TCTE Short Fiction Contest

 When the Tide Pulls

by Najiha Rahman

    When Raifa arrived at the seaside home, it was noon, yet the sky suggested otherwise. Thick, brooding clouds smothered the sun, casting a muted gray over everything. The home stood at the edge of a weather-carved cliff, surrounded by unkempt shrubbery that clung to rocky soil. Behind it rose a forest of tall pines, their needles rattling like bones in the wind. Below the cliff, the sea was almost grey and lay under thick fog.

   Raifa reached the house by a poorly kept dirt road—the only sign of human presence other than the building itself. The house was lopsided, leaning with the cliff’s natural tilt. After leaving the vehicle, she found herself in front of the door. Her key scraped the rusted lock four times before it gave way.

    Inside, the damp air seeped through thin walls. As Raifa dropped her suitcases—filled with few of her own belongings—she heard the groan of the floorboards. A sigh escapes before her hands tapped at the light switch and, once the flickering lights steadied, she took in her new home.

    It was not unfamiliar. She had spent summers here as a child. Her grandparents had sought distance from the cities and closeness to the water. After their deaths, she and her mother had only visited to maintain the place, but her mother had refused to sell it. Now, Raifa planned to use it fully. Or perhaps to hide in it fully.

    Before she could focus too long on the house’s aged interior, she opened the suitcase filled with belongings. Most were Naida’s, her girlfriend of two years. Trinkets, journals, and electronics. Her own possessions were sparse; only the essentials along with art supplies. 

    As she crouched to reach for some ingredients from her suitcase, intending to cook, her hand brushed the cloth-bound cover of Naida’s journal. She shuddered almost instinctively. The words were already etched in her memory, pulsing behind her eyes from what she’d read in the city.

It’s cruel to admit, but part of me hopes my leaving becomes a weight she can never put down. 

A grief that stains her life long after mine ends.

    For now, that was all Raifa had needed to read. It was all she needed—to know what to do with her life. Each line in her late girlfriend’s diary was proof that Naida had been quietly drowning, for so long, under Raifa’s nose. If she had only noticed…Naida might still be here.

   Giving up on the idea of a real meal, Raifa simply grabbed a fork and condemned herself to  sardines straight from the can. 

    When finished, Raifa crawled onto the couch, its light-blue skin tattering at the ends and plush insides spilling out. She grabbed her pencil and sketchbook from the suitcase, pondering what to draw. Though the crashing seas, pine forests, and eerie quiet begged to be inspiration, her feelings stayed trapped. At last, she wrote, I miss you, and set the sketchbook on the couch.

    Her mother, aware of Raifa’s grief, had prepared the house: bedsheets, her clothing, power restored, and some essentials. Still, Raifa doubted she could manage domestic life. She couldn’t even do it with Naida’s support, and now, with the journal’s words burning in her mind, she didn’t want to.

    Raifa’s first night was restless. The floorboards made noises too precise to be wind. Not creaks, but pulses. Little thuds that traveled beneath her bed in a slow, deliberate rhythm. She pressed her foot to the floor once. The floor shuddered back.

   When she woke up, she noticed the sketchbook was closed, with its latch on. 

   Raifa could’ve sworn she had laid it flat in an attempt to save her page. Flipping through, she found yesterday’s entry untouched. Suddenly, a gust of wind made the book flutter shut in her hand. Turning, she saw the window ajar and shut it firmly, then stared into the glass and her reflection. It was faint, and as though she wasn’t entirely solid.

    The days blurred into one another. She spent her days walking on the cliff path until the wind bit her cheeks numb. Each day, when she returned from her walks, the house seemed darker than before. Even when the sun fought through the clouds, and even after she turned the lights on. It was as though the house absorbed the light before it even had a chance to touch her. 

    After the first couple of days, her sketchbooks filled quickly. The world around her was too beautiful to ignore. She started with the obvious: the sea, the cliffs, the house. 

    Soon, Raifa transitioned to the smaller things she noticed, like the pebbles in the ground and the clouds in the sky that sometimes, briefly, looked like Naida. Naida found her way into every scene. No matter the landscape, she became each drawing’s protagonist.  

    One morning, she woke to find the sketchbook on the floor, pages fanned open—despite its latch—to one of her portraits of Naida. But the expression had shifted. The eyes didn’t quite look at her, but instead past her. To something over Raifa’s shoulder. She turned quickly, but only the bare walls of the room stared back at her.

