Chapter 3: Echoes on the Wall
998 Words
The morning sun poured through the high windows of the chapel, illuminating dust motes that danced in lazy spirals through the air. Isla had risen before the fishermen even launched their boats. She liked to work when Bahawen was still half-dreaming. The world was quieter then, less judgmental. More hers.
She stood barefoot on the cool stone floor, palette in hand, eyes trained on the wall that had both haunted and healed her. A single oil lamp flickered nearby, lending a low golden hue to her work. Bit by bit, the mural was coming alive, not through invention, but through removal. It was not a creation. It was an unveiling.
Her fingers, smudged with ochre and sea-washed gray, moved with practiced grace. Today, she focused on a section she had begun to suspect held a hidden figure. The lines were faint, disguised beneath thick strokes of whitewash, but they didn’t match the rest of the overpainting. They were softer. More human.
She scraped gently at the paint with the precision of a surgeon, revealing the delicate curl of hair, the curve of a hand. Another hand meeting it.
Not saints. Not sisters. Not protectors.
Lovers.
Her breath caught. It wasn’t just a mural. It was a memory. A reclamation. She backed away, studying the faint outlines. The figures were leaning toward each other, foreheads nearly touching. Their hands were clasped. It was unmistakably tender. Intimate.
Deliberate.
The door creaked faintly behind her.
Isla stiffened.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” came a voice. It was low, warm, and curious.
Isla turned slowly to see Rae standing in the doorway, hands tucked into the pockets of her field jacket.
“You didn’t,” Isla replied softly.
She stepped back from the wall, suddenly aware of how exposed she felt. Her solitude had been interrupted, her discovery half-unearthed.
Rae stepped inside. The silence settled between them, but not uncomfortably. The chapel seemed to inhale.
“I didn’t know the figures were like that,” Rae said, gesturing to the mural.
“Neither did I. Not at first.”
“They don’t look like saints. Or maybe they do, in their own way. There’s something sacred about them,” Rae added, her eyes narrowing as she studied the details.
Isla looked down at her palette. “They were hidden for a reason.”
Rae tilted her head. “It’s beautiful. But there’s a sadness to it. Like it was meant to be mourned.”
Isla nodded. “They were erased. Hidden beneath layers, as if they were never meant to be remembered. But the wall remembers.”
“Do you think they were real? The people in the mural?” Rae asked, her voice quieter now.
“I don’t think they were painted to be imaginary,” Isla said. “Whoever painted them wanted them to be seen. Wanted them to matter.”
Rae didn’t reply right away. Her gaze remained on the mural, but her eyes flicked back occasionally to Isla. “You’re not what I expected,” she said eventually.
Isla looked at her, unreadable. “What did you expect?”
“I’m not sure,” Rae said. “Maybe someone older. Someone more guarded. But you paint like you’re listening to something I can’t hear.”
To Isla’s surprise, she smiled. A real one, small and shy. “Silence is the only thing that lets me hear what was left behind.”
They stood quietly for a moment. Outside, a faint sound rose from the cliffs—the soft, rhythmic thrum of the tide.
Rae took a slow step forward. “Would you mind if I watched you work sometime?”
Isla hesitated. The question pressed against something tender. She wasn’t used to being watched. But Rae’s voice held no expectation. Only curiosity.
“If you don’t mind quiet,” Isla said.
“I prefer it,” Rae said.
The next few days became their quiet routine. Rae returned to the chapel each morning, slipping in with two mugs of strong coffee. Isla would nod her thanks, and Rae would settle into the same bench near the doorway. Sometimes she wrote in her notebook. Sometimes she sketched. Sometimes she just watched.
They rarely spoke. When they did, the words came slowly. Like waves lapping the shore.
One morning, Isla uncovered part of a poem scrawled faintly near the edge of the mural:
“No altar would hold our names, So I carved them into the cliffs. Not for God, but for the wind— So she might know I stayed.”
She paused, her brush still in hand.
Rae stood, approaching carefully. “Did you write that?”
Isla shook her head. “It was etched beneath the paint. Faint, almost gone. But not gone enough.”
Rae read it again, slowly. “It’s beautiful. And heartbreaking.”
“It’s grief,” Isla said quietly. “And memory.”
Rae traced the lines with her eyes. “Do you think they were punished? For being together?”
Isla didn’t answer right away. “Maybe. Or maybe they just weren’t allowed to be real. So someone tried to paint them into truth.”
That night, Rae walked alone along the shoreline. The jellyfish shimmered in the shallows. She sat in the sand and watched their light flicker against the dark water. Their glow was soft. Almost shy. Like something returned after a long time away.
The following morning, she brought the coffee again. Their fingers brushed.
“You’re quiet today,” Isla said as she accepted the mug.
“I’ve been thinking about stories that get buried,” Rae said.
“And?”
“And how some of them still find a way back.”
Isla looked at her. “Maybe that’s what the mural is doing. Coming back.”
Rae met her gaze. “And maybe you’re the one bringing it back.”
Isla said nothing. But she didn’t look away.
And so, the tide shifted.
- Writer
