Chapter 7:The First Nightmare

By ten, the nightmares had begun.

Night after night, Marrine's dreams were haunted by the sound of the sea.

At first it was just a sound.

A low thrumming that seemed to echo from the earth itself. She would find herself standing on a shore she didn't know, her toes sinking into cold silver sand. The sky overhead was black, even though the moon hung high in the heavens. Beyond the surf stretched an impossible horizon where massive waves of white crested against the sky.

Then the voice would begin.

Deep and booming, like an ancient language. It wove in and out of the surf, the sky, the sand.

Come back.

Marrine would turn and search the empty shoreline.

There would always be someone waiting.

Come back to me.

The waves would creep closer.

You belong to me.

Marrine would always wake, screaming, and the other girls in the orphanage would stop complaining. It had happened so many times, they'd grown used to the sound of Marrine's terror echoing down the halls in the dead of night.

"Sister Agnes!"

Agnes was always there.

Always.

She would hurry into Marrine's small room with a candle in one hand and her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She would find the girl curled up beneath her blankets, her small frame shaking so hard that her teeth were chattering.

Agnes would sit beside her and gather her close.

"It's just a dream, love," she would whisper, smoothing Marrine's messy hair.“You’re safe here.”The water wants me."

"I know."

"It wants me to come home."

Agnes's hand paused.

Only for a moment.

Then she smoothed Marrine's hair again.

"Home's here," she insisted. "With us."

Marrine would look up at her with tears streaming down her face.

"But it said I belong to it."

Agnes would smile.

"Dreams say all kinds of silly things."

"It knew my name."

That always made Agnes pause.

The first few times, she had dismissed it. Children dreamed strange things. Children imagined voices. Children turned shadows into monsters and storms into giants.

But the dreams didn't stop.

They grew worse.

And the voice became clearer.

Come back to me.

You belong to me.

I will not lose you.

Agnes began to dread the sound of the sea herself.

The orphanage was well inland and miles away from the coast, but it wasn't unheard of for Agnes to wake at night and think she could hear waves crashing against the windows.

She knew it was impossible.

But she would always get up anyway and walk to the window.

There would be nothing but the dark garden.

The crooked apple trees.

The stone wall.

And the sleeping village beyond.

No ocean.

Never the ocean.

And yet, on those nights, the air always seemed to smell of salt.

Agnes would never tell anyone.

There were things she had promised never to speak of.

Secrets buried deep within years.

Secrets that had a great deal to do with the child sleeping down the hall.

Marrine was not an ordinary girl.

Agnes had always known that.

She still remembered the night Marrine had been brought to the orphanage.

It had been a stormy night and one of the worst rains the village had seen in years had beaten against the windows. The storm had knocked down three fishing boats before dawn and the sea was angry and unforgiving.

Just before sunrise, someone had knocked on the orphanage door.

Three slow knocks.

Agnes was the one to answer and there was no one outside.

Only a basket.

Inside the basket was a baby girl wrapped in a dark blue blanket.

The child hadn't cried.

That was what Agnes remembered most.

She had been absolutely silent as she stared up at the storm clouds with her big grey eyes.

Around her wrist was a delicate silver bracelet.

Agnes had reached out and touched it and a jolt of cold had run through her hand.

Not a cold like winter.

A cold like deep water.

She had drawn her hand away.

The baby had smiled.

The name Marrine was written in seawater on the doorstep, behind the basket.

Agnes had scrubbed the words away before anyone could see them.

She had never told the Mother Superior.

She had never told the village priest.

And certainly never told Marrine.

Not yet.

The truth was far too dangerous.

Marrine was still to young.

Still too innocent.

Agnes had convinced herself that if the girl knew nothing about her blood, perhaps whatever lived beneath the sea would eventually forget her.

For ten years, it had remained that way.

Then the nightmares began.

Agnes began to watch Marrine.

She seemed an ordinary girl most of the time.

She laughed with the other children and helped in the kitchens. She complained about chores and stole apples from the pantry and blamed the younger girls.

But there were little things.

Strange things.

Whenever it rained, Marrine would stop what she was doing and look out the windows.

Whenever there were thunderstorms, Marrine would be restless.

And whenever anyone spoke of the sea, her expression would change.

She would become quiet.

Listening.

As if someone far away had whispered something only she could hear.

One afternoon, Agnes found herself standing in the yard with Marrine barefoot in a thunderstorm.

"Marrine!"

The girl didn't answer.

Rain ran down her face and soaked her dress.

