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On the edge of the sand

A bonus chapter for "Shortest Night"
Inspired by A Short Hike by Adam Robinson

- Written on April 8th, 2024, the day of the Second Great American Eclipse -

In the cover of the yawning sky, on the precarious seat of the ocean, Mae built sandcastles.

I think I'll build a…
- Fortress
- Tower
- Wall
, Mae thought.

She chose to connect her two main fortresses, wetly born from her bucket, with a winding wall. It was exciting putting this thing together, and Mae was sandcastling HARD. She'd never known how to make sand castles as a kid! She'd always just tried to make castles out of mostly dry sand and didn't realize she had to get it wet if she wanted it to stick together. Like, seriously wet, with a bucket or a spray bottle. A bucket seemed like the most obvious choice, of course—it was classic. That and her teeny plastic shovel that she was using to dig a moat. Eventually she'd put a grand river through her town, and maybe she'd even dare to dig a path straight from the ocean to fill it in. An ocean water river would be daring, but the people of her town didn't know the meaning of the word "not daring." True, it was two words, but they didn't know the meaning of those two words in conjunction. They could probably handle them separately well enough.

The ocean was lapping a fair distance away—Mae would have called it the perfect distance when she started, but now she wasn't so sure. Would an especially big wave knock her castle down? That had happened on her first try, so she'd moved a bit further in, but was it enough? She knew a huge wave would probably come in and destroy her handiwork eventually… it was just a matter of time. Would she be able to show her creation off before losing it entirely?

Wait. Who would she show it off to, anyway? Wasn't she alone?

"it's really coming along!" said the girl in red.

Oh, well. Asked and answered. Mae looked over and tried, for a moment, to remember how she knew this girl. They'd just met a little while ago, right? Actually, Mae was pretty sure they were still strangers. "Sure is. Hey, this is a silly question, but remind me—did you already tell me your name?"

"don't think so. it's claire."

Well that was a bullet dodged. "Cool. Cool name. You gonna make your own castle?"

"well, that's something I could do," said the girl. "but maybe… I could help you with yours instead?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah, that's totally possible." Mae climbed up onto her butt and scooted back, cross-legged, to make room. This might be fun.

The girl sat before her. It was actually a little surprising how easily she crossed her legs, given that she was a bird. Oh, how about that! Yeah, this girl was definitely a bird with dark indigo feathers. Her legs weren't crossed tight, but she sat comfortably and started shaping a new mound of sand near the main garrison, complete with wingtip-poked windows. The joy of creating something with someone else was enough to occupy all of Mae's attention for a while, until a desire to talk took center stage.

"So… do you come here often?" Mae asked. She winced invisibly a little. That was totally a pick-up line, and while Mae still fantasized about picking up the right lady someday, this was definitely not her. This was a teenager, and probably a young one. And Mae was twenty-six now. Wasn't she? Actually, maybe she'd just been thinking about being twenty-six lately… it was possible she was still twenty-one. Even so, though.

"not really often, but i love it when i do get to come," Claire answered in her little, lowercase voice. "i got my aunt to bring me here for the eclipse. we had a bunch of places we could have gone, but i wanted to come someplace really special, and i don't think anyplace is as special for me as hawk's peak park."

Oh right, the eclipse! That was why Mae was here in the first place, she recalled. "Yeah, Hawk's Peak! That sounds sort of familiar. I guess I just think of this place as the island with the beach. I'm excited to see the eclipse, too." She patted her hip pouch—her cardboard viewing glasses were secured safely within.

"the beach is nice, but this place has so much more than a beach!" said the girl. "you should check out the rest of it if you've got time. i could show you around a little even."

"You would? That's nice of you. Claire. Have you been out walking, or… did you come straight here after you and your aunt got here?"

"oh, I was doing some hiking earlier. i just flew down from the ranger station on the peak. that's always kind of a blast."

That sounded nice. Wait. "Wait. said Mae. "FLEW down?" Something was off, here.

"yeah?" said Claire.

Mae beat her arms up and down a couple times. "Like, flew, with wings? The whole shebang?"

Claire lifted her wings, that she definitely had, a little ways. "uh yeah. it's like... the normal way to fly?"

"If you're a bird!" replied Mae.

The girl glanced down at herself just slightly. "i mean, i AM a bird."

Okay, getting weird. Was this normal, or wasn't it? "Well yeah, but…" Mae was vexed—was this really something she'd never thought about? "You're a bird-PERSON. Not like, a real bird!"

"i'm sorry?" The tip of the stranger's wing was at her breast.

