Finis

I knew the wave was coming before it hit me. Knew there was no coming out of this storm.

And I dove-- into the chaotic, frothing abyss of the sea, straight for the place a small, dark head had disappeared.

Rory, first, I tell myself. I feel his arm, cold, shove him.

Someone pulls him away from me, someone standing on the slippery rock. Trace? Dad? Mum?

It doesn't matter anymore. Words unspoken are left unspoken forever now.

I strike out through the cold sea, but my arms are going numb. I flail, wildly.

She cannot die tonight, not my sea angel, not the child who brought me hope.

My arm brushes hers, small and feeble, and then my hands are around her waist and I'm dragging her, pushing against the rock and the wild, wild sea, because this is a battle I will not lose. Not this time, not ever again.

The ocean screams at me, raging as I rob her of her prey. And so I whisper, "Take me instead," and the sea relents, allows me to use every strength left in my numb arms to shove her towards the safety of the rock and her brothers.

I hear Trace scream my name, hoarse and rough above the storm, but I do not fight towards him.

Not anymore.

The wave hurls my body, limp now, towards the rock.

I have learned to kiss the wave that hurls me against the rock of ages.

My body absorbs the impact, vaguely I feel the pain as I begin to choke on seawater, and I think of Adie.


Take me, instead.

Another wave, brutal and cold, filling my nose and mouth.

Oh God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.

The waves pull me under, I see nothing but dark water, dark and beautiful and bitter, like every brief day when I danced above the chaos, every brief minute it took to find my way back to my mum, every brief second I spent with the fistfighter whose hands were gentle.

Our shelter from the stormy blast...

The waves sweep me towards the rock again, and I close my eyes.

And just before the rock and the waves overtake me, I see her again, my sister, standing at the cliff's edge. But she's not jumping, not falling away from me, not today.

Today she's singing.

"And our eternal home," she cries for me, finishing my song and the words echo in my ears, and then she is running to take me in her arms.

Another wave.

And it is finished.