Lampie and the Children of the Sea

by Annet Schaap

  He holds up his hand to protect his eyes from the light, even though the sun is not shining. Clouds are quickly filling the sky, and in the distance the storm has begun. He has to get to the harbour as quickly as possible, but it is not going to be easy, not like this. He looks around.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” says his neighbour. “Do you need something to eat first?”

  “No, no, a stick’s what I need. A good, strong stick.”

  She has a nice laugh. And something in her hand.

  “Ah, yes,” she says. “The man, he brought something else with him, and now I understand what it is.” She produces a piece of wood that is far too short for a stick, but which – surprisingly – fits exactly under his half-leg. And it stays in place. And it does not even hurt. She helps him with the buckles.

  “Well, good luck,” she says, when the leg is in place. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye out for Lampie. And if you’re ever nearby and you’re in the mood for soup: I live over there.”

  She almost has to scream, as the wind is blowing harder and harder. As Augustus walks away, he glances back. She is a little older and a little fatter than he thought. He raises his hand. With the wind at his back, he hobbles down the sea path.

  HARBOUR

  Step, tap. Step, tap.

  Augustus is walking by the harbour, and it is so ridiculously easy that it feels as if he has his leg back. He suddenly realizes that he is grinning like a fool. Not only because of the leg, but also because of those letters – they really did come from Lampie. He has no idea how that can be possible. But she thought about him, thought enough about him to let him know what she was planning to do. Even though it is a terribly stupid plan, mind you.

  All around him the water is heaving and splashing, and the ships are banging against the quayside like restless animals. In the far corner of the harbour, there is a half-collapsed jetty, which no decent fishing boat would go anywhere near. Sinking boats bob and dangle alongside it and there is an old, scorched ship, which no one ever dares to go near, because it is haunted.

  If she really is somewhere in the town, then here is where she must be. Augustus peers along the jetty… Yes, there she is, creaking on her ropes, with freshly patched holes in her side.

  He walks up to the boat and slaps his hand against her.

  “Buck!” he screams at the wood. “Buck, I need your boat. Can you hear me?” He pounds the side with his fist. “Buck, it’s me. I need your boat. Right now!” There is no answer, so Augustus looks upwards. The sails are lowered but the ragged black flag is snapping tightly in the wind. So he is there. “Buck!”

  From deep inside the hold comes a voice: “I can’t believe you have the nerve to show your face here again.”

  “Buck…”

  “Get lost, man, or I’ll come up there. You still have one leg left, don’t you? You don’t want to lose that too, do you?”

  “Buck, that’s all in the past,” shouts Augustus. “This is now. I need your boat.”

  “Oh, is that right? And I needed my woman. But I didn’t get what I wanted either.” The captain’s voice is suddenly very close; it seems to be coming from right on the other side of the planks. He is unleashing curse words that even Augustus has never heard before.

  “It’s not for me,” he says as calmly as he can. “It’s—”

  “Clear off, man! Go back to bed with your woman, with my woman – she was mine first! Crawl back under the covers and suffocate for all I care.”

  “Don’t you think I’d rather do that if I could? But I can’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Augustus does not reply. He means that he would give up his other leg in an instant, and his arm too, if she were waiting back at home. But you can’t make bargains like that.

  “Aha,” Buck says, laughing. “Did she leave you too? Ha, serves you right. Of course she’d never want to stay with a sour-faced soak like you. I always wondered what she saw in you.”

  Augustus had never understood it either. Buck was far more handsome, had much more hair and he was the captain too.

  It was all so dreadfully unfair. But what could you do about it?

  Nothing – as he knew very well.

  So he tried nothing, did nothing and said nothing. He just looked at her, all day long. At how she walked across the deck and worked alongside the men, because she could work just as well as the rest of them, with her skirts hitched up and her black hair tied up with string.

  At night he could not sleep because of her. He stayed up on deck, looking at the moon and thinking about her. Every night a little more. Maybe she could feel it too, because one night she climbed out of Buck’s bed and came to stand beside him on deck. They spoke for a while, with her doing most of the talking, while he listened and said a sentence now and then. He was happy in the darkness, as he could feel himself blushing like a lobster.

  The next few nights she came again, told him all kinds of stories, sang songs and then did not want to go back to bed inside that warm cabin. The night was gentle, and the wind was mild.

  Someone found out about them, of course. A ship is small, and nothing stays secret for long. Within a few days, everyone knew, including the captain. He was furious.

  “You will leave my ship at the next harbour!” he roared at his first mate. “And count yourself lucky I haven’t thrown you into the sea. Backstabber! Woman thief! I thought we were friends.”

  Augustus did not know what to say. So he went, with his clothes in a bundle, heading down the gangplank.

  “Wait,” she called. “I’m coming with you.”

  No one understood why. He was not even handsome, the first mate, and he hardly ever said anything, so what on earth did she see in him? But that’s women for you.

  Buck did not want to let her go.

  “Then we’ll fight for her!” he cried. “And whoever wins will keep her.”

  Among pirates, that was considered fair. The winner takes the spoils. He waved his two cutlasses in the air and threw one to Augustus, who had no weapons. Augustus shrugged. Fine, then. Let’s fight.

