Tag: Musings on a Rock

Elias had spent his whole life by the sea, a fisherman in his youth, and now in his twilight years, he lived quietly, collecting shells and repairing old nets out of habit, though he no longer had need for them. Every morning, he would walk down to the shore just as the sun began to rise. He’d sit on a large, smooth rock, watching the sea wake up, listening to the gulls as they wove through the currents of air rising above the water.

He would sit there on the beach with a small notepad, his hands weathered and slow, but steady. He would write a few words, sometimes many, sometimes just a line or two. Then, when the letter was done, he’d tuck it into a glass bottle, cork it carefully, and walk to the water’s edge. There, he would kneel, and with tenderness, release the bottle into the waves. The sea would claim it, carry it away, and Elias would watch as the fragile vessel faded, blurring into the blue expanse.

No one knew what the letters said. Elias never spoke of them, and no one ever asked. He was known as a gentle man, though a man of few words. It was simply assumed the letters were his way of keeping his mind busy, a quaint tradition to pass the time in his later years.

One summer, a girl named Anya arrived in the village with her parents, trying to find a place that felt like home. She noticed Elias immediately, sitting by the shore each morning. One day, when she gathered the courage, she approached him.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice soft in the breeze. “May I ask what you write in those letters?”

Elias looked at her, his eyes as blue as the water behind him, a lifetime of stories hidden in their depths, and for a moment, it seemed as though he might not answer. But then, after the silence, he responded, “They’re letters to the sea.”

Anya was intrigued. “Do you ever get a reply?” she asked, sitting down beside him.

Elias looked back out at the horizon, where the sea and sky stretched endlessly away. “I’ve written to the sea since I was a young man. I started when I lost someone I loved deeply. At first, the letters were full of anger and sorrow, things I couldn’t say to anyone else. But over time, the words changed. They became letters of gratitude, of wonder. Now, I write because the sea understands. It’s always there, always listening.”

Anya was quiet, watching the waves roll in. “That’s beautiful,” she said after a while.

Elias nodded, his gaze never leaving the water. “The sea is always moving, always changing, carrying things away but bringing new things to the shore. We don’t always understand its ways, but there’s a peace in being here and watching the waves.”

The two sat in silence for a while, listening to the gentle rush of the tide and the distant calls of the gulls. Then, Elias reached into his bag and pulled out a small, empty bottle. He handed it to Anya.

“Here,” he said. “Why don’t you try? Write something. It doesn’t have to be much. Just whatever you feel right now.”

Anya hesitated at first, then took the bottle. She picked up a small pebble from the beach, turning it in her hand as she thought. Then, with a shy smile, she sat back down and began to write.

From that day on, Anya and Elias met every morning by the sea, each with their own bottle to send out into the waves. Anya found that, as the days passed, the weight of her thoughts grew lighter. The letters were never meant for anyone in particular, and yet they seemed to find their place in the world, carried away on the tide.

Years later, after Elias had passed on, people would sometimes find bottles washed up on the shore—letters from long ago, carrying something special: the quiet love of a man who had made peace with the sea.

Eleanor lived in a crumbling house at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Her house was the last one before the land gave way to the boundless expanse of water below. The townsfolk rarely visited her, not out of malice but out of respect. Eleanor had lived there for as long as anyone could remember, and her quiet, solemn presence gave her an almost mythical status in the town.

Every day, at dusk, Eleanor would leave her house and walk towards the cliff’s edge. There, she would sit on a weathered bench, looking out to sea. No one was quite sure why she did this, but it had become a part of the daily rhythm—Eleanor at the cliffs, the sun dipping below the horizon, and the waves crashing endlessly against the rocks below.

But there was something different about that evening. Eleanor felt the weight of something coming, something that had been long buried beneath the tides.

As she sat on her bench, her frail hands gripping the worn wooden beam, Eleanor’s eyes were drawn to the distant sea. At first, it was just a shadow—a flicker at the edge of her vision—but then it grew, becoming more distinct. A ship. An old, grand ship with tattered sails and a hull darkened by the sea’s grasp. It was drifting slowly towards the cliffs, towards her.

Eleanor hadn’t seen that ship in over sixty years, not since the night it had disappeared, swallowed by a storm that had raged so fiercely it had left the town battered and broken. Everyone had believed it had sunk, with all hands aboard lost. But Eleanor had known better. She had always known the ship would return.

The vessel grew closer, and as it did, the wind died, the waves quieting. There, on the deck stood a figure, his coat whipping in a breeze that seemed to exist only for him.

It was Captain James Allard, her James. The love of her youth, the man who had promised to return to her but had been taken by the sea. Yet there he was, unchanged by time.

“Eleanor,” his voice carrying across the distance between them. “I’ve come for you.”

She had waited for this moment, for this impossible return. For years, she had sat on the bench, watching, hoping, and now, at last, he had come back to her.

The cliff’s edge loomed ahead, but she did not stop. She was no longer afraid. The sea, which had once taken everything from her, now beckoned her with the promise of reunion.

As she stepped into the air, a wind caught her, gentle and soft, and she felt herself being lifted. She didn’t fall; she floated, weightless, her heart light for the first time in decades.

