John grabs and spins defiantly. And the neck of the bottle whirls and whirls and slows to a stop on Grandpa. “Ugh. That one doesn’t count.”
Grandpa leans over to him, demanding the kiss. And John lurches to his feet, pleading Bev to help him out here. When she folds her arms, smirking, he growls. “Right. Bedtime. We’ve been caught, fair and square.”
He even helps me confiscate the bottle, by tucking it under my arm. “We’re off. We’ll be good now.”
Trent walks them back. Their laughter trails over the paddock as I grip the bottle by the neck and?—
It’s caked in a fine layer of mud, sealed with wax at the top. They must have plucked this up from the garden. I don’t think much more of it at that moment. I set it beside the haystack and straighten the other mess they’ve left behind: chippie packets, pudding containers, a deck of cards. The barn settles back into its creaks and quiet.
Until the door creaks open, light swaying, dust drifting through the air. Followed by Trent, blankets slung over one arm and a hopeful quirk to his eyebrow.
I snicker. “How cliché.”
“You want to be like them when you’re old...” he doesn’t finish, just drags me there.
“A romp in the hay.”
He dimples. “It’s our hayday.”
The hay rustles as he pulls me close. His satisfied sigh finds my neck.
The barn breathes around us, slow, content, full of dawn sounds. A sparrow shifts in the rafters; timber sighs around us.
At some point, Trent’s hands find me again, more asleep than awake. Then his body follows, a blanketing weight that shifts, sinking into all my gaps. We come awake together on gasps, and somewhere nearby, the spinning bottle tips over with a low clink.
It rolls a little, then settles in a stretch of morning light. The wax seal glows. I should notice it now. But I’m too busy matching my breath to Trent’s.
And then it’s forgotten as we stumble from the barn into the brightness of mid-morning, still laughing, hay clinging to our hair.
The air smells sweet with the faint tang of dew, and the sky is a startling blue, wide and welcoming.
We cross the paddock Grandpa walked me through yesterday, our boots dampening the grass, and make it halfway to the hill before Trent groans and sinks into a sunny patch of long blades.
I laugh and flop lengthwise beside him. “Just give me a few minutes. Then the hill.”
We lie on our backs, smiling, breath mingling, the sun a warm weight on our faces.
“Everything is upside down,” Trent murmurs, pointing. “The sea’s in the sky.”
The moment he says it, I see it: the clouds have shifted into waves, the wind shaping them into tides. A white fish swims across the blue, chased by its mother. A spiral of vapour curls like a shell.
For a heartbeat, it feels enchanted, like the world has turned inside out. Beautiful.
Trent finds my hand in the grass. Our fingers link, braided like harakeke strands.
The world holds its breath. So calm, so peaceful.
We’re even stupid enough to fall asleep.
tsunami
The sea’s reckoning, sudden, immense, unstoppable. And it’s not the first wave that hits the hardest.
There’s a dulling of heat behind my eyes, like a cloud passing over the sun. Except—not quite. My hand, knotted with Trent’s and resting on my stomach, still burns with mid-morning.
I blink, lazily.
The shade is coming from a shape leaning over me.