"You've got, like, a hat on," Mae observed. "And you're person-shaped. So it's not like…" Like what? People weren't actually animals, right? That was just something Mae liked to imagine? Or... were they? Why was her mind so swimmy today?

"i hope you don't think a person can't fly with a hat on," replied Claire.

"That's totally not even the point. The hat isn't the point," said Mae. "The point is… if bird people can fly, why didn't I know about it until now?" Which, it occurred to her, might not mean as much as she was making it sound like. There were whole categories of knowing she was childishly oblivious to. She was a knowledge virgin nonpareil, just waiting for others to... shove their education in. Okay, no. she was calling foul on this analogy before it got any more dank, even if she did have a vague sense that she was missing something.

"uh... dunno. sorry!" said the stranger. "i think it's the kind of thing most people learn, in school maybe, or early on."

But Mae wasn't satisfied. "I know birds. One of my almost best friends is a bird. The pastor at my church is a bird. Have they been flying around all this time and just never telling me?" She threw out her arms, feeling like she might as well do something flying adjacent.

"i don't really know what to say. i don't think it's, like, a secret that birds can fly."

"Well no, not birds, but…" No, enough. That was enough struggling for a place as nice as this. Mae decided to give up. "You know what? Okay, that's fine. That's cool you can fly. I mean, geez, I dunno how I can compete with being able to fly, but sure. I'm totally happy for you."

Claire sat with her legs straighter. "compete? what do you mean?"

Mae reflected, steaming a little, with shades of poor grades and incomplete classes through both her stints at college. "I mean, what the heck am I actually good for, in a world with actual real-to-gosh, flying bird people? I can jump kind of high and walk on power lines, sure, but that's, like... strictly less than actual flying."

The bird's eyes were wide now. "you can walk on power lines? like a tightrope? that's actually pretty awesome."

Was it? "Well… depends who you ask. Not everyone's super keen about it."

"i can't walk on a tightrope. i'd have to jump and fly to the other side. and, well… i don't think life's a competition. or if it is, we can compete with ourselves!"

Mae considered that. "Oh, great. So it's not enough for me to be on one side of a competition? I have to be on both?"

Claire smiled nervously. "or, maybe, neither? i'd say you can be on exactly as many sides as you like."

"Fair. You've got a deal, Claire. I'll try to remember. Life. Not a competition."

"i agree." And claire went back to building her neighborhood in the sand city.

That was fine. The ocean was salty-smelling, and lappy-sounding, and this was a really nice day. Not too warm. Not chilly. She dug a little deeper into the sand, wondering if there were stones there for studding her outer wall. Her shovel clicked against something solid; she dug her hand in and pulled it up.

You found a runcible spoon!
Press [X] to use

Now this, this thing Mae was holding was weird, and she loved it. The edges were all wrong for a spoon, and the metal was really old, but she really dug it. And she dug with it! The sharp edges were good for handling damp sand, and soon she gave her shovel to Claire because the spoon was all she needed for digging, aside from the bucket itself.

"you found something neat, huh?"

"Yep," said Mae, holding up the spoon. "Think I'm gonna take this home with me."

"that happens on this island. you find things all over. there's more out here than you expect. once i even looked around with a metal detector and i found a lot of stuff buried here and there, like that."

"You really have had a lot of fun out here, haven't you?"

"i learned to fish on this island! and to play stick volleyball, and climb rocks, and drive a motorboat…"

"Wow. You're an expert. You really should take me and show me around!"

The bird stood up in the sand. "i'd be glad to. um, if I can ask… what's your name?"

"Oh sorry! It's Mae."

"wow. really?"

Like having a name was on par with knowing how to fly? "Yep. Not lying."

"it's just, that's my aunt's name too. she's one of the rangers here."

"Oh yeah? Pretty cool. I've got an aunt in a position of power, too. She's a cop, not a park ranger. But it's, you know. Along the same lines."

"a cop, huh? that must be pretty scary."

"A little? Usually she's just a relative who loves me, or whatever. Her name's Molly, so that's pretty close to 'Mae', too."

"wow. i wonder if we have anything else in common," Claire speculated.

