Ocean Cove

Everyone had run into the cabin to check on the information coming in from the devices on the whales. I heard someone ask me if I was coming, but I was so mesmerized by what I saw that their voices sounded far away, like they were on another boat. I distinctly became aware that it was Justin who was talking to me. I told him I’d be there soon and he ran in behind the others. As I scanned the water, I could see the dark outline of the boy underwater. Then quicker than I would have thought possible, he surfaced.

From his face I could tell that his skin was pale-white, but it looked good on him. It made him look handsome and it also gave him the look of a completely healthy person. He looked like he was fifteen or sixteen years old and he had jet black hair that was neck long and wild and even though he just came out the water it looked half-dry already.

He was smiling and looking around, but when he turned and realised I was looking directly at him, shock took over his face, like he’d made a dangerous mistake. Then, like he never existed in the first place, he just disappeared. I frantically searched the sea for any signs of a human in the water, but there wasn’t any. The nauseous feeling I was experiencing had subsided by this time and I wondered if indeed it was that sickening feeling that made me imagine I saw someone in the water. But although I was trying to convince myself that it was in my head, I just knew that he was real.

I quickly ran into the cabin. I just had to make sure. Everyone was looking at a monitor screen with whale song recordings and video footage. At that moment I wasn’t interested in that very much. I ran to the sonar monitor. There were two full red dots on the screen that I

guessed were the whales, and other red dots that only appeared when the circling green line passed their location, but nothing that resembled a human.

“What you looking for?” Hoggie came over and asked me. I had to think of something convincing to say because I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I saw a boy this far out in the sea.

“Just looking. Hey, um, if there was someone diving out in the sea, the sonar would pick them up, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. They would come up as a little person on the screen,” Hoggie said as he pointed at the monitor. He looked back at me and said: “Chase, you did good work out there. You made your father very proud of you.”

He patted me on the shoulder and rejoined the others.

“We’re heading back to the harbour now.” Dad came over and told me. I went back out on the main deck and looked out to sea for the rest of the ride back to land. I kept hoping the boy would come back up so I could get a proper look at him, mostly to reassure myself that I wasn’t crazy, but no such thing ever happened. There wasn’t even any visible sign of the whales after they’d been tagged. When I asked Charlie where they’d gone, he said they swam further out into the ocean.

Could I have really seen someone out there? I thought to myself. Then again, how could someone, even a kid, swim so for out to sea and back by himself? I didn’t even see another boat in sight, plus the currents alone would have drowned him. Then again, I did meet someone who seemed to be able to swim through incredibly strong currents. Perhaps this boy could too. Even if he could, he would have been too worn out to get back to shore alive. But I had to remind myself that no one was there, as no human showed up on the sonar. Then what did I see? Was there a problem with the sonar… or, maybe me? Maybe that bump at the back of my head is something to worry about after all.

That’s when the craziest thing I ever thought of occurred to me, something so silly I wouldn’t ever tell anybody I even considered the existence of such a thing. Gibbons alone

would have had a field day with the news. But could it be possible. Maybe the reason the boy didn’t show up on the sonar or how he could swim so far was, maybe he wasn’t human. Maybe he was… no. I quickly pushed this thought out of my head before it could develop into something.

“Chase. Let’s go!” Justin shouted at me. I was so consumed in thought that I didn’t realise we were back at the harbour and all the equipment was already loaded onto the truck. I hopped off the boat and joined the others.

On the drive back home I was silent, and Dad must have thought that was a sign of some remorse I was feeling, because when he dropped Justin and I off at our house he took me aside. His face was full of regret.

“Look Chase, I’m sorry I made you tag that Orca. I should have known you weren’t ready. It’s just you always said you wanted to do it and I thought you’d feel bad if you never got the chance. If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t get hurt, still probably doesn’t know the thing’s there.”

“What? Dad no, I know that. I don’t feel bad about tagging the whale. In fact it was great. I’m glad you gave me the chance to do it. It’s just that I’ve got something else on my mind, that’s all.” My dad looked relieved.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes Dad, I’m sure.”

“Okay. Well I’ve got to go. I’ll see you boys later.” He then ran back to the truck and drove away with everyone shouting “Bye” and “See ya later.”

“Sorry dude, but I’ve got to go too. There’s this big community party this evening and I promised I’d help set up. You want to come?” Justin asked me.

“What’s a community party?” I asked as I imagined some big formal party.

He chuckled. “It’s not as boring as it sounds. Actually it’s not boring at all. It’s really just an excuse for us to throw a big party for no reason. We do it every year in June.”

