Palace of Shadow by Ray Celestin

Author:Ray Celestin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2023-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

25

When I reached the beach I spotted the ball at its far end. But as I made my way over to it, a gust of wind sent it bouncing over the wall of rocks that separated the bay from the next one along.

I rushed across the sand, clambered over the rocks and dropped down onto the adjacent beach. I looked around and realised that I was actually standing in a tiny, secluded cove. The cliffs behind loomed over it, cutting out the light. At their top I could see the edge of the house, teetering far above. At their foot, a series of cave mouths led back into the rock. Due to the way the coast curved, this cove was more exposed to the wind and incoming waves, and was already filling with the tide.

I saw the ball further on, in a gap at the bottom of a mound of rocks. I crossed to it and picked it up, then turned to head back. But as I did so I spotted something on the sand further on, floating at the water’s edge.

A blade of shock stabbed through me as I realised it was a naked body. Either somebody had fallen from the cliffs above, or they had washed in with the tide. I continued staring, as if frozen in a dream. And then the body turned, jerking onto its side and back again. Had it been moved by the waves? Or was the person still alive and in need of help?

I burst into a run, sprinting over the wet sand. As I neared, I saw it was a woman, red-haired, young, floating face up in the water.

Eventually I reached the shallow pool where she lay, gently rocking in the swell, and I saw undoubtably that she was dead; her chest unmoving, her eyes open, the seawater rolling over them as if they were tide pools. And yet, all across her nakedness, she had not a single mark on her body, nor was she bloated. If she had fallen from the cliffs, or washed in from the sea, surely there would be marks of passage on her?

I studied her and it was only then that I noticed how well she resembled my dead wife Rose – beautiful and pale-skinned, with lips both full and delicate, a rhythm of freckles sweeping across her face. Her hair was a burning orange that rippled and gleamed in the greenish water. The sharp and ancient rocks that encompassed her made her seem even more fragile and otherworldly.

As I stood there a raging anger filled me at the injustice of Rose’s passing, the same larmoyant fury that had afflicted me in the years immediately after her death. I looked up at the cliff, where the very edges of the house were tumbling down, and for some reason I directed my anger at the house, as if Rose’s death was its fault. And as I directed this anger at the house, I felt it was reflecting it back at me, the same malevolent energy.

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