Special Mention - Ariana Hagen
The Widow’s Watch
By Ariana Hagen
She stands upon her Widow’s Watch every night, in honor of her husband lost at sea. It is the
truth, but only half the truth, for there is more to her nightly vigil than the honor of a wife’s
memory.
Arabelle’s husband was the captain of the Ice Bear. It was a magnificent ship, sent to war,
and never returned. Upon the sinking of the Ice Bear, Captain Roland stood at the prow and
cursed the enemy that stole him from his waiting wife’s embrace. The dying words that were
torn from his throat echoed across the frothing waves, as the ship slipped into the cold depths.
“If you look for me, Arabelle, I will look for you in death! Not even Death itself will stop me
from feeling your touch again!”
As many know to be true, the dying words of a man have a power of their own, and the gods
and goddesses of the sea took pity on the captain who was bound eternally by love. Death
himself has only one rule for the departed, and it is that once a person dies, he will take their
souls to his domain.
Death is also a very busy entity, and he cares not for what happens to a soul once he collects
it. Knowing this about her ghastly friend, the Goddess of Tides visited the domain of Death, and
bestowed upon Captain Roland a final gift.
“When the woman you love walks over the sea at night and calls your name, your soul will
join her. You may use my blue tides and the black abyss of Leviathan’s kingdom to be reunited
again,” the Goddess of Tides whispered in Roland’s ear. “But when the daylight pierces my
waves, you must return here to lie once more with Death.”
Eagerly, Captain Roland agreed. He worried about how his wife might be able to walk over
the sea, but he knew in his silent, dead, heart that she would find a way.
When Arabelle heard of her husband’s death, she almost threw herself down onto the rocky
cliffs that their home was perched on. The loss in her heart was unbearable, and she did not want
to continue living with the pain.
It was a sunny morning when she received the letter. “Captain Roland”, “Dead”, “Ice Bear”,
“Lost to Sea”. The words stared at her like foreign hieroglyphs, swirling around the page as her
eyes filled with tears.
Consumed with the desire to be reunited with the man she loved, she had marched up to her
Widow’s Watch in a cold trance. The Watch towered over the rest of her home; a castle turret
designed to provide her with ample view of the expansive ocean so that she would always be
able to see her husband’s ship return. There was irony in the name of the tower on that day.
Standing on the edge of the Watch, leaning over the iron rails, she was far over the ocean’s
surface. In fact, the tower was built so far out over the sea, that there was no visible trace of land
below her. If she had stepped over the railing at that moment, she would have walked over the
sea for long seconds before her body shattered against the grey waves.
Arabelle was just about to give herself to Death and let her body join her husband on the
ocean floor, when something stopped her. The crashing of the waves, the whistle of the wind,
and the cry of the gulls blended together, sounding almost like a wild voice to her ears.
“Wait,” the elemental voice said.
Just at that moment Arabelle’s young maidservant burst onto the Watch, clawing her mistress
back from the edge and sobbing into her shoulder.
“Don’t do it mistress!” The young girl cried to Arabelle. “Don’t jump!”
Bewildered by the wild voice she had heard, Arabelle let her maidservant pull her back into
the house, where she was plied with teas and sedatives to help her sleep the grief away.
At midnight, the widow of Captain Roland sat bolt upright in bed. Her skin burned like a
fever, and she felt as if she would explode if she didn’t run out into the cold sea air. Driven by
some unknown force, she leaped from bed and ran to the door that led to the tower. Taking the
steps two at a time, she soon reached the top.
“Come!” Cried the same wild voice from before, carried on the wind that whipped Arabelle’s
hair. So, come she did. She ran to the edge of the Widow’s Watch, leaning as far over the railing
as she could. There, she hung far over the ocean, firm land a vague memory.
“Roland!” Cried the heartbroken Arabelle, from the depths of her very being, her voice
echoing with heartache and loss. The cry floated through the salty air, landing on the vicious
waves and stilling them. The cry of “Roland” sank below those calmed waves — sank down past
sharks, fish, and the ancient creatures of legend. It sank so low that even Death heard it. The
word landed on a drowned man’s soul, waking him from his endless slumber. Pulled forth by the
power of that cry, the soul exploded upward.
Driven by the same burning desire that woke her, Arabelle let herself plunge over the edge of
the railing without a second thought. Down she fell.
When her body hit the waves, she did not break into a thousand pieces. Instead, she sank
slowly under the surface, until a warm hand stopped her descent.
Arabelle opened her eyes underwater and met the gaze of the only man who had ever filled
her heart with love. Captain Roland sobbed in relief, clutching Arabelle to his chest. Together
they floated in the endless blue depths of the ocean, holding each other as if they could become
one single being simply through sheer will.
They stayed that way, holding each other tight and whispering in each other’s ears, until the
first gentle touch of sunlight broke through the water’s surface. The moment the light brushed
the water, the gods and goddesses of the sea pulled the two souls apart and flung them back to
their respective worlds.
Roland returned to Death’s company, and Arabelle woke in her bed, covered in the smell of
sea salt.
Every night the lovers returned to each other, to embrace tightly in the watery depths until
morning tore them apart once more. The gods and goddesses upheld their end of the bargain and
made sure that Roland was always able to rise from the black eternity long enough to see his
faithful wife.
Arabelle spent her nights standing upon her Widow’s Watch, banning her servants from
interrupting her vigil, for fear that the truth was too strange for others to understand.
When old age finally came for Arabelle, her servants found her in the morning light, floating
face down in the waves, where she had flung herself from the Widow’s Watch one final time.