Beyond the Rising Tide (4 page)

The flashlight beam moves right through me to where the trail has been washed away, and the girl gasps.

“Whoa,” the boy says, taking the girl by the arm as though he doesn’t trust her to keep a safe distance from the edge. “Thanks for the warning.”

Charles nods, and the two hikers step through some undergrowth to where the trail picks up again. The girl pauses and gives Charles a curious look. “Are you up here alone? Do you want to walk down with us?”

“Thanks for the offer,” he says. “But go ahead. I have friends nearby.”

She gives a satisfied nod, and she and the boy continue, disappearing into the trees.

Just like that, Charles’s assignment is complete. He waits until the hikers’ voices fade, then he slips off the ring. I’ve seen him dematerialize before, but still find it fascinating. His hair darkens to its natural gray, and even though I can still see him, he disappears to mortal eyes. His clothes have changed to his slightly luminous shirt and pants, and his mortal clothes now lie in a heap on the ground. I wonder now if the stray hunting garb I sometimes found in the woods as a kid were left there by people like him.

I look away as he slips the ring into his left pocket. Nothing raises a red flag like staring at the object you’re about to steal. I step toward him, a plan solidifying in my mind. I’ve had lots of practice at this kind of stuff, so it comes easy. Distraction and a sleight of hand—that’s all it takes.

“Charles,” I say. “You haven’t heard anything about my mom, have you?” The question sounds completely sincere, because it is. The mystery of my mom’s whereabouts is something that torments me almost constantly.

Charles shakes his head, his features softening into commiseration. “Why don’t you come back to Demoror with me, and we’ll see if anyone else has.”

I nod, stepping closer and casually positioning my hand near his left pocket. “I think I will.”

As we quicken back to Demoror, the movement of my hand is so swift he doesn’t even notice it dipping in and out of his pocket.

I am not a thief
.

I repeat the words in my mind before saying them out loud. “I am not a thief. I’m only borrowing Charles’s ring.” There’s no one around to hear it but me, yet I don’t even manage to convince myself.

Beneath the pier at Avila Beach, an unending procession of waves explodes against the posts. It’s still raining, the tide high and the water rough. I don’t know what time it is, but the sky is black and the streets and shops above the beach are vacant.

I unfurl my fingers to reveal Charles’s ring. It looks similar to my wristband—silverish metal with a stone inlay—yet serves an entirely different purpose. And even though it’s smaller than my wristband, it feels heavier. Maybe it’s the weight of guilt, of something stolen.

Only, it’s
not
stolen. It’s
borrowed
. I’m not a thief.

I’ll have it back to Charles before he even notices it’s gone. I hope, anyway. If I’m going to help Avery, I’ll need at least a couple weeks. Charles shouldn’t need his ring before then, but I hope that if he notices it missing, he’ll forgive me. That he’ll understand.

Brushing aside the guilt, I hold the ring over the tip of my finger and hesitate only a second before sliding it on.

For a long moment, I wait to feel something or see a change, but nothing happens. Maybe it’s that easy. Maybe I materialized without realizing it. To test, I reach for a wooden post.

My hand sweeps right through it.

A wave of disappointment washes over me as I consider that maybe the ring only works for Charles.

I’m about to take the ring off when a light mist begins to rise from the sand at my feet. I watch with wide eyes as it thickens into a cloud of dust, like dry dirt in a gust of wind. It swirls around me and starts clinging to me. I hold perfectly still, partly because I’m a bit terrified at what’s happening, and partly because, if this is how a materialized body is formed, I don’t want to mess it up.

I feel something moving inside of me, rapid bursts of energy darting from the center of my chest to my limbs. Like a rush of adrenaline, only more electric, and it cycles through me over and over. I’m on the verge of crying out in pain when it abruptly stops.

I look around, and the mist is gone. With apprehension I hold up my hand, and it looks the same as it did before. But then I notice something else.

I can smell the rain. And the ocean. The wet sand and salt, ancient things that have been turned over in the surf again and again. I’m still under the pier, so I step over to where the rain is falling. Slowly, I stretch out my open hand, terrified that I’m not really solid.

And then I feel the rain. Not falling through my hand, but hitting it. Gathering in my palm. It’s cold and wet and tangible. I step out into the open and raise my face to the sky, letting the rain sprinkle my face. For just a minute I’m a kid again, carefree in a summer rainstorm, wet sneakers splashing through puddles and leaves racing down overfilled gutters. And then for the first time in months, I shiver from being cold.

In this moment, I know two things. One, I need to see Avery. And two—which maybe should have been number one—I need to find some different clothes. If I’d planned this out a little better, I would have materialized in Macy’s or the Goodwill or something. My pants and shirt are the shade and brilliance of the moon and cut like a karate gi. Standard apparel in the afterlife, but here I look like some sort of extraterrestrial white ninja screaming for attention.

