by Paul Finch
She tugged its neck. It came out of the sand with a slow pop, as if the beach did not wish to relinquish its grasp.
She held it up to the sunlight, trying to peer inside. The glass was cloudy, completely smooth, and speckled here and there with tough green algae. The seal appeared whole.
Tucking the bottle into her backpack, Debbie walked up the beach until she reached the first of the dunes. They were large here, frequented by dog walkers, runners and lovers, and she sat atop one of the highest so that she could see all around. She loved the views over the water, the world at her back. Though familiar, they never grew boring.
Carefully, she worked at the wax seal around the bottle's neck. When she could grasp the cork's top she twisted, bottle one way, cork the other. It came out with a pop that reminded her of the beach giving up the bottle, though this was more musical. It sounded like a gasp of delight.
Inside the bottle, a single sheet of paper was rolled and tied with a grass-like twine. Excitement building, she tipped the bottle and caught the paper as it slipped out. The twine was old and crumbled beneath her fingernails. The paper was dry but brittle, and she unrolled it slowly to prevent damage.
There were three words written in a simple, neat hand.
I'm not gone .
She recognised Marc's writing.
There was no profound shock. No cry of surprise or fear, no disbelief, no throwing of bottle or paper, as if to discard the possibility of what she had just read. No histrionics at all. She simply read the words again, three times, just to make sure. Then she rolled the paper, slipped it back into the bottle along with the cork, deposited it in the backpack now resting beside her, and took in the view once more.
The sea was rough today. White horses broke across the beach, never quite making land. She wondered what would happen if they did.
Marc was dead. Even from the beginning there had been no hope, and she'd told those who questioned her reasons for living on the beach that they did not understand. In truth, she wasn't quite sure that she did. But she allowed those words, in that handwriting, to sink in.
That evening as she built a fire and ate supper she had brought from the house, she opened her rucksack to hold the bottle again, and to touch what was inside. But the bottle was gone.
****
Marc had insisted on calling their sailing boat Doot. It was what he had used to call boats when he was barely old enough to talk, or so he said. His parents had been dead for years, so she wasn't sure how he could even know. But owning a boat had always been his dream, not hers. She didn't really care what he called it.
The day the Doot went down, they sailed along the coast and pulled into Polperro for lunch. It was thronged with tourists as usual, but Marc quite liked the hustle and bustle. He said it made the solitude they both enjoyed so much more precious.
They walked through the streets, watching families herding their children, ice cream around the kids' mouths, parents sporting sunburn lines that would blister and peel. They'd talked about having a family of their own one day, but neither of them was in a rush. They were enjoying life as it was. They were still young.
They ate fresh crab and winkles on the sea front, followed by a pint of local cider. They laughed. They held hands walking back to the boat, then jumped on and hurried, conscious that the tide was going out. Marc used the motor to cruise them back past the long stone pier, and she sat beside him, waving to a group of children fishing with crabbing lines.
It was a sunny day, with a slight westerly breeze. It was only a few miles home, and there was no sign or forecast of any bad weather closing in. The Doot was newly serviced, with plenty of fuel and all the emergency gear required. Marc had logged their journey with an online port master. Nothing should have gone wrong.
Debbie was dozing when it happened. Lying on the upholstered bench at the boat's stern, Marc standing at the wheel, she was conscious of the sea's constant movement and sound, Marc's soft singing voice, the sun on her face, and the subtle movements of her body as the boat dipped and rose. It was one of those moments when everything was perfect, and a rush of sheer ecstasy at life washed over her. She kept her eyes closed and smiled, trying to hold on to the sensation. Living in the moment.
Marc's song ceased.
"Oh my-" he shouted, and then came the impact. It was huge, shattering, and it tore their world apart. She didn't know whether they had struck something, or something had struck them, but she was thrown aside, smashing into the boat's small cabin. Water poured down on her, filling her mouth and eyes and drowning her senses. The world turned. The sounds of breaking things smothered everything else. She was being thrown around, battered from all sides, dipped in the sea and pulled out again, and whenever she tried to open her eyes she was blinded by salt water, crashing into her face as if wave after wave was attempting to drive her down.
She tried screaming for Marc, but she gagged, swallowed, vomited it back up. Something struck her hard across the back. Something else punched her face, and it was only later she'd find out she had four parallel gashes across her cheek from ear to jawline.
Struggling to swim, to breathe, to live, it seemed like forever before Debbie was flung from the chaos into calmer, flatter seas. She had always been a strong swimmer, but she flailed. Almost drowned.
Behind her, the boat was in pieces, the sea still whipped into violence by whatever had taken it. As the hull reared up one last time, she saw a swathe of blood splashed across the ruptured deck. Between blinks, the sea came in and washed most of it away. A few blinks later and she was floating on her own. Waiting for rescue.
By the time it came she was almost dead.
The life she was brought back to was nothing she really recognised.
****
Debbie found the second bottle three days later.
She had been looking for it, never quite sure whether it would be there or not. But she had desperately hoped that there would be more than one. The first bottle had come and gone, leaving doubt that it had ever been there at all.
