Once upon a time…

We were four: my wife, my mother with her clouded eyes, and our son who still chased gulls. The sea rose and took the lower fields. We set our longboat on church stones and waited for the sky to tire. It did not. The old ones say that when three night-herons fly at noon, the water remembers a path it once walked. That day, three pale birds crossed the sun, and the fjord began to climb the hills.

We pushed off. My mother kept the ash drum of husel ash, an old rite: sprinkle the wake so land spirits taste home and guide you. My arms burned. The boy begged to take an oar. I said no. He stared hard at me, like I was a post set in rot.

We followed floating fences, roof beams, a steeple bell that bobbed like an apple. My mother’s voice, thin as flax, told of a rock ridge that never drowns. The ash drifted behind like frost.

At dusk, the herons settled on black stone. We grounded there. I let the boy steer us in. My mother slept. I did not. The water fell. Tomorrow, his hands would lift the boat.