Lost at Sea

Ginny always wished to be a sailor. Always wished to follower her father’s footsteps amongst the waves.

She forays into the sea for the first time, in the worst situation imaginable. And she loses herself at sea.

But, in the process, she uncovers something far greater. Something she could have never foreseen.

A short story of finding faith by S. H. Miah, perfect for fans of heart-wrenching stories with inspirational twists.

Lost at Sea

Ginny always wished to be a sailor, ever since she saw that wooden ship languishing atop her father’s desk, just waiting to be seen, to be pored over by a young girl much too curious of the world around her.

Ginny, at the tender age of four, had dragged over a little stool her mother used as a footrest beneath her reading chair in their quaint living room. Ginny had promptly deposited the stool right below her father’s desk after hauling it, with little thumps on every step along the staircase, to his room. The stool was heavy, far too heavy.

But Ginny Hargreaves was determined if anything.

Using all the muscles in her four year old body, and with the smell of heady excitement fuelling her on, she climbed onto the stool. Her balance teetered for just a second, then stabilised itself. The world looked smaller, luscious red carpet swirling beneath her, and Ginny felt the first shivers of her now iron-clad fear of heights.

She’d reached from that stool to the heavens above, scraped her hand across the chipped and cracked wood of her father’s mostly unused desk, and swiped the ship off in one motion. It hit the carpet, making not a noise. Ginny hopped down after a moment’s hesitation, a gasp of excitement egging her on. The ship was finally within her grasp.

It was made of wood, and smelt of the fresh pine lingering in the picturesque forest trail just outside their townhouse. It was, strangely, both rough and soft to touch at the same time. Rough since the wood was carved with harsh slits, detailed to perfection by its maker. Soft since it carried the essence of her father’s travels, her father’s source of joy in life—other than Ginny herself of course.

She turned the ship over in her fingers, gentle fingers, careful not to smudge the surface since her mother chastised her about it all the time when they finished finger painting. Ginny would almost rub her nose and mouth and hair in the mixture of green and red, much to her mother’s annoyance.

But the ship wasn’t finger paint. It was special. Dear to Ginny’s heart in a way her four year old self could not express, only feel.

Ginny stared into the ship’s hull, poked a finger across the top deck and down the ridged ladder that led to the lower decks. She positioned the ship in her hand such that she could see into the lower floors.

But the entire ship was empty. Four year old Ginny couldn't believe it. Why was the ship empty? Why wasn't it filled with gold and treasures like those stories her father had regaled?

Ginny could imagine herself on the top deck, the blue sea magnificently swirling in every direction she looked. The wind would be soft, like a hug from her mother, the breeze carrying the scent of infinite life beneath the surface of the waves. A scent of vitality, of being able to achieve dreams.

Ginny would then climb down the ladder, into the lower deck, and open the chest on the far side. And there, right there, would be her treasure, gold and silver in droves, stacked with a sparkling twinkle like her father's left eye.

"Is that me ship?" a voice said.

Ginny gasped, whirled around, and the ship proceeded to fall from her grasp and hit the carpet.

"Sorry to scare ya, pumpkin," her father said, his wrinkled smile so endearing Ginny could picture at any moment. He rubbed her hair with a calloused hand, then picked the ship up from where it had fallen. "I take it ya want to be a sailor then?"

Ginny nodded. "I want to go on the sea like you Daddy."

"I'm sure ya will, one day. I'm sure ya will." But her father's eyes were hooded for just a second. As if the prospect of his daughter floating across the waves brought with it dread.

But four year old Ginny couldn't sense that emotion. She only felt the aura of excitement breathing off her father. And she let it wash her over.

"I'll be the best sailor ever," Ginny said.

Her father nodded with a smile, then gave her the ship again to take a closer look around.

What Ginny didn't know was that her first voyage across the waves would be coming a lot sooner than she imagined.

And in the worst circumstances possible.

***

"Reading another one of them sea stories again?" Ginny's father asked. He was wrapping a khaki green raincoat, the one with the straps like her mother's dungarees, across his body. His smile was always in place, though at the sight of the novel Ginny was reading in the living room that afternoon, his expression soured.

"They're good stories," Ginny said.

Her father humphed. "Good fiction, I think is the phrase ya looking for. Bears nothing on the real word, let me tell ya."

Ginny turned to him, closing the book with a snap. "What is the real world then? Cos I sure as hell don't know." Ginny's eyes narrowed, and she could tell her father smelt the hot tension crackling between them. "I wonder why that is, huh?"