  They duelled across the deck, back and forth. “Ooh,” the men cried when Augustus almost tumbled into the sea, and, “Aah,” when Buck was driven up against the mast three times, because the first mate was quite a fighter, and passion gives you extra strength. But not enough, because there went his leg. It was half hacked off. A nasty looking wound, even to the pirates, with their iron stomachs.

  The captain panted. “That’s decided, then. You still belong to me.” He went to kiss her neck, but stopped when he saw how cold her eyes were.

  “No. I belong to myself,” she said and, with her man leaning against her, she walked down the gangplank, along the pier and away. Augustus stumbled along at her side. He was probably going to lose that leg.

  The storm is coming closer; lightning is already flashing above the sea. The heavy clouds want to drop their burden at long last. It starts to rain – big, fat drops.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” says Augustus. “I mean she’s dead.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I mean that she is dead!” yells Augustus above the wind.

  “What?!” Above his head, a dozen faces appear over the side of the ship, hairy ones and bald ones, with wet beards and an eye or a nose missing here and there. They all look shocked. Buck leans forward.

  “What are you babbling about? When did it happen?”

  A hundred years ago, Augustus wants to say, because that is how it feels. “About two years ago.”

  “But how?”

  “She just died. She was sick and then she was dead.”

  “She just died?” yells the captain. “Rubbish! No one just dies!” But the pirates around him nod their heads sadly. Oh yes, just dying, that can certainly happen, it’s true.

  “No! No, no, no!” Buck’s face is turning red with fury. “I won’t accept it. It can’t be true. Here I was, eaten up with jealou
sy because you were having such a fine time. You had her and an easy job on land and a child too. There was a child, right?”

  “That’s the thing,” shouts Augustus. “The child, that’s why I’m here. For Lampie.”

  “Oh yes, Lampie. That was her name!” say some of the pirates, nodding their heads.

  “The little one who always sat by the fire. She was such a sweetheart.”

  Buck looks around in surprise. “Fire? Where? I never heard anything about any fires.”

  “Ah… Well, captain. Sometimes we used to go… We wanted to go and see her, our Em.”

  “No one told me anything about it. Why not?”

  “It wasn’t very often. Sometimes, when you, um, went to bed early and…”

  “We will have a proper discussion about this later,” says Captain Buck.

  “She’s coming across the bay!” Augustus calls up from the jetty. “On her own! In a rowing boat! In this storm!”

  “What? Has she gone mad? Why?”

  “She was trying to rescue someone who doesn’t deserve rescuing. To be honest, I have no idea if she’s even out there right now. But I’m worried that…”

  “If she’s anything like her mother,” says Buck, “then I would be very worried indeed. Climb on board, you idiot! We’re sailing.”

  “In this weather?” cry the pirates.

  “Yes, of course. I wouldn’t dream of risking it with the useless lump of a helmsman we have now,” says Captain Buck. “But if I could get someone else to… Or can’t you sail with that leg of yours?”

  “I don’t steer with my leg, do I?” says Augustus.

  The rain is pouring down now, but as the black sail is hoisted, the boat rears up and pulls her ropes tight. She is raring to go.

  “Wait!” a voice shouts. “Wait for me! I want to come!”

  A big fat pirate in a dress comes lurching along the jetty, as fast as his high heels will carry him.

  “Jules!” the pirates cry. “Jules has come back too!”

  Now it’ll be just like it used to be. What a day!

  The wind blows the ship out of the harbour.

  STORM

  The storm has her. It bounces the little green boat back and forth on the waves. It snatched the oars a while ago and all Lampie can do is cling to the bench, feeling sick and trying not to fall into the sea.

  Feeble child, storms the wind. Hey! Fight back a bit. Don’t just sit there!

  But Lampie is tired. Tired of pushing against the world; she cannot keep it up. She can no longer see the land; she is already too far away. She looks at the waves, hoping to see Fish somewhere, but all she can see is the sea.

  There is no storm beneath the waves, just the silence singing in his ears. He dived a little so that he could swim more swiftly, but now the darkness is drawing him down, deeper and deeper. The water stretches out in every direction, so far, so far, so far, with him in the middle. How deep can he go? What is down there, and beyond, and what lies beneath all that?

  Shoals of fish with bulging eyes come past in the darkness; he sees thousands of sparkling lights, one per fish, turning all at once as they swim around him. Above him float shadows of large fish with fins like wings, and there: a crowd of giant jellyfish, almost transparent, almost not there, and yet suddenly they appear all around him. He recognizes them from the pictures in his book about sea life; he knows not to touch the long tentacles, because they can sting you to death. But he swims so smoothly between them that he does not even feel their sting. Or maybe they do not sting you to death if you are a mermaid… no, a merman. His heart is beating very calmly, he feels brave enough to go anywhere, deeper and deeper, to where the water is pitch black, where monsters with devil’s eyes lurk, with big white teeth to chase you away and, dangling in front of their mouths, little lights, little yellow lamps to…

  Lampie, he suddenly thinks.

