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She sat on a jagged rock overhanging the crashing waves. She turned her face into the air and felt the sting of the salt on the wind. The sea was in her nostrils, its wild fragrance dancing in the air about her, forcing her to breathe it in.
You couldn’t ignore the sea, be indifferent to it, not ever. She grinned at her thoughts feeling the power on display below, captivating her mood of flagrant abandon.
She sat waiting for evening to transform the sky to a dazzling pink before releasing herself from her indulgence. She used to tell Grant, her husband, that her walks cleared her mind that she needed the time alone on the cliffs so that she could think. But she really enjoyed her visits to the shore because she could be closer to the spirit of her father. Closer to his understanding of things, things that she’d always found to be a step beyond her. His sense of freedom was so much like the sea that he’d adored so much.
She heard his voice echo in her head
“You’ll always know what’s right Jany, you’ll always be able to see the best path even if you don’t follow it, because I’ll always be with you.” She drew in a sharp breath at the memory. His voice was a clear, resonant baritone on the breeze.
She waited for the sky to give her its cue. Then, reluctantly, she folded herself away from her perch and headed down to the beach. The wind was almost gale force on the open sand and she turned into its blinding whip, forcing herself to push against it and make her way. Then she thought she heard a scream, she turned facing the direction of the sound, but saw nothing of note. She raised her eyes to the shifting dune above the beach. A tiny beach cottage was on fire, the raging wind fanning the flames to run rampant even as she watched.
She stood quite still, indecision cramping her thoughts. For a moment, just a moment, the beauty of the yellow edged flames mesmerised her into inactivity.
But then she was flying across the sand as if pulled by a magician’s hand.
She climbed the dune in a frenzied ramble. Instant, unwitting assessment of the flames focused her attention on the cottage’s left hand side, the side in the head of the wind.
Perilous questions raced unbidden across the canvas of her mind.
What if there was someone caught inside. Should she risk herself to check?
She peered through the window on the undamaged side of the wooden hut. Nothing.
Then she heard it again, a distinct scream.
She put her hands up to the glass and felt its warmth.
Fear and duty pulled at her heartstrings, but fear was winning outright and she felt herself turn away. Then the spectre of her father seemed to rise out of the dust at her feet; his presence, palpable in the shadow on the wall of the hut.
Jany pulled off her T-shirt and wrapped it around her mouth and nose. She found a weapon, easily, in the form of a rock. She launched the stone with all her might against the window. A massive cracking sound filled her space with a screech, she felt the air leave her lungs in one massive whoooof… Then she was spinning backwards, onto the sand.
She felt her skin prickle with a million shards of reality, her eyes refocused. A shadowy figure blocked out the moon, its glow framing the form in ethereal light.
“I saw you throw that rock through the window from the burning hallway inside. Brilliant move, the hut collapsed like a stack of cards. It, simply, fell in on itself, not an ember fell my way.” He threw his arms out as if in defiance of the odds.
“Look around you. It’s a miracle.”