(Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee”)
He lay beside Annabel in the warm white sand, feeling the soft grains shift between his fingers. He closed his eyes and let the golden sunlight warm his face, the roaring whisper of the waves and the wind filling his ears.
Annabel laced her fingers through his with a gentle squeeze, letting him know she was there. He turned his head towards her, his cheek against the warm sand. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her. Her eyes were as bright as the sea, her hair the color of sunlight on the sand. Annabel was everything bright and beautiful in the world; she was the sun and the ocean and the sky, she was the warmth of the summer and the boundless depth of the sea. She was the breeze carrying the smell of salt and fresh air. She was the light hitting the crest of a wave as it rolled past. There they lay in the sand, in a land by the sea, just looking into each other’s eyes. Their silence seemed to speak without words.
Cassian’s heart was an eagle as he looked upon the beautiful Annabel Lee. It lifted, soared in his chest, so enamored by her it left him breathless. Her golden sunlight smile filled him with warmth, made him feel lighter than air.
“Annabel Lee,” he said, “you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. You’re like the sun, the sky, the sea. All I want is to just be here, loving you.”
“Cass, do you always have to be so poetic?” she laughed, her voice as soft as a breeze.
“For you, always,” he said with a grin.
Annabel sat up and got to her feet, brushing the sand out of her hair. “Come on,” she said as she pulled him up with her. “Let’s go on a walk.”
They strolled barefoot along the beach, hand in hand, wading in and out of the waves lapping at the sand.
Annabel shivered as a cold breeze blew past, and Cassian held her hand a little tighter as a strange, foreboding feeling washed over him.
“You really have a way with words,” Annabel said, looking up at him with eyes as bright as the sea. “They come to you so easily. I don’t know how you do it— it’s like there’s magic in your voice, as if you make music just by speaking.”
Cassian flushed, the strange feeling forgotten. “Only with you. Everywhere else, I just get all tongue-tied.”
“Well, I think it’s wonderful when you get all poetic and sappy,” she said with a smile like the sun.
“And I think you’re wonderful,” he replied, twirling her around. Annabel laughed as she spun back into him and they tumbled down together in a heap in the sand.
“I love you, Cassian,” she said, hugging him, pressing her face into his neck. “I want this to last forever.”
He wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent. She smelled faintly of hinoki and salt, clean but warm and rich. “Me too,” he replied.
Annabel took his hand gently. “Do you think we’ll still be here in a few years, walking along the beach, holding hands by the sea?”
“I know we will,” said Cassian with a smile.
As they began to stand up, Annabel swayed as if she was unsteady on her feet, looking like she might fall over. Cassian gripped her arm to catch her.
“Woah,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She steadied herself and stood up straight. “I’m fine, just a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Cassian tried not to worry, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
A few days later, they were out on the beach again, sitting together on a rocky ledge in the sun. It was a warm, sunny day, but the ocean seemed ominous on the horizon.
“I know we’re so young,” Cassian said, “We’re only sixteen. Maybe we aren’t old or wise enough to know anything about love. But… I know what we have is something so much more than love.”
“I know,” Annabel replied softly. “I want to spend my life with you. I want to grow up together, see the world together. Start a family.”
“We’ll get married and then we’ll travel the world, go visit all sorts of places,” Cassian said. “We’ll cross the ocean together on our very own sailboat.”
“Yes!” Annabel exclaimed.
“And then, when we’re older, we can settle down here, by the sea.” Cassian grinned. “Once we’re tired of all our adventures.”
“Someday we’ll have three kids and a wonderful house, and we’ll live close to the beach,” she laughed.
“Someday,” Cassian said. He paused for a moment, contemplating the question. “Annabel, do you think we’re soulmates?”
She nodded. “I do. I’ve known you my whole life, Cass,” she said, ruffling his dark hair playfully. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.”
Cassian smiled. “The angels in heaven are jealous of how much I love you, Annabel Lee. I’ve never been happier than the days I’m right here, with you, by the sea. I’d rather die than lose you.”
“Hey, that even rhymed!” she laughed. “You love to serenade me with your poems, don’t you?” Suddenly her smile was wiped away by a fit of coughing.
“Annabel! Are you okay?” Cassian asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
When her coughing finally receded to wheezing breaths, she gave a shaky laugh and said, “I’m alright, really. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s nothing,” Annabel insisted. “Anyways. Do you want to be a writer when you’re older?”
“I don’t know. Words and poems just make sense to me. And they make you smile,” Cassian said. “I love your smile. It’s like the sunshine.”