“I don’t know., I haven’t really been here this long to be going to a community party.” I said, sounding uneasy.

“Come on. You are a part of the community. And even people from other parishes come to this. You can get to meet my friends, it’ll be great.”

I thought about it, and after deciding I didn’t want to sit around the house and dwell on whether I was going crazy or not, I said yes and Justin said he’d come back at around three, and then he left. I checked my watch, it was now eleven o’ clock. “Perfect,” I said to myself. Just enough time to do some quick research.

I went up to my room, turned on the computer, logged on to the internet and wrote ‘super swimmers’ in the search bar. The results I got were a list of Olympic swimming gold medalist, people who swam the English Channel and people who seemed to enjoy swimming in extremely dangerous waters. Nothing that would really explain how a kid could swim so far out to sea or, as she came back to mind, how the girl on the beach had managed to save me and get us both out of last night’s treacherous waters.

I turned off the computer and dropped onto the bed, which my body was grateful for as my bones started to relax. But even as my body rested, my mind continued buzzing. As soon as I started thinking about the girl, I couldn’t get her out of my head. I remembered how her hair blew lightly in the wind, how beautiful and literally aglow she looked in the moonlight, how she smelled better than anything I ever smelled in my life. I closed my eyes and saw her more vividly in my head, looking at me with her brilliant blue eyes and a big smile on her face. I sighed and said out loud to myself: “Why do these things happen to me?” After a while I drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Bam! Someone had shot a cannon ball out of a cannon not far from me. Wait, that didn’t sound right. I shot up straight in bed and saw Justin picking up a book off the floor.

“I always wanted to do that.” He said, sitting in the only chair in the room.

“What time is it?” I asked incoherently, looking around as the sound of the waves slowly brought me back to reality.

“2:30.” He said, sounding very much at ease.

“You’re here early. How did you get in anyway?” I got out of bed.

“I got here about fifteen minutes ago and your Dad let me in. He said when he got back you were asleep.”

“Well, you’re going to have to wait a little longer because I’ve got to get ready.”

“Fine with me. I’ll just have a go on your PS3 while I wait.” He said and dashed downstairs.

I took a shower and got dressed in black jeans and a red shirt. By the time I was done it was exactly three o’clock.

“I’m ready.” I said as I walked downstairs and found Justin still playing Metal Gear Solid.

He turned it off.

“Hey, Dad you don’t mind that I’m going to this party, do you?” I asked as he walked into the living room and dropped himself on the couch.

“No not at all. I’m glad you’re going. This’ll give you a chance to make some more friends.” He started flipping through channels.

“Sure it will Dad. See ya later.”

As we walked up the road to get to the main road, I noticed the Morgans’ house looked a little deserted. The curtains were still drawn, and all the windows were shut. That’s when I

remembered it was Wednesday, my second day here and I still hadn’t seen anyone from that house.

“Hey Justin, have the Morgans moved out or something? I haven’t seen anyone in that house yet.” I asked as we turned left towards the main road.

“Nah. They always take a vacation during the summer to spend time with their kids. They’ll be back soon though.”

When we got to the main road we walked on the side until it took us around a corner, then we walked for five more minutes on the right side of the road, passing houses and shops until we turned on to a big pasture with a couple of trees here and there. There were lots of tents of many colors and tables filled with food, snacks and drinks, and there were rows and rows of colorful lights draped around the trees and hanging from poles, but they weren’t on yet. When it got dark, though, it would definitely be a pretty sight. There were also piles of toys and books and household stuff available for purchase everywhere. There was a huge tent at the back of the field and under it were huge speakers and a DJ. I figured it served as a dance floor and a crowd was already under there dancing to a local song I was unfamiliar with. Even though it was evening yet, there were still a lot of people present.

Most of the people we passed seemed to know Justin very well. I guessed when you lived in a small neighborhood everyone knew you. As we walked around I noticed people were smiling and waving at me as if they knew me for years. All I could do was wave back enthusiastically, all the while trying to hide the queasy feeling I was having inside.

“Do you know everyone here?” I asked, amazed as more people still either waved or shouted “Hey!” to Justin. I probably didn’t know this many people back in New York. Justin laughed before he answered.

“Well not everyone. Some are family and others are close friends, practically part of the family.” Justin said, searching frantically around, trying to see through the large crowd.

“There they are,” I heard him say over the loud music. I followed him through the crowd to a group of kids our age. When we caught up with them they greeted Justin and then he introduced them to me. There were five of them.