The second convinced her.
Tangled in a mess of seaweed and driftwood halfway up the beach, it must have been brought in with the recent tide. It was smooth and clear, newer than the first, the glass chipped here and there from impacts with rocks as it was washed ashore, the chips' edges still sharp.
She picked it up nervously, wondering whether it was just a random piece of rubbish. Knowing at the same time that it was not. The rolled message inside was visible, the sealed cork top untouched by algae.
Looking around, Debbie wondered who might be playing a trick on her, and who would ever want to. It was a cool day on the beach, summer giving way to autumn and a different type of beach dweller. There were fewer sunbathers and more walkers, not so many children and more lone adults. Along the beach, an old woman and her three dogs faded into uniform grey specks. A jogger splashed through the surf. A man and a boy flew a kite.
No one was paying her any attention. The beach was a wide open space where she could be alone, and everyone had their own reasons for being there. Hers were at last becoming clearer.
Debbie plucked at the wax seal, popped the cork and opened the bottle. She tipped the message out. Unfurling the paper, she looked around again to see if anyone was watching. Almost wanting them to. If someone else bore witness, she would not have to doubt herself.
Marc's words washed away her doubt
Go to our Cove and you'll understand.
The Cove was a secluded beach two miles along the coast from their home, accessible only via a precarious cliff descent. The beach was only exposed at low tide. It was small, pebbly, dangerous, with several small caves and one larger cavern. They had been to the Cove three times, and on their final visit they had made love in the largest cave, the echoes of their passion merging with the sea's constant murmur.
It was late afternoon, too late to walk to the Cove. And perhaps she was scared.
Heart thumping, she slipped the message
back into the bottle and held it in her hand. She felt its reality, and replayed the words over and over as she walked back up the beach.
The Poop Deck was still open. A quirky beachfront cafe, its owners had done their best to turn it into a pirate-themed restaurant, hoping to attract families. It was tired now and in need of a paint job, but that added to its rugged charm, and Mags and Chris still served good coffee and great fish and chips. She knew them well. They were always welcoming and kind.
They had known Marc.
She sat in a window seat, the only patron, and placed the bottle on the table before her. She was afraid that if she glanced away it would disappear just like the first. But this one felt more real, more solid, and its message could only be for her.
"Debbie," Chris said. For such a big man, she was surprised that she never heard his approach. "Usual?"
"Just a coffee today, thanks."
"Not hungry?"
She considered a moment, glancing up at him only briefly before staring at the bottle again. She didn't feel like she could eat a thing.
"Slice of Mags's carrot cake?"
"Sure. You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Find some beach treasure, eh?" he asked, leaning in to look at the bottle.
"You see it?" she asked. Chris gave her the look. She was used to such a look from many people, but Chris and Mags seemed to understand her more than most. Or maybe they only pretended to.
Eyebrow raised, a cautious smile, the Maybe she's mad sort of look.
"Sure you're okay?" he asked, and the look dropped away to reveal the Chris she knew. He was a grizzled old sod, face craggy and leathered by decades of exposure to the sea. Difficult to age, he claimed to have served on a merchant ship during the war, but he varied which conflict with each telling of the tale. His beard could have abraded metal. He even smoked a pipe, though only once each day just after closing time.
Debbie shrugged.
"Marc's birthday coming up, huh?" Chris asked, and it hit her like a shot, because she had not remembered.
"Yes. Birthday."
"And he's still gone." Chris rested his foot on the chair opposite her, elbow on knee. All he needed was a parrot on his shoulder.
Debbie smiled. She knew that Chris was about to indulge in one of his ocean monologues. She touched the bottle with her fingertips, tracing its rough exterior. It was still warm, as if she had only just been holding it.
"Thing is with the sea, it's all hidden," he said. "We see the surface and it's vast, but we only see it in two dimensions. Even that scares us, but its real scope is beneath. Depths we can't imagine. Whole worlds down there, and we hardly know any of it. The oceans have more secrets than we'll ever know, and Marc's one of many lost to that world. Maybe there's a hundred thousand lost souls being swilled around in its currents, buried in deep sea beds, tangled in ocean forests, washing up and down the sides of deep sea mountains. Fishermen and soldiers. Lovers and monsters. Maybe there's a million of them, and they're souls that'll never be seen again."
"You really should write some of this down, Chris," Debbie said.
"Who'd read it?" He was staring at her. His eyes were sharp, blue as the sky and deep as the ocean. "If his time was up, I think Marc would have liked it that way, don't you?"
"I'm not so sure," Debbie said, frowning. She'd tried putting herself in Marc's head for his final moments, and sometimes she thought she was almost there. But now with these bottles and their messages, she was confused and messed up once more.
"Hope that's not dirty," Chris said. He gestured at the bottle as he walked away to get her coffee and cake.
"I don't know what it is," she whispered. She held the bottle again, comforted by its solidity.
Later, after she had spent some time watching the sun sink over the headland and set fire to the sea, she reached out to finish her coffee. The bottle had vanished.
