In her two months surfing, Frannie was a risk-taker, but not generally a night surfer.
But the moment the concert was over, Frannie joined the shouts of “Night suuuuurfff!” She hugged Betty and Truly- who’d done such a beautiful job that the sounds of the music still echoed in her ears—and she grabbed Newp and Hooky both and dragged them towards the water.
She wanted both of them. They were a mess on land, or at least she was for them, crazy with jealousy and butterflies, halting and nervous, riveted with love and hurt. But not on the waves. She held their hands and ran in her dress to answer the call of the ocean. There was no strange emotion out there, out there you only thought about the art, mind focused only on the board and the body and the balance.
The three of them ran and grabbed tiki torches as they went, and then others followed, all of Hooky’s Legion and even more from up and down the state, a whooping army of night surfers charging out to sea. Frannie saw dinner jackets flung and boards brandished, churning up and down and flickering, board and tiki, tiki and board.
Fifty yards out the army of surfers rested on their boards and watched the horizon for shimmering deep-blue waves. Frannie floated and dangled her feet, Hooky on her right and Newp on her left, dark silhouettes of lean muscle. She could see the shaggy hair on Newp’s head and Hooky’s cowlick, as if they were construction paper cutouts, Hooky’s seashell bracelet practically glowing against the water.
“Hey, Frannie, look,” Hooky called, pointing out.
“Surf’s up.” Frannie breathed and started to paddle as the two silhouettes let her go first. She dipped her hands and pushed, watching a long rolling swell coming in. The other two started paddling behind her and moving apart, splitting like machines, Hooky going way left and Newp headed for the south end of the wave. Frannie took center and paddled for all she was worth.
It hadn’t broken yet, but boy it was swelling. She was lost now, her brain shut off except for a thousand calculations, looking for the right time, the right feel of upsurge against her body, and then she realized it still hadn’t broken and she wasn’t even going to try to get on top because she was going to shoot the damn thing.
The front of the swell pushed her up and she caught a glimpse of yachts in the distance, waiting for July 4, and then the wave broke ahead of her and here it came.
A wall of glistening night wave and she heard Hooky call “Shoot it, Frannie!”
She pitched forward, slipping the nose of the board right into the curl just as the wall started building, the bottom of the curl lifting her, the chittering sound of the water against the underside of the board slamming like a machine. The wall thrust up next to her so high and flat she could hang a poster on it. No shudder or shake, distant voices disappearing, just her and the wave and the sliding board, the wall glistening slick and she stuck out her hand and touched it, the water ripping out around her fingers as she flew down the night pipe, flying until she ducked under the dying curl, racing and crunching her body as the pipeline narrowed, her feet perfect and the roar a faraway echo.
She burst through the north end of the pipe still on her feet and time smacked back, she rode and reached the breakers and dropped to her feet, grabbing her board. She ran towards Newp, who was wading towards her.
Newp grabbed her and spun her around in the water. “Jesus, you’re a natural.”
Then Hooky got here and damn if that bastard didn’t literally tousle her hair like she was the son of the Rifleman.
Then she put her arms around her men, lost to the world and the other surfers, lost to all.
After a moment she looked back out to sea and said, “Let’s go again.”
She heard a whisper in her brain, really more a vibration in the hair on the back of her neck as she started to paddle out. She thought of the little golem in her room and the thought made her laugh. She knew that soon she’d need to go ashore and participate in the planned exorcism of the box.
She paddled out and pivoted, turning with a rising swell. Probably had an hour to go and she’d make use of it. She found a wave, not too big this time, and got to her feet.
Something yanked on her feet and she fell forward, smacking her hip against her board.
What the Hell? And then a pair of arms, white and bony, reached from the waves and grabbed Frannie’s hands, pulling her towards the board so fast that her teeth banged together as she smacked her chin on the board and she went in the water and she felt a panicked urge to swim and she kicked and swam.
And flipped her legs under her to stop because someone’s head was half-in the water, black hair and burning eyes, and then it sank below the waves.
She started to shake, treading water.
How the Hell did you get out?
She started to shout and then the white hand burst from the water and grabbed her by the neck, yanking her under the waves.
Newp felt giddy and alive as he hopped up on the board and rose the wave, eyes searching for obstacles and Frannie and Hooky.
He had kissed Frannie. Kissed Frannie! That crazy kid was impossible for him to describe or understand, but she strode into everyone’s life and turned it upside down. Stop thinking, stop, surf, feet and board, and he could taste her mouth and feel her hands.
Newp saw for a moment Hooky’s head and body silhouetted against the sky about twenty yards off, the crazy beachcomber king.
A sound like the grinding of corn or beans sounded off towards the shore, and he looked back.
Newp saw a white cloud shooting across the water and pegged it instantly. He could see the cloud coming against the waves, tiny beating wings in one long column, and then as he started to fall at the ebb of the wave, the birds were upon him. They struck him hard and he fell, feeling them slice his chest and arm as he flew back off the board and into the water.
Newp dove, swimming for broke under the water, kicking against the tiny birds as they flew through the water, and he opened his eyes and saw them all around. A long line of origami moving through the waves like a great barracuda of countless tiny winged pieces, glowing under its own light.
One of them came plowing through the water and struck his forehead and he felt it churning, biting, the cut singing with salty pain, another plunging at his neck, rhythmic and brutal, thrum thrum thrum.
He would not open his mouth, he could not, that was what it wanted, he realized, an easy way in, it wanted to dive into his mouth and down his toward and rip his flesh from the inside, and no, he would not open his mouth.
Newp’s chest went tight and the air in his mouth burned rancid and he yearned to open his mouth; he fought, swatting slowly at the birds under water, He felt them between his toes, felt them slicing his belly, the burns warm and agonizing, and they sliced at the drawstring of his shorts.
Newp screamed.
###
Frannie flailed under the water, her wrists locked in the bony hands of the ghost. The water was cold and clear; she could see perfectly, for she was bathed in the glow of the angry dead woman, whose own legs kicked and steadied her. The girl’s eyes were wide, dark circles, her mouth open and black. She stared, almost unseeing, and Frannie got the impression that if she watched her for another second, the ghost’s mouth might widen and sprout enormous teeth and she would tear Frannie apart.
Her hair flowed like an oil slick, trailing the light died in the green-black distance. Motes of dust swirled between Frannie and the ghost, sparkling with the eerie incandescence.