by Jules Leclercq

Content Warnings: Themes of Death, Violence, Drowning, Ritualistic Sacrifice, Blood, Suicidal Ideation, and Gender Dysphoria

They said the sea had to be married, or else it would turn bitter.

Long ago, a storm swallowed twelve boats, and the next day a widow rowed into the ink-dark water with nothing but a knife. The sea took her whole, and the waters turned gentle, the nets ran silver, no soul was lost.

Since then, once every twelve years, a bride is chosen. She walks to the tide, marks her cheek with blood, and drifts out in a small boat while the Elders chant. The sea demands its offering, and the village obeys. The bounty of the next twelve years depended on it, and our village's life clung to the sea like barnacles to stone.

This was the year the bells rang again, and our hearts beat with a fear older than us.

The Grand Elder pointed at Elin, and all light went out of the world. I watched her shoulders tremble beneath the white shift, the garland heavy with dew and brine. In front of the gathered crowd, she held the knife, fingers white against the dark handle. When she pressed it against her palm, blood welled between her fingers. She lifted the hand to her cheek, leaving a red smear on pale skin. Murmurs ran through the crowd; the ritual had been performed correctly. A cabin with a chair, a table, and a modest meal awaited her. She would have until sundown to prepare, and after that, there was no daylight for her.

Later, behind those closed doors, our exchange would take place.

The swap that would save her and be the death of me.

𓆟

In the small cabin, lit only by a single candle, Elin and I faced each other like reflections in water at night. We were often mistaken for siblings, sometimes twins, though we shared no blood. Both of us were the same height with the same brown eyes; lean and angular, shaped by the same hungers and brine-thick air, our hair long, bleached by the sea and sun, and our faces kissed by it. But I could see the differences only we knew. Her cheekbones were softer, her jaw more delicate. My shoulders were broader, my hands larger. Her movements carried a grace I'd never learned, while mine held the careful watchfulness of someone who had always known they didn't quite fit.

“Turn around,” Elin said softly.

I pulled my shirt over my head, the rough fabric scraping against my skin. I untied the cord at my waist and let my trousers fall to the floor. For a moment, I stood there in nothing but a knife in my hands, vulnerable, but safe with my Elin.

“Senan knows,” Elin whispered as she lifted the shift. “I told him about the swap.”

Fear and shame clutched at my chest. “You told him?”

“He will be the ferryman, Finn. But he won't say anything. This is his first year. He said that he understands why you want to save me, to swap places with me. He will be the one who…” She couldn't finish.

The shift hung between us like a ghost, then I thought, scarier than death were the minutes before. Would the people realize it was me? Stone me before even reaching the boat? Would Senan see right through the veil to the boy underneath?

“What if they laugh at me?” The question slipped out.

Elin's hands stilled, and when she looked at me, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “They won't laugh, Finn. You look beautiful. They'll see a bride walking to the sea.”

Her hands trembled as she tugged the shift over my shoulders. The fabric, still damp from the tide, slid down my body like a second skin. In the small mirror, I caught my reflection and felt my breath catch. I looked like a bride; in the mirror, I did not see myself but Elin, or else the bride the sea was waiting for, not myself, but someone who belonged in the white shift. She settled the garland over my hair, sea-grass and wildflowers, each strand brushing my neck like the ocean’s fingers claiming me. Last came the veil, pinned with unsteady care until my face was sealed in white.

“Now the blood,” she said. The knife lay still in my hand. I pressed the wound to my cheek. The blood held fast, thick, and warm.

The bells began to toll. The sound rolled across the village like thunder; each note heavy with the weight of centuries. The ritual was beginning, and the sea was calling.

“Remember,” Elin whispered, her hands lingering on my shoulders one last time. “You're not Finnean anymore. You're the bride. You're what they expect to see. And you're brave enough to carry this. I’ll forever be grateful, and—Finn, I—I love you. Do you hear me? I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you—”

I whispered the words back to her, again and again, as if we were casting a spell that could carry us out of the cabin, away from the shore, away from the fate ahead. Outside, the villagers gathered, their voices mixing with the crash of waves, hiding the sound of our own voices and tears. The ocean breathed against the rocks, and I took my first step toward the door. Toward the shore. Toward whatever awaited me in the dark.

