Footprints in the Sand

“Where are you?”

“Jenny Brown’s Bay.”

In the pause that followed, my heart clamped tightly shut.

“Don’t worry. We’ll have someone there in no time. Just hang on and keep shouting. It will help us find you and give your friend something to focus on.”

His voice was firm again, professional, but I’d heard that hesitation. I sank down onto the harsh grass, screaming Bryn’s name until my voice would no longer work, staring out into the murky emptiness, listening to the rushing tide as hope drained away.

I was five years old again, alone and terrified, my face pressed against the window of the cottage as I watched the storm unleash its fury across the bay....

CHAPTER TWO

WHILE ELSA RUSHED HOME, desperate to see him, Bryn strode across the sand with Yellow gamboling happily at his heels. His feet crunched a mass of tiny white shells left stranded by the tide. He paused, reaching down to pick one up, running his fingers across its pearly pink iridescence before slipping it into his pocket to give to Elsa...if he decided to stay. Doubts crept in. He’d been so sure that he was doing the right thing, setting her free to finally get on with her life. But never to see her lovely face again... And how would she manage without him to protect her? He’d been there for almost all of her life; perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps he had suffocated her, stifled her dreams. She would never know unless he set her free.

The intoxicating smell of the sea flooded his senses. He leaned forward into the buffeting wind, breathing it deep into his lungs as he quickened his stride. He could see why Elsa loved this place so much, despite the heartache it spelled for her. Today its beauty took his breath away, yet behind that calm serenity lurked an untamed wildness. Just like her, really. She had that same unpredictable quality. He’d seen it the very first time he met her, a lifetime ago, a fierce changeable beauty that he couldn’t quite touch.

Thinking of Elsa brought a heavy pain to his heart. He used to wonder how long it would be before she actually faced up to her true feelings for him, finally letting him fully into her life. Now, after everything that had happened between them, he was beginning to believe that maybe, after years of waiting, he had been wrong after all. Perhaps those feelings just weren’t there for her to face up to. Perhaps he was just a habit, a safety net.

He heard the siren, way off in the distance, heralding danger. The tide was coming in. Soon that tiny white wave they dramatically called the bore would come washing around the coastline, leaving anyone still out in the bay totally stranded—leaving him stranded if he wasn’t careful. He hesitated, listening to the haunting melody of the seagulls that seemed to echo his own emotion. A wild recklessness overtook him. They always sounded the siren with loads of time to spare, and today danger felt good. He picked up a piece of driftwood and continued to walk, looking across toward the shore as he hurled it for Yellow.

There was Elsa’s little white cottage, the last in a terraced row of three, perched on a lonely rocky outcrop. And farther along was the stall where she would soon start to sell her painstakingly collected wares, which he liked to call her romantic marine life. She was away now, in Newcastle, searching for more unusual items, anything quirky and linked to the sea.

Bryn deliberately hadn’t phoned her, giving her breathing space. All he had asked for, yet again, was that she let down her barriers and love him totally, as he loved her, and yet again she’d drawn away from him. Every time he got really close to her she retreated from him in panic, as if keeping herself at bay. Now he was beginning to believe that he’d stayed around too long, waiting for something that was never to be, his very presence holding her back and keeping her from loving someone else, someone who could fulfill her dreams.

He shook his head, taking a breath.

“Yellow! Come on, Yellow....”

The big golden dog bounded toward him, stick in mouth, and together they started to run, forgetting the high-pitched wail of the siren.

He saw her as he turned back toward the shore, a tiny figure at the edge of the sand. She was back already and he was still here. What now? He’d given her an ultimatum before she left; fear crept over him at the thought of rejection. He should have gone when he had the chance. It would’ve been easier that way.

She waved at him, arms flailing in the distance, and as always, he waved back, not noticing at first the white mist that was settling over the horizon, merging sea and sand. He saw the wave coming, and it almost filled him with joy. For Bryn Evans, risks were there for the taking; danger dulled the pain of rejection and made his blood flow faster. He picked up Yellow’s stick and hurled it at the shore, heading back reluctantly.

But the water came too quickly. It rose up to his knees as the whole world suddenly disappeared around him, lost in a thick white blanket of fog. The gulls were silent but he could still hear Elsa calling his name, screaming into the opaque, curling mist. He stumbled on toward the sound, up to his waist now, with Yellow swimming beside him.

“Go on, boy!”

His voice sounded strange and hollow. The sea churned fiercely, sucking him in.

“Home, boy.... Find Elsa!”

Yellow looked at him with worried eyes, swimming around in desperate circles. Loneliness was a heavy weight. Fear sprang to life inside him as his feet left the bottom and then he, too, started to swim. Was this it? Was the decision to be taken from him? Was Elsa destined finally to move on without him after all? Her voice was fading. His whole body ached. Maybe it was for the best.

