54
I trip and slam to my knees. The ground bucks beneath me. I grasp at the sharp blades of grass and the hot sand as the earth shakes and rolls.
The whistling pines shudder and sway, and their needles hiss in the jittering. My knees sink further into the burning sand and I grip the rumbling soil. The heat presses down, stinging my back, and I take in a gulping breath of the humid, pine-thick air.
I’m here.
I’m here.
The day is blue-sky bright and the white-hot sun is at its peak. Long stripes of shade fall across me and dance with the shaking of the earth. A flock of blackbirds launches from the pine boughs and flaps wildly into the sky. They caw in outrage at the shaking, rumbling ground.
My stomach slides as I try to catch myself. I clasp a root sticking out of the sand and a dark red beetle skitters across my hand. I’m dizzy and disoriented, and I clasp the pine root as the world shakes.
I’ve never been in an earthquake. The earth tosses beneath you, rumbling and rolling like a sailboat on a rocky sea. It’s as if some monster has awakened far beneath the earth’s surface and it’s stretching and rolling, and the world above is its casualty.
The heat pricks at me. I’m sweating and flushed. My stomach rolls and slides again. And then the world shudders to stillness.
There’s a quiet, stunned, breath-held silence.
I stare at the ground, watching it to make certain it isn’t about to rise up and shake again.
But no.
It doesn’t.
It won’t.
This is the first earthquake. The aftershock? When Charlestown falls into the sea?
That’s coming in exactly forty-two minutes.
I’m on the hill far above town. Right now, according to Odie, Aaron is sprinting back toward the cottages.
“Becca?” Robert grabs my arm, pulls me up, and clasps me in a tight hug. “Are you all right?”
He pushes back, rapidly scanning me. My knees are scraped and covered in sand. I’m dizzy and flushed.
“Was that an earthquake?” Robert asks, looking back toward town.
His face is pale. His copper hair stands straight in the wind. He looks the same as ever. Linen pants, blue button-down shirt, lean and handsome, and . . . in less than an hour he’ll be dead.
Unless.
“Listen to me.” I step forward, grabbing his shirt, “Listen. It was an earthquake. An aftershock is coming. Everyone in Charlestown will die. Half the island is going to slide into the sea. We have to run. We have to get everyone to the hill.”
“What?” His head jerks back and he shakes away from me. “What are you talking about?”
“Robert. We have to run. Now!”
And then I sprint from the glade at the top of the hill where Aaron and I picnicked in the shade.
I don’t wait to see if Robert will follow. In seconds he’s running next to me. I kick off my flip-flops and sprint down the sand-and-gravel road. The rocks stab my feet and the heat scorches my skin. It doesn’t matter. I’m dragging in lungfuls of humid air and my heart bangs in my chest as I fly down the hill back toward Charlestown.
“Becca, what are you talking about—?” Robert heaves, sprinting next to me. “The island?—”
I shake my head, gasping, “Promise. Promise you’ll get everyone back to the hill. Everyone in town. Promise.”
I glance at him. He gives a sharp nod, his jaw tight.
Then in the distance there’s Odie, jogging up the base of the hill. His figure is gangly and tall, a dark silhouette in the noonday sun.
“Becca,” he shouts as we sprint downhill. “McCormick told me to check on you. He’s helping at the shore. Essie’s roof caved in.”
Robert grips my arm as we’re running. He slows, pulling me to a stop next to Odie. My lungs burn and I drag in hot-air breaths as the sun beats down.
Robert glances at me, taking in my sweat-soaked sundress, and the sweat dripping down my forehead. My eyes sting from the sweat and the sun and my chest burns. My legs ache and my feet are pulsing with pain. They’re scratched and bloody.
It doesn’t matter.
“You stay here,” Robert says worriedly. “Stay with Odie. I’ll help Aaron.”
“No,” I say, yanking my hand free. “No one stays. Go to town. Get everyone on the hill. We have less than thirty minutes. Odie, get everyone on the hill. The island is going to cave into the sea. Go. Now.”
I wait, and when they only stare at me, I shout, “Go!”
Odie must see something in my eyes. Or maybe he sees a memory of a future where it’s only the two of us standing on this island and he’s wishing he hadn’t climbed that hill with me. Because when I shout, “Go!” he turns around and runs back toward town.
“Go,” I tell Robert, and he takes one look at me and then nods.
“Where will you be?” he asks, gripping my hand.
“I have to save Aaron. Amy and Sean. The rest of them.”
He nods, squeezing my hand. “Becca. If you can’t save them, save yourself.”
I shake my head. Then I tug my hand free and sprint toward the beach.
