But Saffy gropes her way to the sudden glimpse of daylight ahead, pulling herself to the sea, falling endlessly into the cold, black depths.
LUNA, 2021
I
“What time is it?” Clover asks.
“Almost seven.”
“Is seven early or late?” Clover says through a yawn. “It’s dark, so I think it’s late.”
“Actually, the sun’s coming up, so it’s early.”
Clover leans her head back and closes her eyes. Luna watches her in the rearview mirror. She is wide-awake, her mind sharp and her thoughts clear.
She has to do this.
The road is marked with new signs leading to the forest car park. Luna parks, relieved that there are no other cars nearby. There’s a gate leading to a public footpath through the forest. She has no idea if this is where the burning trees are, but she’s prepared to walk for as long as it takes. She’s packed some sandwiches and a flask of tea. And the knife.
The day is cold but dry, and the sunrise is glorious, streaking the sky vivid orange. They follow a path marked with a yellow post, past fir trees that soar into the clouds. She could almost marvel at the beauty of it—muscular oaks fluffy with moss, the multicolor branches of a eucalyptus.
Clover has woken up a little. She marches along, arms swinging, giving Luna a running commentary about the parts of the woods she supposedly remembers. It moves Luna, that desire to remember. She can relate.
The path rises uphill, then joins another path that forks. “Which way?” Clover asks.
“I’m not sure,” Luna says. She looks around, paying particular attention to the thick oaks that have evidently been in the forest for hundreds of years. Can she remember them?
“This way,” she tells Clover, taking her steps slowly, consciously breathing in the smell of the forest, listening to the sounds of the ocean in the distance, the birds calling in the trees. Slowly, images gather in her mind, and she tunes out Clover’s chatter with the noises that nudge at her memory.
She remembers being in Witches Hide the night she went to find Saffy. She remembers the etchings in the walls, and now she remembers spying a hole at the end of the chamber. Saffy was nowhere to be found, and she’d had two choices—turn back and scale the tunnel at the entrance or go out the other end, where the ocean was visible. The water wouldn’t be that deep, she’d thought. Probably only up to her knees, and then she could wade to shore.
After a few minutes of deliberating, she’d stepped down into the water, yelping when she felt the cold.
But it wasn’t knee-deep at all. She’d plunged down, gulping down mouthfuls of salty seawater, before shooting back up to the surface and gasping for air.
She’d expected then that she’d drown. The shore was suddenly so far away, and the rocks were sharp at her legs and no one was around to help. Arching her head back, Luna had spotted a house light in the distance. It was a marker of the beach. So she’d wheeled her arms and kicked her legs in the water, and not long after, she’d felt sand beneath her feet and had fallen forward into a mound of seaweed, hacking and coughing.
She sat upright on the beach and huddled her legs to her chest. She was near the spot where she’d spent much of the afternoon with Mr. McPherson, pouring buckets of seawater over Basil the basking shark. Mr. McPherson had told her to keep away from the body, that toxins would make her sick. But the huge shape was nowhere to be seen. She stood and scanned the bay all the way to the cliffs. The moon was bright, and she could see the bay clearly, but there was no sign of Basil’s body. And he was so huge she couldn’t imagine missing him.
She’d turned to the waves to see if the tide had carried him away. There, cutting through the surface just thirty feet away, was a dorsal fin. It was Basil! She’d jumped and shouted. She’d saved him! He was alive!