Kicking off her Birkenstocks, Marla sighed at the cool comfort of the white sand beneath her feet. She walked down to the sea and watched the waves for a while, mesmerized by the beautiful simplicity of white foam gently buffeting a driftwood branch. The waves undulated like a soothing breath and they whispered to her, the sound folding in on itself in the strange acoustics of the rock walled cove. Making her way to a sheltered spot from where she could still see the ocean, Marla lay back on the sand for a while and listened to the waves. The distant song of a seagull echoed around her, conspiring with the other sounds to lull her to sleep.
Just as her eyes were about to give in to the lullaby, Marla saw a shape in the distance. She squinted at it, thinking at first that it was a dog or some other animal making its way across the beach towards the cave at the other end. Sitting up and wiping the drowsiness from her eyes, Marla looked again and saw that the distant figure was a small child. Confused, she stood up and started walking towards it, her strides quickening as the child built up speed. She could now see clearly that it was a little boy of no more than ten years of age. A dark, tangled mop of hair jostled on top of his head as his little legs carried him over the sand toward the cave opening.
“Hey!” she cried out, but the child pressed on either ignoring her or just not hearing. “Hey, stop!”
The boy was now at the cave entrance, where he stopped suddenly. He threw Marla a glance over his shoulder and his deep-set eyes made contact with hers. There was a melancholy in those eyes that even from this distance chilled her to the marrow of her bones. His face was deathly pale, starkly contrasting the crow black bird’s nest of hair framing it. Her steps faltered and she was about to cry out to him again when all of a sudden he turned and ran into the darkness of the cave.
Marla chewed her bottom lip, pondering for an instant what to do next. Her feet decided, following the boy’s path into the cave and risking the darkness that lay within. As she rounded the curve created by the thick rock cave entrance the cool damp atmosphere hit her. Blinking away the daylight and willing her irises to widen so she could see in the darkness, Marla craned her head backwards and saw the ceiling of the cave arching over her like that of a prehistoric cathedral. Stepping inside, slowly now, she inched her way inside—her footfalls accompanied by the echoing drip-drip-drips of water on stone. Carefully avoiding a chunky cluster of coppery yellow stalagmites, she was headed for what looked like a turning at the back of the cave. Mites go up and tights come down, she told herself, remembering a seaside field trip from orphanage days long ago. A small child back then, she had looked on in wonder as her teacher described how the rock and mineral formations had formed over generations and would continue to do so long after their lifetimes. Marla found herself wondering why the little boy she had followed was on his own out here and felt a bleak chill pass over the surface of her skin. Her eyes now adjusting to the dark, she reached the wall at the rear of the cave and felt the source of the chill. A cool breeze emanated from a smaller passage that joined the main cave forming a sharp bend. She peered inside and whispered, “Hello? Hello? I just want to say hi, make sure you’re okay… Are you in there?”
The drip-drip-drips of the water grew louder, accentuated by the lack of any human response from the gloom of the passage. If the boy was here, he was quiet as a mouse and hiding in the dark. Marla’s skin prickled at the thought of walking into the passage alone but she also began to worry that the child had come to some harm in the cave. Newspaper headlines about pot-holers getting stuck underground in damp tombs like this one flashed by her mind’s eye like microfiche projections. She called out to the boy one last time and, hearing only the echo of her own strained voice, she backed out of the passageway and into the cave. The high ceiling was an instant comfort to her after the stifling claustrophobic black of the mysterious corridor. Turning toward the light, Marla made her way back to the beach and its soft carpet of sand. As she turned the corner out of the cave, she saw a figure silhouetted against the glare of the sunlit ocean waves. She squinted, her eyes struggling to make out the detail of the figure. The unexpected sight was accompanied by an unexpected droning sound, rather like that of a huge sluggish bee heavy with pollen in the last days of summer. Marla felt dizzy. A faint crosswind bent the sound waves in her ears and the refracting sunlight made the silhouetted figure shimmer before her eyes. She tripped through the deep sand, now more of an obstacle than a comfort, and moved toward the figure, squinting as she went. Beyond the figure was another shape, small and hard on the horizon of her vision. It was moving, and seemed to be the source of the droning sound.
Then the brightness was briefly diffused as a cloud enveloped the sun and Marla saw the figure turn to face her. It was Jessie. And far behind her in the distant ocean bobbing on the waves was a large pleasure yacht. Jessie glanced back at the boat, then to Marla.
“We need to talk,” she said dryly.
“Yes we do,” Marla agreed.
A moment passed between them. The boat’s engine sputtered like a spectator clearing its throat then droned on louder than before.
“You found the cove then? Quietest place on the island. The most private too. No spy cameras, well none that I’m aware of.”
Jessie was looking out to sea, holding her hand flat above her squinting eyes so she could see better. Marla didn’t answer.
“Hey, I guess I owe you an apology. Fowler wasn’t too harsh on you was he?”
Marla felt her blood beginning to boil. “Oh of course he wasn’t. Invited me in for tea and muffins right after his grunts shoved their guns in my face.”
Lowering her hand, Jessie turned back and looked Marla in the eye a little sheepishly.
“Look, for what it’s worth I’m real sorry, Marla, but there wasn’t any other way for me to get into the computer system. I would have been caught. And if that happened…well we can wave goodbye to our party at the big house.”
Her eyes darted to one side as she said her piece. Marla knew that Jessie was lying to her. Bile rose in her stomach and she felt new urgency to extract what Jessie was hiding from her, not to mention an apology for allowing her to make a complete fool of herself over Adam. Leaning in close to Jessie’s face, she spoke slowly and clearly, her voice just an octave away from real anger.
“For what it’s worth, Jessie, I think you’re full of shit. This has nothing to do with any bloody house party; you just wanted me to fall spectacularly on my backside. And thanks by the way for rubbing my nose in it with Adam,.That was a nice touch.”
“Oh…”
Jessie’s mouth fell open, wide. Then, to Marla’s further distaste, she chuckled. Her dry laughter sounded like cockroaches in a drain.
“You really think this is about Adam, don’t you?” More chuckles came with the realization. “Dammit Marla, I knew you were green but… Jesus, there’s more at stake here than some security jock!”
“Like what, for instance?”
Jessie just pointed, out to sea, at the boat. Marla looked, her teeth fixed in a grimace.