The Shop at the End of the Island
Image created on Canva
Like a sea eagle perched on the cliff side, there sits a shop on the northernmost point of Kangaroo Island. A hooded figure walks the long, winding limestone path towards a shack; a salty squall threatens to blow her coat off. She glances up at the engraved sign reading Seawitch Supplies.
As she enters the shop, her eyes adjust to the gloom. Firstly, she notices the artefacts from shipwrecks posed in glass displays, such as compasses and jewellery. She marvels at the desiccated sand dollars and ammonite shells, and wanders past the shelves of dusty cookbooks, lace-clad dolls and jars of ink.
A woman, with long dark hair swirling around her waist, behind the counter lifts the young woman out of her daydreams. She pulls her grandma’s scrapbook out from her rucksack – a large tome wrinkled around every edge. She flips to the back of the book where she finds grandma’s words written in pink glitter pen. “I’m looking for samphire jam.”
The woman wordlessly goes to the back storage room and returns with a Mason jar filled with a green-brown substance. It glimmers as if dew drops on a mossy mass.
“It goes great on sourdough bread. The muntrie berries add a sweetness to it. Do you have a loyalty card?”
The hooded young woman fumbles through the crusty book until a crinkled rectangle falls out.
“That’s the one. You have a free one: On the house.”
THe dark-haired woman stamps the card with a seashell pattern and gives it back to her.
“You’re aware of what samphire jam does, right?”
She didn’t want to believe that Grandma’s ramblings were true, but she nods. The door chime tinkles as she exits the shop.
The young woman races home across the fields towards the town of Kingscote. The fly screen clashes behind her as she bursts through the front door. In her bedroom, she retrieves her favourite candles – a cactus, a skull, and a cat-shaped one that she didn’t want to use as the face had begun to melt away.
In the dim living room, Grandma sits in a wheelchair, her abundant white hair like an albino lion’s mane.
“Can we make your special damper bread?” the young woman asks.
Grandma heaves herself out of her chair while Prism goes to the kitchen to find the spelt flour and golden wattle seeds. This isn’t any ordinary spelt bread that they were making though, this was spell bread.
On wobbly legs, Grandma takes the wooden arrow within her wizened hands and dangles it on a string over the bowl. As she begins to babble in old Norse. The arrow swirls fiercely and the dough squirms, like a creature bristling to life.
As the spell takes hold, Grandma’s hair darkens and her wrinkles smooth out.
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Vela Noble
Vela Noble is an American/Australian artist who has storyboarded on Dreamworks shows for Netflix. She is currently majoring in both Japanese and Creative Writing at Adelaide University.
Find Vela on her website.
