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With reckless abandonment the trio dive from the cliff down to the swirling blue seas. The weight of their landing splashes up sandstone, turning it a deeper red. Whoops dance within water, and high-fives echo against caverns.
“Cleared for take-off,” Carlton shouts, his voice challenging.
Toes curl around the edge of stone, as if the brittle ledge can provide support, the wind buffeting at his back. Winter Frost, a lone figure who wants only to be forgotten. Win, the loser of the quartet, the frightened puppy, looks down at his band of brothers and knows he’ll never be one of them.
***
Beach towel spreads roughly over sand that is peppered thick with gravel, stabs bony shoulders and seems more trial than leap from cliff. Winter, skin whiter than the season he is named after, shuffles uncomfortable. Laughter stings his ears, cruel and deafening and born from those named friend. Heart shrivels beneath ribs that poke cruel against skin, buries itself deep.
Hot and biting sand shifts over his belly, eyes blind as they shoot open. He sees only masks with traces of blue eyes, wisps of blond hair, and hands as they shovel the sand over his body and slam it firm with palms. The sun glares sharp between their vicious lips and sparkling eyes, and he blinks and lies still and waits for them to grow bored. It happens soon enough and with fresh whoops and cheers they hurtle off down the beach and his thin arms push through sand and brush it off. Despite the weight of heat he is shivering.
“Come on, Sand-boy.”
Lincoln throws challenge this time, as their laughter skips into the caverns and reverberates across the empty sands. Winter shakes sand off the towel. Cry bursts sharp as he steps onto a discarded bottle, the edge of glass cuts into his big toe. It stings as he hobbles along the beach, the sand clinging to wet blood.
***
Graffiti unlike any Winter has hitherto seen peppers the walls at the entrance to the caverns. Rudimentary animals and people that, if not drawn at a height of about five feet, he would believe had been drawn by the smallest of their pack, Simon. They move ahead of him, sticks battling against stone marking their position, growing distant.
Winter doesn’t follow, he sits instead by the opening to the cavern clutching his toe and wanting very much to leave. The sun beats at his back and yearns to blister skin; denied access by the beach towel he has draped over his shoulders. He huddles beneath it.
Time is lost.
Eyes blink open as water laps at his knees and slips beneath him creating streams of mud in the sand. He jumps up, the cavern behind him quiet. Sad smile when he realises they left him behind, and also relief. The back of his hand wipes snot from his nose as he circles the edges of the stone cliff, the sea eating at his toes.
“Let’s play we hide, Winter seeks,” Carlton’s chuckle echoes against stone paintings, lost in the hollow. “Come on chum, count to ten and we’ll hide.”
“Ready or not, Win,” Simon’s voice dances out into the day.
Winter lingers on the third step, the two below submerged, watches as water steals into the cave…
***
Light seers as curtains swish open and day recaptures the room. Rough hands rub against thick stubble. Winter opens the window and looks down at the thriving beach, smaller than that of memory and of dream. A mere pocket of sand. He shouldn’t really be back here, parole conditions and all…
Travellers about the hotel talk of legend without suspecting that it sits amongst them. Of a boy named Winter Frost, of a name drawn out of fairy tale, and of how he pulled three boys to safety in the summer of ’74, of how they would surely have drowned.
Winter remembers it differently. A jumble of screams, of arms and legs, and of the four of them lying on the cliff top gasping for air. And how, for the first time, he felt like one of them.
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