the falling star land and explode in a shower of golden light mingled with mist somewhere near where she came from. Something feels peculiar about this, she has a feeling shooting stars aren’t supposed to land but no one else seems the least bit phased.
Nothing changes for a while, the dancers dance, the pages burn, and the music plays. Then, something does change. A boy. Walking cautious just as the girl had done. Comes to the fire, driven, like the girl, to the light in the sea of darkness. He sits and everything goes on. Always onward. When the last page expands into the blackened sky everything stops. A tall but graceful man walks forward to the two empty children. "Names?" They both slowly shake foggy heads, heavy, like in a dream. A white toothed smile expands in the darkness. "What a good place to start. Names, the only one word that fully describes who you are, without it, who are you? Without a name you can be anything, be infinite, be free. Freedom from a name is sparing your neck from the chain of life.”
"How do you get rid of a name?" To curious eyes in the dark. Another white toothed smile.
"You release it, like a puff of smoke back to whence it came." The girl looks at the fire, the last few sparks twirl like ballerinas up and away. Wild. Free. "Let us celebrate the new, forget the old. Here we move onward, always onward.” The music starts, more delicately this time. Each string carefully chosen to ring out across the night, like the sea plucking its story on the pebbles.
“Please, where is here?”
“You will understand when it is right for you to. You already know, you have been making your way here all your life, you just have to ask your soul.” Pulling her to her feet the man leads the girl in the dance. Each step sprays cold, smooth pebbles, each breath laced with smoke, each glance glowing with fire, each sound echoing with the ocean. As she dances her hollow self starts to fill. Her mind is soothed, her body is fulfilled, her soul opens. With a final stomp and shout and thrum she stops, her heart light and feet numb. A rough, warm hand leads her towards the cottage. The House by the Sea. "Come, someone has been waiting for you." Walking past the sand dunes and reed, firelight receding behind illuminating her back and casting tall, infinite shadows. The girl spots a patch of earth through the sand, in it is growing bushes of white roses and rows of raspberries. Then she is at the door, lifting a small metal latch, opening the door. Inside everything is aglow with moonlight. The whitewashed walls glow brightly while the dark wooden beams are a black ribcage stretched across the ceiling. To the left is a narrow but long room with windows looking out to the murky blackness of the ocean. In the corner, by the windows, against the wall, sitting in a delicate white rocking chair is a woman with skin like almond milk. A face plucked from the fogginess of infancy, a picture on the mantelpiece. Her grandmother. She runs towards her embrace, ready to be held by arms long since stilled in our world. They are warm, she knows she’s found home.