Past the Shallows (18 page)

Dad pulled Miles in close, so close that his face was all Miles could see. And it made him sick the way Dad’s face was. The
way he looked like he was crying. Like someone had done something terrible to him.

‘I had to take him away, Miles. I had to leave you there. He was already dead and everyone would have found out. Everyone
would have known.’

With everything he had left in him, Miles pushed. He pushed out his arms, braced his body back against the rail. And he screamed
for Harry. He screamed his name out over and over. And he felt Dad move, felt his grip loosen.

‘You’re my son,’ he said.

Then he let Miles go.

Miles took a step, grabbed onto the rail, and he looked back at Dad standing still with his eyes closed, his arms loose by
his sides. Then he leapt into the water. He bombed down.

The cold wrapped him up, took his breath, but his feet kicked out hard and he pushed through the pulse. He opened his eyes,
searched the surface, but there was nothing. He stretched his arms out, kicked harder. He swam into the channel and ducked
down into the water. Through all the bubbles of air and light, somehow his hands found Harry, his body limp and floating free.
Miles pulled them both up to the surface, but there was only chaos. Wind and noise – white water moving thick and heavy. They
were right in the break. They were already right up against the rocks of Flat Witch, waves pounding down.

Miles held one arm out, Harry heavy in the other, and his hand scraped along the slimy surface of the rocks. But he couldn’t
grab onto anything. The water was too strong. His body hit the hard jagged rock again and again; sharp gnarls stabbed his
back, his shoulders, the side of his head. All he could do was be a buffer between Harry and the wall. Harry lifeless in his
arms, his eyes still closed. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to get them out here, out onto land. He’d have to swim out deep,
past the break. He’d have to get through the channel and try for another part of the island.

When there was a break in the push, he kicked off the rocks, moved towards the rising waves. As the
first one hit, he grabbed hold of Harry’s hair, gripping close to the scalp. He pulled Harry under and with his free hand
he dug down. One stroke. Two. Three. The wave hit them hard and they began to tumble, flying like seaweed around and around
in an endless circle. Surrounded by bubbles of air, the white of the churned water was all that Miles could see. He couldn’t
tell which way was up until the wave let go. Then the confusion dulled. Miles turned his eyes to the light and kicked until
he broke the surface.

Harry was choking, coughing.

He was awake.

But white water was already cascading down the next mountain. Miles grabbed Harry’s hair again but they were hit with such
force that he lost his grip. He was alone in freefall, his chest on fire, his lungs empty. With both arms free, he made a
desperate grab for the surface. One stroke. Two. Three. Four.

Air.

He couldn’t see Harry anywhere, just water moving. Just water. He called out Harry’s name but there was nothing.

This break in the swell would last thirty seconds at most. Waves came in sets and in this kind of surf, where the water suddenly
hit shallow, you could get rogue waves. Bombs. Sometimes twice the size of the
rest. On a board you could see them coming, lines that blocked out the sky and the sun. You paddled out wide or deep, out
past the break. If you got caught, you bailed your board, dived as deep as you could, and prayed your leg rope would hold.
And if you were lucky, the back of the swell just stroked you, pushed you round a bit, then you could come up for air. But
ultimately it wasn’t up to you. This ocean could hold you down for as long as it liked, and Miles knew it.

He called out again, yelling as hard as his body would let him and this time he saw an arm waving. Harry was bobbing about
fifteen metres ahead. Miles swam towards him as fast as he could. There was a new set forming, growing stronger, and it was
truly massive.

‘Harry! Get behind me.’

‘Miles!’

‘Harry! Just get behind. Hold on!’

Harry could hardly clasp his hands together around Miles’s neck. Miles told him to link his legs around his waist and Miles
began to swim fast.

‘Breathe!’ he yelled.

He ducked them into the base of the next wave and it swallowed them whole. They managed to slip through, but the tail of the
pulse pulled them back with it. Miles battled hard just to hold ground.

He felt like stone.

‘Miles!’

Another wave. Harry was sobbing. ‘Don’t take me under. Don’t … Please!’

Miles increased his kick, burst into freestyle. They started to move forward and met the unbroken face with as much speed
as Miles could muster. He pushed into the steepness. If it started to crack, if the wave broke, they were gone. Miles reached
as far as he could and with one big dig they were on the summit, the hump. He heard the wave snap and roar behind him but
didn’t look back.

They had made it past the break.

With deep, dark water beneath, they were set loose. Unanchored. They soared up rolling hills and down into the giant troughs.
From what Miles could tell, the six foot they had been pounded with on the boat was steadily growing into storm size. Ten
foot, maybe, the south-west wind giving it extra strength. And it was blowing enough spray to make salt rain.

And they were way past the islands now. The rocks and the reefs were gone.

There was no land at all.

