high surf ll cliff edges crumble ll never turn your back on the ocean

Jung’s backpack thumped against the small of her back. Heavy as it was with books, it bruised the bony bit where her spine stuck out. A cold ocean breeze, heavy with salt, sliced through her wrinkled school uniform and set a thousand wind chimes jangling. Every house in the little town seemed to have them. Some of the wind chimes were made of shells and seaweed, some out of broken glass shards, but all of them were unbearably noisy. That didn’t matter, though. It was just like the way that the streets were always covered in a thick layer of damp sand, sand that made every step a little harder, a little longer, a little slower.

Even without the sand, she guessed that her steps would have been plodding anyway. No matter how excited everyone was about it being Friday, about the month being over, she couldn’t muster the tiniest bit of enthusiasm. She thought that those things used to mean something. When she was younger, some months were colder or warmer than others, and those were called seasons. Now, ocean fog blanketed every year in clammy air, and salt-stained calendars were the only thing that differentiated one year from the next.

Another noise, higher and more prolonged, pulled her out of the sludge of her reminisces. It wasn’t anything particularly special; a poignant wail that echoed with the crash of sea on shore. Even though she knew exactly where it came from, she turned over her shoulder to confirm it. Standing several blocks behind her, silhouetted by a heavy curtain of fog, was the old woman without a face, making a series of weird gestures with her broken fingers. So someone else had drowned.

“I bet it was John,” she said aloud, and was momentarily surprised by how loud her own voice was in the empty street. It was true, though. John had been acting weirdly all week, walking on the edge of the cliff just past the theatre. On his math test, he had ignored the questions entirely, and turned in a poem predicting the teacher’s death, written in something that looked like tar and smelled like blood. So it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been expecting him to go off and drown.

It was a little sad, though. John wasn’t nearly as bad as the rest of her classmates. He didn’t have their extra eyes, or scaly hands, or barnacle-encrusted lips. He was just normal. That had been nice. Oh, well.

Once the old woman had dissolved back into the fog, she walked a little faster. The light was fading fast, and she never liked being outside after dark. She reached home just before the sun vanished into the sea, and barred the door behind herself. 

Despite how heavy her backpack had been, there was only a little homework that she really needed to do. Some math problems, an essay assignment on non-Euclidean geometry and its relationship with the physical world, and a command to “reptnent and gve yourselfes to the SEA” from Mrs. Smith’s class. Typical. 

She shrugged and shoved them back in. She wasn’t yet bored enough to actually do any of it, but if the night dragged on long enough, she might. It didn’t really matter. 

Despite the thrills of fear rippling up and down her spine, she pressed her nose to the window that overlooked the sea. A storm was brewing, and the dark clouds were heavy over the beach. She should get up. She should fasten down the shutters, or at least make sure that the cabinets were shut. The storm came in hard and fast, and this time, the crashing wind and roar of waves against the shore sounded like the chorus of voices she pretended not to recognize.

The sun was cold and dim that morning, and she went to school with her homework not even begun. That didn’t matter.

“Hey!” John approached her in the after-school crush, looking exactly as he had the day before, except for the seaweed hanging around his forehead like a crown and the salt so crusted over his eyes and lashes that they looked blank-white, clouded as if he really had been dead. 

That was worse than never seeing him again. Now, he looked exactly like all of her other classmates, and her heart thumped wetly against her ribs when she realized what that meant. 

“John!” she exclaimed, then repeated in a calmer tone, “I didn’t see you yesterday. I could’ve used some help with homework.” 

“Sorry.” 

They talked about nothing for a while, and by the time their conversation was over, they were the only ones standing on the steps.

“Want to come over to my house?” she asked, pushing a scraggly strand of hair back into her ponytail, “I’ve got some homework that I could really use your help with. What do you know about ocean lore?” 

“More, now. I think I could help.”

“Have you seen Mrs. Smith?” she asked after they had walked on for a while. 

“No,” John said, and his voice sounded empty, like the faceless old woman’s, but younger and more raw. 

“What do you want?” she said after another long silence. 

She didn't particularly want to say anything, but the sound of her own voice was better than the sound of surf crashing against the shore. They reached the fence at the edge of town, and she jumped over it without thinking. Her backpack bumped against her again, and she slid it off. It wasn't really important.

“I think,” John replied, “that I had wanted to talk to you.” 

“About what?” she asked, raising her voice to make sure that John could hear her over the ever-louder noise of the sea.

“I don’t remember.” 

“Oh.” 

She sat down on the edge of the cliff and kicked off her shoes. They fell a long time before hitting the water, creating little puffs of white foam that quickly vanished. Maybe they’d wash up a few days later, maybe they wouldn’t. 

“You haven’t been doing your homework, have you?” John asked. 

It was a stupid question, but she answered it anyway. 

“No. Of course not. You were the one who would help me with that.”

“Sorry.” 

John reached for her hand, and she pulled away. His fingers were cold and clammy, sticky with salt.

“I don’t wanna touch you when you’re like this,” she frowned, and when she reached up to rub at her eyes, they were damp. Not cold-damp from seaspray, but warm-damp from tears.

“I think I missed you,” John sat down beside her.

“I think I miss you,” she rocked back and got to her feet, her socks slippery with grit and saltwater.

“I wonder,” she continued, stretching her hands out in front of herself, to get a better look at them, “what I’ll look like. After, I mean. Do you think I’ll get barnacles in my hair? I hope not.”

Her voice cracked and broke, cleanly, like a piece of sandstone. 

She turned to John. All of the boy’s regret was gone now, replaced with an expression of curious apprehension. 

“Do you need a push?” he asked matter-of-factly, “you’re supposed to jump yourself, but I could do you a favor.” 

“I’m fine,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, felt her guts squirm as she realized just how far she had to fall. 

“It won’t really hurt,” John said, as if that would help, “the water is cold, so you’re really just numb for most of the - well, you know.”

“Thanks.” She bit her tongue until it bled, and the iron tang in her mouth gave her just enough resolve to fall. 

It wasn't right when she fell. Time didn't slow, the way it was supposed to. That was a side-effect of adrenaline, and by then, something had told her body to give up on fight-or-flight responses. She was past that now. When she hit the water, all of her limbs went pale and numb instantly, just like John had promised. As the surface fell further away, she wondered when she’d wash up on the shore like the rest of her classmates.

She wasn't particularly looking forward to it. 

When she finally washed up, even her own name felt muffled and far away. Her hands (she remembered looking at them just before she fell, remembered how plain and fleshy they had been) were worn away to sand-scoured bones, and a hedge of coral had begun to grow along her spine. It was difficult to walk, but the old woman without a face helped her back up the cliff and into the town.

A storm had darkened the sky, and all of her classmates were waiting to greet her. She only wanted to see one of them, even though she couldn’t remember quite why.

“Jaw - John,” she said, and her voice was the chatter of a million scuttling crabs.

A boy in a seaweed crown stepped out of the circle and took her hands. “I was waiting for you,” he said. “I think that I was, too.”