I tap out: ‘If you’re reading this, mystery artist, we’d like a whole forest, please!’
At least I remembered to use ‘we’ for that one, instead of ‘I’. It’s supposed to sound as though a team of us arebantering away with our customers, when actually it’s just my solitary twenty-eight-year-old self.
I’m run off my feet until closing time at midnight, so when my alarm goes off at seven the next morning, I whack the Snooze button and almost fall back asleep.
But my desire to catch the sand artist in action supersedes my exhaustion and I pull myself from bed, hoping that I’ve timed it right. Low tide was a whole hour and two minutes later today, so there’s every chance he or she will still be at work.
When I arrive at the cove, however, I’m once again too late, but my reverence smothers any disappointment I might have felt.
A winding pathway has been carved into the beach, wide where it begins at the boat ramp and narrowing to a single wiggly line where it reaches the shore. On either side of the path are pine trees drawn roughly with sharp, serrated edges. In the forefront they’re tall and majestic, but they become smaller and more roughly sketched as the path tapers away.
Suddenly I want to beinthe picture, walking along that magical pathway leading through an enchanted forest and experiencing it first-hand.
On impulse, I head down the boat ramp and step onto the sand. I follow the curving path, smiling as it shrinks away in perfectly sketched perspective. Soon I feel as if I’m the size of a giant and eventually I have to put one foot directly in front of the other, walking the last section with my arms stretched wide as though balancing on a tightrope. Joy rises up inside my chest and I can’t contain the feeling, so I spin in a circle, my arms still outstretched.
The smile is still on my face as I make my way back along the winding path towards Seaglass. And then I look up and do a double take. There’s a man sitting on a bench up on the cliffs, half hidden behind gorse bushes bursting with brilliant yellow flowers. I stumble and trip, managing to right myself, and when I look up again, he’s gone.
On Monday morning, I arrive at the beach to find that it’s still a blank canvas.
Am I here in time to catch the artist or have they moved to another cove?
In case it’s the former, I slip up the stairs to Seaglass, figuring I’ll stay hidden for a while and wait. And that’s when I see it: the life-size drawing on the sand that I’d missed.
It’s a simple outline of a girl wearing a knee-length summer dress, similar to the one I had on yesterday, with its hem trailing off to one side, caught in an imaginary breeze. Her wavy hair comes almost to her shoulders and her arms are spread wide in a gesture of joy.
A shiver runs down my backbone.
I walk tentatively to the railing and look up at the cliffs.
He’s there once again, the man on the bench. Is he the sand artist? Was he watching me yesterday?
I hurry down the external staircase and run up the road, veering left onto the coast path. Gorse scratches my legs with each imprecise step as I climb the narrow, rocky track, my mind racing.
No one who draws that beautifully could possibly be a psychopath, I tell myself.
My compulsion to meet this artist overrides any concern for my own safety.
I know exactly where the bench is because I’ve sat there many times, watching the tide roll in or surfers riding the waves. My heart is in my mouth as the path opens out onto moorland with far-reaching views, and then I’m looking down at an empty bench, chest heaving, trying to catch my breath.
Where has he gone?
I continue on until the steep path levels out, andthere! Off in the distance, striding along towards Trevellas Cove, is …
A tall, broad man in a dark grey hoodie.
I cast my mind back to Friday morning and the man who was none too pleased when I told him we weren’t open yet. I can’t remember his face. He’s about to crest the brow of the hill when the word flies out of my mouth of its own volition.
‘HEY!’
He looks over his shoulder at me and comes to an abrupt stop, turning around to face me. He’s too far away for me to be able to make out any of his facial features, but I wave my hands over my head, requesting that he wait as I step up my pace.
I’ve only gone a few metres when he turns around again and strides away.
‘HEY!’ I shout again. ‘WAIT!’
But either he doesn’t hear me or he chooses not to listen because a moment later he’s vanished from sight.
I feel an unusual mixture of emotions as I make my way back home. I’m elated and frustrated, excited yet disquieted.
