“You must always finish the story”
The Moon and the Sun“You must always finish the story” is the Sea Woman’s sung rule for Marie-Josèphe de la Croix as she tells the sea people’s history. It makes completion more than a matter of narrative form: Marie-Josèphe must continue even when the story becomes painful, and her spoken promise binds her to do so. The phrase returns when she falters over the Northmen’s violence, linking the act of telling to the responsibility of preserving what happened.
A rule imposed on the telling
During Marie-Josèphe’s account of Atlantis, she stops after describing the sea people searching for their friends and never seeing them again. She says that the visitors have heard all she can tell, but the Sea Woman responds angrily, splashing her and demanding an explanation. Marie-Josèphe asks, “How could I tell them — ?” Her unfinished question gives way to the Sea Woman’s instruction: “You must always finish the story. Promise, or I’ll tell no more. You must always finish the story.”
The demand sets a condition on the Sea Woman’s continued sharing: Marie-Josèphe is to complete the story, or the Sea Woman will stop telling her more. Marie-Josèphe answers, “Very well,” and promises, “From now on, no matter what, I’ll finish the story.” Her words make the instruction a commitment. The scene closes not with another tale, but with the visitors calling for one and a servant bringing a note to Count Lucien; the promise has been made just as the account is interrupted by events around the cage.
The promise tested by violence
The phrase returns when Marie-Josèphe tells of the Northmen’s attacks. She recounts that the men used sea women against their will and threw them overboard; the women floated injured and bleeding. At this point Marie-Josèphe chokes on tears and pleads, “Please, sea woman, please, no more.” The shift is sharp: the storyteller who had promised to continue now asks to stop at the very moment the story exposes its most brutal detail.
The Sea Woman answers by invoking the promise: “You must finish, the sea woman sang. You promised to finish the story.” Marie-Josèphe continues. The sea people comfort the injured women, but danger has not passed: hunting sharks gather around the group, drawn by the blood. The sea people form a protective circle around the wounded and their children, while their song carries description and warning through the sea so other families can beware the people of land and their ships. The demand to finish therefore brings the account beyond injury to the community’s response and its effort to protect others.
Storytelling as obligation and witness
Across these scenes, the repeated instruction marks the difference between stopping at distress and carrying a history through its consequences. In the Atlantis account, the loss of the sea people’s friends threatens to end the telling; in the Northmen account, Marie-Josèphe’s grief makes her ask for silence. Each time, the Sea Woman insists that the story continue. The repetition gives the phrase force as a reminder of a specific promise, not merely as general encouragement to tell stories.
The obligation does not erase Marie-Josèphe’s reaction: her unfinished question, tears, and request to hear no more remain part of the scene. Instead, the promise makes her continue despite that distress. Once she does, the story includes not only what was done to the sea women but also how the sea people tended the injured, sheltered the children, and warned other families. In this way, “You must always finish the story” connects the completion of an individual tale to the transmission of knowledge about danger and survival.
