Another FuriousFiction entry, this time for October 2020. The prompt and specifics for this are listed below:
- Your story must include someone/something being caught.
- Your story must include the following words (plurals allowed): OBJECT, WOUND, BAND, ELABORATE.
- Your story’s final two words must be THE MOON (can be part of a larger sentence).
It was her monthly bleed that gave her away. Though she had worked hard to keep it hidden, eighteen months into the journey her internal calendar glitched and she woke in a pool of blood. The captain was alerted, and when she was stripped to search for wounds, her secret was revealed.
No women allowed on board. It was bad luck, so the superstitions said.
Never mind that her hard work had prevented a capsize during that big storm the previous week. Or the rogue wave the month before. The whirlpools and shallow reefs and pirates. A thousand and one hazards that she had helped them avoid. She was one of the most valuable members of the crew — though when asked to elaborate on why that may be the case she was unable to.
She had an affinity with the water. That was all.
When they dragged her to the edge of the ship, naked and shaking and crying, she had tried to object. To plead. To beg for her life. They talked over and around her, these men she had called brother. Joking that her bleed would bring the sharks. That maybe if she floated they would count her as one of them and drag her back on board. Or consider her a witch and hold her under.
They bound her wrists and ankles with ropes laced with salt, heavy and swollen with sea water. Tossed her over the side of the ship. As she sank, the ropes seemed to fuse into an unbreakable band fixing her limbs together. And icy water filled her lungs. And fear faded to be replaced with the bright spark of fury, even as her breathing slowed to a stop.
She became the water. The waves. The sky stretching above the ocean.
Her screams, the lashing wind, whipping the white frothed waves to vicious stabbing points. Her tears, the salt that crusted every available surface, a thousand tiny blades ready to slice into unprotected flesh. Her fury, the unrelenting sun beating down, burning all in its path.
Circling the seas, ships drew her ire. Her approach brought storms. Heavy clouds so dark they were almost black, blocking out the sky. Waves surged, tipped and tumbled ships like a mouse caught between the paws of a vindictive cat.
Sometimes she smashed these ships against the rocks. Crushed them to splinters and dragged them hungrily into the dark deep with her.
But sometimes, when the ship was firmly in her grasp, she would let it slide free and quieten the storm so they could pass. Those who had done no harm, had thrown no innocent to the ocean below.
Because she did not swim alone. The other women who had been thrown overboard to appease some foolish superstition swam with her. Whispered their pain and fear to her, the one with the strength to avenge them.
And when the ocean was still and quiet, they floated together, pulled by the inexorable force of the moon.