Her father sighed. "I just…I just want ya to be safe okay. Reading them sea stories instead of actually living them. It's a father's only wish to see their daughter safe, ya know. Especially when they’re eighteen and actually go out in the world."

"Oh I know all right. A little too safe if you ask me."

Her father paused for a second, a thousand emotions flying through his eyes in the space of a mere moment.

"I'll take ya next week Friday then," he finally said. “When the water’s calm we can take a trip around. But just one trip, ya hear me?”

Ginny's eyes widened. She could barely believe it, barely contain her excitement. "You will?"

He nodded, jerkily, like the motion cranked his neck six ways to a Saturday. "I will."

Ginny jumped from her seat and embraced her father. Drew in the heady scent of the waves he always carried with him like an aura.

"Thanks, Dad," she said.

Her father nodded, tearing up slightly, then turned to leave through the hallway. Ginny heard the door shut, then silence waded through their townhouse.

She'd have to make them dinner tonight. Maybe a tuna casserole since her father loved the fish. Or maybe the lethargy that had overtaken her after her mother's death would kick in once more. In that case, she'd probably make some fish and chips in the air fryer and be done with it.

She needed her father's life. A life of the sea. A life of the waves.

Next Friday would start that voyage across her life. The voyage she'd been waiting to embark on for so long. The voyage that was her destiny ever since stumbling upon that ship atop her father’s desk.

It was only meant to be a quick check up for her father. Get on the boat with a couple of his workmates and survey one of the work projects they couldn't check that day because of the tide making the water murky.

At least, that's what Ginny had been told. She'd no reason to doubt it.

But when her father hadn't returned two hours later, and sunset was bordering on the horizon, panic began tearing at Ginny.

And she realised her journey across the waves would start a lot sooner than next Friday.

And in circumstances she could have never imagined.

***

Ginny's father always used a work boat when sailing the North sea for his job. But his own boat lingered in a little boathouse they owned off to one side of the beach, a few ways down from the townhouse.

The waves were almost infinite in the distance as Ginny's sandals tapped the beach sand. The waters were not blue but an eerie black, an ominous black.

She scurried along the uneven piles of sand, almost slipping as the nasty remnants of a sandcastle coated her feet with a chilling graze.

The wind whipped her brown hair left and right as she entered the boathouse using the key hidden in the mast of that ship on her father's desk. He thought she'd never find out, but Ginny was resourceful if anything.

Her father's personal boat was a sickly shade of green in the slits of orange light cutting in through the thin windows of the boathouse. Ginny crossed through the shadows lingering to each side of the wooden structure holding up the place.

For a reason unbeknownst to her, she thought the boathouse would collapse in on itself. Thankfully it didn't.

The boat wasn't large enough to even be called a boat, more of a canoe. Since the floor of the little boathouse was sand, Ginny gripped the front of the boat and tugged up with all her strength.

The boat moved. Just an inch.

"Dammit," Ginny whispered, a whisper that echoed and slapped back at her. She needed to get out there and find her father.

And now her bloody muscles of all things were failing her.

She wished to swear like a sailor at that moment, but bit her tongue and focussed on the mission at hand.

The evening hues of orange looked more like a blood red as she dragged the boat through the sand—the sand itself felt like struggling through cement that was fast drying into concrete.

Ginny, with her legs roaring like the gusts of wind racing over her, reached the edge of the dry sand and felt that first toe dip into the water.

It was cold. Icy cold. And her father could be in that water, needing her help after an accident gone wrong, thrashing on to keep his life.

That image of her father crying out for dear life tugged at her energy, drawing more and more out. Ginny doubled her resolve, pulling as hard as she could, jaw clenching from the bone-breaking effort.

She couldn't lose another parent. Not after the pain wracking her from her mother's loss. She couldn't deal with that torment again. Not when she needed her father more than ever.

The boat hit the water, which thrashed like it had been slapped. The waves were picking up, and rain stepped into the world with a stomp. It hit the water, splashing more of it onto Ginny's face as the boat finally floated atop the sea.

She stumbled into the middle seat, clambering over the wooden sides with nothing more than desperation fuelling her.

The night swirled now, a crow harking in the distance. As if marking another sorrow in her life.

It can't happen. It just can't happen. Oh, please.

But who she was pleading to she hadn't a clue.

Ginny grabbed the paddle attached to the insides of the hull on either side. The water didn't want to obey her, and the paddles weighed her arms down like ten ton anchors.

Why the hell won't you move? her mind roared. Roared like the wind circling her as if vultures awaiting their prey.