“Chase, this is Rachael,” she had long, sleek black hair, “Brandon,” a muscular boy who had his hair braided, “Maranda,” a tall, dark-skinned girl, “Kristian,” a boy who looked slightly older than me with very tanned white skin, and blond hair. “And his younger sister, Kimberley,” Justin finished. Kimberley had a small round face and small green eyes that liked like two small emeralds. Her blond hair rested lightly on her shoulders. In all Kimberley was a very good looking girl, that I had to admit, but it wasn’t like I was undressing her with my eyes or anything, so I didn’t understand why her brother, Kristian, was giving me such a strange look, like he wanted to convey with just looks that he hated me. It’s not like I’d done him anything. That’s when I noticed he had the same eyes as his sister. Feeling uneasy, I hastily looked away.

We all walked around for a while, eating and drinking everything we could. There was a

wide range of food available, for free of course. There was rice and peas, chicken, fish,

sheppard’s pie, sweet potato pie, macaroni pie, lasagna, breadfruit and salt fish, fish cakes, and

a whole lot more I didn’t recognize.

After eating a lot of food, we just relaxed by a tree for a while. I had to admit that Justin had really good friends. They were cool and liked making a lot of jokes, especially Brandon. I had noticed, however, that when everyone else was busy laughing, Rachael and Maranda would sneak glances at me from the corners of their eyes and would quickly turn away, blushing whenever I caught their eye. They wouldn’t do it together though, as though each one didn’t want the other to know what they were doing. I wondered when they would decide to try to catch me alone and when I chuckled at the thought I saw them both catch for breath. Brandon saw their expressions and then looked at me. I simply gave him a ‘it-wasn’t-me’ look.

I had always thought of myself as okay-looking, because back in New York, although girls weren’t breaking down my door, they weren’t scarce either. Here on East Island however, if other girls’ reaction to me was anything like Rachael and Maranda’s, then my life was going to be more interesting.

I made a mental note not to say or do anything that would give Rachael or Maranda wrong signals, because truth be told, there was already a girl that caught my attention. There was just something about the girl on the beach that screamed exciting to me. At that moment, a small gust of wind came directly at me, and with it I could have sworn I could smell that same great sea-like perfumed scent she had. I kept taking huge breaths of air just so I could keep inhaling the scent.

“Dude, you okay?” Brandon asked me. The others looked around too and I was positive this time that I saw Maranda and Rachel’s eyes dart to my chest. At that moment, I realised I should have worn a better shirt.

“Yeah I’m fine. The air out here is really good. Nothing like living by the cove though.” I had to have a good cover story. At least that sounded better than “I thought I smelled the girl I saw on the rocks in the sea.”

Maranda took her chance before Rachael could. She eased past the others and slid the tree next to me and took my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine, which took me by surprise. Rachael looked like she was about to grow horns, and I understood why. To anyone who didn’t know better, it would look like we were a couple. That was probably her plan. Girls could be so devious at times.

“So I hear you live by the cove. That’s amazing, I just live it down there, it’s so beautiful and peaceful.” She said very quickly, her face close to mine.

I blinked in surprise to our proximity and said, “You heard?”

“Well yeah. You and your parents are new here. News travels fast.”

I was trying in vain to find a way to unhinge my hand from hers. For the first time in my life I was desperately wishing my hands would sweat. Maranda wasn’t a bad girl, but she just wasn’t my type of girl.

After a while we started walking around again, and I finally got my hand free. Brandon, Justin and Kristian were trying to see who could eat the most hot dogs and Maranda, Kimberley

and Rachael were talking . I walked behind the others, not because I didn’t feel like part of the group, but because the girl on the beach had come back to my mind.

“Hey, are you alright?” Kimberley stopped to ask me.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” I replied.

“Well, you just seem distant, that’s all.”

I was about to say something else when I saw Kristian giving me that warning look again. I didn’t want to cause trouble with Kimberley and her brother, so I just thanked her for asking and let her rejoin the others. There was no doubt that Kristian was a bit protective when it came to his sister. I’d have to let him know I had no romantic feelings towards her before things got out of hand.