They left the castle city in peace and walked up the trail. It turned out they did have a lot in common. Claire liked visiting this place, and Mae liked visiting her friends in Bright Harbor—so far as they could tell, both destinations made them feel super-special, like life was slowing down to pay close attention. What's more, they were both worried about what they'd do in the future, even though Mae was in her mid-twenties, if she remembered right, and had two jobs, three if you counted the political wrangling for the local office. Getting people to show up for rallies and elections, delivering fliers for local businesses, washing windows on high ledges as an independent contractor. Half her success, not that she had a lot of it, came from running and jumping around, and half came from being bold enough to meet people and form relationships with them. The teenage bird she was talking to seemed to think it was all super-nifty, but Mae knew it wasn't enough to live on for real. She still depended on her parents, and that was something else they had in common—their parents were struggling, and both their moms had been in the hospital recently. Claire talked about how she didn't get to spend as much time with her Mom as she wanted, and how she was always afraid, when there was some new complication or problem, that it was the last time. The time they'd remember later as being the beginning of the end. So far, the end hadn't begun, or so they thought, but it was hard to ever know for sure. And that was rough. Mae could tell it was wearing down on the girl, but what could you do?

Mae held hands with her. And yes, she had hands, on the ends of her wings. They squeezed to show they cared, and meant it. They walked up a high ridge, and looked down on a grassy stretch below.

"do you want to jump?" asked claire.

Mae did, but then she stared at the girl. "What? Jump? It's kind of far, isn't it?" Maybe not as far as a certain bridge featuring a certain king of the possums, but still. She'd been trying to be more sensible about this sort of thing.

"it's ok. i'll give you a golden feather. if you're as good as hopping and leaping as you said, i'm sure you'll be fine. i can even give you three to be on the safe side."

"Golden feather? What…" But it made sense. The three golden feathers Claire offered were brimming with buoyance, Mae could see. She took them and tucked them away in her… in her fur. Right. That was a sensible place to put them, even if it seemed like she never used it for that. But Mae had fur, sure… of course she did.

"ready?"

"Hold on," said Mae. "When I jump, I like to take two practice jumps first. Can we do it on three?"

"ok," said Claire, holding tight. "one…"

They leapt together. It felt strange. "Two…"

This was definitely a lot more like floating than jumping. It reminded Mae of her dreams.

"…Three!" They soared. Hand in hand with a stranger from the beach, Mae glided over the landscape! She was flying! Kind of. She was doing the falling part of flying, but that was… so much more than she ever thought she could do.

They landed near a pond where a turtle person was fishing. Wow, people came in turtles? So cool. Mae fought back the temptation to ask him about his shell and his soft insides, and they talked about fishing, and the island, and the eclipse that was coming instead.

It was so relaxing.

They fished. "You don't know any fish people, do you?" Mae asked her companions.

"Nope," said the turtle.

"i don't think that's an actual thing," said Claire.

"Cool," said Mae. "That's a relief." She was able to land a bluegill in under ten minutes, a personal speed record. She gave it to the turtle to cook up for his supper, since Mae didn't feel hungry. Claire gave him one fish and saved the other one she caught for later. She knew a guy who liked to trade for them, she said.

"Hey Claire? Are you any particular kind of bird?" Mae's curiosity was getting brave.

"mmm. no, I don't think so."

"Not even, like, just a songbird?"

"well yeah, technically me and my family are songbirds. but we don't, actually… do a lot of singing."

"No, that's cool, I was just wondering! I don't sing either, for the record."

"then let's not sing," said Claire. "still, we should do something else."

"You know what, yeah! I feel like…" She felt the runcible spoon in her fur, turning it over. "I feel like we should do as hecking much as we have time for! We might never get another chance."

Claire nodded. "i know what you mean. we might both come back to this island, but maybe never again on the same day."

"So. Do you… want to race?"

Claire smiled. "i love racing! i learned it from someone out here, too. do you want me to promise not to fly?"

Mae considered. "Maybe you can fly a little at the end, but only if you're behind and you need to catch up at the last moment."

"all right. that sounds fun! let's do it."

They said goodbye to the fisherturtle, and raced, and sped, and climbed. They met people on the way to the summit. They didn't get to the summit, though. They reached the highest place they could that wasn't too cold, a place with a terrific view and a little pavilion for sitting in, because the sun was starting to get eaten and it was time for the end of whatever this was.

"it's getting dark," said Claire, her fathered hand in Mae's clawed one. Mae had realized she could retract her fingernails. She'd never realized that before.

"Yeah. The moon's blotting out the sun."

"i like to watch the moon sometimes," the bird confided. "it's got a nice light. but this… this is the darkness of the moon."

"I saw this before," said Mae. "Once in real life, but mostly in my dreams."

"that's nice," said Claire. "Are you dreaming now?"

"Uh, no? No, I don't think so," said Mae.

"are you sure?"

Mae was silent. "Do you think a person can dance by the darkness of the moon?"

Claire shivered a little. "i mean. a person could try."