Agnes hurried towards her.

"What are you doing out here?"

Marrine slowly turned.

"The sea is angry."

Agnes froze.

"We're miles from the sea."

Marrine frowned.

“I can hear it.”

There was no ocean nearby.

Agnes knew that.

She also knew Marrine had never been allowed anywhere near the coast.

"What can you hear?"

"The waves."

Marrine tilted her head.

"They're calling again."

Agnes's heart pounded in her ears.

"What are they saying?"

Marrine looked out at the distant horizon.

"They're asking why I haven't come back."

Agnes felt the blood drain from her face.

She took Marrine's shoulders firmly.

"You must never answer them."

The girl's eyes widened.

"Why?"

"Because the sea isn't your home."

"But you said home was here."

"It is."

"Then why is it calling me?"

Agnes had no answer.

That night, she searched through an old chest hidden beneath the floorboards of her room.

She hadn't opened it in ten years.

Inside were letters.

Old maps.

A few newspapers.

And one small book with worn black bindings.

Agnes lifted it with shaking hands.

It had been left to her by the woman who had served at the orphanage before her. The old woman had died shortly after Marrine arrived, leaving only one warning behind.

If the child ever dreams of the sea, open the book.

Agnes had prayed she would never need to.

She carried the book to her desk.

The candle's flame trembled as she opened it up.

Most of the pages were written in an indecipherable script that curled like waves and crashed against the paper.

But the last few pages were written in simple, plain English.

Agnes read the first line.

When the sea calls its daughter, she will hear it first in dreams.

Her hands shook.

She read on.

The child will resist.

The child will forget.

The child will grow.

But the sea does not forget its own.

Agnes closed her eyes.

"No," she whispered.

A floorboard squeaked behind her and she turned.

Marrine stood in the doorway.

She was pale and her hair was loose.

"Sister Agnes?"

Agnes quickly closed the book.

"What are you doing awake?"

"I had the dream again."

Agnes swallowed.

"Come here."

Marrine stepped into the room.

This time, she didn't cry.

That scared Agnes the most.

"What happened in the dream?" Agnes asked.

Marrine stared at the book on the desk.

"The sea showed me someone."

Agnes went still.

"Who?"

"A woman."

"What woman?"

"I don't know."

Marrine frowned, trying to remember.

"She was standing in the water. She had my eyes."

Agnes could barely breathe.

"What did she say?"

Marrine's voice dropped to a whisper.

"She told me you lied to me."

The candle went out.

Neither of them moved for several seconds.

Then there was a sound from somewhere outside the orphanage.

Deep and distant, but unmistakably the sound of thunder.

Agnes's blood ran cold.

Thunder?

No.

She knew that sound.

It was the sound of the sea.

But the sea was miles away.

Another boom followed.

Closer this time.

Marrine turned towards the window.

"The tide is coming."

Agnes grabbed her hand.

"There is no tide here."

Marrine looked at her.

"Yes, there is."

Outside, rain began tapping against the glass.

Then slowly, impossibly, water began to creep beneath the door.

Agnes stared at it.

A thin line of seawater spread along the floorboard.

It smelled of salt and something older, something rotten and buried.

Marrine stepped towards it.

Agnes pulled her back.

"No."

"But it's here."

"Look, Marrine."

The water continued to creep into the room.

"You must never follow it."

The girl stared at the dark liquid.

"But what if it really is my home?"

Agnes pulled her into her arms.

"It isn't."

For the first time, Marrine heard true fear in Sister Agnes's voice.

Not worry.

Not concern.

Fear.

"Tell me the truth," Marrine whispered.

Agnes closed her eyes.

She had spent ten years protecting the girl from the truth.

Now she wondered whether she had only been protecting the truth from her.

Outside, something shifted in the darkness.

Something huge.

Something that sounded like it was dragging itself through the flooded garden.

Marrine clung to Agnes.

"What is out there?"

Agnes looked at the window.

For a moment, she almost saw a pale face beneath the rain.

A woman's face.

Waiting.

Watching.

Then the lightning flashed.

The face was gone.

Agnes turned back to Marrine.

Her decision was made.

"You're going to leave this place," she said.

Marrine blinked.

"Where will we go?"

"Somewhere the sea can't find you."

"But you said it can't take me."

Agnes looked down at the water spreading across the floor.

"I was wrong."

The ocean had remembered Marrine.

And now that it had begun calling, Agnes feared there was nothing in the world strong enough to make it stop.