Annabel laughed, blushing. “And I love it when you make me smile.”
Cassian looked at her beautiful face in the sunlight, the way she just lit up when she laughed, her petal-pink lips, her eyes that sparkled like the sea. “And your laugh is the most amazing sound on earth.”
He reached to brush a few strands of summer-blonde hair from her face, allowing his fingers to linger there a moment longer. Annabel went quite still, her wide eyes looking into his, flickering down to his lips and then back up to meet his gaze again.
The sound of the waves was a quiet hush in the background, and the wind was a light draft ruffling their hair and clothes. Cassian took a breath and looked at Annabel, heart racing. Then he slowly leaned forward and kissed her. She tasted like summer and sunshine, the soft press of her lips against his tugging on his heart. He pulled her closer, one hand on her face and the other around her waist. Everywhere she touched him felt like blazing sunbeams, as if he was lighting up from the inside.
They pulled apart, breathless. Cassian said quietly, “Annabel Lee, my heart is yours forever. I would rather die than lose your love.”
“You will never lose my love,” she said fiercely. “Our love is stronger than even life and death itself.”
“Hey,” he said with a laugh, “that was pretty poetic of you.”
He kissed her again under the warm summer sky and the spray of the ocean, not worrying about their uncertain future, but thinking only of this moment, and his love for Annabel— their love that ran deeper than the oceans and higher than the heavens.
Months passed, and Cassian couldn’t shake his looming sense of dread. Annabel’s coughing and dizzy spells worsened, and many days she was tired and weak. But she insisted she would get better, and that the illness was only temporary. Meanwhile, they spent the summer together in their little kingdom by the sea, exploring and swimming on the days she felt strong. On her bad days, they would just talk, and sometimes just sit in the sunlight, leaning on each other, communicating without saying a single word. They were happy with each other.
One day the two of them were walking along the edge of the water, Cassian holding tight to Annabel. She was slower than normal that day, and he could hear her breath rattling in her lungs. He glanced nervously at the dark waters and the cloudy sky, feeling uneasy. He gripped Annabel’s arm a little tighter. As they walked, a cold wind swept across the ocean, turning the water frigid and the sand sharp and icy.
Annabel cried out as the wind came like a hungry beast, chilling her to her very bones and stealing her breath away, leaving her weak and shaking. She crumpled into Cassian’s arms, light and frail as a bird. He felt as if she was made of glass and might break with just one touch.
Her breaths turned sharp and gasping, and she was shivering uncontrollably as Cassian laid her down on the beach. He held her tight, tried to call for help, but no one was near.
“Annabel— Annabel, please,” he said desperately. She was pale and limp in his arms as her shaking began to grow weaker and weaker, though her eyes were still bright like the sea and she was fighting to stay awake. Her breathing was fast and shallow as she tried to speak.
Annabel mustered one last smile like a fading ray of sunlight as she said, “It’s okay… the angels might steal me away… but our love will never die. No one can ever separate two souls so tightly woven.”
“I love you, Annabel Lee,” Cassian said, choking on a sob as he held her shaking body close.
“I love you…” breathed Annabel softly, so softly, as her body went cold and her sea-bright eyes dulled.
There was a beat of silence.
Cassian screamed until his throat went raw, until all he could taste was the salt from his tears. Or was it the ocean spray? He couldn’t tell the difference. He cursed the illness that had killed her, the wind that had weakened her. He sat there, kneeling over Annabel— what used to be Annabel, and was now only a hollow shell of her. Annabel was warmth and sunlight and ocean waves. Now she was cold and dull and silent. Deathly silent.
How did it end so fast? He thought he would have forever with Annabel, yet she was washed away as quickly as the sand with the rising tide.
He wept quietly over her body, feeling as though his limbs were made of lead. He couldn’t breathe with the weight of her death squeezing his lungs, his heart. How would he ever find the strength to rise from this, brush off the sand, carry away her body from the shore—
Cassian choked on a sob. The thought of carrying her lifeless form away, her body far too light and weak, and sealing her off in a cold, dark tomb felt like a knife in his chest.
All he could do for hours and hours was sit there, covered in tears and cold sand, and cry. He was drowning— drowning in deep, dark water, never to surface again. His grief was like an anchor dragging him deeper and deeper into the darkness, into the suffocating waters all around him. Suffocating, but never dying. Suffering, with no relief.
Eventually someone came and found him. He was weak and numb, his face red and puffy from crying. He did not know who it was— his mind was a blur and his memory was fuzzy. Perhaps it was multiple people. He remembered they dragged him, screaming, away from Annabel. He sobbed as he was pulled away, too weak to fight them. Then his memory went dark.