  Lampie is lying on her back in the cold water at the bottom of the boat. It has not sunk yet, but it will not be long. As the waves pitch her from side to side, she looks up at the clouds that the wind is chasing across the sky. The wind has found other things to play with now: clumps of seagrass fly past, followed by an old piece of sail from a ship that once ran aground here. And look, there is a basket blowing past. Isn’t that her basket from before, with a box of Swallow Brand Top Quality Matches in it? But no, that’s impossible, she thinks. There is no way it could be hers.

  Inside the pocket of her soaked dress, her fingers find the shard of glass. Yes, it’s still there.

  Mother, she thinks. This is as far as I can go. I’ll see you soon.

  A wave lifts up the boat and smashes it against the big rock in the middle of the bay. It breaks into pieces and Lampie falls into the sea.

  She comes sinking towards him, and Fish races to reach her. He is just in time. Isn’t he? Of course he is, he can swim so fast. Just in the nick of time, he grabs the hem of her dress and drags her upwards, lifts her head above the waves so that she can gasp for air. But she does not gasp and she does not move, just looks as pale as a corpse.

  “Breathe, you stupid child! Breathe!” hisses Fish, shaking her. But she simply will not do as he tells her.

  So he bites her, that is all he can think of to do, and when that does not help, he pulls her through the water to the rock, where he can lay her down and pause to think. He scrapes her knees and her elbows as he drags her over the rough stone, but if she is dead, then that no longer matters, of course.

  “Lampie!” he screams into her ear. “Lampie! Lampie, wake up! Please, please wake up!”

  He looks around to see if there is anyone who can do something, who can help him, who can help her, but there is no one, not in this whole wide ocean.

  Luckily, the storm has finally blown over. The sun shines brightly, just one last blast, before it sets. The pirates are scanning the sea, but they can’t see any sign of a boat with a child inside. Probably sunk – what do you expect when landlubbers go sailing? But still, it is a shame.

  Crow, who is at the top of the mast, has almost given up. He can’t see anyone or anything. Or can he? Is that someone swimming out there?

  “Hey?” he says. And then he shouts it: “Hey!” And then: “Hey! Captain!”

  “Can you see her?” Buck himself is standing on the lookout on the other side of the ship, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “No, not her. But I thought for a moment that…”

  “Keep looking, man. It’s getting so dark.”

  “I… I thought I saw a mermaid. Could that be?”

  “No, they never come around here. So no, it’s not a mermaid. Keep looking!”

  “But I really did think that I… Yes, there it is again. I think it’s a young one. Look, captain, over there! Look! She’s waving!”

  ROCK

  The rock has been there ever since the sea once bit a big chunk out of the land. It sits right in the middle of that bite, as if there was a small piece the sea did not like.

  It is an awkward thing. Nothing will grow on it: it is too small and too far away for a fort or a tower. Seals often lie sunbathing there. Sometimes a ship smashes into it. And now there is a little dead girl lying on it.

  At least, that is what the little girl herself thinks. Because her eyes are closed and yet she can still see everything.

  She sees the fairground train, winding its way through the land like a long snake, with her friends at every window: Oswald, Lanky Lester, Olga and Olga, and also a very angry Earl.

  She sees the admiral at the open window, Miss Amalia alone in her room, Mr Rosewood on the bench in front of his shop in the evening sunshine.

  She sees the lighthouse with a wide-open door, with planks dangling from rusty nails. Where a red-faced sheriff is questioning the neighbour, who is smiling and pointing into the distance.

  She sees Martha with her suitcase, sitting on a post at the harbour. Lenny is sitting on the ground beside her, with the dogs resting their heads on his lap. They are lookin
g out over the sea, as if they are waiting for something.

  She can see the White Cliffs in the distance, where the mermaids are on the lookout for their Nephew Neverseen, who has read every book there is to read and so knows everything, and yet knows nothing at all.

  And much closer, in his hut, she sees Nick, and in his hands a bottle with a string hanging out of its neck. He gently tugs the string and, inside the bottle, the sails of a tiny ship slowly rise. They are black and a flag the size of your little fingernail is flying from the mast, bearing a skull and crossbones.

  “Look,” says Nick. “Here she is.”

  Lampie looks – and she sees her mother. She is as good as new, with her long black hair tied up with a piece of string.

  Hello, Mother.

  Hello, my sweet child.

  I really must be dead this time.

  Is that what you want?

  I don’t know, says Lampie. I don’t think I was finished. Or was I?

  That’s not my decision to make, says her mother. But I don’t think it makes any difference anyway, whether you were finished or not.

  It’s so good to see you. Lampie can’t take her eyes off her mother. You went away.

  No, I didn’t. I was here all along.

  Where is here?

  Here, everywhere.

  Oh. But not with me.

  Yes, with you. Always. You just have to open your eyes.

  Lampie does not like that thought. But then I won’t see you.

  Oh, but you will. Just do it.

  Through her eyelashes, Lampie can see how bright it all is. Through a hole in the clouds, the sun shines into the water, turning everything around her into gold. Moving gold, splashing gold.

  So I am dead, she thinks. Because this must be what Heaven looks like.

  You’re in such a hurry, says her mother. It’s just water. Look! There’s a boat sailing this way.