Oystercatcher Tide Pools i. requiem aeternam

Death changed a woman.

The tide gaveth, and the tide taketh away. Her, specifically. One moment fishing for urchins, the next tumbling under the waves, flailing desperately to break the surface.

Drowning changed a wolf. It had changed her father, setting his fur stark white and his mind to madness. It had changed many better ones than her.

When Blueberry finally washed up upon shore like some pale, ragged bit of detritus, she was not breathing. It would take an act of God to revive her—

Or woman.

She came to, sputtering seawater, to find a pair of dark paws thrusting hard against her ribs and belly to expel the evil she'd swallowed within the depths.

Saved her, spirited her away, strengthened her back to something resembling her former self.

But she'd died. That fact was undeniable.

Your name? the witch, Kaali, had asked of her.

Blueberry, she'd replied in a voice fit for the underworld, hoarse and cracked.

The woman had shaken her head. Blueberries. . .sweet little things. Life-givers, sweetness upon the tongue. Not you, my dear. Not you.

Eventually, Kaali sent her on her way with food, prayer, and a new name.

Manea, she'd purred. Mother of the dead and dying, of spirits.

Blueberry had died, but the body remained. Manea settled cold and heavy in her bones. Blueberry was buried somewhere within her mind, beneath an apathetic mist rather than the soil of the earth.

She wandered the shore now, weaving through the tide pools, aimless and adrift and anchorless as her parents before her.