I fly. I’ve never run so fast in my life. I don’t know if it’s adrenaline or it’s something that can only happen in a dream, but after I leave Robert I stop feeling the pain in my legs and burning in my lungs. I feel as if I’ve left my body, and instead of running, I’m flying toward the beach.
I cut across the sun-bleached grassy hill, tear down the sandy path, and sprint past the low-lying mangroves. They’ll be gone soon. A flurry of white egrets flies above, their wings stark against the pale blue sky.
Over the pounding of my pulse I hear the crash and roar of the sea. The humid, loamy, tropical-perfumed air I’ve been gasping in lungfuls switches to a clean, salty breeze. Then I crest the final sun-splashed rise, and there’s the indigo-blue sea.
And the row of cheerful cottages.
They’re the same. Little wooden houses in shades of coral, sea-foam blue, goldenrod, and salmon-pink, all of them perched under the shade of palm trees blowing in the wind.
And every one of them is about to be lost.
There’s Essie’s. Half the roof has collapsed. My heart stutters at the sight.
She’s outside, storming around in front of the porch, the chickens flapping about around her. Maranda and Dee are there as well.
Amy’s on the front porch of our cottage. Sean’s in her arms.
“Mom!” she shouts.
And I almost stumble from the leap in my heart at that one word. I sprint to her, drag in a great lungful of hot air, and say, “Another earthquake is coming. This half of the island is going to fall into the sea. Tell everyone. Knock on all the cottages. And then meet me here. We have to get to the hill. Do you understand? We have twenty minutes.”
“Mom. What?” She stares at me, her expression thunderstruck. I have a memory—one where she shouted, “Dad, Mom’s acting crazy!”
“Amy! Please!”
Her mouth trembles. She turns her face away, toward the ruin of Essie’s cottage. “You’re talking to me now? What, one earthquake and suddenly you care again?” She looks back at me, and in her arms Sean reaches out his chubby arms and says, “Mama.”
“You don’t even like me,” Amy says. “Why would you care if we all fell into the sea?”
There’s nothing I can say. Nothing I can do to convince her I care, that I do love her, truly, as much as I’ve loved anyone. I can’t fix the heartbreak of a mom discarding her daughter. I don’t know if I can make her trust me, but I have to get her to act. To run.
“I love you,” I say.
She shakes her head, looking away.
“‘To love someone means to see them as God intended them,’” I tell her.
“Don’t quote Dostoevsky to me.”
I will. I’ll quote him to her for the rest of her life. But first she has to live.
“I see you and I love you. Now, listen to me. This island is going to fall. Everyone will die. Run. Knock on the doors. Tell everyone to run to the hill. Meet me back here in five minutes. Okay?”
Sean reaches for me again, a whimpered, “Mama.”
I step forward then, into the shade of the porch, up the wooden steps, and press a quick kiss to his pink, flushed cheek. Then I grasp Amy and say, “‘Don’t fail me.’”
“Another Dostoevsky! Fine.”
Then she pushes away and runs down the wooden steps, into the sandy, prickly grass lawn. Sean’s in her arms, and she hurries under the shade of the clock tree.
If I could read it I’d know the petals are turning, bleeding to burgundy, counting down the seconds.
Then I look back toward Essie’s cottage.
I suck in a sharp breath.
Aaron strides toward me. His gaze is focused and intent. His features are firm, his expression hard. Amy runs past him, toward Essie and Maranda and Dee.
He keeps his gaze on me. My heart clatters in my chest as I take him in.
He’s alive. He’s here. For this moment he’s still here.
His black hair blows in the wind. His eyes are dark, his expression searching. His tattoos wind over his arms. He’s solid and strong. As he strides toward me he notes the blood, the sand, the cuts, and he when he looks into my eyes he starts to run.
I let out a sound, half-sob, half-need, and run down the steps and fly across the grass. I hit him under the shade of the clock tree. The burgundy flowers are open above us, sending down a spicy perfume. I leap at him and cling to him. I clasp him.
The breath whooshes from his lungs and he catches me, holding me to him.
“Becca?”
His voice. It rolls over me and I shake my head. “No, it’s me.”
He stiffens then. His breath catches and he looks down into my eyes. I grasp the cotton of his T-shirt, wrapping my legs around his middle.
“Fi?”
I nod, and then he takes my face and kisses me.
The kiss is the turbulent storming of a raging ocean. In his kiss I taste four months of want and need and pent-up longing. For me it’s the salty tears of the ocean, the knowledge he’s gone, and the prayer that I can save him.
He kisses me as if he’ll never let me go.
But he will. I won’t ever meet him in real life, as me, unless I save him.
