Turn of the Tide | ONC 2023

[14] Sea Change

    The air stilled enough to halt the noise of the wailing winds outside in its tracks. Heavy droplets peeled off the window's surface to flee into the gloom beyond the glass, only for another wave of rain to fill in the gaps. Sally searched through the blur for the striking bottle green stripe of her father's fishing boat, then for the malicious cluster of sea rocks that had ensnared it. Soon, the snap of Damien's fingers called her attention back to the stand-off.

    Flick rolled her eyes and shuffled the camera bag behind her. "Judge me all you want, dude. I'm not giving you the bag, and I'm not giving a damn what you think about it either."

    "Then nobody's leaving," Damien said, folding his arms in the doorway. "I'll do whatever it takes to get Miranda's camera back, just like I promised the last time I spoke to her."

    "I get it. You got to hog Miranda's bedside all to yourself while she was sick, and you kept me out the whole time, just like you wanted. Great job." Clapping in Damien's direction, Flick quickened her pace until her hands turned red. "Read the room, dude. Nobody's impressed by your crazy possessiveness here."

    For the first time, Damien's anger subsided into vague confusion. "It wasn't me that banned you from seeing her, Scott," he answered, unclenching his fists into loose, shaking hands. "We told the staff to keep you away because Miranda didn't want you there."

    The yelp that erupted from Flick's lip resonated across the lantern room, its shrill notes shaking the space as blasts of thunder rocked the sea. Anger raged in Flick's eyes, twisting a darkness through her face that Sally had never thought she held. "Take. That. Back."

    Damien held his hands up and shrugged. "I'm serious! It was one of the first things she asked us to do when she was admitted, she even wrote it out on her notepad in case her heart defects left her too weak to speak."

    "No! Take it back right now, you lying sack of –" Biting her tongue, Flick shook her head and took several deep breaths. "There's no way she would ever cut me off like that. Stop messing with me!"

    "I'm not! I took a picture of the note and everything!" His phone shuffling into his grasp, Damien struggled with the wet screen until he flashed through to the right picture. He held the device up, and Sally stepped to Flick's side to study the photo. "See?"

    It was a hard photo to look at, but an even harder one to look away from. A note written in shaky, but still elegant, cursive handwriting stood in the forefront of the picture, the paper's light pink border flecked with starry specks. It was what lay behind the message, however, that commanded Sally's attention, and judging by the sharp breath beside her, Flick's eyes took her there too.

    Miranda lay in a hospital bed, yet the deep grooves across her face revealed she was anything but restful. Her warm red hair, a little shorter than Sally's, spread out like vines of ivy around her pillow. Freckles dotted over the plains of her pale skin, adding a touch of darkness for her sapphire-blue eyes to shimmer against. Yet even those shining gemstones could not distract from the raw red rivers cracking through her eyes, the exhaustion spinning shadows across her face, and the grey hue painted across her lips. Though suspended in a still image, Miranda still seemed to fade before their eyes as she had done when the picture was taken.

    Flick reached out to touch the phone, and to Sally's surprise, Damien did not protest. "Did Miri really write this?" she asked, her voice faltering at the end. "Is this what she looked like in there? But I saw her just a few days before she went in..."

    Pinching to zoom in on the note, Damien nodded. "And as she says herself there, 'Don't let Flick in if she comes. She shouldn't be here to see this.'" He locked the phone without warning and slipped it back into his dripping jacket. "That sounded pretty conclusive to me then, and it still does now."