Before we begin: The Settle is this same story, told slower, longer, made for falling asleep to rather than following.
It is built for the nights your head will not stop talking, the same conversation on repeat, long after the room has gone quiet. $6.99 a month, or $59.99 a year.
One subscription. No streaks, no ads, no catch. Press play, and let the day settle.
His human was reading in the cottage, fingers wrapped around a warm cup.
Prince Freddie stepped onto the beach, his crown catching the morning light.
The sand was the wrong colour. Not completely wrong. Not unrecognisably wrong. But off in the way that a familiar song played in the wrong key is off. It was recognisable, and wrong, and impossible to ignore once heard. The sand was the colour of sea. A flat grey-green that belonged further out. And the sea, as far as he could see, was the colour of sand. A warm pale beige that made it look drinkable, which it was not.
He turned around. The cottage walls, which were white, were a deep and emphatic terracotta. Señora Benilde’s garden (green and lavender and various, always) was entirely mauve from end to end. The lighthouse was purple.
Freddie walked to the middle of the beach, his short legs moving steadily across the changed sand. He sat down and looked at everything for a while.
“I know,” said a voice from somewhere near his feet.
He looked down. Beside him, sitting on the sand, was a young spirit. She was about the height of a large stone. A flat wooden case was open across her knees. The case contained vials in all colours. They were carefully labelled. Several were open. She was going through them in order.
“A vial dropped,” she said. “And then I was trying to catch it. Another one dropped. And then...” She gestured at the sea.
“The sea,” Freddie said.
“And the sand,” she said. “And the lighthouse, which I still don’t understand. I think some of the orange got into the blue when I was reaching, and orange and blue make... I didn’t expect it to be quite so much.”
“It’s something,” Freddie said.
She looked up. “Do you want to help me understand it?”
“Yes,” Freddie said, which was straightforward, because he lived here.
They began with the easy ones. The white cottage walls were simple to find in the case. A vial with a clean label. The spirit opened it carefully. The walls went white again. This was a relief. Señora Benilde’s garden took two vials. The lavender needed to be separated from the rest of the green. They found them both. The garden settled back into itself within a few minutes. The lighthouse required some debate. The spirit’s records showed it as white. Freddie observed that the lighthouse had always been white with a red-painted band at mid-height. She had not known about the band. They found a red vial. The tower became correct. This satisfied them both.
Then they came to the sea.
“Blue,” the spirit said. She held up a large vial.
“Mostly,” Freddie said.
She looked at him.
“The sea is blue today,” he said. “But it’s green on the days when the wind comes from the west. The wind moves the water differently. In the morning before the sun is fully up it’s grey. Almost silver. For about four minutes at sunrise it goes orange. You can only see this if you’re on the beach early enough. In certain autumn weather it goes purple at the edges. At night it’s black. Except where the moon catches it. Where it’s the colour of that.” He nodded at a vial in the far corner of the case. “Silver, but moving.”
Freddie’s tail had slowed, watching. It nearly stilled.
The spirit stared at the vial in her hand.
“My record says blue,” she said.
“I have one vial for the sea. There is one label. The label says blue.”
“How large is the vial?”
She held it up. It was considerably larger than any of the others.
The spirit looked at the vial. She looked at the pale beige sea. She looked at Freddie.
She opened the large vial. She tipped it carefully. The sea went blue. But not a simple blue. It was a blue that had grey in it and green in it. It had the memory of this morning’s orange. It had the anticipation of the silver it would become at midnight.
The spirit closed the vial and made a note in a small book she produced from somewhere. She wrote for a moment and then stopped and looked at what she had written.
“It’s going to be a long entry,” she said.
“The sea usually is,” Freddie said.
She made one more note. She closed the book. She packed the case with care. Each vial went back in its place. She was thorough about it. When she was done she stood. She gave the beach a long look. She was checking her work. The sand was the colour of sand. The sea was the colour of the sea. The lighthouse was white with its red band.
“Better,” she said.
“Better,” Freddie said.
She left in the way spirits leave things. All at once, without a particular moment of departure. The beach was simply her and then not.
Freddie walked home as the afternoon came into its full heat. The sea followed him, changing the light at every step. He came through the cottage door into the shade. The old beams and the plaster walls held the cool of the morning. His crown rested evenly on his head.
His human was reading on the sofa. Freddie went to the water bowl. He went to the bed.
He circled once, twice, three times. He lay down with his nose along his front paws. He faced toward the window and the sea.
The End
Sleep well, Prince Freddie. The sea is still deciding what colour the afternoon was, and tomorrow it will decide again.
The Settle is this same story, told slower, longer, made for falling asleep to rather than following.
One subscription. No streaks, no ads, no catch. Press play, and let the day settle.
The sand colour of sea and sea colour of sand line got me. Such a specific unsettling detail and it really pulls you into how off everything feels. The lighthouse illustration afterward is gorgeous too.