The net is cast at dawn, salt air thick with the
scent of brine and smoke from distant fires. The
man’s hands, calloused from years on the water,
grip the rope as if it were a confession. His
name is not spoken, but the village knows him—
father to three daughters, son of a tenant
farmer, brother to a brother who died in the
Rising.
The nun arrives in the village in late spring,
her habit dark against the green hills. She
moves with quiet purpose, speaking little, but
her presence stirs the air like a storm. The men
watch her from behind the pub door. The women
whisper about her past, though no one dares ask.
He sees her first at the well, drawing water as
he mends his boat. She does not look up, but he
feels the weight of her gaze. Later, she appears
at the edge of the shore, where the tide
retreats and leaves the sand bare. He follows,
not to speak, but to be near. They do not touch,
but the space between them hums with something
forbidden.
The priest warns him. “You walk a dangerous path,
” he says, voice low, eyes fixed on the horizon.
The man says nothing. He has already crossed the
line.
The village begins to change. The curfew deepens.
The British soldiers come more often, their
boots crunching on the gravel roads. The man’s
eldest daughter is arrested for distributing
pamphlets. Her wrists are bound, her face
smudged with soot. He watches from the shadows,
fists clenched, as she is taken away.
The nun comes to him that night, her voice a
whisper against the wind. “We must go,” she says.
“Before they find out.” He hesitates. The net is
still wet from the morning’s catch. The boat is
ready. But the girls are young. The land is tied
to his bones.
He chooses the sea. They flee under cover of
darkness, the boat cutting through the waves
like a knife. The priest’s voice echoes in his
mind: “Guilt is a chain, but freedom is a
current.” The shore fades behind them, the
village swallowed by the mist.
In the days that follow, the village forgets his
name. The nun disappears, her fate unknown. The
girls grow older, their mother’s absence a
shadow in the home. The man never speaks of what
he left behind, only of the tides that carry all
things away.