Just then I noticed a woman walking past us. She was dressed in a long, dark green dress that almost swept the ground, and had long, beautiful black locks. At first I didn’t take much notice of her. What I found slightly odd about her was her eyes. They were pitch black, but that itself wasn’t so odd; it was the way she used her eyes. It was like everyone she passed, she had to get a look at them. She looked at everyone she passed for half a second and went on to the next person. She did it in such a way that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it. When she was passing us she looked fully at the others in turn, Maranda, Brandon, Justin, Rachael, Kimberley and Kristian. It took her about ten second to look at them all. Then, as she was passing, she looked at me. At first it looked like she was going to move right on, then as fast as her eyes were off me they were back on. She looked at me in horror, clutching her chest as if a dark cloud of evil only she could see was around me. It actually scared me a little to see just how frightened she was.

In about two seconds she composed herself and walked on, glancing back at me every few steps. I looked around. No one seemed to have noticed what had happened. I was very grateful for that.

“Who was that woman that just passed us? The one with the dreadlocks?” I asked Rachael. She checked to see who I meant.

“That’s Hilda Jones, but everyone around here calls her Miss Hilda. She’s supposed to be a psychic or witch or something, at least that’s what people say. She usually keeps to herself, but she’ll mingle with other people every once in a while. She always comes to these sorts of events. Other than that I really don’t know much about her.”

She was a psychic. I really didn’t believe in such things, even with TV shows like Medium and Paranormal State. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the whole supernatural thing, although because of the girl on the beach and the boy I saw in the water, it was possible that this might start to change.

The look she gave me was hard to shake off and even harder to forget, even if I was skeptical of Madame Hilda’s abilities. It wasn’t right for her to just come up to me and do her freaky stare and act like something was wrong. It should be against the law to do that to someone who was unprepared for it. It probably was. I balled both my hands into a fist. Anger was beginning to well up inside me although I couldn’t really think of a good enough reason why. Staring at people wasn’t a crime. Still, it really got to me. I decided to find her and demand to know what it was all about. According to Maranda, Miss Hilda always had a tent at these events, so all I had to do was find it.

By this time Maranda was lurking near me again, but I told her I was going to take a walk alone for a while and just to make sure that she and Rachael wouldn’t try to repeat their little scenario. I looked at Maranda, smiling in a friendly way, told her that we were going to be great friends (I emphasized the word ‘friends’) and patted her gently on the shoulder.

When I turned away from her, both she and Rachael wore dumbfounded expressions, which kind of made me feel guilty. What was I supposed to do? Behind them I could have sworn I saw Kimberley smirking.

I didn’t have to walk very far or look too hard to find Miss Hilda’s tent. It was green with a wooden arrow sign outside that said ’Miss Hilda, Resident Psychic’. It wasn’t exactly

inconspicuous. Getting the courage to go in was a different story altogether. I must have been pacing up and down in front of her tent for five minutes (I was already seeing a path in the grass) before two kids came rushing out. One of them muttered “I told you so,” before they disappeared into the crowed. Then I heard a voice inside the tent call “Well, aren’t you going to come in boy, you did come to see me didn’t you?”

The fact that she even knew I was out there surprised me at first, but then I convinced myself that she could probably see through the material the tent was made of. I took a few breaths to calm myself and gather my thoughts before I went in. When I entered I saw that there wasn’t much inside the tent, just a long, rectangular table with a snow globe in the middle, two chairs on both sides of the table, and a life-sized mirror at the back that made the inside of the tent seem way bigger than the outside. I wondered if this was just a coincidence or if Miss Hilda was going for this effect. Either way the tent wasn’t very interesting, something I thought a psychic would have wanted to avoid if they wanted any costumers. Resting on the table in front of her was a huge hardcover novel, which she was reading.

Along with the illusion of the tent looking larger on the inside, I realised the music outside was only a babble in the background. I wondered how she could do that.

Hilda was sitting in the chair facing me, but she suddenly put her hand under the table, pulled up a bowl, and started shelling peas. Well, I figured she had to do something to pass the time. She indicated with her hand that I should take a seat and hesitantly, I did, though I couldn’t help seeing the way she kept glancing at me, as though she was seeing something she couldn’t believe--something horrible. Hilda continued shelling the peas as she spoke.

“It’s ten dollars to speak with me, and you get three questions, just so you know.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “I thought this was free.”

“Well not everything, plus this goes to charity. That’s the way it is, take it or leave it.”

For a quick second I thought about just leaving. I mean all she did to get me here was look at me. Maybe that was just a scheme to lure people here. And maybe it wasn’t even me

she was looking at, perhaps it was someone else. But I knew better. I knew she was looking at me, and I wanted to know why. And even if I didn’t believe in her ‘power’, she obviously did, so she must have thought she saw something. So, silently cursing myself, I took out my wallet and handed her ten dollars. After she pocketed it, she simply went back to her shelling.