I try to quicken to the shops lining the beachfront. But that doesn’t work with this body, so I start treading through the sand. After months of quickening, walking feels tedious. So I run instead. The sand feels gritty on the soles of my feet, and the night air is cool as it fills my lungs. The muscles in my thighs and calves contract and expand with each stride. It may not be as fast as quickening, but it feels amazing.

The shops are dark and empty. Preferable, seeing how I’m about to commit burglary. I wish crime didn’t have to be my first act as a materialized being, but my options are pretty limited. I don’t have any money, and even if I did, strolling through a store when I’m dressed like a radioactive Luke Skywalker would attract way too much attention.

I can always find a way to pay for the damages later.

If I have a later.

It doesn’t take long to scope out the shops and decide on one bordering an alleyway. I slip down the alley as stealthily as my luminous clothes allow, then peer through the windowed side door, scanning the walls and ceiling to make sure they’re free of security cameras. To cushion my fist, I pull off my shirt and wrap it around my hand.

As I turn back to the glass door, I’m met with my own reflection. I barely recognize myself. My hair has always been sandy blond, but now it’s
really
blond. Like, white blond. Charles’s hair is always white when he materializes, but I thought that was just because he’s old. My eyebrows are still dark, but my skin looks smoother, the edges of my face more defined. And my eyes are less shadowed, like someone with a clean conscience.

Not for long.

I make a fist beneath my shirt, cock my hand back, and then slam it into the glass. The glass cracks, and something cracks inside of me too. The recently acquired conviction that I’m a good person.

It’s for Avery
, I tell myself, but it doesn’t lessen the sting or tremors that are starting to rock this new body. I reach through the jagged break, unlocking the door and pushing it open. As I pull my hand back, I feel a sharp burn on my forearm. I’ve cut myself, but don’t have time to worry about that now.

I hurtle into the shop and grab a Rip Curl tee. Cargo shorts. Canvas flip-flops. As I’m about to exit, I see a display of pocketknives. I slide to a stop and grab one. You never know when you’ll need a sharp blade. Then I book it out of there.

I guess I’m a thief after all.

I sprint up the street and into the posh neighborhood perched on a hill above the beach. Avery’s neighborhood. At least during the weekdays when she stays with her dad. But it’s the weekend, so she’s probably at her mom’s.

Behind a big flowering bush on the side of someone’s yard, I strip off the rest of the Skywalker clothes. As soon as they hit the ground, they lose their luminosity like an unplugged lamp, as though I was the power source making them glow. I dress in the new clothes and slide on the flip-flops. The knife goes in my front pocket, my afterlife clothes get tossed in a trash bin, and then I continue up the road, slowing my pace to a casual stroll. An innocent stroll. From the corner of my eye, I see the flashing of blue and red lights down by the beach. I turn and watch for a measured minute, because if there’s one way to label yourself guilty, it’s to look away from the crime.

When I’m confident I won’t be pegged as a suspect, I turn and follow the street’s incline, passing colorful stucco houses with flowering vines and clay tile roofs. The sky is still blotchy with rain clouds, but the rain is tapering off. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, savoring the earthy scents I’ve been deprived of for so long. The air is cool and damp, and all of the hair on my body stands on end as though the atmosphere is charged with electricity.

The sting on my forearm returns, and I look to see where the glass cut it, expecting to see blood. But it’s clean. I look closer. There’s an opening in my skin, a long, jagged gash, but no blood. Just a bit of shimmery clear liquid oozing out. I shudder and thrust my hand in my pocket so I don’t have to look at it.

As I suspected, Avery’s car isn’t in her dad’s driveway. And I realize now that since I’ve never been to her mom’s without quickening there, I’m not sure how to get there by walking.

No matter, because as I think about Avery, I feel a tug inside my chest, the same magnetism that brings me to people when I quicken without a body. So I follow the pull. It leads me out of the neighborhood and onto a highway. I focus on her face, on the desire to go where she is, and surrender to the current leading to her.

he rain is coming at me in two directions. Pelting down from the sky, and then splashing up as it hits the surface of the ocean. Between the water in the air and the salt in my eyes, the beach has all but vanished. But even though I’m out here in the waves with nothing but a surfboard keeping me from the bottom of the ocean, and even though a current is tugging me farther and farther from land, I feel strangely serene. Because the boy sharing my surfboard just saved me from drowning, and fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to deal me a death sentence right after delivering me from one.

He’s on the opposite side of my board, half-turned toward shore, one arm stroking wide circles in the water, the other stretched across my board. His skin is warm against my arm, his muscles taut with the effort of holding on. On his back, a long, white scar stretches across his shoulder blade, like someone once laid a curling iron on him.

He shouts a question, but the wind tears his words away. He turns to me for an answer, and I think,
Finally. I can see his face.
But then I can’t see at all. The sea and sky are conspiring, hurling so much water in my eyes that I’m blinded.