What Lies Beneath the Fog

》15《

When I noticed the name of the boat, painted in fancy red letters across its hull, I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Did Will name the boat..." I asked Emma, who was obviously enjoying my shock and surprise.

"Yes, Anne, after his beloved ghost. I always wondered what Lynn thinks about it," she responded, giggling.

I laughed, and that got Will's full attention.

"There you are, you two. Finally," he said as he watched us approaching. "The boat is yours for the day. Just remember," he went on, looking pointedly at Dean and then with even more emphasis at Emma, as if to suggest that she was the real troublemaker here, "you are not allowed to go into the caves. Clear?"

"Just the first one, Will. Please?" Emma asked, looking at him, her beautiful, heather eyes pleading. How could anyone refuse her what she was asking for when she looked like that? "I really want to show it to Liam," she added.

Will stared at me for a while as if it had all been my, very bad idea. But in the end, he agreed.

"Fine, only the first one then. Be careful. Have a nice day, everybody. And a good swim," he added, laughing, as he climbed out of the boat and walked away towards the village. Surely, swimming in this temperature was anything but a pleasant experience, and he knew it.

"Don't worry, dad," Dean called after him. He was already busy getting the boat ready to go.

"I'm Claire," his girlfriend, who followed Will out of the boat to meet us, told me after she hugged Emma.

She was really tall. A little taller than me, maybe as tall as Dean. Slim and tan, looking quite exotic in this place drained of strong colours by the eternal fog. Claire had shoulder-length, curly brown hair, chocolate-coloured eyes, and a wide, infectious smile. It was obvious that she wasn't a born Islander because she wore clothes that looked more appropriate for the temperature of the morning than Emma's-- long jeans and a hoodie similar to mine.

For Emma and Dean, the days when the temperatures hit the low twenties were high summer. The hottest days of the year. They didn't seem to be cold at all now, dressed in their shorts, whereas I was freezing in mine.

Then it finally hit me. Emma really wanted to swim; she wasn't only teasing me, like I had been hoping. The thought made me shiver and pray that the temperature would rise a bit more before we reached the beach under the Byron's Lighthouse.

Claire stepped carefully back inside the boat, sitting close to Dean. Then I helped Emma in. Not that she needed my help, but she accepted my hand anyway. Dean gave her an inquiring look complete with raised eyebrows, but she simply turned away, pretending not to see it.

The engine of 'Anne' roared happily to life, and soon Cala was just a few white flecks on the cliff's side. The sea was very gentle this early in the morning; the waves were rocking us only slightly, flapping silently against the hull of the boat.

"We'll take a trip around the whole island because you and Claire haven't seen all of it yet," Dean said, navigating towards the left, in the direction the ferries took, and not the other way, that would take us straight to the beach under the Old Lighthouse.

Emma was sitting next to me, very close. I could feel her body touching mine, her warmth reaching me through our clothes. Every now and then, the light summer breeze carried the scent of roses from her hair over to me. Everything felt so good. Our day had just begun, and we would spend it all together.

For the first half an hour or so, we had to keep quite far from the shore. The sea was really treacherous in these parts, full of sharp rocks jutting out of the water in some places, like tiny, hostile, uninhabited isles.