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Tales from the Village
Sheiwasha who listens to the sea
v1n2 © 1998 Elaine Isaak |
Eleon the Storyteller settled
upon the Great Drum, shaking his bells for silence. Firelight danced in his azure eyes,
and he raised his hand toward the distant mountains, then to the ocean, whispering beyond
the dunes.
"Far away from here, yet very near, Sheiwasha lives. She was born the daughter of
Elders, the sister of Dancers who leap the sacred fire. The world lay open to her when the
first stars shone upon her birth, and laughter filled her spirit. Every second moon, her
mother sailed the great waters to the green edges of other lands to bring back marvels and
riches for her people. Now, Sheiwasha loved the forests, and she loved the gardens, and
the little huts of her own village, but more than all of these, she loved the ocean. She
played upon the shore and wondered at the things she found there. When her mother's boat
approached the sand, Sheiwasha could hardly hold herself back from swimming out to meet
it, and if the day was fair, that is exactly what she did.
But the stars vanished one night in clouds so thick and black that fear struck at her, and
Sheiwasha did not laugh, nor play, but waited on the shore, straining her eyes across the
rising waves for her mother's return. Every distant light she thought to be her mother's
light. Every darkness on the horizon she hoped would be that little boat returning safe
before the storm. A wind rose that flung the sand into her eyes, and still she watched.
Her sisters and father came to her to beg her to come in. 'She will return,' Sheiwasha
answered them. 'The sea will not take her from me.' The great howling storm rolled upon
them then, battering them with rain, and cracking fires over head. When the waves she had
so loved lashed at her and would have pulled her under, then she rose and turned her back
upon the sea and vowed she would never look upon it again until her mother stood there to
greet her.
Many moons fell away, and when a year had passed, Sheiwasha's family sang the Songs of
Sorrow, and built a fire on the shore and danced between the flames and the sea, and made
their peace with the water. Yet Sheiwasha would not dance. She would not come to the fire,
and sang only because the Songs drowned out the sound of the ocean, for the ocean had come
to haunt her.
When she woke, seabirds called to her, when she slept, the
waves sighed beyond the dunes. Village folk no longer talked to her of nets or boats or
fishes, or the shells she once had loved. She moved to the far edge of the village, in the
reach of the trees, but the ocean followed her even there. Every night, the ocean cried
out her name and no wool in her ears would stop the sound. Sheiwasha did not sleep but lay
with her face to the forest, humming, hoping it would leave her alone.
A long moon passed when she lay awake. And when she walked the days, her steps stumbled,
and her sisters wept to see her. She forgot what she needed at market, and where her
garden grew. She forgot to light her fire and, as the full moon rose again, she forgot her
way home, and walked through the silver light toward the voice which called her. She
forgot that she hated the ocean.
She came to herself again, standing on the beach by the black shapes of boats brought in
for the night. Damp sand sucked at her toes, begging her to stay, and she glared out at
the water. 'What do you want?' she shouted. 'You have taken my mother, what more can their
be?' The tide rippled around her feet, sighing, 'I am with you.'
Waves rolled on the rocks thundering, 'I am with you.'
The sea wind strummed the nets of the waiting boats singing, 'I am with you.'
Sheiwasha heard, and the hatred ebbed within her. In the voice of the ocean, she  heard her mother's voice. In the stroke of tide along her feet,
she felt her mother's loving touch. In the sparkle of the moon on the white heads of the
waves, she saw the twinkle of her mother's smile. And though her mother did not stand
beside her, Sheiwasha knew that she was not alone. She lay down on the sand and slept, and
her mother's lullaby echoed in her dreams.
Now in that village they say that the ocean speaks to Sheiwasha. It tells her of coming
storms, or of teaming fishes. She greets the dolphins as her sisters when she dances by
the sea. And every shell she finds there whispers of a mother's love." Eleon fell
silent, listening to the drum of the ocean. |
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