The night is dark as the inside of a whale’s belly

The night is dark as the inside of a whale’s belly is a writing prompt taken from my 2023 short story collection Who can believe in witches?

THE NIGHT IS DARK AS the inside of a whale’s belly. Eva clings to her berth, heart thudding, her body tossed from side to side to match the frothing, roiling water hurling itself against the little ship.

The boom of the gale, the anguished groaning of the ship, the thunderous surges of water slapping onto the deck, meld with the terrified whimpered prayers of the passengers.

It seemed another life that Eva had been on deck, staring into the unremitting waves. Coldly green in the early days, turning indigo blue through the equator and now green again as they neared journey end. Always rearing up, falling back, like flexing muscles mocking the helpless ship and all her poor souls.

‘Down below with you, miss.’ The sailor had squinted at a sky darkened to a dusky violet. Chaotic clouds massed above the horizon.

Eva had obeyed, and at the urging of her mother prepared herself for bed. Used by now to the pitching and tossing, she had slept, intermittently. Now, in the darkest hours, she is frightenly awake. As is all the ship.

The berth pitches up, is vertical for a heartbeat, then plunges down with a violence which shakes loose Eva’s fierce grip. The ship shudders. Her bones break in a shattering, squealing clamour.

The hatches surrender to the surging seas with a crashing bump. Icy waters gush through, filling the lower reaches of steerage like a kettle at a pump, drowning the crying children, drowning their praying, whimpering parents.

Just one more day and Eva would have been done forever with ships and waves. She will not be cheated, not now, after three months on the fragile heaving vessel. She clambers upright,  wades through the chaos, grabbing at uprights still in place as she blindly searches for the ladder.

Water tosses her in its rage like a rag doll, but there…there are rungs. She clings, hauls herself upwards. Her sodden nightdress wraps itself shroud-like about her shivering body. She heaves, claws her way to the top, racing the rising seas.

She is out, lashed by rain and wind, crouched on all fours to lessen the impact of the gale. But she is alive, young, and strong. Dimly she is aware of sailors on the deck. They tug on ropes, desperation in every movement.

The ship lurches, slaps hard into the storming waves, and splits apart like kindling under an axe.

Eva grabs at a jagged-edged spar, its wet ropes flying in the wind. A crack like the call of doomsday. Eva and the spar tumble into the heaving, crashing green. Garbled prayers beat a rhythm in her head to match the terror in her soul.

Read more about Who can believe in witches and my other historical fiction here.

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