Chapter Text
The wheel hums, low and steady, a pulse older than thought. Isla leans forward, elbows braced against her thighs, fingers slick with water and clay. The lump she pressed down earlier begins to soften beneath her hands, pliant but stubborn, trembling as it spins. She works with patience, left palm steadying the curve, right thumb easing into the center, coaxing space into being.
The clay resists, as it always does. Uneven, willful, testing her steadiness. She breathes through her nose, pressing in until it centers, until the wobble fades. Wet earth streaks her apron, smudges her wrists, clings beneath her nails. She doesn’t mind. The mess is half the point.
Through the open window, the sea drifts into the room—salt brine and drying kelp, the chatter of children running barefoot down the road. Warm air lies heavy, but the trickle of water at her side keeps her skin cool. The studio, once her grandmother’s, carries its own weather—the musk of clay, faint woodsmoke from the old kiln, the hush of work unfolding.
There’s no music. Only the wheel’s quiet whir, the steady whisper of her hands pulling the clay upward. A vessel takes shape, thick-walled at first, then narrowing into a neck that leans toward grace. She pinches gently, feeling every tremor through her fingertips. A wrong move could collapse it. Her shoulders ache, but she doesn’t let go until the rim settles smooth. Imperfect, yes, but sturdy. Honest. She imagines it glazed sea-green, the color of tide pools before dawn, when fishermen are just setting out.
She slices the pot free with wire and sets it beside the others on the shelf. Bowls, cups, jars—each with its own patience, its own flaw hidden or unhidden. Some squat and practical, others fragile as shells. Most will make their way to the display shelves, carried off by tourists still damp with seawater, sand clinging to their skin. A few will remain unsold, and those she will keep, until every meal in her home is served in the shape of her own hands.
Her palms itch to keep working, but she forces herself to stop. Too many at once and tomorrow will feel empty. She rinses her hands, water clouding with clay, and dries them against her threadbare apron. Her eyes shift to the kiln, brick-dark, older than she is. It waits for fire, but not until the heat outside softens and dusk takes the edge off the day.
For now, she tidies. She wipes down the wheel, sweeps the stray flecks into a small pile, stacks the wooden boards with care. These gestures—simple, ordinary—are part of the craft too, as though the work would be incomplete without them. The studio settles into stillness again, as if it were breathing with her.
She lingers in that quiet before the pull of the world tugs her outward. Sunlight blinds her as she steps into it, the sea glittering past the trees like a sheet of silver too bright to meet. Gravel crunches under her sandals as she makes her way down the road.
The mini-mart waits nearby, its air thick with dried fish and rice grains in open sacks. Behind the counter, Aling Berta waves, her smile wide and knowing.
“Isla! Clay again all morning?”
Isla nods, smiling faintly in return. She lays her list on the counter—rice, eggs, soap, powdered glaze she orders through the store. Aling Berta scans it, then glances at her.
“You work too hard, hija. No time to gossip with us?”
“The pots won’t shape themselves,” Isla answers lightly, though the truth sits beneath the words.
Outside, neighbors laugh, Coke bottles sweating in their hands. Someone calls out, “All you do is clay, Isla! When will you shape a husband instead?” The laughter follows, teasing but familiar, worn smooth from repetition. Isla lets it pass, neither hurt nor amused. She pays, thanks Aling Berta, and steps back into the sun.
The heat presses down, heavy. She walks home with the slow rhythm of someone already thinking ahead to evening. By dusk, jar in hand, she climbs the clifftop near her house. She sets it on a flat stone as though placing an offering, then folds herself cross-legged beside it, watching the horizon bleed orange into violet.
Below, waves break against limestone, scattering salt into the air. The sky dims, colors fading until only shadow and the breath of the sea remain. Then, almost on cue, the fireflies rise. First a handful, then dozens, then hundreds, pulsing like fallen stars that have chosen to settle close to the earth.
Isla rests her chin on her knees, watching their constellations spark alive in the brush. This island has always carried fire—in insects glowing, in the stories of healers, in the stubbornness of those who stayed when everything urged them to leave.
Far down the coast, scaffolding rises against the palms. The clang of hammers, the thrum of voices—an intruding future. A resort, no doubt. The sound scrapes the air, foreign and insistent, threading itself into the island’s present. Isla narrows her eyes, breath catching, then turns back to the jar at her side.
Her fingers graze the rim, gentle, almost tender, before she lifts her gaze to the fireflies, their rhythms steadying the dark.