Dammit move you rut of a boat.

But the paddles merely bobbed in the water. And then, with a singular heave, the boat began shifting, slowly. And Ginny let out a breath as the boat waded through the waves, finally out from the beach.

She didn't know exactly where her father worked. But every morning she saw him head off towards the direction of the mainland, where those corporations that funded sea projects dipped in from.

So she headed in that direction herself, paddles moving only with a herculean effort, and with the sisyphean task of finding her father amongst the countless waves stretching before her eyes.

***

The waves were where Ginny had always dreamed to be. Amongst the water that glistened in the sunrises and sunsets she'd watched with her parents.

She dreamed of the freedom of sailing the seas, feeding off fish she'd caught with her own rods, then living a life of pure bliss amongst the heavenly waves.

But now her father's warning entered her mind once more. Those sea stories, beachside romances of wondrous cruises and brilliant expeditions, left her mind.

And in its place the present situation thrusted itself.

And Ginny was utterly powerless, in a way she had never felt before. Her boat was crashed by monsters coming in the form of waves. And they were relentless, not letting go for even a second. Every moment Ginny thought was a reprieve from the fighting turned out to merely be the monsters lining up another attack.

Her father’s warning resurfaced once more, and Ginny could barely hear the panic in her mind over the sounds of the sea. Lashing sounds. Thrashing sounds. Sounds of a danger she had never before seen.

The waves were meant to be serene, meant to represent all that Ginny had in her life. But now they were hounds feasting on her boat, and Ginny could do nothing but wipe off her soaked hair and attempt to find her father in the distance.

She saw the mainland, saw the thin slits of hills and mountains in the distance. But then they disappeared in a flash of lightning, crack of thunder, and a smothering of smoke. Disappeared like the entire boat ride was a circus act.

Ginny was at the mercy of the elements here. And the elements weren’t merciful, not one bit.

Ginny crossed to the hull of the boat and leaned over the edge. Rain smashed into the back of her head and rolled onto the sea. She leaned down and then looked to her left, peeking under the mist for a better view of the mainland.

But she saw nothing but more sheets of grey suspended atop the water, as if positioned there to obscure her view. She jumped back up, her spine almost snapping in two.

She rushed to the paddles and began incessantly paddling towards the mainland. Towards where she believed her father to work.

Ginny had to save him, since he was in danger. But navigating the seas was nothing like the novels suggested, and Ginny was fast realising that.

In those idyllic books, storms were merely events that occurred off the pages, on the side somewhere. Mentioned briefly in a conversation, glossed over like a historic event never to be repeated.

But the reality was far from that. Storms made those inside them powerless, like the objects within a tornado. Spinning in the sea-sized washing machine with no way to leave. And with a first class ticket to a nasty demise.

Ginny pushed her arms on the paddles as hard as she could, muscles scorched from the burn building up. She sniffed the intruding sea rather than the scent of calm waves, and peeked through the mist once more.

The main land had disappeared, as if vanishing off the planet. And Ginny, for the first time, felt truly alone in the world.

And she had no way to leave. She was totally at the mercy of the waves.

And a wave then rippled the underside of the boat. Her body lurched up dangerously, and she almost fell off the side of the hull.

Not like this, Ginny said, righting herself and paddling harder and faster. Eyes searching for her father’s work site, a prospect that was disappearing as fast as her view of the mainland had.

And Ginny Hargreaves realised the mistake she had made—not heeding her father’s warning not to approach the waves alone.

Ginny faced her mortality, at the tender age of eighteen, at the prospect of dying alone, in the relentless sea, with nothing and no one to save her but a blinding miracle that would never arrive.

She peered through the murk once more, feeling utterly defenceless, and her shoulders sagged against her skeleton. It was as if every defeated emotion within her, the grief of her mother’s passing added to them, weighed her down all at once.

But she couldn’t let that stop her. Amongst the rollicking waves and nasty slashes of rain, she had to continue her mission. Her father was amongst the waves, battling the storm just like her.

And she had to save him. For good.

Even if she was powerless in the process.

She sent a prayer up for help out of the situation. To who she hadn’t a clue, pleading for something to save her from the torment of the waves. Because that was all she could do—call out for a miracle.

Ginny wasn’t someone that gave up, ever. And she wouldn’t now, either.

But she wasn’t given a choice. It was ripped from her in an instance she could’ve never predicted.

Her eyes failed to break the mist. The nasty scent of blood mixed with seaweed soaked her nostrils. The beat of her heart lashed like the feet of an angry captain.

