Bandits Inlet

She stood at the bow- an eyrie apparition, pale in the silvery night glow. Raven locks tossed by the salty gusts. Pinprick lights glittered above as waves hurled shattered patches of illumination like a broken mirror. The girls white nightgown blew about her knees, caught up in its own, separate, storm. Her blank eyes stared straight ahead into the darkness that had always surrounded her; not seeing a thing.

The enveloping blackness comforted her. Often when people first met her, they would try to describe all that they could see; they did not understand that Zophia’s world was the touch of breeze on her face, sent of the sea air, the coarseness of the sailor’s voices or the slightly splintered wooden deck beneath her feet. They could not comprehend that sight was not important. Huge hands filled with calluses would often try to guide her-gently tug her in a certain direction. She could feel the power of those hands, and knew that she would not disobey their command wherever they let her.

Each individual pulse sent shivers of fear down her spine, close proximities where never her forte. When she was lead away from where ever she was by those hands the girl took herself to a place deep within herself, where she knew (her mind at least) would remain unharmed. She never thought of those hands or heavy thudding footsteps unless she could help it, but now she did as she stood at the bow of “The Silver Dragon” she did for the last time. For they where approaching land.