“You came back,” he breathes, kissing the edges of my lips, feathering his hands over my face.
Then I shake my head. “No. Aaron.”
He pauses, looking into my eyes.
“I’m not Becca.”
He doesn’t understand.
“I’m Fi,” I say. “That’s my name. I dream that I’m here, and in my dreams I come to you. But I live in Geneva, two years in the future.”
“What?” He pulls back from me, scanning my face.
I tense in his arms, and my pulse pounds, Hurry, hurry, hurry.
“Another earthquake is coming. An aftershock.” I glance at the clock tree. “In twenty minutes. This half of the island is swallowed by the sea. In my time you’re dead. You, Amy, Sean. Everyone?—”
“What are you talking about?—?”
“I came back. I’m here to save you. Please. You trust me?”
His arms circle my hips, holding me against him. I feel the strong beat of his heart. He weighs my expression, his eyes searching. He’s teetering between belief and disbelief while the island waits on the edge of disaster.
I reach up, pressing my hand to the heat of his cheek.
Hurry.
“Please. I promised to come into the water after you, and you promised to keep holding out your hand. Please.”
“What you’re saying . . . it doesn’t . . .”
My heart beats, a desperate ticking, counting down until the island is swallowed.
“If we go to the hill and nothing happens, then fine, we wasted an hour. If we go to the hill and there’s another earthquake, then you live. You live and you can come find me, in Geneva, in the future, where I’m loving you.”
The waves crash against the shore, the chickens crow, and down the beach I hear Amy pounding on a cottage door. The thick heat of the island pulses between us.
“Please,” I whisper.
And then Aaron nods. “Okay. Yes.”
He sets me down, and then we run.
With three minutes to spare, the last of us climb the slope of the whistling pine hill. The shade falls over us and everyone watches and waits. Some are unsure. Some look toward the sea. Everyone is talking about what they were doing when the earthquake struck.
We stand in the flickering shade of the tall pines. The sappy evergreen scent is strong in the noon heat. I hold Aaron’s hand. Sean’s in my arms.
Aaron runs his thumb over the back of my hand, and every few seconds he looks down, just to make sure I’m still me.
Robert is with Junie and Jordi, their baby girl between them. Robert has a cooler full of bottled water he’s set to hand out to the older people who are exhausted from the run.
I scan the crowd, count the people, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four.
I stop.
Sixty-four, including me.
But there are sixty-five people on the island. One more with Junie’s baby.
Then my heart slams against my chest. “Amy!”
She’s not here.
I glance around the hill, checking every face, every figure. “Amy’s not here.”
Aaron drops my hand. “She was. She helped Robert with the water.”
We run to him, and the heat and the weight of time presses down on me. “Where’s Amy?”
Robert shakes his head, running his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “She said she had to find Dost something, Dost?—”
“She went back for a book. She went back to the cottage.” My stomach plummets and I turn, scanning the grass at the bottom of the hill and the long, empty sandy path.
Sean grips my neck, his wet cheek pressed against my shoulder. He cried nearly the entire run up the hill. “Mimi,” he says, sniffing into my shoulder.
Mimi is his name for his sister. It’s what he calls her when he wants a cuddle or to be picked up.
“When did she leave?” Aaron asks. The lines of his shoulders tense and his entire body vibrates with a suppressed tension. He scans the empty horizon.
“Five minutes ago,” Robert says, his mouth drawn, eyes worried. “I didn’t know she was leaving. I didn’t think?—”
“I’m going after her,” Aaron says.
Robert grabs Aaron’s forearm. “If Becca’s right and you go back for her, you die.”
“Then I die,” Aaron says. He shrugs out of Robert’s grasp.
Then Aaron turns to me. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks in my eyes.
And for a single moment, a second that lasts an eternity, he tells me everything in a glance.
I love you.
I wanted more time with you.
I would’ve found you in Geneva.
I’m sorry.
And then he sprints down the hill.
I wait at the line of demarcation, where I know the rocks will fall, the sand will cave, and the island will end.
For one second, two, time slips like water down a drain.
The seconds tick past slowly, a stuttering heartbeat.
Robert stands next to me, not speaking, just watching the green fade into the blue of the sky. Waiting for Aaron to reappear.
The islanders stand behind us, casting worried glances toward the sea.
The heat presses on me, relentless and absolute. I squint into the light, my lungs aching, my heart breaking. This will be the last time I dream, I know.
I have a feeling that once this day is done the watch will stop ticking for me. Just like it stopped for Leopold. He failed his love. I pray I haven’t failed mine.
“It’ll be all right,” Robert says, his voice gravelly and tight. “Like I said, other people may die, but not the great Aaron McCormick.”
