Homecoming

By Miranda Hall

The deep blue waves of the storm, so dark they were almost black, were crashing against the rocky shoreline in the wee hours of the morning. From the fading yellow light of the ancient lighthouse on the coast of the isle I could see the outline of what appeared to be a woman draped in a flowing white gown while standing on the deck of my boat. She stepped to the edge with her arms spread apart, the wind howling at the open cliff face beneath her feet, and then in the time it took to take a breath she jumped from the cliff. I watched in horror as she fell from the top of the isle onto the rocky sea below but at the last second a flash of light burst forth so blindingly strong I was forced to shield my eyes. When I opened them again she was gone, all that was left was the white sea foam floating gently atop the tides.

The next morning as the sun emerged from its hiding spot under the horizon I docked my boat at shore. I walked up the rickety old stairway leading to the quaint village of Ireton, my great grandfather had been born here and after becoming a seaman I decided to trace my roots back to this little village. The bell tower in the town was made of old grey bricks, many of them crumbling and falling apart, with a door once painted bright red and blue but now was faded and peeling; this was where I was to meet my guide. Samantha was her name, she said that I would be able to tell her apart in an instant, she was right, the bright green hair really gave her away. It was like emeralds shinning in the sunlight.

“Well Hi there, you must be who I’ve been waiting on since I’ve never seen you in town and I know everyone” Samantha said with a pop of her gum.

“Hello, sorry for being late, I had a bit of a long night” I replied sheepishly, still thinking I had imagined the last night’s events.

“No worries, everyone has a rough night now and again. Come on I’ll give you the ‘grand’ tour” she chuckled.

“Lead the way” I said.

She lead me down an old worn down road through the village, red clay pact down from the footsteps of the townsfolk for the past 100 years. I didn’t catch much of what she’d been saying I was too caught up in my own mind, thinking of how my great grandfather must have felt walking down this road every day, wondering if my feet were stepping where his were, wondering if he would have returned here if had been able to. Maybe he would have been able to if I wasn’t so selfish in his final years. As I was thinking about the ghosts in my past I hadn’t realized Samantha had stopped, I ran straight into her back.

“You good back there?” she asked sarcastically, she must’ve seen my mind leave the present.

“Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about…well never mind, where are we now?” I asked.

As she went to answer the smile she wore grew dark and her face appeared to take on a sunken shape.

“This was the house of Sebastian De Ire and his wife Marie. They were the founders of Ireton back when it was still a colony of France. That’s why their last name was De Ire it means of Ire and Sebastian was the closest thing we had to a king you could say. He was kind and nurturing, especially to his poor Marie.”

“What do you mean poor?” I asked.

“Marie was beautiful of face and heart yes, but her mind was weak and rattled with demons. Some days it was said she would wake up standing on the edge of the briar cliffs with no idea how she got there. That’s when Sebastian put up the lighthouse, to try to wake Marie out of her spells safely. It became more serious after Marie fell pregnant, Sebastian did not want anything to happen to Marie or the baby so he locked her up in the top room or the house, and that’s where she gave birth to Marcel, their only child.” AS she spoke a sudden realization came over me.

“My great grandfather’s name is Marcel, are you telling me he is their son? I was practically screaming as surprise shook my body.

“Well that would be impossible Marcel left Ireton 70 years ago and no one has heard from him since. Everyone assumed he died on the sea” She spoke so assuredly.

“My great grandfather’s name was Marcel D’Ire, but we always thought it was pronounced ‘Die-er’ and I am his grandson Lucia D’Ire” I spoke.

Two years, that’s how long it had been since my great grandfather had passed. Two years I had been running around the world shying away from my guilt over how he died and how I couldn’t save him in the end.

“His disease is extremely rare and not easily cured. It would be incredibly costly nearing the millions in procedure costs” I remember the doctor speaking to me and my father as if it was yesterday. “Normally this disease occurs much earlier in life, like it did with your father, Alvaro” he nodded at my father. “We might’ve been able to use less costly procedures had you brought him in earlier” my father’s anger began to bubble over.