The path to the shore was lit by fire and smoke. Torches hissed in the wind, throwing wild shadows across the rocks. Each step was a fight, my knees threatening to buckle. The veil stuck to my lips when I breathed, tasting salt and smoke. Behind me, the villagers followed, their eyes burning through the thin fabric. Above us, the wealthy families leaned from the cliffs like vultures, and foam licked at the rocks with urgency.

And then I saw him, the young ferryman. Senan, tall and broad-shouldered, stood at the water's edge beside a small dark boat, his cloak thrown back despite the cold spray. His hair was damp and clinging to his temples. Even in the uncertain torchlight, I could see the steady line of his mouth and the calm of his eyes.

He would kill me. Gently, perhaps, but kill me all the same. The knowing weakened my legs. I stumbled once, then again, and the crowd whispered like a tide behind me. Brides always broke near the end. I was no different. Terror hollowed me out, yet still I moved, one shaking step after another, my eyes fixed on Senan.

His bearing was changed, not as I remembered. Then Elin’s words returned: I was the first bride he had ever ferried. Perhaps that was why he had agreed; a small mercy that it was not Elin, nor any other girl, bound for the sea. And unlike the brides before, I had walked to my own execution by choice.

The Elders lifted their hands, and the chanting fell away. Only the waves kept moving, and my own pulse, hollow and loud as thunder in the hush. Through the veil, Senan’s eyes found mine. I held my breath, waiting for his hand to reach for the rope that would bind me.

I had seen Senan before. Our village was small enough that everyone knew everyone by sight, and he was impossible to miss: tall, dark hair sun-caught at the edges, arms strong from hauling nets. He moved with confidence, like someone who belonged everywhere. Elin sometimes worked alongside him repairing the larger nets, and she told me stories of his steady hands, his competence, the way he treated her with respect rare among the fishermen. When they passed each other, he would smile at her, something genuine, warmer than the polite grimace he gave others. There was mutual admiration there, born from shared labor and a shared love of the sea.

In the torchlight, his eyes weren't cold nor filled with the casual cruelty I'd grown used to from other boys. Instead, there was something I had never seen directed at me before: gentleness. It was the first time another man had looked at me without scorn or anger, without that gaze that cut deeper than hatred, the first time I'd seen kindness in eyes that belonged to someone like me.

“Easy,” he said softly, his voice barely audible over the crash of waves.

His hand reached for mine, not for the rope yet, but for me. His fingers were calloused from years of working the nets, rough and warm and sure. When he touched my hand, I felt something I'd never felt before: the careful restraint of someone who could hurt me but chose not to.

The veil fluttered between us in the sea-wind, and through the thin fabric I watched him study my face. I waited for recognition to dawn, for kindness to curdle into disgust. But he only looked at me, and I looked back. For a breath, there was nothing but his face: a small scar rested above his left eyebrow, while his dark lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones. His other hand cupped my elbow when I swayed, steadying me with the same ease he'd use to guide a sail.

The crowd pressed closer behind us, but they felt distant now, unreal. There was only Senan's hands, his eyes holding mine, the sound of his breathing mixing with the rhythm of the waves. Even if he was only being kind to the bride, he pretended I was, even if this tenderness was an act that would evaporate the moment we got into the boat, it was more than anyone had ever given me. Certainly, more than I'd ever dared to hope for.

“Ready?” he asked, like I had a choice in what happened next. I nodded.

The rope was in his other hand now, but even as he lifted it, his touch remained soft. Whatever may happen, I realized I trusted him to drop me gently to my death.

The Grand Elder stepped forward, his gray cloak billowing like the wings of a carrion bird. His voice cut through the crash of waves, ancient and merciless:

“She walks into the dark water. She gives her breath so we may breathe. Her blood calls to the deep, and the deep will answer with Abundance.”

Senan's hand on my elbow kept me from collapsing into the foam. The crowd pressed closer, and above us on the cliffs, the wealthy families leaned forward on their stone parapets like vultures waiting for the final twitch. We used to whisper among ourselves: never the rich. Always the small ones, the orphaned ones, the ones whose lives were already measured by the sea. Oh, the people on the cliffs; they would wake to warm bread while my body fed the fish. I curse them to burn. May fire consume them all.

“The sea has waited twelve years,” the Grand Elder called above the waves. “Let the bride be blessed, let the ferryman seal the covenant.”

A kiss. I'd known it was coming. The crowd began to chant, their voices weaving together like a funeral shroud: “Oh, the sea remembers. Oh, remember what the heart forgets.”

