Children of the Shore [A Halloween Story] by Lordnelson100

Chapter 1

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The pearl diver was returning at dawn, poling the tiny punt that held his gear towards the shore near Alqualondë. The sky shifted towards purple and gold, but the beach itself still lay in shadow.

Just as he reached the shelving steep sands, voices came faintly to his ears. Childish voices, far down the beach. Now he glimpsed them, still only dark silhouettes, running and leaping in the shallows.

 

Sail, sail, sail, to the West!

Sail to the one that you love best!

They were singing in the rising light, as the white of the sand began to lighten under his feet. He carried wet ropes, wet clothes, and a bucket of sea-take to sort, and had chilled fingers to do it with, so he spent only a little of his attention on the capering children.

With half-distracted listening, he thought: “What accent is that, in their young voices? Not this city’s. If they are visitors, of what tribe of Elven kin?”

He began to make his way up the beach towards home, his burdens balanced on one shoulder.  The child figures ever darted ahead: just beyond clear sight.

All at once, they stopped, and began a circling dance at the water’s edge: first one way they danced, hands joined, then the other.

 

Sail, sail, sail, to the West!

Sail to the one that you love best!

Cross, cross, cross in the North!

All bare and frozen, Elves go forth!

He paused,  a little lick of disgust and shock in his mouth. What was that? Were his ears playing a trick? Who would think of such cruel lyrics, or teach them to children?

He hastened towards them, determined to catch them up and find an answer. He would go to the town, after, and have a word with their families or teacher!

As he came near them, they stopped dancing. They turned in his direction. The light was growing. There was something wrong with their figures: in the form of their ears, in their rounded limbs, their wild ragged hair; the strange shapes of their faces.

These were no Elves!

Their white teeth gleamed.

 

Turn, turn, turn to the East.

Turn to the Lord of blood and beast!

And he saw all at once that they were human children, and that they were drowned. Pale were their fingers, pale their faces. Seaweed was caught in their hair, and their white clothing was all sodden.

One of them pointed at him. “The wave!” She cried aloud, with a sob in her voice. And the other children’s voices took it up: “Look, the wave, the wave, the wave—!”

They began to scream.

He dropped everything from his hands, and ran and ran and ran. Their screams faded behind him, merging into the crying of gulls.

He fell crying on the cobblestone streets of Alqualondë, with his arms folded protectively over his head.

His loving family sought to comfort and care for him. In vain. The next season, he was sent to the Gardens of Lorien, and did not return.

Messengers were sent to Valmar. They returned with this answer: “The Wise say that no such thing could be. For how could spirits of the Aftercomers’ children trouble the peace of Aman? And even to talk of such a thing questions the justice of the Valar, in whose loving hands lies the guardianship of these ages.”

So the fisherfolk and the sailors, the pearl-divers and the shipwrights, all through the shell-strewn streets of Alqualondë, nodded their heads, and assured the messengers that the thing was forgotten. But they marked the day in the calendar. And the next year, no one sailed forth on that day. And the next year, and the next—

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Chapter End Notes

Boo!