Story of Niuma

It happened decades ago on an island in the north of the Maldives. I was seventeen, and there was a full moon that night, bright enough for me to see the grains of sand along the beach. I had gone down to the shore alone. I no longer remember why. I may not have been able to sleep, or I may simply have been restless.

That was where I saw Niuma, my neighbour, walking close to the water. She was heavily pregnant. Her dress clung to her body, and under the moonlight her face looked pale. I wanted to call out to her, but my voice would not come. The beach was so quiet that I could not hear the waves or the crickets.

A smell reached me from the shore, rotten fish mixed with something metallic and sweet, and my stomach turned. Soon after came a wet dragging sound across the sand, as though something heavy were being pulled. Near the surf, two red eyes were watching. They were low to the water and did not blink. A black shape lifted from the sea, long, thin and slick. It might have been a hand, or it might not.

Niuma stopped moving and whispered something under her breath. The shape caught her by the ankle. She screamed, a sound I have never heard since, as if something were tearing her apart from the inside. She clawed at the sand until her nails broke, but the sea would not let go. Within seconds the water had swallowed her whole.

By morning, they had found only her head. Her eyes were open. So was her mouth. An island sorcerer came to the beach, drew circles with coral ash and whispered his verses. Afterwards, he said the place was safe.

I never believed him. Even now, when the moon is full and the air has that same heaviness, I swear I can still hear it, that wet dragging sound on the sand.