Senan stepped so close I felt the heat of him through the brine-thick air. His hand lifted, brushing the edge of my veil. I ached to lean into that touch, to press my face into his palm and beg him to stop, to change everything, to spare me from dying in someone else’s garment. But I was frozen, shaking like a tree in the tempest, caught in the dark softness of eyes that were not meant for me.

“Look at me,” he said, his voice rougher now. “Just look at me.”

If this was the last gaze before the sea closed over me, I wanted to remember it: eyes black as tidewater, the thundering of my own ribs, the taste of salt and terror on my lips, and something close to longing.

“The kiss of claiming,” the Elder cried, his voice rolling with the waves. “Let her be bride, let her be sanctified. The ferryman shall kiss her, and all the tides shall witness.”

Senan’s hand slipped beneath the veil, fingers finding my jaw. His thumb grazed the dried blood on my cheek. Around us, the crowd waited in silence, torchlight burning their hunger into my skin, stripping away every lie I had left. Any breath now, someone would point, laugh, expose me before the deep claimed me. But Senan leaned closer, close enough that I could taste his breath that carried the bitter curl of burning leaf, pipe smoke, and the sea breeze between us.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my lips, words sinking between us, and then his mouth touched mine. My first kiss without violence, nothing like I’d imagined in the hours I let myself dream of such a thing. I wanted to memorize every second, the tender press of his lips and the way his hand cupped my face. I wanted to hold it in my mind, to carry it underwater, so that when I lost consciousness, I could return to this moment.

When he pulled back, his eyes held mine through the veil. His thumb brushed across my lips, brief, quick, and fragile as a blink, and I found the salt of tears I had not known were falling.

The Elders whispered approval, their voices rising in renewed chanting: “Oh, blessed be the bride, blessed be the sea, blessed be the vow they carry.”

“The kiss is given. Now let the binding begin, for the sea grows restless, and the tide will not wait.” The Grand Elder spoke, and before I knew what was happening, Senan had me in his arms. He lifted me as though I were nothing but air, one arm under my knees, the other across my back. I pressed against him, the warmth of him sudden, my face buried against his shoulder. The shift fell around me in folds, soft and certain, and through the veil I saw the crowd part before us, a pathway opening toward the yawning mouth of the dark water.

Crushed flowers and seagrass were thrown by weathered hands, landing soft against the fabric, against Senan's shoulders, against the stones beneath his feet. Then, a familiar face, Old Marta from the bakery, her face streaked with tears, pressed something into the folds of my shift, a small piece of honeyed bread, still warm.

“For the journey,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the words. “Safe passage, little one. I swear to tend to your brother.” Others came too, pressing tokens into my lap, iron, silver, rosemary, both blessing and bribe. These were the people who’d watched Elin and I grow from barefoot children into two fragile figures, and now they looked at me with the sorrow reserved for those already lost, claimed by death. They cared about Elin, I thought, just not enough to save her.

Tears came hot and shameful behind the veil. I buried my face deeper into Senan’s shoulder to muffle my sobs. We reached the edge where the small boat waited, the border between land and sea, between life and what waited beyond.

Senan stepped into the boat, the wood creaking under our combined weight, and settled me carefully against the narrow seat. The ocean stretched before us, black and endless, and I felt it calling like something alive and hungry. He took up the oars, and with each stroke we moved further from the torches, further from the crowd, further from anything that resembled the world I'd known.

Tears came soundless, rocking my shoulders while Senan rowed us toward the darkness beyond the edge of the light. The sea whispered beneath the hull, patient as death. I thought then, perhaps this was what it was to be carried to your own funeral.

The torches shrank to dying stars. I knew they were still there, still watching from the cliffs, waiting for their sacrifice to be swallowed. Around us, the water began to shift, waves rising where calm had been; the sea grew darker, more violent.

My whole body trembled. I wanted to beg Senan to make it quick, to swear that drowning wouldn’t hurt, but my tongue was heavy, my throat locked. All I could do was sit in my borrowed clothes and wait to die like every girl before me.

Then he paused. From beneath the seat, he drew an oil lamp and struck a flame. Light flared between us, gilding his face and painting the ink-dark water in quivering gold. He lifted his hands, slipped the veil from my head, and set it aside. And in that moment, our eyes met.

