Until The Sea Subsides

A slight rewrite, and a favorite of my own.

I went to Aldeburgh certain my new novel would be my best.

The framework was there, the themes clear enough. Three months by the sea should have been sufficient to finish a first draft.

Three months later I was still trapped in chapter one.

It wasn’t lack of ideas. It was the opposite. Too many directions. Too many possible lives for the characters. Every path opened onto another. My mind would not settle.

Outside, hail rattled the windows overlooking the grey North Sea.

I switched the computer to standby and went out into the storm.

The Aldeburgh bookshop was nearly empty. I wandered without purpose until I noticed a faded book lying flat in an alcove.

The cover showed a fishing village drowning beneath an onrushing tide. Only the masts of the boats remained above the water. On the cliff stood a woman in black, her hair blown hard by the wind.

Her face was hidden.

The title read:

Until The Sea Subsides.

The pages were yellow and brittle-looking, yet strangely intact.

At the counter the shopkeeper frowned when he saw it.

“Where did you find this?”

“In the alcove.”

“How odd.”

He turned it over in his hands.

“No price. No stock mark.” He shrugged. “Take it.”

Back at the cottage I made tea and began reading.

The novel was set on the Suffolk coast generations earlier. Its heroine, Antonia Read, was wild, tall, strong enough to humble men unused to resistance. Riding across the marshes one afternoon, she nearly trampled a fisherman named Sam Tye.

Their first meeting became an argument.

Then a fight.

Then something else.

I kept reading.

Outside the storm worsened. Somewhere during those pages I became aware of the smell of seaweed in the room.

Strong seaweed.

I checked the windows. Locked.

The smell grew stronger when I lifted the book.

The pages were damp.

I told myself some previous owner had soaked them long ago, though even as I thought it I knew how absurd it sounded.

Still I read on.

Antonia and Sam fell in love.

Then came the storm.

The sea broke through the village defences. Houses vanished. Men were swept away. Sam disappeared into the floodwaters while Antonia rode into the chaos searching for him.

I turned the final page.

The ending was gone.

Several pages missing.

Worse still, the book was wet in my hands.

I dropped it onto the table and stared at it.

Too much isolation, I told myself. Too much weather. Too much imagination.

I went out for a drink.

Rain lashed Crabbe Street as I ducked into an old pub near the shore. A brewery dray stood outside. A woman was unloading barrels alone.

Tall woman.

Dark-haired.

Strong.

As she swung one barrel down she turned suddenly and collided with me hard enough to knock me backward.

“Oh God, sorry,” she said, steadying the weight easily against one shoulder.

“You handle barrels better than most men.”

A smile touched her mouth.

“I’m stronger than most men.”

Inside, she served my pint herself.

“I’ll join you in a minute,” she said.

She sat opposite me in one of the alcoves, long legs crossed beneath the table. She looked directly at me when she spoke, without hesitation, without shyness.

“What brings you to Aldeburgh?”

“I’m supposed to be writing a novel.”

“Supposed to?”

“I can’t find the centre of it.”

She studied me for a moment.

“You needed distracting.”

Something about the way she said it unsettled me.

I laughed awkwardly.

“Funny enough, I found a strange old book today.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. Probably ridiculous, but the thing seemed alive.” I shook my head. “The pages smelled of seaweed. Then they became wet. And the ending had vanished.”

“What was it called?”

I hesitated.

“Until The Sea Subsides.”

She nodded slowly, unsurprised.

“I know it well.”

“You’ve read it?”

“I wrote it.”

I stared at her.

“That book must be a hundred years old.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She leaned forward and took my hands.

Her grip was warm. Powerful.

“All those barrels,” she said softly, smiling at my reaction. “Sometimes, Sam, things happen beyond understanding.”

My pulse stumbled.

“I’m not Sam.”

“No,” she whispered. “Not anymore.”

The rain had stopped outside.

She looked toward the dark shoreline beyond the windows.

“My name is Antonia.”

A coldness moved through me then, though her hands remained warm around mine.

“You’re joking.”

“Am I?”

For a moment I saw the woman from the cliff on the cover standing before me. Not resemblance. Recognition.

She rose slowly.

“Come walk with me.”

I should have left.

Instead I followed her south along the shoreline where the drowned village once stood beneath the shifting sea.

The wind came hard off the water.

And with it came something else.

Memory.

A tall girl on horseback.

Marsh water.

Anger.

Laughter.

Her hands against mine.

I stopped walking.

Antonia turned toward me.

The years between us seemed suddenly thin as paper.

“I found you again,” she said quietly.

I looked into her dark eyes and felt something impossible moving beneath the surface of the world.

Then she smiled.

And together we walked into the mist.