“Home, boy...! Home!”

And then Bryn was truly alone, in mind and in body, as he fought against the surging water that dragged him down.

CHAPTER THREE

I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD when my whole world changed—and I remember it so clearly.

Alone and terrified, I had pressed my face against the cottage window, watching the storm unleash its fury on the bay. The glass felt cold, but I pressed my cheek harder against it, fighting the tears that welled up. “Be brave,” my dad had said, so I mustn’t cry.

He was brave, my dad. In fact, he was the bravest person I knew. Every day—if the tide was in—he would walk down to the jetty before dawn, no matter what the weather and no matter what the other fishermen said, to take his boat across the bay into the open sea beyond. Daffyd went with him, of course, but old Mr. Mac, our next-door neighbor, said that Daffyd was even dafter than my dad. He did have a funny look, I supposed, kind of gormless really, but I don’t think Mr. Mac can have meant it because Daffyd was his son.

My dad wasn’t gormless; my dad was handsome and smart. He could take his boat out in the wildest storm and come back safely. I think he kind of liked storms.

“Got to get those fish in, darlin’,” he would say if I woke up when he kissed me goodbye. And this morning it had been the same as always. So why was I here with my face against the window and big fat tears slowly squeezing their way out? Because I had heard old Mr. Mac shouting, that was why.

I heard my dad’s voice first, soft in my ears as my eyes opened in the half light.

“Sweet dreams, darlin’. Mrs. Mac will watch out for you.”

His lips had brushed my cheek, I heard his boots tramping loudly down the narrow wooden staircase and then the back door closed with a thud. The wind was rising; I could hear it from my bed, whipping around the house and rattling the windowpanes. I curled up tight beneath my blankets and wished it was morning and my dad was coming back.

Mr. Mac was shouting. I could hear his voice clearly even though the wind was starting to howl. The wind was always howling around Jenny Brown’s Bay.

“You might be crazy enough to go out this morning, but you’re not taking Daffyd.”

My dad laughed, just like he always did. My dad laughed at everything.

“You’re going soft in your old age, Billy Mac,” he said. “Let the lad decide. He’s old enough to make up his own mind.”

I crept out of my bed despite the cold, and raced to the window, peering out into the eerie light of the half-hidden moon to see the three of them standing on the narrow pathway that led down to the shore. Mr. Mac was waving his fist; I’d never seen him so cross. Then suddenly the moon disappeared behind a dark cloud and when it came back there was just him, standing all alone, staring out across the bay. His shoulders drooped and he looked smaller somehow. I think I knew then that something terrible was about to happen.

I wasn’t scared of being alone in our cottage. Mrs. Mac watched out for me. All I had to do was press the numbers on the phone that my dad had written out for me and she would come to tuck me back up into bed again. I didn’t want to be safe in bed, though, when my dad was out on his boat in the storm, so I just waited with my face pressed against the glass, staring out at the angry sea.

After a while, I didn’t even feel the cold because my whole body had gone numb, but still I waited. The day was slowly creeping in, throwing a pale light on the crashing sea. Furious black clouds rolled across the sky and the wind howled, but I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, watching for my dad’s boat to come home. Sometimes he would flash a light for me as he sailed into the bay, but no light came.

I don’t know how it happened but I must have closed my eyes because when I opened them again it was as if I’d moved into another world, a beautiful world where storms didn’t turn the sea into a crazy beast.

The bay was smooth and calm, autumn sunshine made the water sparkle like crystal, and the sky was a clear pale blue. Perhaps my dad’s boat had come home while my eyes were shut. But I could see Mr. Mac down on the shore and he still seemed kind of small so I knew that he was sad. He was looking out at the vast expanse of shimmering sand left by the tide.

I tried to move my hands but my fingers were achingly numb and suddenly I became aware of just how cold I was. Everything chattered, from my teeth to my toes. I think that maybe even my heart was chattering because it felt all fluttery and weird.

Where was my dad? The question rose inside me like a roar. Misery overpowered me and my whole body became one big tear as I started to scream.

* * *

“SHUSH... NOW SHUSH...”

Mrs. Mac’s voice was in my ears, her warm hands wrapping me in a blanket, lifting me, carrying me down the stairs and into her house. I cuddled against her comforting bulk, my screams softening into a bubbling mess of tears as I breathed in her familiar scent of fish and roses.

“No sign?” Her voice sounded brittle and strange. I recognized the big man who filled her tiny living room. He was called Ted and he lived in a cottage at the end of our lane. Usually he was all smiley and nice but today his round face was crumpled into a frown. He shook his dark head slowly, circling his hat around and around in his hands.

“Not yet.”