    After that, Raifa started weighing down her sketchbook at night with a sea-polished rock she had found. It still moved.

   A week passed before the first knock. She jumped, dropping the fork she had been forcing food down with. At the door stood a woman, stout and chestnut-haired, holding a small pot covered with a towel. The unbalanced foyer made eye contact with her awkward, as their eyes didn’t quite meet.

   “Sorry if I scared you,” the young woman said with a small smile. “I’m Anja. Your neighbour. If you can call someone a neighbour out here.”

    Raifa blinked, her pulse quickening, aware of the walls watching her hesitation. 

    “You’ve been walking the cliffs a lot,” Anja said, shifting the pot in her hands. “Figured you might want something warm.”

   Raifa stepped aside, not bothering to question how Anja saw her or why the other cared, and let Anja place the pot on the table. 

    “I made stew,” Anja said, placing it on the table. “Your mother said you were an awful cook, and I should make sure to drop by with something. What have you been eating?”

    Raifa didn’t remember the last time food smelled like anything but salt. “Fish,” she answered.

   Anja made a face, before sniffing and then giving a quick nod. “Yeah, I guess I could tell.” 

    Raifa got out the bowls and served them. They ate as Anja spoke of the area, scattered neighbours, and her fondness for Raifa’s late grandparents. Raifa watched her hands move with a quick, animated rhythm. For a moment, warmth filled the hollow house.

    When Anja finally left, the door clicking shut behind her, the warmth drained so quickly it felt stolen. Raifa stood alone in the kitchen, the faint scent of stew still lingering in the air. It unsettled her how easy it had been—how naturally she’d laughed, how her shoulders had loosened without permission. The thought struck her sharply: Naida would have hated how simple this felt. 

    The guilt came fast on the heels of relief, sour and biting. She pressed her palm flat against the counter, steadying herself, as the floorboards beneath her feet answered with a low, agitated groan. The house seemed to tighten around her, wood creaking and shifting as if disturbed by something it had witnessed and did not approve of.

    The next morning, Raifa found the stew bowl washed and placed upside down on the counter. She hadn’t touched it.

    Over the following days, Anja visited more often. Sometimes with bread, sometimes for tea, sometimes only for conversation. The visits became the rare moments Raifa anticipated. She realized she missed the presence of another—someone to see her art, to chat with. Each time the other left, Raifa had to stifle the urge to ask her to stay longer. The journal entry lingered in her mind, a silent shackle. She felt the thrill of companionship pull her one way, while the guilt pulled her another. She would accept the warmth, briefly, then retreat. 

    Still, the house's murmur only grew louder. 

    One afternoon, after a visit and art-related discussion with Anja, Raifa turned to a blank page and hesitated. Her pencil hovered, unmoving, as she considered drawing anything else—anything that wasn’t Naida’s face, wasn’t the familiar curve of her mouth or the tired heaviness beneath her eyes. The thought made her chest tighten. 

    I can stop, she told herself. I should. 

    Her fingers twitched, and for a moment, the page remained untouched. Then, the pencil pressed down anyway. The lines came too easily—muscle memory. When she finished, Naida stared back at her once more. Raifa shut the sketchbook harder than necessary, nausea curling in her gut.

    That night, Raifa did not weigh the sketchbook down. She left it on the table, closed, its latch gleaming faintly in the light. The house answered her, though with something greater than the familiar murmurs and scratches at floorboards. The first word that came to Raifa’s mind to describe the noise was a wail, clambering at the beams of the house. The noise was punctuated by wind slamming against the window, as though begging to come in.  

    Raifa’s heart pounded, and she bolted to the window to examine what was going on outside. She was met with almost complete darkness, but she could just make out the storm clouds in the distance and the trees bending from the force of the wind. Raifa bit her lip, before closing her curtains and returning to her bed. She knew the house would be strong enough to withstand the weather. She was less certain about herself. 

    In the morning, the clouds had darkened and rolled in close. Rain bulleted against the roof of the home, and the seawater churned violently. The electricity flickered until Raifa lit a lantern, setting it in the middle of the table like a tiny, defiant sun.

    That was when the knock came again.

    Anja stood drenched on the porch, holding a pot wrapped in a towel, breathless from the wind.

    “I hadn’t realized there’d be a storm,” the woman soaked by rain said. “I saw it, and thought we shouldn’t be alone in this type of weather.”

