Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~~~

Sonali shook her head. "Yeah, I know, but these last few weeks, I'm no so sure just the now. It might have been nothing, but you mind I told you about that cave, the one at first that I thought some beast was luring kids into to drown them? Well, I didn't tell you then because I thought it was too mental, but with this in the bloody papers, I –"

Jordyn suddenly yanked back on Sonali's blazer, and she stopped short. A few paces ahead of them, Colleen Macnamara came around a corner and crossed the street, tall and serene as a three-master. "See, it's you who need to watch yourself. If I wasn't looking out for you, you'd've run her down again." Jordyn settled back, hands on her hips, then suddenly turned her head like she'd gotten an idea. "Unless, you'd scouted this route out and you were tryin' to run her down again – but no, you've no got your toast in your mouth, you'd want the encounter rate boost from that –"

"For fucks sake, no," Sonali vented, stuffing her paper into her school bag. "For the last time, I do not fancy Colleen Macnamara, and I am not stalking her trying to do up a meet-cute or whit. Baws to this, let's get to school, we've whiled it enough anaw." She stomped off ahead, pushing her bike along – they weren't late yet, and the traffic right by the school would make it a pain to ride this little ways in – slowing down a little, the rage bleeding out of her, as she smelled something strange, something she couldn't quite place in the granite necropolis of these normal streets, something that was coming from somewhere else, near but impossibly far away.

Jordyn caught up, breathing hard. "Sorry, Sona. My bad. I went too far; I'm sorry."

Sonali shook her head. "No, it's all right; it's no you, no anything different from how you've been as we've been friends all this time. It's all me; I've got too much to think on the now, and I'm no handling it as well as I should." Jordyn ruffled her hair, and she tried to smile as she patted it back down in place.

"But yeah, that was well out of line," Jordyn said as they started rolling again. "I mean, that Colleen, nobody'd go stalk her over by her patch, and nobody'd think to stalk her over here. What was she doing the day I wonder – or the night, if she's got like a boyfriend who's a Saudi prince or a wildcat driller who looks like that Ryan Reynolds and she was down here overnight to see him?" She paused a beat, looking for a response. "Come on, Sona, gies a hand here; I got to get this out, but I can't talk about it with anyone else at school or her fan club will be after me with cricket bats." Sonali rolled her eyes. They were nearly at the gate, and pretty soon, she wouldn't be able to play like Jordyn wanted to either. But it was true: if she really did stay up by Tillydrone, she should be coming to school from the other direction, from the north. But the way that she'd come, she'd come from the east – trailing a scent behind her of moss and salt water.

Up in the classroom, most of their classmates weren't in yet; probably doing last-second revision for the end-of-term exams. Those who were were clustered up around Shauna's desk, looking down at something on her phone. "Hoi, what's this then," Jordyn said, throwing her bag at her desk. "Is 1D back together again? Do we have to #PrayFor somewhere else again? I didn't get nothing."

Shauna shook her head. "No, nothing important – it's just that kid with the mentile story about the sea folks gone off missing again." Sonali's bag slipped, and she grabbed at it to keep it from splattering itself over the floor and drawing attention.

"What? What in the hell? I was just reading that in the paper the morning, but it didn't say nothing about him being gone – when did that happen?" Sonali picked her way between the desks, trying not to seem as nervous or as on-edge as she really felt.

Shauna held up her phone. "It's no in the paper; just on this Keep Our Children Safe group my mum guilted me into joining up on. Da's back in Kowloon sorting out my gran's estate, so mum's got nothing to do but make herself queen of the neighborhood watch. It's pure gossip, kid's aunt's boyfriend's mum's hairdresser or some shite, but it's pure mentile too, even more than his blether was to start. The wean had problems with his mum and her new man, and they were giving him it hard about being gone, and his mental story, and they say he pitched a fit, was aw 'fuck yeez, I'm away to live in the sea again', and sure they gave him a smack and sent him up to bed without supper, but he was gone in the morning, no trace, and now they're fitting up to drag the harbor. Mum and the boyfriend are in custody, writ out for the wee man's da, but the CCTV, where he's on it, it's just the kid and this black poncho, running east for the water at like three in the morning." She shook her head. "I know enough kids who got their troubles, but to decide to go run away and live in the sea? And then actually do it? And they call us mentlers if we're on our phones at supper." She slipped down in her chair, shaking her head, and thunked the phone off her desk as the teacher came in and started to call the class to order.