The Seashell’s Hidden Secret Ep.1
Tanya’s beach find is beautiful, but may not be an ordinary shell
The children came home from the beach, hungry and tired. Their hair was tangled by the salty sea breeze, and their feet and legs were caked with sand. Dad had brushed it off, stinging and abrasive, outside the step into the holiday cottage, but Mum insisted on a bath, as soon as they’d eaten.
Supper was ready, and Mum dished up a casserole she pulled from the oven, which had been cooking on a low heat while they’d been at the beach. Dad cut crusty bread and a feast was shared. All the while, Tanya and her brother spoke excitedly about their day in the dunes.
Oliver was obsessed with the little green crabs he and Dad had caught in their fishing nets, almost transparent, wriggling sideways and climbing over each other when they’d been dropped into his bucket.
Tanya, who was the more dreamy of the pair, had spent a long time combing the shore for pretty stones, sea glass and shells with which to decorate the impressive sandcastle she built. She’d already made up stories about the princess and knights who lived within.
“It may not be there tomorrow, sweetheart,” Dad cautioned her.
She looked up at him, her forehead crinkled.
“The tide will come in overnight and wash it away.” Dad brushed her fringe out of her blue eyes.
“Dad no!” her expression crumpled.
“I’m sorry honey, that’s the way it is. The sea has to wash the beach clean every night, that’s its job.”
“A bit like when your teacher cleans the whiteboard ready for tomorrow’s lessons,” her mum added.
Tanya was dipping bread in the gravy.
“I’ll build a better one tomorrow,” she announced.
Her broad smile revealed the gap where her two front teeth used to be.
“I saved the best shells anyway. Want to see?” She asked Mum.
“I want to see too,” her younger brother said.
Oliver hated to be left out of anything; wait for me or it’s my turn had become his catchphrases since he’d started school.
Tanya carefully lifted her treasure out of her bucket, spreading the items out on the draining board. She had blue-black mussel shells, hinged together so they looked like butterfly wings and three pale, ridged shells that cockles came in. She laid down two pieces of sea glass, one frosted green and another so opaque it was almost white, the original shards now so thoroughly tumbled by abrasive pebbles that all their sharp edges were gone.
“This is my best.”
Tanya set down a shell as large as her fist, so perfect in its whorled shape and glossy pale pink interior, that everyone stared for a moment.
“Wow!” Oliver was clearly impressed.
“That is beautiful,” Dad’s admiration made Tanya warm with pride.
“You know, if you put your ear to it, you can hear the ocean,” Mum said.
Tanya took up the shell, turning it so its pale pink rim would lay against her ear, but Oliver snatched it from her, with a shriek.
“I wanna hear the sea!”
“Your sister found the shell,” Dad told him sternly, prying the contentious object out of his small fingers. “She gets to listen first.”
Oliver’s face was dangerously red, meaning a temper tantrum was about to kick off.
Dad handed Tanya back her shell. Oliver tried stamping his feet and squeezing out some tears to get his own way.
“Bath time!” Mum announced, briskly steering the little boy to the bathroom.
Dad was now engrossed clearing away the detritus of supper, leaving Tanya ten minutes of peace and quiet, before it was her turn to wash and change. She took the shell over to the armchair in the tiny cottage sitting room. Once she was seated comfortably, she reverently lifted the shell to her ear.
It was cool against her warm skin. From within the shell, in the quiet of the room, Tanya could detect a rhythmic whooshing sound. It ebbed and flowed, swinging between a high and a low tone. Exactly like the sound of retreating frothy waves, before they rear up to crash on the sand and scramble up the beach, only to be dragged backwards by the sea, then drawn up all over again; making continued assaults on the beach.
It seemed magical, to hear the sea when she was far away, sitting in the sheltered warmth of the cottage. Tanya could hardly believe it, and was about to call Dad to come and listen, when she heard something else. An unexpected, strange noise, from the shell. Talking in sharp voices, interspersed with clicking. She knew without doubt that it wasn’t her mother and brother chatting in the bathroom, because she wasn’t sure what language she was listening to.
Tanya pressed the shell more tightly to her head, cupping her free ear to avoid distraction. A few words she recognized began to pop out at her in the odd, harsh voices: battle, king, danger, fight, loyalty, mermen.
Tanya wasn’t sure she’d heard that right. She knew about mermaids from the fairy stories she loved, but she’d never heard of a merman. And weren’t those stories make-believe?
“Tanya, your turn,” her mum’s voice drifted from the bathroom.
She jumped almost guiltily, “Coming Mum.”
She hurried to the bedroom, temporarily pushing the shell under her pillow.
When Tanya was in her pajamas and tucked into the top bunk, her father came in to read Oliver a story. Usually, she would read her own book, but tonight she listened to his tale about pirates dashing their ship on the rocks.
“Are pirates real Dad?” she asked when he tried to tiptoe away without waking Oliver.
“Yes, but not like in the stories,” Dad whispered. “It’s the name for criminals who operate using boats and ships.”
“So — mermaids, are they real?”
“Mermaids might have actually been normal sea creatures, like sea lions or seals. From a distance, lounging on rocks or poking their heads out of the waves, they possibly looked like people with a tail.
Tanya processed this. “Can seals sing?”
“Perhaps they made noises that sailors mistook for singing,” Dad shrugged.
“So if there aren’t mermaids, what about mermen?”
Dad laughed and ruffled her hair.
“If merfolk existed, there would be males and females. But I think they’re a legend, invented by sailors telling stories.”
Tanya yawned.
“Enough questions for tonight,” Dad kissed her.
Tanya felt under the pillow. In the dark, her fingers wrapped around the shell’s pointed tip. She brought it close to her ear. Again it shared the whooshing sigh of waves breaking against the shore. This time, however, that’s all she heard. Although she strained to detect the harsh, clicking voices, nobody spoke, and soon she fell asleep.
A weak attempt at the Mashups I know, but a response to Bradan Writes Stories’ prompt #3 (I scored 4 by my reckoning) — want to have a go May More, Ashish Kapoor, Mrs Moku?