Mistbound

Thaleia was a witch with a lopsided crystal ball, and a heavy heart. Nothing could change the ball – the dragon who was making it sneezed during the condensing process, solidifying the current shape. Yet something had to be done about her heart. If only her lopsided crystal ball would give the answer. She needed to know how to free Elias from the burden of daily fishing. This way Elias would finally stay on the shore and look in her direction.

Elias was the only fisherman in the village who spent the whole day in the sea but still returned with an empty net. Mutual distance was kept between Elias and other fishermen. The fishermen believed Elias carried too much bad luck. What other explanation could there be? The man left the docks before sunrise, and paddled so far that his boat turned into a speck on the horizon. Yet he still returned with nothing. Elias kept his distance for another reason.

He was a dreamer. While the boat glided silently over the still morning surface, Elias composed new constellations from the remaining stars in the dawn sky. He looked for patterns in the colors of the sea. He wrote poetry even though there was nobody to share it with. By the time his mind nudged him back to reality, the sun would have already burned a new layer of his skin, while puzzled seagulls bobbed on the waves nearby, glancing at the empty net still crumpled in his grip.

That morning the first heatwave of the season came to the village. Warming the cold water, it raised thick salty clouds into the air. That’s how Elias first saw her – the girl made of the morning mist. She told him she could exist only when the hot air touched the cold sea. She couldn’t choose when to appear. Elias said that was fine. As long as she could listen to his poetry and look at his constellations, he would consider himself happy.

He didn’t want to lose a single minute of the morning mist. So he camped out on the boat at night, in case the heat came earlier to raise the sea up. The village sent a search party for Elias and brought him back despite his protests.

“Delirious and dehydrated,” they said to Thaleia.

That night Thaleia, desperate for a solution, pushed the malfunctioning crystal ball to its limits. It burst into shards but not before it gave her the answer.

The rescue could come from a magic pearl. The magic pearl was abandoned in the black cave by a dragon who had stolen it. Once the pearl was set free again, all who were trapped would also become free.

Nobody went to the black cave. It was a narrow crack at the foot of the sea cliff, full of razor-sharp edges. Any boat would get shredded inside.

Before sunrise, Thaleia dragged her canoe out.

She paddled through the mist while the water changed its color from green to deep blue to turquoise. It turned black in the cave. She startled two nesting pigeons as she got inside. Thaleia pushed her canoe, gripping the razor walls. The oar no longer fit. Silver strings of light curved and twisted around her. The light became brighter as Thaleia got closer to the pearl.

The pearl shone so fiercely, it was impossible to look at it directly. Thaleia wrapped the pearl in a cloth and pushed herself backwards out of the cave.

As soon as the sun’s rays touched the pearl, it burst into shimmering dust like snow in the wind. The next moment, cold air pushed from the North like a wall of ice. In one chilling breath, the North Wind wiped away the quiet morning, the tranquil sea, and the heatwave. Gone was the mist.

When Thaleia finally managed to fight her way through the storm back to the village, she learned that Elias had rushed from his bed at the first gusts of wind. He was gone before anybody could stop him.

At first his boat could still be seen soaring up the waves like a giant seagull. Elias kept moving farther and farther away from the village, calling for the girl who was no longer bound to the surface of the sea. His boat turned into a speck on the horizon and then disappeared behind the shimmering silver spray.