previous part here: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/10/22/to-the-sweetest-end/
all parts here: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
So I
never spoke to the sea god again
though I did
journey through the water’s veil
thrice more,
once, blindly,
to a raging ocean
frothing for attention
beneath golden clouds
so I quickly returned
to the sieve river;
another,
to my mother
because I had to find out
if my people
could feel like home, now,
after all the years.
I sunk through the river
and emerged in the cold ocean
near familiar
fishing boats crowding the shore
with glow lures
draped off their sides
like acid bones of deep sea creatures.
Fishers
moved
among the vessels,
throwing nets
and laughing
over jokes too mumbled to hear,
and
one of them looked suspiciously
akin
to the reflection
of my face in the twilight water
so I almost shouted, “Dad!”
But he wouldn’t have known me
if I had–
when I was younger
I thought he had to know
I existed,
that he knew where I was,
he just did nothing about it
or maybe he was scared of my mother too
but if we found each other without her looming
we could do something fun together.
But there, treading water,
it hit me
he might not even know he had a kid,
and my mother could’ve lied
about my dad
being a fisher at all.
So maybe that man on the beach
was an uncle
or a random look-a-like,
I wouldn’t know,
just like
my father wouldn’t know me–
if he thought as much as me
as I thought of him
these past many years,
I wasn’t the neglected center of his world
so much as
a teeny dust mote somewhere in it.
So my insides twisted into knots,
like,
what was I doing here?
This shore couldn’t be home,
I knew no one here,
I’d run away ages ago
and had never wanted to come back.
But now I was older and (hopefully) stronger,
and a part of my heart
wanted to see.
So I tapped the invisibility runes on my ankles
and paddled to land,
then strode between the boats
to the houses
that looked smaller than I remembered,
and I didn’t recall
as many buildings made of stone,
or streets
paved with something silver,
and
I kept checking over my see-through shoulder
for a mother who’d demand I return home
right now,
or someone
who wanted to tell me
how my mother’s marvelous potions helped them.
But I pressed on,
determined to find her
and confront her
or at least
feel sorry for her
but instead
I came across the library.
And stopped.
And stared.
It had
the same mud roof,
now covered in moss.
It had
the same log walls,
now sagging deeper.
It had the same lopsided look
like someone took two of the four corners
and squished them deeper into the ground than the others,
except now the squished two looked more squished.
I circled the whole building,
and the hole in the back of the roof
had been filled
while the front door
had a sign saying “renovate soon”
like an order for a worker who’d yet to arrive.
I tested the handle
but it was locked.
Yet rather than doing something practical
like
carefully burning a hole around the deadbolt
so I could swing the door open,
I just slumped to the shiny new silver path
and cried.
Cried for
Ola
in this terrible town,
cried for her
unable to sleep in that foul, dusty corner
because her skin burned,
cried for her
following rats to find hope,
cried for her
because nobody came to save her
except herself,
cried for her
trying to scratch the rashes on her back
with sticks held between her arm nubs,
cried for her
in a cart
fleeing to the hills,
cried for her
here
alone
fighting for life
without really knowing what “life” meant,
cried for her
not knowing worse things lay waiting for her,
cried for her
never growing up the same as
the people in this city
who should’ve watched out for her
but didn’t know they needed to,
cried for her
in me,
cried for her
to come back
so she could feel
happy–
then
some kids
came runnin’ to the library,
loud enough
they heard no sobbing
from me
though I didn’t stop for them,
but one kid
did run into me
curled up on the ground
and tripped
into another one
who shouted and kicked him
so she kicked him back
and I almost
yelled not to kick each other
but
another one
struck a match
and held it to the door
and I wanted to see where this went
as long as it didn’t go too far–
the flame didn’t catch
and neither did the second match
so another kid
started hacking at it
with an ax
and I
did want to see what lay inside
though certainly
not this violently
but I let the kids
take turns
just until the hinges creaked
then I snatched the door handle and swung it open,
making them freeze
in the musty draft of air.
One kid whispered, “It’s haunted.”
And I said, “Yes it is,
by a little girl named Ola
who used to be me.”
And they ran screaming
with their ax and matches,
then I turned
to study the library
they’d kindly opened for me
but the shelves
sagged worse than the wood outside
and pages littered the floor
long crumbled
from their covers,
so I burst into tears
all over again
for this little flame of hope
that’d died before the believer in it did.
***
header photo by Ulrick Trappschuh on Pexels.com
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