The Cuttlebone Brush
BY REBECCA HARRISON
“It’s been in the family since the old times, when the years were so few you could count them on one hand.” Granny pushed the box across the table. The polka dot wrapping paper clumped with tape. Anne lifted the box, felt its clinging coldness, and breathed in the smell of nets flinging into tangled seas. “Careful,” Granny said. “You won’t get another of these, not even if you wait five days past forever.” Anne peeled off the wrapping, found the latch of the wooden box, opened it, and pushed aside the tissue paper. Granny scrunched her eyes as Anne ran her fingers along the brush. “It was carved from the cuttlebone of a great beast that washed up on a beach with its tentacles clinging to one of the old gods’ ships. For that was how the gods moved about back then when the sky was so low, you didn’t know the difference between waves and winds.” She stirred her tea. Anne lifted the brush. “Best not use it yet. Your many times great grandmother brushed her hair to call the winds and they came to her obedient as nodding sparrows. She stood on the sea wall and brushed all gentle like and the fishermen’s nets blew full with cod. And when the Vikings came, why, she brushed so hard, the winds battered their ships to shreds.” She chuckled, lifted her slice of birthday cake, and bit the icing off.
Later, when the moon rested low, Anne took the brush out of the box. She stood at her open window and brushed her hair three times. A gust pulled through the willow trees.
“It’s just Granny’s story,” she said, waiting while the garden stilled and the bats tripped under the clouds. The village was fat with silence. She dragged the brush through her hair ten more times. The gust tightened, tugging the willows. She paused. The garden settled. Then she brushed her hair until the winds deepened the night into howls. The darkness smelled of sea depths and fish thwacked onto the rooftops, against the stained-glass windows of the church, onto the clock tower. In the morning, the village folk frowned at the fish, piled them into buckets, and heaved them home to roast with lemon and butter.
That evening, Anne stood at her open window.
“Just one more time,” she said. “Just to make sure.” Starlight dimpled the village. Owls stirred the dark. She brushed her hair. The winds came. She brushed harder until gales gnawed tiles from the church roof, chewed numbers from the village clock, and bit branches from the aged oak on the village green. Then she halted and waited until the sky calmed. “Did it really…?” She turned the brush in her hand. Moonshine wet the cuttlebone. A vixen screeched in the garden. She brushed her hair faster. The winds blew a fish shoal through the clouds. She brushed harder. Winds furied. Her roof rattled. Her window was torn from its hinges. She brushed until a great creaking echoed like a mountain clearing its throat. Past the church steeple, white sails flashed. The winds were blowing a great ship through the village. Sailors clung to the mast. Village folk gawped at their windows. The Captain’s hat was swept onto the clock tower, lodging on the hour hand.
The following night, Anne gazed at the brush. Her window was boarded up, and she sat in the glow of her lamp listening to the darkness breathing outside.
“Just once more. And then I’ll put it away and I won’t touch it ever again.” And she pictured herself in many years, smelling of silk roses, hair as grey as moth dreams, gifting the brush to her own granddaughter. She untied her limp hair. She brushed until the night was salt and water, until the sky turned inside out, until her hands were only aches and chill. The roof stuttered and tore and floated off. She stared up. Waves twisted with clouds. The wind was blowing a sea beast above the village. Its bulk nudged the moon. Its tentacles clutched at the stars. Its roars flattened the hills. Its single eye fixed on Anne. A tentacle reached into her home and coiled around her waist. The sea beast lifted her away.