“Keep looking at me, Finnean, keep looking up,” he said, and then he pushed me over.

The cold swallowed me whole. My vision graying as the rope dragged me deeper. I forced myself to look up like Senan had told me. Far above, impossibly far, I could see flames spreading across the surface, burning like a funeral pyre against the dark water. Orange light danced above me, flickering and wild.

The fire above grew small and dim. My arms wouldn’t answer me, heavy, pulled down, not mine anymore. Salt filled my mouth before I could close it, scorched my throat, clawed down into my chest. Salt water shoved into my mouth, down my throat, burning like hot iron.

I thought of Senan's gentle eyes, of Elin's love, of dying poor and expendable in a village that fed its children to the sea, and all the girls who’d gone under this same dark before me. My chest convulsed, heaving for air that wasn’t there, every breath a knife. I swallowed more of it, choking, and the warm iron turned to burning ice. My ribs trembled, sharp pain under each bone, and something burst behind my eyes, and then I went heavy, sinking. The sea filled me, pressed into every hollow, curling inside me until I thought my head would burst.

This was death, then—this quiet dissolving of my body. My chest had stopped burning, my heart slowed, and each beat further apart. I thought I had become one of them, another girl consumed, another name the sea would never return. I held to consolation and pictured Elin safe and far away, but the waters were unforgiving, and my mind slipped away immediately. Light thinned to red, then gray, then nothing. Death was long and brutal.

Darkness folded me in, thick and endless, as time bled out of me.

And then—warmth against my mouth.

Breath being forced into a body that had already given up, and my mouth remembered these lips. I tried to gasp, tried to speak, but salt water poured from my mouth instead, bitter with brine and blood. Strong hands rolled me onto my side, helping the ocean drain from my body. My chest burned like fire again, my throat felt raw as an open wound, and every breath was relentless agony. And yet, at last, I breathed, wrapped in voices I knew.

I heard Elin sobbing somewhere above me, saying my name over and over like she couldn't believe I was real. “Breathe, Finn, just breathe,” Elin whispered, and I could hear tears in her voice. “You're okay. You're okay.” My eyes opened to the sky, pale with dawn, not the black water that had swallowed me. I was lying in a different boat entirely, nothing like the small ritual vessel. This one had a mast, proper oars, and a sail that caught the morning breeze. A boat meant for living, not dying, I thought.

Elin’s face appeared above me, streaked with tears and seawater, her hair now shorter than mine, ends ragged where she had cut them. Behind her, Senan knelt with his chest bare, his body trembling from whatever it was he had done to bring me back.

“I died,” I whispered, my voice nothing but a scrape. “I felt myself die.”

“You did.” Elin wiped her face, trying to steady herself. “Your lips were blue. You weren't breathing.” She stopped, jaw tight, like she was forcing herself to hold it together.

Senan's hand found her shoulder, steady and warm despite the tremor in his fingers.

“I cut the ropes fast,” he said quietly. “Got you free, started swimming to where Elin was waiting with this boat. But you'd been under too long.”

I looked between them. Elin stood beside me, leaning close, breath uneven. Senan’s chest rose and fell hard and quick, muscle and bone moving together.

“How long?” Neither of them answered right away.

“Oh, and the fire,” I said, because I remembered that much, the last thing I'd seen before the water took me under. “From the water, I looked up, and I saw flames—”

“A distraction,” Elin explained, her voice soft but steady. “The villagers saw it, the boat catching fire. They were busy watching the flames; they didn't see Senan dive in after you. By the time the fire went out, you were already gone. The villagers saw only smoke and flame, never the dive beneath the surface. They might think Senan died, that I drowned, that you ran away… That was the plan from the beginning. We couldn’t tell you because—”

“I had to believe I was about to die,” I said, and the words came out like release.

“Yes.” Elin's voice went small. “The walking, the trembling legs, can't be faked. There hasn't been a bride who walked without fear. I would have walked myself.” She looked down at her hands. “I'd have told you how to steal the boat, taught you the way through, and I'd be standing where you are right now. There would still be three of us here, but the fear, the fear had to be real.” Her eyes lifted to mine, bright with tears. “We've never lied to each other, Finn. Not once.”

I found myself smiling, faint but real, and I brushed her wrist with my fingers. A small, bittersweet smile appeared on her lips. Then I looked down, the shift clung to my skin, sea-stiff and torn, my hair matted with crushed flowers and dying seagrass.

