I kept going until the water was at my waist. At this depth, the waves continued to break on me, the current wrapping itself around my thighs like a thick noose carved out of an ice block. The grey hues in the water and sky started to fizz darker and details began to blur. I felt nothing. There was a girl out there but my movements were becoming too sluggish to look for her.
I had to turn around. I had to head back, to get out of the water. But my will to return, my will to live was no stronger than the will to find the girl, who must have drowned somewhere in front of me.
I thought I heard someone call my name from far off but it was ragged and phantom–like against the roar of waves and the hiss of wind and scattered foam.
With the little strength I had, I turned and looked. Dex was running along the beach towards me. I couldn’t do anything except get jostled by the breaking waves.
He was swearing his head off, his face pale, eyes flashing. He started coming in after me, which was up to his mid thigh, and grabbed me by the arm. He pulled me roughly towards the beach. I was too numb to feel any of it. I let him take me, looking back at the water in a daze. There was something out there, right?
He dragged me over to a piece of driftwood and sat me down. He was yelling, his arms raised, gesturing. I couldn’t look at him. My eyes were locked on the waves, looking for some sign of the girl. She had been there…I know she had. Why else would I have gone in there?
I felt a sting at my right cheek. He had slapped me. I think.
I brought my eyes up to look at him. It felt like it took all the effort in the world.
“Perry. Perry Palomino. Look at me. Focus. Please.”
I tried.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked, his voice high and breaking. His eyes were wild like the waves.
I felt drunk. Stupid. Unable to articulate anything.
I tried to speak but everything came out in a chatter of schizophrenic teeth and a convulsing spasms. I was in ice–cold, wet clothing from my breasts down and my body was finally kicking into survival mode.
Dex decided that slapping and yelling at me wasn’t a priority anymore. He literally picked me up in his arms. The vague recollection that this was becoming a common occurrence crossed my mind, but I put my arms around his neck and held on tightly as he took me up the beach and to the campsite.
He put me in the tent, in my sleeping bag, and then lay his sleeping bag on top. My head rolled back and I looked at the tent ceiling, which was shaking in the constant wind. I heard zippers open and clasps and a furious shuffling sound. It seemed like a pile of clothes were was being place on me. They didn’t stay on for long as my out–of–control convulsions rocked them off.
I shivered violently for awhile, feeling an unbearable pain as the cold numbness left me and the hot pricks of pins and needles came wheeling through like I was bring dragged through a swath of prickle bushes.
It seemed to go on forever. My thoughts were more or less empty but the one that stood out was the one of me wondering when this would end.
It eventually did end, though. The spasms stopped, the shivers slowed, my teeth were able to rest against each other without clicking. My breath was coming back hot, deep and normal. My heart rate felt reassuring. My brain was starting to work over what had just happened.
I turned my head to the side and saw Dex sitting in the corner of the tent, his wet legs pulled up to his chest. He was staring at me. There were so many intense looks flowing across his eyes and lips, waxing and waning with each passing second. He looked deep into my eyes, trying to get something out of me. I hoped he could. I hoped I wouldn’t have to explain it.
But I knew nothing was that easy.
He looked down at his boots that squeaked with the water that had pooled inside of them. I wasn’t sure why he wasn’t trying to warm up. His feet must have been dead inside.
“Your feet are wet,” I said thickly.
“What the fuck, Perry?” He took in a deep breath and looked up at me. “What the hell were you doing? Going for a swim?”
“There was a little girl…”
“A little girl?” he repeated, his eyes wide and disbelieving.
“I…I was in the tent. I was in here. I was reading and I heard a kid laughing.” It was taking a lot out of me. I paused and tried to regain my breath. He waited, the furrow in his forehead never leaving.
“A girl. I heard a girl laughing,” I continued. “I got up and went outside and saw a girl on the beach. She was maybe three years old? She was just wearing a long white shirt. I asked her where her parents were but there was no answer. There was something…wrong with her, or something. I don’t know but she was cold and already wet and there was no one else there. I tried to go near her, to give her my jacket and she just…she just ran off into the ocean. The waves broke…and…and I could still see her, though; I thought I could still save her. Then you came. And I couldn’t.”
Dex’s expression never changed, though I knew he was trying to comprehend my story as quickly as he could. Finally he said, “Perry. I never saw a child. I was watching you. I saw you run into the water. I was just about to put my bag down in the tent. I saw you on the beach just staring at nothing with your coat held out. And then a second later, you ran into the water. I didn’t see a little girl.”
I felt sick at what he said. I brought my hand up to my mouth. Of course there was a child.
“Maybe you couldn’t see her,” I said as another wave of cold went through me. “Maybe I was covering her from…from that angle. You don’t know. I know what I saw. I saw her well. Blue eyes. Ashy hair, messy, long, weird old shirt, like Victorian era or something. No shoes.”
“There’s no one else on the island, Perry.”
“You don’t know that. Have you looked?”
“No, but I was just at the boat. It’s still there and it’s still alone. Unless someone came by kayak, there is nowhere else to anchor your boat. If they aren’t at that beach, or at this beach, they aren’t here.”
“Maybe they came by kayak then.”