“So, what can I do for you child?” She asked. I gave her an incredulous look at her use of the word ‘child’, a look she didn’t see.

I cleared my throat before I answered.

“Um, well I just wanted to ask you why you, um never mind I made a mistake.” I had suddenly had lost my nerve. There was just something about her that made me feel weird. I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her something that I knew would sound extremely stupid.

I quickly got up, but before I could get out Miss Hilda asked casually:

“Tell me boy, are you in love?”

I froze on the spot, unsure of how to answer. She had only glanced up to ask the question, then returned to her peas. This time I ignored the ‘boy’ jab and returned to my seat. My mind buzzed. Why on earth would she ask me that question? Maybe she saw me with Maranda and got the wrong idea or perhaps she knew about the girl on the beach and the feelings I was starting to develop for her. My heart started to race, partly from surprise at Miss Hilda’s question, but mostly from thinking about the girl on the beach.

Thankfully, Miss Hilda didn’t wait for my answer. I hoped it was because she guessed that I either wasn’t sure about my feeling or was too shy to say anything. However, she did have an odd smile on her face. In any case she simply asked another question, one which defiantly didn’t get under my ‘weird’ radar.

“Do you know what an aura is?”

“Umm, sure, I guess. I only know what I’ve heard from TV or read in books though. It’s a kind of light that’s around people, right? And only psychic people can see it.” I never really believed in that kind of stuff.

Hilda chucked before she responded.

“An aura is defined as an invisible emotional light that surrounds a person, and is a different color depending on how you’re feeling. This light can tell a lot about a person. Who they are, how they’re feeling, what can become of them. I guess you can say, it’s kind of a psychic journal of our souls.”

I figured she said this because she had something else she wanted to say, so I decided to just stay quiet for now and let her speak.

“I can tell, just from looking at you, that you’re not a person to believe in magic, you’d don’t believe in the supernatural, do you?”

She was looking at me now with those bottomless black eyes of hers, no longer shelling her peas, though her hands were still in the bowl.

“No. I don’t believe in the supernatural.” Was my short but hopefully (I didn’t want to insult her) polite answer.

“Well then, let’s just say that I’m a very gifted person, and one of my little gifts is the ability to see people’s auras. All my life I’ve been able to see them. I’ve even traveled the world just to see people’s auras, to see what kind of people there are in the world, and believe me, there are people out there with lives you’d never imagine.”

Miss Hilda put her bowl of peas back under the table and gave me her full attention.

“The reason you came here is you want to know why I gave you that look back out in the field.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well, I was thinking about it,” I said sheepishly. Miss Hilda looked at me oddly again, this time it was like she was trying to decide what to say.

“The reason I looked at you so oddly is because, for some reason, I couldn’t see your aura. Actually I still can’t see it. Everyone’s aura is unique, Chase, but no matter what, I can always see it. Never in my life had I ever meet someone without an aura. It just surprised me, that’s all.”

“Alright, let’s say I believe you. Do you know why you can’t see my aura?”

“No, I don’t know. Maybe for some reason it’s invisible to me or maybe you just don’t have one anymore.”

“How does it just disappear? And if I don’t have one, is that a bad thing?” I asked a little nervously.

Miss Hilda fixed me with a look first, then said:

“I never heard of anyone living without an aura, though I don’t think it will really mean anything if you don’t have one. Now as far as how you lose it, I can’t answer that.”” She checked her watch. “You’ve been here for a full fifteen minutes. Most people only stay for ten.”

After that she took out her bowl again and continued shelling her peas. I took it to mean that our little session was over. I thanked her and got up to leave, but just before I got out of the tent, I heard Hilda say: “Chase, I’ve met your parents. They’re good people and I would hate for you to do something that would end up hurting them. Just be careful of who you make friends with.”

And with that I left the tent, the music reaching its right level again, bringing me back to

reality.

* * *

By the time I got back to the others it was already dark and all the lights I had seen before were now burning bright. Justin and the others asked me where I went, but as I wasn’t up for telling them about my talk with Hilda. I just told them my walk took longer than I thought it would have. They didn’t question that and Kristian especially looked like he really wasn’t bothered.

After Rachael suggested that we do something fun, we headed to the dance floor. Most of the people at the party were dancing and enjoying themselves. As soon as we got there, the others ran right onto the dance floor and joined in with everyone else, but as I wasn’t much of a dancer, I decided to just settle in a chair for a while.