“I died in these,” I whispered.

Elin touched a crushed petal caught in the fabric. “Beautiful,” she said, and heat rose in my face.

Senan's voice came low and steady: “Beautiful.”

I looked upon him. No mockery dwelt in his dark eyes, nor disgust, only tenderness.

The boat rocked gently beneath us, carried on a calmer breath of sea.

Elin’s hand lay on mine, soft and sure, caressing me as she had when we were children. Senan was quiet for a long moment, his gaze moving between me and Elin. He stood tall above us, even when kneeling, though the weight of the night pressed on him. His thighs were still slightly trembling, glistening where the water clung to him. Most of his ferryman’s garments and shoes were lost to the tide, though the knife that had cut my ropes still rested at his waist, bound fast by a strap of rough leather. He wore nothing else but the weight of the tide and a scrap of dark cloth bound at his hips, a fragment torn from what remained of his cloak. The lean line of him bare and unguarded, every breath slow and uncertain, vulnerable, yet here with us.

When Senan spoke again, his voice was low and breathy, barely above the slap of the waves. “Never have I known such happiness, never such ease of heart, as now, seeing you both safe,” he said. “But I keep thinking… I should tell you to close your eyes, then wait for sleep to claim you, and vanish before you wake.”

His hand moved to touch his throat, fingers shaky against his skin.

“Take my knife and cut right here. I trusted you, Elin, to get you both back to land. For I needed to let my blood pay what we owe.” Tears started cutting tracks down his face.

“Because we cheated it, did we not? Stole you back from the sea. And someone must pay.” His voice gave out entirely, tears still cutting down his sun-kissed skin. “I was ready to do it. Ready to give my life. My life for both of yours. For that felt… Fair. Fair, it felt. My blood to balance the scale, to pay for your lives.”

Elin tried to reach for him, but he kept talking, the words pouring out.

“All those years, all those girls our village gave to the waves. I thought we had broken something holy, sacred. Thought the sea would turn bitter, would take its anger out upon all we left behind. So, you see… I would hold the blade here.” He touched his throat again, this time with the knife, “—and cut deep, hard, and quick. Let my blood pour into the sea as an offering.” His whole body trembled, the words spilling out fractured and raw. Elin watched the knife with frightened eyes, and when Senan looked up, his gaze locked onto mine.

“Do you know how far I bore your body through the water? No soul should have lived through it. The water was as cold as the grave. You were dead weight. And—I had nothing left. My arms gave out. Again, and again. And I thought—I thought we would sink together. I could not feel my legs, could not breathe. I knew you were gone, and I thought I'd killed us both trying to save you. Finn, Finnean, I thought you were—I thought you were—”

A wave broke over us, white foam curling and spilling against our skin. Clouds scudded above, catching the light, the sun warm upon our bodies, keeping us alive.

“But the currents… They turned. Turned, as if unseen arms had taken us. Carried us when I could carry no more. Held us up when we should have drowned together.” Senan wiped his face with the back of his hand, his voice raw and broken. “And I don't know what that means. Perhaps we have it all wrong, and the sea never cared for those girls. Maybe the first bride cast herself into the deep because sorrow was too heavy to bear. Maybe that is all it ever was.” His voice grew softer, hollow. “Maybe we've done something unforgivable for no blessing at all, for years and years, only for fear that we might be wrong.”

He looked up at us, his eyes red and empty. “But I know, I know the currents bore us when they should have let us sink, and that must mean something. For if it means nothing… If it was only chance, only blind water…” His voice cracked. “Then I cannot bear what we’ve done. What I have done, what we have all carried.”

He wiped his face, breath trembling. “So maybe the currents wished to save us. Tell me it is so that we survive, that I have saved you, that the sea wanted us alive. Together.”

The boat drifted with the waves, and in the hush that followed, Elin held me close, her hand warm on mine. Then she reached for Senan, holding us both, hands gripping tight and tears falling until our faces went numb. Senan looked to me, his eyes bright and breaking, and whispered, barely more than breath: “May I hold your hand?” Without a word, I reached for him. His fingers found mine, salt‑rough, shivering, warm at last.

We sat there, the three of us, carried once again by waves that had chosen to be gentle.

And we chose to believe they were.

Jules Leclercq (he/him) is an amateur writer and visual artist.