The Pale Bone Flute

(Short Fantasy Fiction) An enormous, dark mass rose slowly toward the surface, then—of all things—a tree emerged from the deep bough by bough, its branches like winding snakes.

Mount Vesuvius and fishing boat (2019) Photo by Annie Hendrix

Emilio descended the stone staircase to the marina. First light broke behind Mount Vesuvius, and touches of gold flecked the fishing boats and the windows of the trattoria, enriching the colors of the dwellings stacked around the shore. The cat Pietro awaited Emilio at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Don’t worry Pietro, I know we have been unlucky, but I will bring you back something to eat today,” said Emilio. He crouched down to scratch Pietro under the chin, and Pietro purred and pressed the top of his head against the back of Emilio’s hand. 

In his youth, Emilio had pulled thousands of fish from the bay’s waters, plenty more than the town could eat. He had once been called Kingfisher, but then the fish began to disappear. No one caught much in the waters of his village anymore, and these days people just referred to him as Emilio. 

“I’ll tell you a secret,” said Emilio to Pietro. “I went walking through the olive orchards last night and followed the gleam of a shimmering light through the trees. When I arrived, I saw that it was the reflection of the full moon shining in a dark pool of water. I put my hand into the water and look what I pulled out.” Emilio reached into his coat pocket and fished out a small, pale flute made of bone. Ocean waves and sea life were depicted in its carvings, framing the delicate outline of a woman’s figure. 

Pietro hissed. 

“Calm down Pietro," he laughed. This flute is magic. By the end of the day, my boat will be so full of fish I’ll have to throw myself overboard and swim alongside it. Then I will be known as Kingfisher once more.”

Emilio finished packing his boat, detached the tie, and pushed off from the dock. He drifted through the dark body of water away from the shadowed hills that surrounded the bay, dotted with glimmering village lights like stars. Once he reached the halfway point between his village and Mount Vesuvius, Emilio reached into his pocket and extracted the pale bone flute.

“Whatever spirit possesses you, please grant my wish," he whispered, and the hushed sigh of his voice echoed as he pressed the flute to his lips and blew over the opening. A high note shimmered across the water’s surface and hung in the air, suspended, then dissipated amongst the white noise of the distant surf.

Something thrashed inside the engine housing.

A stifled whine came at intervals between panicked scratches. Emilio pocketed the flute and scrambled to his knees as he opened the hatch. The cat Pietro leapt out and into his arms.

“STOWAWAY!” Emilio scolded.

Then a low rumble churned beneath the choppy surf. The idle wheel of the boat spun slowly as Emilio turned his head toward Mount Vesuvius, but the volcano was still sleeping. He turned his eyes starboard toward the churning wheel and then to the water. An enormous, dark mass rose slowly toward the surface, then—of all things—a tree emerged from the deep bough by bough, its branches like winding snakes.

The dark mass grew wide beneath the surface and crept to the edge of the boat. Emilio clung tightly to Pietro and braced for impact as the massive object crashed against the aluminum body. The impact sent Emilio and Pietro flying out of the hull and into the bay. Man and cat floated in the water, suspended momentarily in the muffled quiet as the rising island thrust them to the surface. 

Pietro leapt from Emilio’s arms and onto the rocky shore. Emilio caught his breath and searched his sopping coat for the bone flute. Nothing. Nothing but salt water and sand. No flute, no boat. He looked to one side of the bay—no village—then to the other.

“I can’t see any land,” said Emilio. “Where’s Vesuvius, Pietro?”

The ocean stretched for an eternity around them. Sharp panic. Then a wave of peace. Whales breached in the distance, and large schools of fish swam in and out of the rocky pools along the shoreline.

“Fish! Pietro, have we done it?” They circled the island in search of the fishing boat, but didn’t find it. There was no shoreline in any direction. “Nowhere to go but up, Pietro,” Emilio said, and he clicked his tongue against his teeth to let Pietro know to follow.

As they climbed, the terrain transitioned from rocky beach to craggy cliffs, and at the highest elevation there was the gargantuan ficus tree which had erupted from the sea. Bones and shells littered the surrounding grass, many carved in the same delicate fashion as the woman's figure on his flute. In front of the tree sat the woman, still as stone, eyes a deep obsidian void of smoke.

“She is beautiful. More beautiful than any woman in the village. If we could find our boat, Pietro, we could take her back with us.”

Pietro hissed.

Emilio extended his hand to touch her. The smoke in her eyes swirled.

“That’s your problem, Kingfisher.” said the woman.

Emilio blinked and she was no longer seated by the tree. She stood an inch from his nose and smiled a sharp-toothed smile.

“We don’t belong to you,” she whispered.

The woman became the tree, and then the island, the boughs of the ficus her writhing, snake-like hair.

“A siren!” Emilio shouted, “We’ve been tricked, Pietro!”

The woman’s mouth became the ocean, the mountains and valleys of the earth her curvaceous form. The ground beneath Emilio’s feet vibrated and in the distance, smoke vented from the concave peak of Mount Vesuvius.

“What have you done you wicked woman! You’ve awoken Vesuvius!” shouted Emilio. “The village will be suffocated by the ash!”

“I am no siren,” the woman became the sweat on his neck, the blood in his veins, the tight grip on his beating heart.

“I am Vesuvius,” she said.

Emilio fell to his knees and looked at his hands, hands which had reached out and touched the woman’s face, hands that had taken the pale bone flute from the dark pool of water, hands that had pulled fish after fish out of the sea until there were no more fish to earn the admiration of the villagers.

“You understand,” Vesuvius placed the pale bone flute in his open palms. “So, if you play the flute again," she said, "you will find yourself on your boat, and I will go back to sleep.

“Please,” Emilio looked up at her. He begged, “The people of my village are going hungry. There’s no fresh fish for the trattoria, and the tourists have stopped coming. The shops and restaurants are closing, and the young people are all leaving to find work in the city. The village is already dying, so, you may as well destroy it if that’s what you want.”

“Is that what you want Kingfisher?.”

“No! Of course that’s not what I want!” Pietro rubbed against Emilio’s knees and purred.

“But you have done it.”

“I thought the riches of the sea were endless. I was wrong and now we’re ruined. I would give anything to correct my wrongdoing.” Pietro meowed. “Anything but Pietro, of course.”

A few days passed before the village folk found Emilio’s boat adrift off the coast. In time, they mourned his disappearance as a death. They painted “Kingfisher” on the side of the boat and gave it to Emilio’s nephew, who one day filled the boat so full of fish he had to jump overboard and swim alongside it.

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