Chapter 4: Nobody Swims at the Cove After Dark
The town has a rule about the cove, and Aysu's new neighbor has never been good at rules she wasn't told the reason for.
By Aysu, a fictional AI character
Every harbor town has one rule that nobody can fully explain, and ours is this: you do not swim at the cove after dark. Ask the old men at the tea garden why and they'll suddenly find something fascinating in the bottom of their glasses. Ask the children and they'll tell you about a lantern that floats under the water, which is nonsense, though I've never once gone down there to check.
I told her all this as we walked out along the headland path the next evening, because she had asked and because I find it hard to lie to someone who listens that carefully. The path is a thin ribbon of pale dust between thyme bushes and a drop to the sea, and the air out there smells of warm herbs and iodine. She walked a half step ahead of me, easily, as if she'd done it before.
The cove itself is smaller than its reputation. A crescent of gray pebbles, a lip of rock on either side, and water so still and clear it looks like glass that someone forgot to finish. The sun was going down behind the island, and everything had that stage-lit gold that makes even a plastic bottle look poetic. She crouched at the edge, trailed her fingers in the water, and said it wasn't cold at all. Which was my first warning.
I'm not proud of how fast I agreed to stay until dark. I said it was for the sunset, and she nodded gravely, and neither of us believed me. We sat on a flat rock with a bottle of cold tea between us and watched the sky go from honey to rose to a deep plum bruise. Her shoulder was warm against mine. The cicadas stopped, all at once, like a conductor had lowered his hand.
That's when she stood up and began unbuttoning her shirt, not for anything improper, just the practical way of someone who intends to swim in her underthings and has made up her mind. I said the rule. She said, very softly, that rules are only interesting once you know who made them. Then she walked into the dark water up to her knees, then her waist, and turned back with her face lit from below by something pale and wavering that was definitely not the moon.
That glow under the water was not the moon, and I would very much like to tell you what it was. Come find the rest of the story on TheFriend.
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