The old woman cleared her throat as Ondine introduced herself and explained she was here to do some research for her dissertation on oral tradition as a method of cultural preservation. The old lady didn’t say a word but she began laughing until she started coughing and hacking, each heave of her chest seeming to be the last. It subsided and she sat there in her chair in the dense afternoon heat. “Come on up and have a rest. You’ve got that parched look to you which comes from living inland.”

Ondine walked over the overgrown path to the front verandah. There was a small pond in front of the house with an old fountain in the centre, nothing coming out of the odd, fishlike sculpture in the middle. She looked up from the fountain to see the old woman watching her carefully. She didn’t even seem to blink. Ondine couldn’t interpret much from the old woman’s face, which was like a piece of crumpled linen. She was fanning herself with an antique hand-held fan. She held a cane in the other and with it she summoned Ondine up the rotting steps and gestured toward an old bench.

Ondine sat down and took out her phone and a small black notebook and pen. “Perhaps you could just tell me some of your childhood stories, events of your life. Is it okay if I record you?” She showed the woman her phone and explained it worked as a recording device as well.

“Be my guest.” The old woman snorted as though it was amusing, as though technology wasn’t something to be taken seriously. “But we must get started for we won’t have long,” she said.

“Well, I’m doing research on a specific story, a legend, which originates from this area, of women who disappeared. It’s for my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, on storytelling.”

Ondine knew most of these women were related to her but did not mention she had heard about this from her grandmother. That part was personal. She didn’t want the old lady to know anything personal about her. How she wasn’t actually doing a dissertation — it was already completed. She had graduated. It was the bedtime stories her grandmother had told her as a child, and then her final ramblings, which had led Ondine back to this godforsaken place on the dusty dirt road.

The old woman shrugged, like none of this was news to her, like she had been expecting Ondine’s visit for a long time. She immediately began talking. “Ondine was my sister’s middle name, my sister Rose Ondine. It’s so old-fashioned, such a pretty name. An old family name.”

She’d gone there right away, Ondine noticed. Her sister. Before Ondine could make too much of it, the old woman raised her hand and pointed out toward the ocean, which Ondine could barely see through the trees.

“We don’t have much time on account of the tides. The tide’s coming in, you see. The weather might turn. I expect you’ll appreciate that like we all do.”