The wind was cold in the grey before the dawning, but I walked along the misty shoreline anyways. It was a ritual of mine, to leave before dawn, to see the sun rise over the ocean as I said my prayers. My mother didn't know about the prayer part. She just thought I liked the mist-- which was true, but there was more to it. There always is.

I hummed as I walked, an old love song, my hands holding the shawl to my chest. Rain spit from the grey sky, the waves crashing along the hard stones as far as I could see-- past the cliffs, behind me to my parent's home. It was beautiful.

I came to the tall stone just before the sky lightened at the horizon. Five feet high and rough on three sides, it was in a sheltered cove where the sea beat more softly. It was a peaceful place, facing the east, and I came almost every morning.

My hands knew the holds to climb the rock, and trusting that the breeze would not blow away my shawl, I tied it in a knot and climbed, feeling the spray on my face as a wave hit the side of the rock.

I breathed deeply, welcoming the cold autumn air, and closed my eyes as I settled on the flat top of my rock. The sun was beginning to peek over the sea. I spread my skirt over the edge. I liked the sea to splash it for some reason-- I liked the damp weight of it against my legs as I walked back. It kept the sea with me, even though I saw it every day.

"Hail Mary," I began whispering, my hand on my rosary, "full of grace..."

It would have surprised my mother to know I still prayed like a good Catholic, though I went out to the sea like a heathen rather than a church. She liked to go to the early Mass in town, but I liked it here. The tiny cove was a place of the soul, not of gruesome pictures of the Man on the cross or the saints with their wounds. There was no priest here to too-eagerly hear our confessions, no choir chanting about the day of wrath. There was only the wind, and the rain, and the sea. It felt older than the church, and it spoke a language my soul understood.

"You come here very early," said a familiar voice from behind me.

"Always," I responded with a smile, turning to the shore. "But you are never far behind me."

He climbed on the rock and sat next to me, his fur coat long and dark. "Are you cold?" he asked, taking off his coat and offering it to me.

I shook my head. "No, I have my shawl, but thank you." I threw a tiny pebble into the water, looking away. "I haven't seen you in weeks."

He sighed, setting the coat between us. "It was hard to leave home for a while," he replied simply.

We had never told each other our names or where we came from. I said I came from along the shore to the north, he said he came from along the shore to the south, and our walks just so happened to meet here, so early in the morning. He found the cove as peaceful as I did.

The rain started to fall harder, but I didn't mind. "My mother would go mad if she knew you were here," I began with a smile.

"Oh no," my friend replied with a smile on his handsome face. "All the terrible, horrible things we've done here and are hiding."

I laughed. There was nothing to hide, of course, nothing between this young man and I. We were two solitary souls finding solace in the sea at sunrise, that was all, no matter how many strange dreams I had. The kind where I would wake up feeling as though something had been found, but it was so unsatisfying, so empty, that it left me hollow the whole day. But he and I were just two people who would meet here; both young, both seeking peace.

"You sang the same song today, the same one you were singing the last time I saw you. Have you sung it the whole time I was gone?"

I shrugged. "I like the song. I learned it from an old woman in town." 

"It's very sad."

"You've still got your Irish, then? You understand the words?"

He looked at me as if I were an idiot. "We all still have our Irish at home. Haven't you?"

I shook my head. "My parents think it's backwards, but I think the songs sound better in it."

"Me too."

There was silence for a moment as we stared towards the blanketed sun. My hair was plastered to my face, my braid turned a darker brown by the water. I shivered involuntarily.

My friend was quick to notice. He threw the coat round my shoulders before I could protest, looking at me with grey eyes that sparkled like the sea did this morning. It was warm and dry.

"It's too cold to be out here long," he said with a small smile on his lips. 

"I should go anyways," I said, slipping off the coat and handing it back to him as I stood. Then I jumped softly from the rock to the beach below, looking up at my friend. "But I have a question for you."

"Anything," he responded, sliding to lay on his belly and putting his head in his hands, so we were at eye level-- my green, his grey, only a little apart.

"Will you be here tomorrow? I missed you."

He looked at me happily. "I hope so."

I smiled and stepped away. "Goodbye, then, until tomorrow."

"Go dtí amárach," he said, as I began my walk north, towards home. I heard him jump to the beach too, but when I looked over my shoulder he was standing by the rock with his fur coat in his hands, and a smile on his too-handsome face.

It was likely wrong to think of him as handsome-- I don't know why it would be wrong, but it probably was-- especially because I did not even know his name, but he had a face that just drew me in. I would never have admitted it in a thousand years, of course, but it was true. I liked the mystery of him.

I thought about him the whole way home. There was no boy I fancied in the village, so why not?