The Salt and the Moon

A Tale of Tides and Leaving

Ani Eldritch
Catharsis Chronicles
3 min readJan 14, 2025

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This digital artwork features a neon-colored crescent moon with a futuristic, geometric design. The moon blends vibrant hues of blue, pink, and purple, appearing layered and three-dimensional. Surrounding it are parallel, glowing lines and abstract shapes, creating a sense of movement. The background is deep black, which enhances the luminous effect, making the colors pop with a cyberpunk, retro-futuristic aesthetic.
Artwork created by the author using ChatGPT.

The tide sucked at her ankles, curling like fingers around her calves. A thick wind tore at her hair, sent it whirling in the dark. The sea was speaking in its heaving language, and she had come to listen.

“You can’t keep running back here.”

The voice behind her was rasped with salt, shaped by the same wind that cut the cliffs raw. She did not turn.

“I never run,” she said.

It was low tide, the hour of ghosts, when the drowned things show themselves in the silvered light. She had found the wedding band once, lodged in a rock pool, a barnacled circle of ruin. It was still there, somewhere under the waves, waiting for no one.

“You should come home.”

She felt his breath, the warmth of it misplaced in the cold. The years had lengthened his voice, worn it like the cliffs, but the boy in it remained.

“Home?” she said, laughing, tasting brine in the back of her throat.

She was sixteen when she first learned that the moon could lie. It promised return, the old dance of pull and surrender, but she knew better now. Some things did not come back.

“You said you’d stay,” he said, his hands in his pockets, like he was trying to hold something in.

“I said a lot of things.”

She had left at dawn, the first time. The sky a smear of oranges and regret, the sea quiet, unknowing. The train took her inland, into dry air and hollow nights.

“Why now?” he asked, stepping closer, his boots sinking into the wet sand.

She thought of the letter, folded and torn at the corners, still in her pocket. Her mother’s hand, slanted and urgent: Come home. It’s time.

“Because I need to know if I can.”

A wave crashed, sending spray over their faces, sudden and sharp. She wiped it from her cheeks, but the salt stayed in her mouth. He was watching her, and she knew that he saw through her, the way he always had.

“You don’t belong anywhere else, do you?”

She closed her eyes. Behind them, the past surged forward, thick and unrelenting. The nights on the docks, his hands in her hair, the way he had whispered promises into her skin like prayers.

“I don’t know.”

The moon was high now, silvering the world in its cold, quiet light. The tide had turned, creeping back in, reaching for her again.

“You could stay,” he said, his voice softer, something breaking at the edges.

She stepped forward, just once, her toes sinking into the wet hush of sand. The water licked at her heels. The night held its breath.

Then she turned, walking past him, up the dunes and toward the waiting dark.

The sea would still be there.

© Ani Eldritch, 2025.

Thanks to Chrysa Stergiou and her team at Catharsis Chronicles for hosting my work.

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Catharsis Chronicles
Catharsis Chronicles

Published in Catharsis Chronicles

Catharsis Chronicles is a haven for impassioned stories on family, love, trauma, healing, redemption, self-awareness, and holistic health.

Ani Eldritch
Ani Eldritch

Written by Ani Eldritch

I’m a writer and poet from NYC.

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