Miles kept his legs beating at a slow pace, just enough to keep them afloat, and now that all the adrenaline was gone, he
could feel the cold. The
wind stung his face, his wet head. He knew the more you moved your limbs around, the more heat you lost. Blood moved to the
surface where its warmth was stolen by the water. The key was keeping still. Slowing down. Trying not to fall asleep.

‘I’m scared,’ Harry said.

Miles didn’t want Harry to know that he was scared, too. ‘We just have to wait, Harry. We’re OK.’

‘What about sharks?’

Miles could hear the fear in Harry’s voice. The tears.

‘No sharks, Harry.’

It was exhausting to speak and hard to hear in the wind. Miles had to yell so that Harry could understand. He checked his
own hands. Cut and scraped. Not blue, yet, but the water had started to feel warm against his skin.

Harry’s crying eventually calmed, but Miles could feel his brother shiver. It was getting worse – rocking through his little
frame like it was trying to keep his engine going.

‘Harry? OK?’

‘Is D-Dad … c-com-m-ing?’ Harry’s teeth were chattering like crazy.

‘You got your jumper on, Harry?’

Silence.

‘Harry?’

‘Ti-ti-ger … win-ch-cheater.’

Miles swallowed hard. He’d told Harry to put on his woollen jumper. He’d left one out for him. He should have checked. He
should have made sure.

‘D-d-dad … c-c-om …’ Harry could barely get the words out now.

No mate, Miles thought. No one’s coming.

Miles wished he could see Harry properly, but knew he was better off on his back. Wrapped around. That way Miles could shelter
Harry’s head from the wind. If he took his jumper off and put it on Harry, it wouldn’t make any difference. The heat trapped
by the wool would be lost as soon as he peeled it away from his own skin.

‘We’ll be all right,’ he said, and he closed his eyes.

He didn’t know what to do.

There was a black emptiness inside him and it was all that he could see. He tried to imagine a fire in the darkness, and at
first it was just one blue flame too small to feel. But he willed it on, felt the first flicker of warmth as it grew. Then
it raged, turned into a ball of fire, orange and red and hungry. It devoured his stomach, moved up to his lungs, his back.
Moved into his heart.

He shared it with Harry through his skin.

The flames hissed and popped, hungry for the new wood. Miles got into his pyjamas and Mum tucked him up in a blanket on the
couch. She pretended to be mad with him for going near the river, but he knew she wasn’t really mad. He hadn’t meant to fall
in. He’d just got too close to the edge and slipped and the current had taken him before he knew what was happening. It had
sucked him down.

‘It’s just lucky your brother was there,’ Mum said.

Miles looked up at Joe. He had fished Miles out and carried him home. He had saved him. He brought Miles over a hot Milo and
Miles rested down into the couch.

‘Warm enough, sweetheart?’ Mum said.

‘Yes,’ he said. He felt the warmest he had ever felt.

‘Don’t go to sleep,’ he heard Mum say, but it was soft and in the distance.

‘Don’t go to sleep.’

But his eyes were heavy. He was sinking down, into warmth, into light.

‘Where’s Harry?’ It was Mum again, loud now. ‘Where’s my baby?’

Harry wasn’t really a baby, he was three and a half, but Mum always called him her baby. And everyone
thought Harry was so cute with his curly blond hair and blue eyes, but he just got in the way most of the time. He always
followed Miles around saying, ‘Whatcha doing, Miles? Whatcha doing?’

‘Miles?’

It was a different voice. A small one.

‘I’m not scared anymore.’

It was Harry. Miles could see him now. He was standing there in front of the fire. And he brought his face right down so that
their foreheads touched.

Harry’s big blue eyes were blurred by the closeness.

‘I’m not scared of the water anymore!’ he said. ‘I’m not scared of the water!’

Miles was coming back through a fog. Wind against his skin.

Cold water splashed his face, forced his eyes open.

He spun around, frantic, and called out his brother’s name. But Harry was gone.

H
arry’s feet hardly seemed to touch the ground as he followed Jake, and it was easy to run. He ran through the trees, reached
out, and he could almost touch Jake’s red fur. George was up ahead. George, waving from the top of the hill.

And when Harry got there, he could see it all.

The land just as it had been forever – untouched. Dark green tracks of forest over hills and mountains and rolling down valleys.
Trees as far as he could see, running on and on to snow-capped peaks that lit up the sky. And there was water, too. Pockets
of it and rivers of it. Big silent lakes of it. And he could see the ocean now. Light blue and dark blue. Places where the
surface boiled up white and gold.

It went on for as far as he could see. The whole world.

And he thought, I am free – flying like a bird. I am free.

M
iles was in the orange light that came before darkness. The sun burning brightly before it fell below the earth. He had been
drifting for a lifetime and his mind had lost its way. It was dissolving and he had forgotten about Harry, forgotten about
all the things that came before. There was only this vastness, the swing of a giant pendulum – water receding then flooding
back. And he was part of it.

Part of the deep water, part of the waves. Part of the rocks and reefs along the shore.