Barrier by Mary Victoria Johnson

Author:Mary Victoria Johnson [Johnson, Mary Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-78535-429-8
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2018-10-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Andrew had booked into a cheap lodgings down the street not wanting to stay another night on the hard floor of the flat and with Demitra making him feel distinctively uncomfortable staying there. When we met up he told me that my news could have nothing on his. He suggested we should go to a place we could talk where nobody could overhear, that being the seaside.

“It seems a bit extravagant,” I’d said.

“Trust me.”

And that had been that. I had never been to the seaside before and was at once excited and fearful.

The train, compared to the bus, was heaven. I was beginning to appreciate them. Even in third class, there weren’t many passengers except perhaps for city-dwellers escaping to family in the country; people were clearly feeling uncomfortable about holidaying during wartime. This meant we could stretch across a whole seat each, and I greedily took advantage of my own window.

If I forgot for one moment how fast we were going, and how many things could go wrong. It was actually one of the most enjoyable journeys I had ever been on. The train was smaller than most, and the windows opened about halfway down to let in a fresh breeze.

It stopped at a little station only a short time later, with only the two of us getting off. From there we walked in a silence that was not awkward, but suspenseful.

“Is the sea not dangerous?” I asked, my nerves starting to bother me with the increasingly salty air. “I mean, what if you fall in?”

Andrew took my hand in his, refuting, “No. It starts out quite shallow, and gets deeper very gradually. There are currents and drop-offs, of course, but as long as you stay on the beach you’ll be fine. Have you really not even seen any large bodies of water before?”

“The creek.” I shrugged.

The path wound up a gradual hill, gravelly underfoot and edged by patches of dead grass. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how beautiful a place it would be in the summer, when the grass was bright green again and tipped with flowers instead of frost. A harsh wind blew overhead, tousling my hair into wilder curls and truly making me applaud my decision to bring a scarf.

“How much farther?” I asked through chattering teeth, panning the hill for trees that might provide a windbreak, but finding none.

“Only a few minutes more,” he assured me.

I buried my face further into the scarf, skirt flapping around my knees so that it was difficult not to stumble.

“Hey.” He stopped so that I bumped into him. “Have a look.”

Cautiously, tired eyes braced for the cold wind, I popped my head up.

“Oh…” I gasped, my hand over my mouth.

In all my years, I had never seen anything so beautiful or ethereal. Ahead of us the land ended. Instead, pale, bare, rocky cliffs, many draped with rolling cloud, loomed nearly a hundred feet over the expanse of beach below. The sky was stormy grey overhead, but did not

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