“Why wouldn’t you listen to us and come see the doctor? You could’ve been fine, we could have afforded to care for you! But now I don’t know what we will be able to do. Unless Lucia decides to hand over his inheritance from my father you will just have to sit in this hospital and die!” my father turned and left the room in a huff. I was in a sort of stunned silence with tears rolling down my face. I was thinking about how much I had inherited, I planned to use it for my travels around the world like my grandpa and I always talked about but sitting here now watching my great grandfather suffer I knew I needed to hand over the money. As I stood to go find a doctor, my great grandfather spoke

“Lucia, come to me” I walked to his beside and took his hand “Lucia, do not spend that money on me, I know it is my time to go take your money and travel like you and my little Alvie always planned to. But make me one promise” tears were streaming down my face, I could taste the saltiness of them as I opened my mouth to speak, and my nose felt clogged in ways that only summer pollen makes it feel. “Yes papa, what is it?” “Visit my homeland, our homeland, Ireton and go to the cliff side by the lighthouse and say that I’m sorry, that Marcel is sorry”

He passed away two days later. My father blamed me and called me selfish for not trying to save him. He wouldn’t speak to me or even look at me at the funeral. I left two days after that. Bought a boat and set sail, knowing I had to keep my promise to my great grandfather but still needing time to grieve.

I traveled all over, visiting as many countries as I could on my little boat, I saw wonderful things from lush tropical islands in the Caribbean to quaint hard-working port cities in southern Africa. But everywhere I went to I felt the weight of the promise I made to my great grandfather on my chest. I understood him wanting me to see our homeland but why did I need to apologize for him at the cliffs? What had happened there? It haunted me every night in my dreams.

“So you are telling me that you are Marcel De Ire’s great grandson and you don’t even know why he left his homeland?” Samantha’s exclamation jolted me back into the present. “Well he never really spoke of why he left home, he said he was young and he couldn’t handle what his home life was like” I spoke softly. Bringing up my papa was hard for me. “Do you want to know why he left?” I nodded as Samantha began to tell of my great grandfather’s tragic past.

“Because Lord Ire kept his wife Marie locked away for her protection her illness only grew worse. She began to lose contact with reality and tried attacking her son, thinking he was one of her demons come to life. Lord Ire blamed Marcel for the worsening of his wife’s condition and treated him ruthlessly, making him work from dawn until dusk, starving him or giving only scraps, and beating him. No one in town dared say anything against the Lord and just watched as Marcel suffered, if he would treat his son so mercilessly how would he treat a mere townsperson. When Marcel was around 15 he went to speak one night with his mother when she appeared calmer than normal, he wanted to ask her to leave with him and travel to America to save her from his father and to get her the help she needed. Unfortunately, he arrived too late. His mother was gone. He raced to the cliffs in a panic knowing that she would be there, he saw her on the edge and he ran to her calling out ‘Mama!’ but before he could reach her she jumped. Marcel left that night, stole a boat and left. Lord Ire said that his son probably set off to sea causing his wife to jump but that both are now dead.”

“And that’s what everyone here had thought until now” she finished telling the story. I sat in silence for a while as what Samantha had told me really set in. So that’s why my great grandfather sent me here to apologize to his mother… for not arriving on time to save her and it explains why I saw the woman jump from the cliff my first night here.

“My first night here” I spoke softly, my uneasiness building “I saw a woman in a white dress on the cliff side by the lighthouse, I saw her jump into the water below…but there was a bright flash right before she hit the water and it looked like no one was there.”

“Many townsfolk have seen Marie jump from that cliff at night, they say her spirit is trapped in an endless loop and that the flash is the light that came into her eyes from the lighthouse right before she hit the water” Samantha said.

The rest of the day I spent “exploring” the town, really, I was just ambling up and down roads pretending to notice things. I had thanked Samantha and paid her extra for ending the tour early before heading out. The houses and streets all looked the same, grey blobs all falling apart from age and disrepair. The sky went from the bright Lapis lazuli blue it had been all day to faded strokes of persimmon orange, salmon pink, and the palest yellow one could ever imagine. The chill of the night air slowly started to creep it as I walked down the staircase back to my boat to retrieve my great grandfather’s ashes. I collected his urn, a simple bronze one with no marking on it, a photograph of us, and the necklace he had left to me in his will. He wore this ruby ring on a chain around his neck everyday until he died, he never told my dad about it fearing he would try to cash it in for money when he passed, so it skipped him and came to me.

I arrived to the cliff side right as the sun was dropping off under the horizon line. I sat at the cliff’s edge as I thought of what to say. Instead of thinking I just began to speak, “Hi Marie, you don’t know me but I’m your son’s great grandson” I felt tears start to roll down my cheeks. “He sent me here to say that he was sorry, sorry that he didn’t make it in time to save you” I stopped speaking. The feelings I had buried about my papa’s passing and the guilt I felt overwhelmed me and I started to sob. I cried until my heart felt empty, then I stood up, sprinkled my papa’s ashes into the wind on the cliff side, and walked back to my boat. I did not know where I was headed from there, but I knew my heart would be made anew from tonight’s events. I no longer carried my guilt and sadness but a hope that my great grandfather would be proud of who I am and what I will do in the future.