‘There wasn’t,’ said Dot. ‘He was being horrible. I’ll have this scar forever.’
‘Oh, you are a little girl, Dottie.’
‘We’re the same age,’ said Dot, covering the burn with her sleeve.
‘In body,’ said Emily. She gave Dot a knowing smile. ‘Not in spirit. You are so prone to infatuation and yet you have never evenspokento a boy. One day, you’ll grow up.’
Emily ran further down the pier, twirling against the wind. It was night-time and they were alone, taking their usual detour as Dot walked Emily back to her house on Lamprey Road. As Emily ran, Dot watched her disappearing in real time. Now, her one friend only visited their little cottage to see Willard. Emily stayed for dinner and, after, with barely a word to Dot, climbed out of Dot’s window and in through her brother’s. With increasing viciousness, she mocked Dot’s chatter about Alliaster and the cathedral and magic. More and more, in Emily’s presence, Dot found herself collapsing inward.
I wish I weren’t so strange.
I wish I weren’t so plain.
I wish I were entirely different. Then, maybe, she would still like me.
Emily climbed the first rung of the pier’s railing and stood over the darkness of the ocean. As Dot came to her, Emily said, ‘Willard and I are in love.’
‘The only thing you are in love with,’ said Dot, her eyes stinging, ‘is the attention.’
Emily glared at her. They’d never had a true, grown-up argument before. The girl’s pretty face turned sour. ‘You are simply a jealous little girl.’
‘I’m not,’ said Dot. Her throat was tight; she forced out her words. ‘You are simply in love with the idea of being a boring, ordinary grown-up far more than you are in love with my brother.’
‘Tell me how I shall prove it to you, then,’ said Emily. ‘Shall I throw myself off a cliff, perhaps? Would that satisfy you?’
‘Maybe it would,’ cried Dot. ‘Get up on that railing. Humiliate yourself and scream that you love him.’
Emily hoisted her skirts and grabbed hold of the metal.
Dot should have stopped her, then.
She didn’t.
Emily stepped up to the middle of the three rails. Into the wind, she shouted, ‘I love Willard Archibald Walcott! And his little sister is a jealous child!’
‘No, I’mnot,’ snapped Dot.
‘You are.’ Emily laughed at her, her hair ghostly in the night wind. ‘And frankly I’m a bit fed up with this ownership you believe you have over me. All you do now is mope that I’m not spending time with you.’ Emily stretched her arms up against the wind and shook her lovely, short hair. ‘Dottie, you have your peculiarities and your questions and your obsessions. Oh, you have that cathedral – you’ve not shut up about it since I gave you that drawing, and I regret it. Truly I do. But don’t turn bitter and nasty because I am loved and you are not.’
Dot had never meant any harm.
How many times had each of them climbed that railing and been utterly safe?
‘You should have climbed to the top,’ said Dot. ‘Not to the middle rung like a coward.’
And Emily had scoffed and hoisted herself to the very top and that was all it took. A rush of wind startled her and the girl gasped and teetered and a look of terror broke over that pretty face as she flailed. Before Dot even had a moment to reach for her, Emily fell into the ocean.
A horrible splash ripped through the night.
‘Emily!’ Dot had shouted. She jumped into the water after her.
The cold stunned her. Dot was whipped up in the crashing waves. She broke the surface, gasping. The saltwater stung her eyes and went up her nose. Where was the beach? Would the waves dash them against the legs of the pier? Dot heard Emily before she saw her: a sound that would live on in the very recesses of her forever. It was the sound of a fourteen-year-old girl dying. Dot swam, but the current was too strong and Emily was carried, howling, out to sea.
‘Emmie!’ screamed Dot. ‘I’m coming!’
How long did Dot fight the waves?
They made her so very tired.