And then a massive wave rammed the boat, water flying over the hull like a javelin. That water smacked Ginny in the eyes, and knocked her out cold.

***

The lights were shining. At least, their dimness was bright against the backdrop of darkness. They were in some kind of array, all separated against a film of black. The lights were yellow, with hints of orange against the outskirts. And circular, too. They were flying as if alive, shifting like flies.

Then, one light buzzed like a bee, as if a spotlight of sorts, before joining a few of the other lights in the distance. Those lights meshed together, all forming one circle against that sea of black, and were now joined by a smell.

An earthy smell, and then the smell of salt. Salt mixed with water. And then a cushioning effect on the back sifted into the picture. Nice and comfortable, easy to melt into, as if a bed made of sand.

Then a sensation grew from the chest. Like a bubble, then a gurgle. And then liquid sputtered from the mouth with an unexpected blast.

Ginny’s eyes flashed open, the sun and deep shades of blue in the sky slamming into her vision as she coughed up more water that spilled onto her soaked t-shirt and made it even wetter.

What on earth?

She felt weak beyond belief, the comfortable bed of sand transforming to a prickly bed of nails. She rolled over, weakly glanced at the boathouse lingering on the side of her town’s beach. A bright red colour, with white stripes against it.

Though it hadn’t been red and white the last time she’d seen it. It had been an otherworldly black.

And then she remembered what had occurred, the events flying through her mind with the force of a freight ship smashing a canoe.

She'd gone out to save her father. He'd told her about heading out to work, since the team couldn't go earlier because of the tide.

When her father hadn't returned…Ginny panicked and rushed out to save him. She'd climbed into her dad's personal boat and set out to sea, with no prior experience on the waves other than reading novels and sailor hearsay.

And then the sea had engulfed her with a storm unlike anything else. Ginny was rendered powerless, and the visions of smashing waves and crackling thunder gripped her eyes.

And then she'd ended up here, back at the beach. Somehow. Seemingly unscathed too, apart from a dull pain in every sinew of her body.

She rolled over, shivering from the drench weighing down her skeleton. She crawled onto her knees, hands gripping the crumbling sand, then glanced up.

Was this some kind of other world?

Ginny remembered thinking death would claim her amongst the waves. Was this, then, the afterlife?

The wooden staircase leading up from the beach looked as smooth as ever, with little cracks in the oak that made it up. The road above that featured cars rolling by as if nothing monumental had occurred. The houses beyond that—brightly coloured pink and sea blue shades.

One of those houses belonged to Ginny and her father. The sky blue one with as many windows as possible to let in the natural light.

Ginny scrambled to her feet. The sand didn't provide much in terms of balance, and she almost toppled over.

Maybe someone saved her the way she'd attempted to save her father. Maybe that someone dropped her off on the beach, then left after their good deed without another word.

Ginny didn't know. She didn't know anything at this point, and the confusion tore her mind a new one.

Strangely, there was no sign of her father's boat. It had probably been swallowed in the eye of the storm. And yet that begged the question of why Ginny had been spared and not the boat.

The boat was more buoyant and built to survive the waves. Yet a barely adult girl fared a better chance in a storm of all things?

Something didn't add up.

The stairs wobbled beneath her as she climbed, as if the oak trees were being cut out from underneath her. She gripped the railings in clenched hands, knuckles a sickly shade of pale. Her legs pulsed with pain, arms hurt, back felt stepped on a hundred times.

But she was alive. And how—that was the real question.

The road looked normal as in real life. Dark tarmac washed into a lighter grey the more it closed on the sea. Cars—red Toyotas and blue Hyundais, the staples of the town—drove past without another thought. Engine's rumbling with an almost cheerful tune.

Ginny crossed the road, looking almost like death itself with her scraggly hair and pale skin. She stumbled through the roads of her town, eyes harrowed and the deep need to see her father fuelling her steps.

Her house arrived a minute or so later. That blue met her, the blue of the sky, and she clambered over the steps before the front door. Her knuckles knocked.

And she waited.

Nothing met her from within.

Nothing except a chilling silence that alluded to what she'd feared all along.

Her mind flitted back to the previous night. She'd taken her keys with her, tucked it into her jeans pocket whilst leaving the house.

But it wasn't in her pocket anymore. It must've, somehow, been caught in the storm when Ginny was floating along the waves.

She leaned an ear to the door. Silence met her. The breeze dimmed as realisation set into her soul.

Her father was dead. Had died in the waves whilst the storm brewed its destruction. And that meant Ginny had failed her mission.