So they did. And there was finality, and darkness, and the ocean below, its waves lapping higher and higher, threatening to eat away at Outlook Point as if it was part of a giant sand castle. Maybe the very one they'd been building below.

The sun's ring died. In came the waves. Out went the heat.

"it was nice meeting you," said Claire.

"It for sure definitely was," said Mae, who woke up.

Oh. Drat. Oh, drat drat drat. Why couldn't that have been real? The best days were always… well, almost always… the ones that happened in dreams. At night.

She called Broderick that day. He'd had a dream, too, an exciting one. He'd been on a journey that could happened more a century ago, a trip through displaced lands and sacred traditions he'd never known, but felt an affinity with. That was the word he used—'affinity'. He soothed his sore feet with medicine, worked for strangers in return for food, ran from pursuit he couldn't justify, but could deeply understand. Mae listened to him talk for a long time. She told him less about her own dream—not because she couldn't remember it, but because it was too perfect. In the end, there wasn't that much to tell!

They agreed they should meet again sometime soon and hung up the phone. It had been years since their last meeting, and they hadn't known what to say to each other. Today, the day of the eclipse… they'd known. In a few years, Mae suspected words would, once again, fail them.

"Hey Germ. Did you know you can fly?"

"'Scuse me?"

"You're a bird person, you can fly! All it takes is a whole bunch of golden feathers."

"No kidding? We talking magic feathers, here?"

"I guess? I saw it in a dream. But not a normal dream—a special one."

"I gotcha. Okay. Thanks, Mae—that's good to know."

"You'll tell me if you find any golden feathers, right?"

"Sure will. I never flew before, if you don't count trampolines."

"Me neither, but come to think of it, trampolines are pretty close."

"Looking forward to it."

"You should. I'll be happy for you."

Pastor K didn't believe she could really fly, or that golden feathers were real. But she was willing to accept that just maybe, Mae's dream was something worth holding onto.

"This could be a gift, Mae. I hope you understand that."

"I do. Wait. I do? What do you mean, a gift?"

The pastor shifted her glasses. "You got me looking into what's out there, in the places past where we can see. And it's been worth it, even if… a lot of folks have left me along the way." The congregation was only half what it used to be these days. A lot of folks from Possum Springs drove an extra twenty minutes to the next closest Church of the First Coalescence… and a fair number had stopped going to church entirely. But the ones that still came… well, Mae felt like they understood what a good thing they had with Pastor K. It seemed like they came in fearing service, and left glowing. At least, sometimes she got that impression.

"And… you think something else… out there, gave me this dream?" Mae asked. She wondered where her old baseball bat was these days—it had been years since she'd felt the need for it.

"Or, something that's still inside you," said the pastor. "You used to serve as host to a demon, or something very akin to it. Is it possible, do you think, that the same… characteristics about you that made that possible, all those years ago, might have… drawn another kind of being to you? Something… better, than Black Goat?"

Was she talking about angels? For some reason, Mae didn't imagine a glorious being of wings and light—she imagined those strange mandibled beings from beyond beyond. "You think so?" Mae put her hands on her chest. "I don't feel any different… just more excited than usual."

"Perhaps it didn't stay," said Pastor K. "But you've always been an itinerant dreamer, haven't you, Mae? Is it beyond possibility that you might have… wandered far enough afield that you were noticed, once more? By another kind of power that you haven't yet known?"

Mae looked at the sky outside the church, on the ridged and sloping ground. "It could be possible, I guess."

The eclipse was only partial here in Possum Springs. She wished she'd gone to visit her friends, at least. But she stood with the pastor and her mother and Lori M. And a few others, there on the ridge of the church, with dark glasses, in the vicinity of the statue of St. Rubello. And the light went dim, and the sun became a crescent. For a moment, Mae's hand went to her ear, seeking a spoon that wasn't there.

It wasn't totality. But there, among her friends and neighbors, Mae Borowski felt like dancing.

A/N: It would have been nice, over the last seven years, to have gotten my life sufficiently together that a trip to see this total eclipse would have been a no-brainer. To have connections all over the country, such that it would be easy to pick a destination in the path and enjoy seeing friends or places of interest, with the eclipse a happy uncertainty in the midst of it. But since I haven't… this crossover chapter is what I have to offer instead.

Check out A Short Hike, by indie developer Adam Robinson-Yu! Once I got used to the low-resolution graphics (which didn't take long), I found it to be the perfect vacation day simulator, like a dream come true. Or like someone had taken the "fun" tropical paradise level of some longer game and just decided to make it the whole game. It's a real delight.

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