Page 49 of The Rising Tide

It doesn’t look like that now.

If the town they left behind was a war zone, this is a hostile planet. From north to south, the Atlantic rolls oil-black behemoths towards the shore. Each new wave blows streamers of smoke-like spray into the night. By the time they break, they’re of such colossal size they appear to collapse in slow motion. Every explosion of surf produces a shockwave that Lucy feels in her chest.

The beach itself is a graveyard. Flotsam and jetsam litter the sand all the way to the backshore. Boulders the size of family cars have crashed on to the southern flank from what looks like a partial collapse of Mortis Point’s north face.

‘Can we get closer to the water?’ Lucy asks.

Penleith’s hard-packed sand is drivable all the way to the surf. As the car crosses the beach, its headlights pick out the junk the sea has washed up. Driftwood is piled inhuge stacks. Broken netting and plastic packaging lie everywhere. Among it, Lucy sees sun-faded navigation buoys, smashed lobster pots, barnacle-encrusted ropes, a rusted bicycle, scores of dead fish. When they draw closer to the sea, she spots what looks like the backbone of a sperm whale. Seaweed flutters like rags from its individual vertebrae.

‘Remember that container ship back in ’97, theTokio Express?’ Tommo asks. ‘Lost half its cargo off Land’s End. Five million pieces of Lego went overboard.’

Everyone in Skentel knows about theTokio Express. Twenty years later, the plastic bricks are still washing up. Fin has a small stack in his room.

Fin.

Lucy closes her eyes.

Shallow breath in. Shallow breath out.

The sea is closer now. Breakers glitter in the headlights. Twenty yards from the waterline, Tommo stops the car. When he kills the engine, the booming of the breakers intensifies. Two thousand miles of wild ocean separate them from the next land mass.

Wind buffets the car, rocking it on its springs.

‘I need to get out,’ Lucy says.

Her friends trade silent looks. ‘OK,’ Noemie replies. ‘But just for a little while, OK?’

Such is the wind’s power that they have to force open the doors. Outside, they huddle on the wet sand. Hardly imaginable, staring at that sea, that Lucy was out there a few hours ago. Utterly unimaginable that Daniel sailed Billie and Fin into it.

A tangle of netting skids across the beach. Lucy watches it pass. Then she raises her voice above the wind. ‘We hadso many good times down here. I always told them this was my favourite place on Earth. Now look at it.’

Noemie rubs her shoulder. Lucy steps away, breaking contact. She can’t bear to be touched. ‘They’re not gone,’ she says. ‘Billie and Fin. I’d feel it. If they weren’t here any more, I’d know.’

Hard to swallow. Hard to acknowledge her friends’ silence and its meaning.

‘That happens, doesn’t it?’ she asks Bee. ‘Some kind of mother’s instinct?’

‘I think only you know what you know.’

‘Idoknow. They’re alive. I can tell.’

Lucy walks forwards. Ahead of her, the surf looks like foaming milk. She strips off Bee’s jacket. Before anyone can stop her, she charges into the water. The shock of it’s so sharp it’s like wading through broken glass.

Noemie cries out. Another breaker detonates. Suddenly, Lucy’s submerged to her waist. The returning water pulls her off her feet. Quickly, she gathers speed, sliding feet first towards an open maw of sea.

Noemie’s screaming now. Bee, too. Frantic sounds, lost to a fizzing of white water.

Ahead, a monster wave is building. Geysers of spray twist off its crest. Lucy floats in marbled surf, too stunned to take a breath. The wave breaks over her. The world goes black. She’s rolled, blasted backwards, bounced along the bottom.

Opening her arms, she makes claws of her fingers, drags them through hard sand. But the water’s too powerful. She can’t make an anchor. The water switches direction and she’s sliding even faster out to sea.

Up on the surface, another wave breaks. The pressurein her ears is huge. Air bubbles from Lucy’s mouth. She kicks her legs, ignoring the agony from her broken ribs. Reaching out, she tries to swim. Her head knocks against something hard. Her hand manages to snag it.

Then an arm is around her back. Her face is out of the water. She hears voices – Noemie’s and Tommo’s and Bee’s. She sees them waist-deep in water. Shouting, they drag her through the surf. Another wave is forming, this one even larger than the last. There’s no way they’ll outrun it, or prevent the rip from carrying them out.

6

But somehow they do.

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