What Was Gained in The Fire
If it had only been once upon a time, it would not have been worth telling you about, but it wasn’t just the once — it kept happening, and each subsequent time was worse than the time before.
Every generation a virgin girl — she had to be a virgin, if she was found to be impure she was forced to watch her entire family be executed before she was tortured to death — was taken to the volcano to be sacrificed to the creature who dwelt there. If the royal couple had been cursed with a daughter, it was always she who was taken, and the rest of the mothers and fathers in the kingdom breathed more easily and enjoyed their daughters without an undercurrent of fear.
Marina, too curious for her own good — something her father the king never failed to chide her for — always wondered, why would a volcano dwelling creature care about virginity? Did unsullied flesh burn brighter than that defiled by the touch of a man? How long would she have to wait to be called? Generations were imprecise things, as were the whims of the creature. Sometimes only sixteen years passed between callings, other times it was twenty five.
Marina once had a nursemaid who told her stories of girls who’d gone before her, how they wept and wailed, how some mothers tried cutting their daughters’ throats rather than see them taken, how one girl even escaped the creature and crawled back to her village, her skin burnt and black and sloughing off in sheets. After her father overheard this gruesome tale telling one night, her nursemaid was never seen again. Marina missed her, as she was her only source of information, the only way she could possibly prepare herself for her fate worse than death.
She often walked by the sea, enjoying the cool damp air on her skin. She walked for hours and sang to herself, songs she’d heard in her cradle, songs she heard the soldiers singing when they returned from the pubs, and songs she’d created herself.
One night during her sixteenth year, close to the turning of fall into winter, a voice called out to her as she was singing. “Girl! Oh girl! Sing that good and sweetling song for me again.” Marina smiled and sang the verse again (one of her own devising) and continued walking.
She heard in the sea beside her a crashing splashing and the voice said again, “Girl! Oh girl! Sing that good and sweetling song for me again,” and so she did, then walked on.
As she continued walking she heard again the crashing splashing and the voice said a third time, “Girl! Oh girl! Sing that good and sweetling song for me again,” and she did, but this time she stayed a moment, and from the sea rose a selkie. She hurried to Marina on her unsteady legs and said in her salty rasp voice, “My girl, I’ve never heard that good and sweetling song before, where does it come from?” Marina told her that she had composed it herself, inspired by the sea, and the selkie smiled. “Oh it pleases me so much that my home has inspired such a song, let me grant you one wish in return for this delight.”
Marina didn’t hesitate. “I wish to not be sent to the creature on the fire mountain.”
The selkie bared her sharp little teeth unhappily. “That is a powerful thing to wish against, and that power can cause a wish to go off course. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have an endless purse of gold, or a dress made of starlight?”
“Those do sound lovely, but I must wish to not be sent to the creature on the fire mountain. I am an ocean child, and I cannot bear the thought of dying by fire.”
The selkie nodded sadly. “It is done. I thank you for your song.” With that she slipped back into the sea, singing Marina’s song as she swam, but with a more melancholy lilt than Marina had sung it.
Marina felt like a great length of chain had been removed from her. She no longer had to fear the great devouring by the creature! She could live and grow and ascend to the throne when her parents grew too old. She finally had a future that was hers to fashion, rather than something she could never fully understand.
Two years later the red flag was raised on the fire mountain, the signal calling for her body and her blood. Marina could not believe what she was seeing — she knew selkies were tricky creatures, but why would one lie to her?
She was taken to be prepared for her journey to the fire mountain, which would commence the next morning. She was bathed and anointed, dressed in a dark gown, given no supper — apparently the creature preferred its virgins to be hungry.
When her servants had left her, she laid awake, wondering if the wish had just been delayed, and would still save her before the morning came. If she ran, would the wish would protect her? Should she go to the sea and ask the selkies? She didn’t understand wishes, and longed for someone to tell her what to do.
As she questioned herself, her father came into her room, a large presence in her small bed chamber. For a moment she wondered if he’d somehow known she was asking questions and had come to chide her one last time. He climbed into her bed, the length of his body hot against hers in the cold night. His hand touched her and she froze, knowing that the selkie had not lied when she’d said wishes could go off course.
As her wish was granted, she sang her song to herself, as melancholy as a selkie, and wondered how her mother and father would die in the morning.
