Originally published in the online journal, Drunken Boat, “Lettie from the Ocean” is fan fiction by Caroline Wilkinson. As fan fiction, it is not concerned with spoilers. If you are concerned with this issue and have not read the novel that the title of this piece refers to, Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, please stop reading. If you have not read Gaiman’s novel but care nothing about spoilers, read on. You will understand something of the subsequent piece. The following summary of Gaiman’s novel may help.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins with a nameless male narrator returning to his childhood home as an adult. As a boy, he was saved from evil forces by a girl down the lane, Lettie Hempstock. During this battle with evil, Lettie suffered seemingly fatal injuries. Her mother placed the girl’s body in a pond by the Hempstock’s home, which is, in fact, an ocean. For countless years, Lettie must remain in this ocean to heal from her injuries.
While, as an adult, the narrator remembers Lettie as ultimately moving to Australia, he recalls the true past after being drawn back to the Hempstock’s home.
You too, reader, are being drawn back to Lettie. She is contacting you from a phone that, like the pond by her home, is an ocean. You can pick up below.
All images from Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities.