Page 187 of Vying Girls
CHAPTER 32
Nic
The sun shines on my face, nice at first, now starting to burn with my sun-delicate skin. I fling an arm over my eyes, my sigh melding with the waves mere metres away.
It’s still pleasant out here—secluded, warm for once, home for a few days.
Another sound reaches me. Intermittent, my ears twitching each time. It’s subtle, just the sound of feet crunching over shells and sand, but a reminder I’m not alone nevertheless.
I crack an eye open. She’s still on the shore, hunched over as she beachcombs, one hand full of treasures.
My eyelashes create a filter, hazy and golden. Like I’m looking at the past. That beach day that never happened. She’d still bedoing this, roping me in too. I can see our footprints in the sand, mine right beside hers as she makes me hold her finds.
It’s sad. It’s healing. It’s undoubtedly necessary to get us wherever we’re going.
My eyes open fully when she turns in my direction, her face a satisfied mask.
‘Literally love this beach,’ she says as she plonks down next to me.
‘Me too.’
‘Never knew it existed.’
‘Mm. That’s the point.’
She looks around. ‘We could move the tent down here.’
‘Sure, if you want the tide to wash us away in the night.’
Tilda snorts. ‘God, I’m so dumb.’ She shuffles the stuff in her hand, eyes facing the ocean.
It’s in these silences where my heart beats quicker, the elephant in the room peeking its head around the door. We came here to talk. I know it, she knows it. Shit, Elly and Haz practically forced us out here. We’re both procrastinating, a certain shyness rendering us reticent.
‘You done with yourcrow-ing?’
She nods, finally showing me her finds. ‘I got this for Haz.’ She taps a black stone, with an unbroken red line around it. ‘And this for Elly.’ A blue shell, reminiscent of Elly’s eyes. ‘And this’—she holds out a sizeable stone—‘is for you.’
I accept it from her, taking in the perfect hole right in the centre.
‘A hag stone. They’re magic.’
‘Mm-hm.’ I turn it over in my hand, stupidly touched with the gift. ‘How so?’
‘They’re wishing stones. They also let you see things. Like a baby portal.’
I hold it up to my eye indulgently. ‘See what?’
‘Dunno. The other side. Fairies and things. Or—just whatever you want to see. The future, maybe.’
I turn my head, letting the sight of Tilda fill the hole.
The future.
Lowering the stone, I juggle it idly in my hand.
‘Are you going to make a wish?’ Tilda asks softly.
Looking at her, I put the stone back up to my eye. Then I close them.