Sorrow almost buckled her body at the knees, but she held onto the white painted wooden railing. She'd already lost her mother, and now had to add her father to the list of—

"Ginny?"

A gasp clapped her mouth open. She whirled, vision blurring before clearing again. Hands now clutching the railing with a vicious clench.

"Dad?"

It was her father, his wide smile at her presence overshadowing the darkness of his eyes. A bone-tiredness washed over him, but that was replaced by a vitality she'd never before seen.

He rushed forward, jumping the three front steps at once, and embraced her so tight Ginny thought her bones would pop.

His smell of the calm sea engulfed her, filled her with a hope that couldn't be replicated by anything else. She let herself sink into his arms, no longer willing to even hold herself up after all that had happened.

"Let's get ya inside," her father said. "I'll call off the search parties and tell 'em we found ya."

Ginny said nothing, but nodded and let that comforting hand on her back steer her into her house.

She hadn't lost her father. Hadn't lost the rock in her life, especially after her mother's demise.

But the question still remained as to who had saved her?

And why?

***

Now Ginny sits here, a week after the incident, in the living room where her journey had begun. The novel she'd been reading now languishes in a drawer somewhere, never to be opened again.

A fireplace is by her left. It isn't lit, yet Ginny's state of being alive and having her father with her mitigates any lost heat. To her right is the door leading to the hallway, closed to allow herself and her father the space to speak their minds, freely, snatching the opportunities they had almost lost.

And Ginny, with the smell of strawberry liquorice coming from the chewy, sugary sticks on a little tea table, is still confused. As to what had saved her, and why.

"Ya okay, Gin?" her father asks. "Look spooked out ya mind. I told ya I'd take ya to the sea today, didn't I?"

"Why was I saved?" Ginny makes sure to emphasise the word. "Why, not how. I already know how. But why? Don't make sense to me."

"Because yer my Ginny that's why," her father says, leaning over to rub her shoulder.

Ginny smiles, but her mind doesn't deviate from the obvious deflection. "You know what I'm talking about, Dad. Why was I saved when the whole friggin' boat went under?"

Her father sighs, clasps his hands together. The natural light flows in through six windows, lights his face with an illumination. His features shine like those buzzing and flitting lights when Ginny had been barely conscious on the beach.

"There's a story a mate told me. Long time ago he did. He heard it from someplace else, and I never asked him where. Truest story I ever heard, though."

"What's the story?"

Her father meets her eyes, then gazes into the carpet. Buries his gaze inside those pale blue tufts.

"That no matter what a sailor believes, when they go out in a storm and death comes to 'em, they always ask for the same kinda help."

"What kind of help?"

"That's the thing—even they don't know. They just call out to something—anything—high above the storm to save 'em."

Ginny remembers saying a prayer herself, but she shifts her expression to neutral and cruise controls her emotions for now.

"But that don't always work, does it?" Ginny asks.

Her father shakes his head. "No, not always. Storms are nasty business. That's why we're studying 'em, and why we had to go out last week. We knew what we were doing."

For the last week, since she and her father had reunited, her father said nothing of why he was out during the storm. Ginny still thought it was an accident, that they didn't know the storm was coming.

But…it was deliberate, and Ginny was in the wrong.

Making her even more eager to find out why she'd been saved by the elements.

"Can you carry on the story?" she asks.

Her father smiles wide, eyes crinkling. "Of course." He leans forward, meets her eyes, taps her knee. "It's because for some of 'em, that prayer is accepted. Cos they got nothing else. And they try and live by that prayer as much as possible."

"What's that?"

"The prayer exposes the truth, Gin. When ya got nothing else, why would ya call onto something ya never seen, never heard, never witnessed like that? Cos it's real, that's why." Her father smiles again. "When yer lost at sea, Gin, there's only one thing that can save ya. Now it's your turn to find that thing, whether a God or summat else. That's why ya were saved."

Ginny understands. Her mind digests the words, then the meaning, then the implications.

She leans back, smells the liquorice grow a scent lighter, feels the shine on her father's face float across hers. From somewhere she doesn't know a breeze comes and cools her down to the heart.

She knows her purpose now—why she was saved

To live her life in pursuit of the one that saved her. That entity sailors don't understand but feel its existence right to their core.

And when she finds that thing, she'll hold onto it till the day she dies.

To support this work by purchasing the ebook/paperback at your store of choice, click here. If not, feel free to read any of my other free short stories, or click the all fiction tab above for info on where to find my longer works.

JazakAllahu Khayran for reading.