She held the coffee mug against her mouth, searching across its rim. Scanning the table. Looking at other tables, down at the floor, in her lap. Even lifting her left hand to make sure she wasn't still clasping it.
Chris and Mags were sitting in the far corner cubicle. He was filling his pipe, a signal that they would be closing soon. They were waiting for her, she realised, and Debbie felt a pang of affection for them. Sometimes they hardly spoke to her at all, but she could feel their concern. Good friends didn't always need to talk.
She thought of asking them about the bottle. Maybe Mags had cleared it away while she'd been hypnotised by the sunset. But for some reason, she kept it to herself. A mystery was forming around her, its shape taking on Marc's dimensions. She had no wish to break it.
****
On the beach that night she heard sounds from the sea. She was familiar with the night sounds of the ocean. The swell was a constant hush, waves washing onto the beach an accompanying whispered concerto. Sometimes she heard stranger noises from further out, attributing them to birds or perhaps seals floating on their backs and wondering at the stars. But this sound was different. It sounded like a distant shout, carried across waves from far away and merged with spray, changing the voice's language and pitch. There was no way of discerning what it said. And perhaps she was simply listening too intently, hearing things that were not there.
She fell asleep sitting up, sleeping bag unzipped and hugged around her shoulders.
When she awoke, the sea had receded down the beach, distant and silent once more.
****
Debbie was already on her way to the Cove when she found the third bottle. She saw it from a distance, propped against the rotting timber upright of an old coastal erosion defence. Most of the structure had long-since been washed away, but the post was still there, spotted with crustaceans, its surface slick and wet. Sand was piled around its base from the recent tide. Sat on top of that sand, as if placed there intentionally, was the bottle.
It was a milk bottle the likes of which Debbie hadn't seen for some time. It was clean, undamaged by the sea, and its neck was sealed with a knot of wood and melted wax. She could see the message rolled up inside.
And she did not want to read it. She approached the bottle and paused a few steps away, sitting in the sand and looking around. There was no one close by. She was nearing the end of the beach, and looking up at the low cliffs she could see no one watching, no walkers looking down, no one waiting to see her find the bottle.
I'm already on my way , she thought. Why send me another message?
She took a couple of steps closer. The bottle was solid. There was little doubt about that, and when she reached out and touched it, it was as real as the sand, the wood, the sea and sky.
As real as me .
"I'm already coming, Marc," she whispered. She usually only spoke to him at night, and the sea muttered in reply.
She stood and walked past the bottle. But its pull was strong, and she could never leave it like that. Every step she took, she'd be wondering what she was leaving behind.
The plug popped out easily enough. The scrap of paper was the same as the others, brittle and tied with some sort of dried grass. She paused before unrolling it.
If his time was up, I think Marc would have liked it that way, don't you?
Instead of reading it, she tucked the paper back into the bottle and plugged it again, holding it in her right hand as she walked towards the end of the beach. She faced a climb up a rough staircase, a mile walk along the coastal path, and then a difficult descent to the Cove. If she decided to read this latest message between now and then, she had to ensure the bottle remained real.
Of course it will , she thought. Until you read it. Because it's only meant for you.
Debbie didn't know what any of this meant. Her memories of Marc and that night were confused. She was not quite as mad and lost as some people liked to believe, and she knew that these messages could not be from Marc. But she had to find out just what they were. Someone fooling with her? Or someone else trying to get her attention? Mes
sages in bottles... intimations that there were answers at the Cove... shouting, far out to sea.
Fit from her constant beach and cliff walking, she reached the path above the Cove before lunchtime. The tide had turned and was coming in, but it was still far enough out for her to be able to climb down.
She edged forward, watching her footing amongst the brambles and ferns, and tried to look over the cliff's edge. But she couldn't make out much down below. Only the white lines of breaking waves and a few feet of pebbly beach.
As she took the path less trodden that headed towards the hazardous climb down, she slipped, dropping the bottle as she reached to break her fall. She landed with a heavy thump, winded. The bottle rolled. She dived for it, but her questing hand merely gave it a shove towards a sheer drop.
It disappeared from view, and a few seconds later she heard it smash onto the stones below.
"Shit!" She lay there panting, heart hammering from her near miss. A foot to the left and she'd have gone over too. She might have been down there for days or weeks before anyone found her, washed into one of the caves, rotting, crabs taking their fill. Or if the tide dragged her out into the sea, she might have never been found at all.
Debbie climbed down. Each footfall, each hand grip on the cliff's face, reminded her of coming here with Marc. It was a scramble more than a climb, but still treacherous enough to kill herself if she missed a handhold or her feet slipped on loose soil. So she took her time, despite how keen she was to reach the beach. She made sure she got there in one piece. More and more, she was starting to believe she would learn something down there, and that her life might begin again.
When her feet met pebbles at last, she breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The smashed milk bottle was still there. But the rolled message inside was gone, nowhere to be seen. She suddenly felt a pressing need to read it, berating herself for being so hesitant before. She dashed back and forth searching for it, testing which way the breeze was blowing to see where it might have been carried. But there was no way of telling. The Cove was small, cliffs surrounding it on three sides, sea on the fourth.