Even with all the noise and the people, I was still able to settle myself. I looked up and saw a bright, starry sky above. The moon was huge and bright and shone a kind of yellow as it hung in the sky, and that’s when it happened. I caught a whiff of that perfume-like smell that had been on the girl from the beach. I got out of the chair and looked around, my heart pounding, hoping to see her again. I started to feel dizzy and my head hurt without warning. I clutched both sides of my head as if trying to block out the noise.

“Chase, are you feeling alright?” It was Rachael who asked. She had grabbed both my hands in an attempt to pull them away from my head, but strangely, when she did this, the sudden headache that had just developed disappeared along with the strong, sea-like fragrance.

I looked up and saw not only Rachael, but the others and a few strangers staring at me. I smiled before I spoke.

“I’m fine. I just had a little headache, but it’s gone now.”

“Are you sure? Do you need aspirin or something?” Kimberley asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I checked my watch. It was just after nine. I didn’t even realize so much time had passed. “You know, I think I’m going to go home.”

The others volunteered to walk home with me (with the exception of Kristian, who scowled at his sister for volunteering), but I declined. I didn’t really feel like lying down, but with everything that had happened so far I just wanted to be alone, and the walk home would do fine.

The night had gotten cold and goosebumps erupted all over my arms, but the cold feeling barely reached my consciousness as I was deep in thought. What was really happening

to me? I wasn’t even in East Island for a full week and already things I didn’t understand were happening.

First of all I fell off a cliff and almost died, but thankfully I was saved from deadly rough tides by a ridiculously beautiful girl who disappeared before I could even get her name. Who even does that? Then I saw some kid swimming way out in the sea without any gear or even a nearby boat. Then, a supposed psychic told me she was worried because she thought I’d lost my aura. It was a lot to take in… a lot more than most seventeen year old teenagers were equipped to deal with.

I couldn’t help thinking that maybe if I could just see the girl from the beach again, everything would somehow make sense, it would all work out, like everything was somehow connected to her. She had the answers to questions I didn’t even ask. It was unreasonable for me to put all this on her, but all of it started happening on the night I met her.

In a couple of minutes my house came into view, but as I was passing near the road to the cove, for a few seconds I contemplated going down there to see if the girl was there. In fact, I even turned to head down the road, until a strange sensation came over me. All of a sudden I just had this urge to get home. I didn’t know why, but I felt like something was pulling me there, like my limbs were connected to invisible wires, pulling me home. With every step that brought me closer to the door, my breath got shorter and my heart began to beat faster, knowing that something was waiting for me on the other side. I finally got to the front door and opened it, and had the biggest surprise in my life.

My parents were sitting in the living room, but they weren’t alone.

“Chase, these are the Morgans. They got back from their vacation a few hours ago. This is Marcus Morgan.” Mom motioned to was a tall man who looked to be in his late twenties. He had short, wavy black hair and surprisingly pale skin. His eyes, I noticed, were sky blue. “This is his wife, Salathia.” Salathia was a very beautiful woman. She had long, blond hair and smooth-looking olive-tanned skin. She had striking dark blue eyes.

“This is their oldest son Michael.” Dad indicated a boy sitting on his mother’s left. He looked to be around nineteen or twenty at the most. His skin was just as pale as Marcus’s, but he had his mother’s honey blond hair. And then I felt like someone had knocked the air out of me, because sitting at the end of the chair next to Michael and looking extremely surprised, was someone I wasn’t even sure was real in the first place. The boy I saw in the sea this morning balled his hands into fists in his lap, looked me straight in the eye and shook his head slightly as if trying to tell not to do something, which I guessed was talk about what happened this morning. If he ever thought I was going to mention that in front of all these people, he was wrong.

“That’s their youngest child, Nikolai.” Mom said.

Even as I stood there in front of my parents’ guests though, that strange sensation was still tugging at my consciousness, pulling me to some force that I seemed to secretly desire. And as I stood there I realised that I could feel that force coming towards me, drawing nearer to me by the second.

Just as I looked towards the hallway was when she walked out. Tall and slender-looking, she was wearing a blue shirtdress and heels. Her long, slight curly black hair was bouncing off her shoulders. I couldn’t tell if anyone picked up on it, but as she entered the room, it was filled with her scent, that sea-flowers aroma that always smelled so good. When she saw me, she walked past everyone and walked up to me.

“Hi. I’m Lyla. It’s nice to meet you.”

63 | O c e a n C o v e – b y K e m a r J a m a l D o u g h t y . J u n e , 2 0 1 3