Soon after Annabel died, Cassian and his family moved away, to somewhere far away from the ocean and anything that reminded him of the girl he loved. He couldn’t stand living there with memories of Annabel around every corner, on every breeze. And it wasn’t the same without her. It was colder, duller. The sun didn’t seem to shine quite as brightly as it used to. So he left.
Two years went by, and Cassian knew he couldn’t keep running from his grief; he knew deep down in his bones he would never escape it. So he returned to the land by the sea two years later, to say goodbye. It felt as familiar to him then as the day he left. He had never truly left it behind— a piece of his heart had always remained there. Just as a piece of it had died with Annabel that day. Was he destined to be forever torn, forever brokenhearted? No place was the same as their kingdom by the sea, no other place would ever feel like home. And yet being here was like having his heart ripped from his chest as memories of Annabel, sweet as summer, taunted him from beyond the grave. He saw her eyes in the sun and the stars and the sea, and heard her voice in the waves. He felt sick with grief, sensing her around every corner, so close but never near. Everything around him seemed to bear her fingerprints, memories frozen in time like fossils, a constant reminder of what he had lost. He felt trapped under a surge of hopelessness. How could he go on any longer?
Cassian walked along the beach where he and Annabel used to walk, passed by the rock where they first kissed. The sand under his feet felt the same as it had two years ago, though now he walked alone. Just walking along that beach made him long for Annabel’s hand in his. How desperately he wished for her to be walking beside him now. She would know just what to say to comfort him. But she was gone.
Cassian tried to take his mind off of Annabel, but her presence was everywhere. The smell of salt in the air only made him think of her scent. Even the sound of the wind and the crashing waves had once been soothing to him, but now all they did was remind him of her voice, her sweet laughter. A sound that would never again fall on his ears. The memories overwhelmed him, sending cracks through his already broken heart. He felt heavy, weighed down by it all. His very soul ached with missing her.
“I need you, Annabel. But you’re gone,” he whispered to himself. He closed his eyes, lifting his face to the wind, letting the tears trickle down.
Cassian hiked up the path to the cliffside, where he knew he would find her tomb. It was set in a cave in the cliff, looking out over the water. He hated that she was so close to the sea that she adored, but shut away in a cold stone monument. Annabel Lee in her tomb by the sea. How poetic, he thought sadly. He couldn’t be bothered with poems after Annabel died— she was always the poetic one, really. His words never seemed to make sense without her.
He finally reached the cave, where a sepulchre made of white stone sat, cold and square. Her name was carved on the side in large letters. The cave was undisturbed, and it seemed no one had visited since her body had been left there. He gently placed a bouquet of white lilies on her tomb and rested his hand on the cold white stone.
He had been dreaming of Annabel every night since her death, the most wonderful dreams of when she was alive and glowing and beautiful, when her smile was like the sun and her eyes were as bright as the sea. But every morning he would wake up, and reality would crash in on him like a tidal wave, pushing his head back under the surface, leaving him just as hurt, just as lost as before. His mind felt like madness without Annabel there to calm the storm.
“I tried, Annabel,” Cassian said, a lump forming in his throat. “I tried to go on without you. But I can’t.” His breath was shaky as the tears spilled onto his cheeks. “I wake up every morning and I miss you so much it hurts. It takes all my strength just to survive another day. You were more than my soulmate, you were a part of me. You were everything. You were my sun, my stars, my sea. Without you, there’s nothing left.”
He took a step back from the tomb and walked slowly to the end of the cave, where there was an opening in the cliffside, and then a long drop down to the rocks. He stood at the edge of the cave, looking into the open air. The crashing waves below him faded to a quiet lull in his ear, as the sun emerged from behind the clouds, sparkling on the waves below, glowing with a light he had not seen in two years. All he wanted now was to be with Annabel again. He could imagine her voice so clearly, saying, “You will never lose my love. Our love is stronger than even life and death itself.”
Cassian knew their love was too pure for this world, stolen too soon by illness, by cold, jealous angels. He knew it could only end in tragedy. As he looked out over the ocean, he could picture Annabel’s sea-bright eyes watching him; he could almost see her lovely sunlight smile. He could sense her in front of him now, just out of reach, stretching out a hand. Calling him home. Or was it only a mirage? He reached out his hand and stepped forward into the open air. He fell into darkness— not down to the rocks and the dark waves, but into soft golden sunlight, into the arms of the beautiful Annabel Lee.