    Heat rose to Raifa’s cheeks. She accepted the pot, inhaling its lemon and rosemary aroma. The scent struck her chest. Naida used to make the same dish on rainy nights, humming softly to herself. Raifa quickly let the other in, closing the door behind them. 

    The house seemed to recognize the dish too, and the floorboards vibrated beneath Raifa’s feet. A low pulse traveled through the wood. For a moment, it echoed the tune Naida used to hum. 

    The lantern flickered.

    “Are you alright?” Anja asked. She stepped closer, concern heavy on her face. “You look like you’ve seen—”

   The sky groaned. Then, the house shook.

    Thunder cracked directly above them. The door flew open with the force of the wind. Clutter lifted off the table as if yanked by invisible hands. The lantern guttered, casting monstrous shadows across the walls.

    Raifa froze. 

    Something stood at the foot of the porch steps.

    A figure. Pale. Translucent. Edges frayed like old, worn fabric. Dark hair clung to its face—though no rain touched it. The shape flickered in and out of the storm’s light, as if being momentarily erased and redrawn with each stroke of lightning. 

    The face was all too familiar: the downturned eyes; thick, straight eyebrows; the crease of smile lines. Her eyes were still bagged—even in death she could not rest. Raifa’s eyes softened as she recognized the being. 

   Naida.

    Her eyes held no warmth. Only a hollow, gleaming depth that suggested she didn’t see Raifa so much as she saw through her.

    Raifa turned to look at Anja, terrified of how she’d react to the skeletons in her closet.

    “Raifa?” Anja whispered, eyes wide, mouth trembling. The young woman’s hazel eyes were stricken in fear. Raifa watched the other stumble backwards, seeking safety deeper within the house. Away from the wraith. 

    Raifa stepped outside, bare feet greeted by the wet wood. Wind tore at her ink-black hair, dragging it across her eyes. Rain blurred her vision, and the cold stabbed through her clothes. 

    The specter of what was once Naida’s gaze tracked her.

    She opened her mouth, but the words caught, tangled—years of things unsaid, of apologies rehearsed and never spoken.

    Raifa’s voice finally pushed through. “You’re scaring her.” 

    She turned her head towards the trembling Anja, punctuating her sentence. However, the storm swallowed her words. She tried again, louder. “You’re scaring me.”

   Naida’s face didn’t move, but the air tightened, as though listening.

    “I don’t know what you want,” Raifa said. The storm lashed against her back. “But you can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep doing this—”

    Lightning split the sky, and for the first time, Naida’s form appeared whole. Her features warped like a reflection in glass. The apparition shook her head. 

    A whisper cut through the thunder.

    “I know,” the ghost said. Then, after a beat that froze the air. “Do you?” 

    “I’ve been waiting,” Raifa said, voice shaking. “Waiting for you to forgive me. Waiting for things to go back to how they were.” She shook her head, rain streaking down her face. “But they won’t. And I can’t live there anymore.”

    The wind stilled mid-gust, faltering as if startled. Rain softened to a whisper.

    Raifa straightened, grounding herself in the slick wood beneath her feet. “I remember you,” she said quietly. “But I’m choosing to move forward.”

    Thunder erupted once again. Naida’s outline dissolved slowly, separating into strands—as if unravelling rather than fleeing—before she was no more. 

     Raifa didn’t move. She stayed on the porch, legs trembling beneath her.

    Anja, cautious, placed a hand on her shoulder. The warmth of it startled Raifa more than the ghost Raifa was so familiar with.

    “Come inside,” Anja said gently, though her voice trembled. “You’re shaking.”

    Raifa allowed herself to be guided back in. The house felt different. Not lighter, but no longer watching her so closely. The lantern cast a steady glow across the floorboards. The pot still steamed on the counter.

    Raifa stared at it. Lemon. Rosemary. The scent curled around her like fingers she no longer wished to hold. Like fingers she no longer had to hold. 

    “We can cook something else,” Anja offered. “If this isn’t… if you’d rather…”

    Raifa exhaled, before closing the pot’s lid.

    “Yes. Let’s make something else.”

    The storm retreated. The ocean’s restless breathing resumed. Raifa gathered ingredients, feeling faint tremors beneath the floor. A hush, a hum, something old moving farther away.

    She did not look down. She did not need to.

   The house was not empty. Not entirely. But its grip had loosened. And, today, she could try something new.