“He can die though,” I say. “He can. But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t go after Amy. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t try.”
“I know,” Robert says bitterly.
“Would you?”
“Go after her? No. Live? Yes.”
I nod, clutching Sean tighter to my chest. A drop of sweat travels down my spine. The loamy tropical scents press down on me. The sun reaches its zenith.
I look down at Robert’s watch.
11:47 a.m.
There’s a rumble. A scraping.
A jarring tremble shudders through the island.
It’s here.
My stomach drops and my skin runs cold. I lift my chin, clutch Sean to my chest, and keep my eyes on the horizon.
I’ll keep watching. I keep watching until there’s nothing more to see.
The ground shakes and someone behind us screams. It’s a short shriek, quickly cut off.
My arms shake as Sean twists in my arms, whimpering at the rumbling and shaking of the ground.
“You were right,” Robert says in disbelief. He glances at me, but I keep my eyes on the rise. “He’s gone then. They won’t make it.”
The jarring rumble grows, and Robert grabs my arm, holding me steady.
It’s 11:48 a.m.
And the world is about to fall.
He’s not there.
He didn’t make it.
That granite monument will still have two names etched in stone.
I lift my chin, reaching out to him with everything in me. “Please,” I whisper. “Hurry. Please.”
And then they’re there. They peak over the rise.
Aaron sprinting. Amy next to him.
The ground shakes again, a jarring roll, and they both stumble.
They’re fifty feet away. Another shudder jolts the island.
Forty feet. Another rolling jerk.
Thirty feet. Amy trips, slamming to her knees.
Aaron catches her arm and yanks her to her feet. Another crack, and then a giant, crashing roar sounds.
Twenty feet.
Sean lets out a piercing wail.
The ground shakes, shifts, spills sideways.
Ten feet.
Aaron clasps Amy’s hand. Sprints for the safety of the hill.
Then the ground disappears. The sand, the soil—all of it collapses in onto itself. The sea floods over the earth. It consumes. It devours. Where there were mangroves, palm trees, grass, and sand, there’s only the roar and rushing of water.
Aaron’s eyes widen.
Amy cries out.
Five feet away.
Three.
Aaron shoves Amy forward just as the ground sinks beneath them.
Amy rolls to the ground, hitting solid rock. The water reaches up and grasps Aaron. He catches my eye, holding my gaze for one split second.
He’s going down. There’s no way he’ll survive the flood coming, or the suction of an entire island collapsing. And so I do what I promised.
I thrust Sean into Amy’s arms and then I leap toward the water. Aaron reaches out to me, the maelstrom pulling at him. I clasp his hand. It’s slick with water. The sea pulls him under. I fall to the ground, slam against rock, and hold onto his hand. I grasp his wrist. He comes up again, choking on air.
The water is too strong.
It yanks him under and I’m dragged across the gravel. The ground cuts into me as I’m catapulted toward the churning water.
I can’t hold on. Aaron’s hand is slick. My grip is failing.
Another rumble, a giant tremor hits, and then the water reaches up and grabs me.
The water is cold and deathlike. It grips me, and I cling to Aaron as the waves threaten to bury me.
And then, just as Aaron and I are about to be consumed, lost in the turbulent sea, Robert grabs my ankle and yanks me back to dry ground. The gravel batters me as I cough and suck in great breaths of air.
Robert grips my leg, yanks, and shouts, “Pull, dammit!”
I cling to Aaron’s wrist. I hang on with everything I have.
“Pull!”
I hold onto Aaron. Robert holds me. And behind Robert, Amy holds him. And little by little, we pull free of the grip of the sea.
I collapse to the rocky ground.
Aaron falls free of the sea. He crashes to the solid ground next to me. He coughs up seawater and yanks in gasping breaths. He’s soaked, his eyes clouded.
I crawl to him, my wet skin scraping over the gravel and sandy soil. There’s roaring and heat and the pressure of sixty-three people shouting at once.
Aaron rolls onto his back and stares up at the blue sky. The earth has settled; the shaking has stopped. His shirt is drenched and I can see the tattoos of the sea through the white fabric. His clothes soak the earth around him.
When I reach him I brace my hands on his chest. The warmth of him scalds me through the cold wet of his T-shirt.
He looks up at me, his eyes brown and warm. He focuses on me, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
“Fi?”
I smile down at him, my heart squeezing out a warm, slow rhythm.
“I love you,” I whisper, my throat raw and aching.
His eyes crinkle at the edges, his smile widening. “Amy?”
“She’s okay.”
He reaches up, touching a hand to my cheek. And then he gives me a new smile. One I haven’t catalogued because I’ve never seen it before. It makes my heart sing.
