A little inside shiver went through her; not the kind that shows, but the kind that makes you wonder if you're sick. I must be too hot, she decided; hot enough that it starts to feel cold. I need a dip in the water.
The water was cool, because this was the open-Atlantic side of the Cape. She waded in up to her knees and then continued walking down the beach.
When she reached a dock, she splashed out of the water and climbed up to it. Only three boats were tied there: two rowboats and a powerboat. It was deserted.
It was just what Cassie needed.
She unhooked the thick, frayed rope meant to keep people like her off the dock and walked onto it. She walked far out, the weather-beaten wood creaking beneath her feet, the water stretching out on either side of her. When she looked back at the beach, she saw she'd left the other sunbathers far behind. A little breeze blew in her face, stirring her hair and making her wet legs tingle. Suddenly she felt-she couldn't explain it. Like a balloon being caught by the wind and lifted. She felt light, she felt expanded. She felt free.
She wanted to hold her arms out to the breeze and the ocean, but she didn't quite dare. She wasn't as free as all that. But she smiled as she got to the end of the dock.
The sky and the ocean were exactly the same deep jewel-blue, except that the sky lightened down at the horizon where they met. Cassie thought that she could see the curve of the earth, but it might have been her imagination. Terns and herring gulls wheeled above.
I should write a poem, she thought. She had a notebook full of scribbled poems at home under her bed. She hardly ever showed them to anyone, but she looked at them at night. Right now, though, she couldn't think of any words.
Still, it was lovely just to be here, smelling the salt sea-smell and feeling the warm planks beneath her and hearing the soft plashing of the water against the wooden piers.
It was a hypnotic sound, rhythmic as a giant heartbeat or the breathing of the planet, and strangely familiar. She sat and gazed and listened, and as she did she felt her own breathing slow. For the first time since she'd come to New England, she felt she belonged. She was a part of the vastness of sky and earth and sea; a tiny part in all the immensity, but a part just the same.
And slowly it came to her that her part might not be so small. She had been immersed in the rhythm of the earth, but now it seemed to her almost as if she controlled that rhythm. As if the elements were one with her, and under her command. She could feel the pulse of life in the planet, in herself, strong and deep and vibrant.
The beat slowly rising in tension and expectancy, as if waiting for… something.
For what?
Staring out to sea, she felt words come to her. Just a little jingle, like something you'd teach a child, but a poem nonetheless.
Sky and sea, keep harm from me.
The strange thing was that it didn't feel like something she'd made up. It felt more like something she'd read-or heard-a long time ago. She had a brief flash of an image: being held in someone's arms, and looking at the ocean. Being held up high and hearing words.
Sky and sea, keep harm from me. Earth and fire, bring…
No.
Cassie's entire skin was tingling. She could sense, in a way she never had before, the arch of the sky and the granite solidity of the earth and the immeasurable span of the ocean, wave after wave after wave, to the horizon and beyond. And it was as if they were all waiting, watching, listening to her.
Don't finish it, she thought. Don't say any more. A sudden irrational conviction had taken hold of her. As long as she didn't find the last words of the poem, she was safe. Everything would be as it always had been; she would go home and live out her quiet, ordinary life in peace. As long as she could keep from saying the words, she'd be all right.
But the poem was running through her mind, like the tinkling of icy music far away, and the last words fell into place. She couldn't stop them.
Sky and sea, keep harm from me. Earth and fire, bring… my desire.
Yes.
Oh, what have I done ?
It was like a string snapping. Cassie found herself on her feet, staring wildly out at the ocean. Something had happened; she had felt it, and now she could feel the elements receding from her, their connection broken.
She no longer felt light and free, but jangled and out of tune and full of static electricity. Suddenly the ocean looked more vast than ever and not necessarily friendly. Turning sharply, she headed back toward
the shore.
Idiot, she thought as she neared the white sand of the beach again and the frightened feeling slipped away. What were you afraid of? That the sky and the sea were really listening to you? That those words were actually going to do something?
She could almost laugh at it now, and she was embarrassed and annoyed with herself. Talk about an overactive imagination. She was still safe, and the world was still ordinary. Words were only words.
But when a movement caught her eye then, she would always remember that deep down she had not been surprised.
Something was happening. There was motion on the shore.
It was the red-haired guy. He'd burst out between the pitch pines and was running down the slope of a dune. Suddenly inexplicably calm, Cassie hurried the rest of the way down the dock, to meet him as he reached the sand.
The dog beside him was loping easily, looking up at the guy's face as if to say this was a great game, and what next? But from the boy's expression and the way he was running, Cassie could tell it wasn't a game.
He looked up and down the deserted beach. A hundred yards to the left a headland jutted out, so you couldn't see what was beyond. He glanced at Cassie and their eyes met. Then, turning abruptly, he started toward the headland.
Cassie's heart was beating hard.