The townsfolk would say, in the days to come, that Eleanor had simply vanished. That one evening, she had walked to the cliffs and never returned. Some said she had finally succumbed to the grief that had haunted her for so long. Others spoke in hushed voices of the ghost ship, of Captain Allard, and the love that had transcended death.

But the sea kept its secrets well, and no one would ever truly know what had happened that night. All that remained was the empty bench at the edge of the cliffs, and the relentless sound of waves crashing against the rocks below.

It was the last evening before Alice would leave for university. The house was quiet, her suitcase packed and waiting by the door. She found herself restless, drawn to the oak tree in a way she couldn’t explain. It stood at the back of the garden, silhouetted against the fading twilight.

As she approached, Alice noticed something strange—the tree’s bark seemed to heave, almost as if it were breathing.

She placed her hand on the trunk, and a ripple of warmth spread through her arm. Suddenly, the world shifted. The tree, the night sky—they all blurred, and then cleared again, but it was different. Everything was covered in silver light.

Her hand remained pressed against the tree, yet now it felt softer, like skin, warm and pulsing. She tried to pull away, but her fingers were stuck. She tugged harder, but the tree wouldn’t let go.

Then she heard it—low, faint yet unmistakable, as if it were coming from the depths of the oak itself.

“Stay.”

She tried to yank her hand free, but the tree’s grip remained. The voice grew louder, more insistent, multiplying.

“Stay with us.”

The bark shifted around her fingers, and from within the tree, shapes began to emerge—faces, pale and ghostly, pressing against the wood from the inside. Their eyes were hollow, their mouths stretched wide in silent screams. People from the town, long gone.

“You belong here.”

“No!” she shouted. She pulled away, and the tree released her. She stumbled back.

The voices faded, the faces retreating back into the bark. The world snapped back to normal… the tree was standing still and silent.

Alice left the town and the tree behind in the morning.

It was said that once, long ago, a terrible crime had been committed in the heart of Black Hollow. A young woman, Elara Drummond, had disappeared one cold autumn night. She was never found, though her shawl, torn and bloodstained, was discovered near an old stone well, deep within the woods. The villagers believed she had been taken by something not of this world, something old and vengeful that lingered among the ancient trees.

Time passed, and though the memory of Elara’s disappearance faded from common conversation, the woods remained a place of mystery and fear. Yet, for young Thomas Granger, none of the village superstitions held much sway. He was a sceptic, a man of reason, and he scoffed at the tales of spirits and curses. Black Hollow, to him, was just a woodland, dark and ancient perhaps, but no more haunted than the empty churchyard on the hill.

One autumn evening, determined to prove his point, Thomas announced he would spend the night in Black Hollow. The village elders tried to dissuade him, warning of a spirit entity said to guard the woods. Some said it was the ghost of Elara, others claimed it was something far older, a presence that predated the village itself. But Thomas laughed off their warnings, packing a bag and setting off just before dusk.

The air was beginning to turn cold as he entered the woods, the trees looming high above, their branches twisted like skeletal hands against the darkening sky. Thomas walked in deeper, following the forgotten paths that wound through the forest, until he found a clearing near the old stone well—the same location where Elara’s shawl had been found decades before—and set up camp.

Thomas sat by a fire, feeling a growing sense of unease. The shadows seemed to be pressing in closer, the trees around him appearing more like figures, their limbs moving slightly in the flickering firelight. But he shook off the feeling, reminding himself that it was all just an illusion in his mind.

As midnight approached, he began to hear something. At first, it was just the faintest murmur, like a breeze brushing through the trees. But then it grew louder, more distinct—a cacophony of whispers, overlapping and indistinct, swirling through the woods around him.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw movement darting between the trees. He stood up, scanning the darkness, but nothing was there.

As he turned back to the fire, he stopped cold. There, at the edge of the clearing, stood a woman. She was dressed in a long, tattered gown, her hair hanging loose and wild around her face. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her eyes—wide and unblinking—were fixed on Thomas. She did not move, just stared, with an intensity that terrified him.

“Hel-lo?” he stammered.

The woman did not respond, but slowly, she raised a hand and pointed towards the well. He turned to look in its direction—the well, its stone rim slick with moss, the darkness within it seeming to pulse.

When he looked back, the woman was gone.

Thomas, startled, moved towards the well. The closer he got, the colder the air became. The fire, once a source of warmth and light, seemed feeble and dying. He stood at the edge, staring into the well’s depths.

Suddenly, a hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing his wrist, exerting a freezing grip. Thomas screamed, stumbling backwards, but the hand held fast. As he struggled, he saw it—a face, pale and gaunt, rising up from the well. It was Elara, her eyes hollow and empty, her mouth twisted into a silent scream.

Thomas desperately pulled back and broke free. He ran through the woods, branches tearing at his clothes, the sound of movement stirring in the undergrowth behind him. He didn’t stop until he burst from the tree line, gasping, his body heaving with fear.

A group of villagers found him the next morning, huddled at the edge of the woods, trembling and pale. He wouldn’t speak of what he saw that night, but the haunted look in his eyes told them what they already knew. Black Hollow Wood was not a place for the living.