“You came after me,” he says.
“I told you I would.”
He brushes his fingers over my skin. Touches my lips, a gentle kiss. Overhead the sun blazes bright. Beyond us the island is broken, ravaged, and gone.
But the people—they’re still here.
He’s still here.
“You’re leaving again?” he asks, watching my expression.
I shake my head, my chest aching, “Come to me. Find me in Geneva. Come on Christmas Eve two years from now. I’ll be waiting for you. My name is Fi?—”
“Fi?” he says, his hands reaching for me.
But then there’s another rumble. A tremor that rips through me. Spins and tosses and tears me apart. It tears me out of Aaron’s arms.
And I’m tumbling through the dark. I’m falling out of my dream.
And as I fall, I feel myself unraveling.
I feel my memories unraveling.
I know this feeling.
It’s the feeling of waking up.
It’s what happens every day when the sun shines over you and you open your eyes. You forget what you dreamed. You forget everything you experienced, everything you knew in the dream world.
Sometimes you’ll remember a flash.
Sometimes you’ll remember a feeling.
But mostly, you forget everything.
You forget your dreams.
You don’t take them with you into real life.
In a split-second I understand. I saved them. My dreaming is done. The time on the watch has ended, and like any dream finished in the depths of sleep, I’ll forget everything and everyone that I dreamed about.
If Uncle Leopold had succeeded he would’ve forgotten his Annalise. It was only because he failed and never finished dreaming that he kept his unfulfilled dreams.
So as I fall into the darkness of sleep, I send out a final desperate cry. “I love you. Find me!”
And then I fall.
And the flow and ebb of a sleep-filled tide washes over me, and it washes away my dreams. It washes away—I cling desperately—I hold onto fragments—a beach cottage—a turquoise cove—a mouth pressed to mine on a moonlit beach—I struggle—I fight—remember—a grove of whistling pines—a hand pressed to my cheek—remember—a song in the dark—an endless sea—him—remember—him—I love him—I love—I love?—I?—
I blink awake.
My head throbs and my mouth is sand-dry.
The winter light speckles across my face. The warm sheets rustle under me as I kick the duvet back, letting in a puff of cold morning air. I yawn, the winter light weak. Through the thick stone walls there’s the sound of a gentle wind, and the high, cheerful singing of birds foraging for winter berries.
I stretch and let out a low moan, staring blearily at the wavy blue ripples of my bedroom window. The soft morning light shining through almost looks like waves in a gentle sea. I can almost feel the current of them flowing over my skin. I turn my head away, back into my pillow, and breathe in the soft floral scent.
Time to wake up.
My muscles are sore and my hand cramped. I must’ve tossed and turned all night long.
I unfold my stiff fingers and stare at the old pocket watch in my hand.
“What?”
It’s the watch my mum gave me, Adolphus Abry’s, the one that doesn’t work. The gold is dull in the weak sunlight and the hands are still.
I shake my head. Drop the watch to the wood of the nightstand. It hits with a thunk and then clatters to stillness.
“Not sure why I slept with you,” I tell the watch.
When I shift to the edge of my bed, something crinkles beneath me and scratches my leg. I reach under the sheets and pull out an old wrinkled piece of paper.
I can barely make out the faded writing. It’s a short note, scratched out in pencil, almost illegible.
It’s real? Save them?
What?
Was I sleep-walking last night?
I scrub my hand over my face and try to clear away the cobwebs in my mind.
I had a dream.
A strange dream tugs at the corner of my mind. I stare at the wavy ripples of my bedroom window. The sky is a dull blue-gray and clouds hang low in the sky. The cold, drafty air wraps around me. I shiver and rub my hands over my arms.
There’s something?—
Something I need to remember.
I watch the ripples of the old glass while the cold of the bedroom wraps around me. There’s something about the waves that’s tugging at me.
But then the door bangs open and jars me out of the swirling eddy. Mila charges into the bedroom, her nightgown flying around her, an exuberant light in her eyes.
“Mummy! It’s Christmas Eve!” She jumps onto the bed and throws herself into my arms.
I laugh. “It is!”
She grins at me then scrambles upright and bounces up and down on the mattress. Her red hair flies in the air with each leap, and she sings, “It’s Christmas Eve!”
“Happy Christmas Eve.” I smile up at her and rub my chest. There’s an ache there. A heavy, hollow ache.
I don’t know.
I don’t understand why I’m so glad it’s Christmas Eve, but also so desperately sad.
I don’t know why it feels like I’ve lost something infinitely dear. I don’t know why it feels like I’ve lost a love I’ve never had.