Soul Beach

rewards.’
    ‘What rewards?’ Making Triti happy is enough.
    ‘Better for you to find out for yourself. I just didn’t want it to be too much of a shock.’ Sam smiles at me. ‘You don’t want to hang around with me for longer than you need to. Go see for yourself.’
    I stand up. Beyond the bar, there’s the ocean. And standing on the wet sand, the waves lapping back and forth over her feet, is my sister.
    Every step I take now feels more real. It’s a bit like when Dad replaced our old telly with an HD set. Under the soles of my feet, a thousand grains of sand shift and prickle.
    My sister waves. She’s beaming. ‘You’re a star, Alice, you really are. Everything’s different here. Not just because we know Triti isn’t suffering, but also . . . there are changes. You’ll find out for yourself.’
    I nod.
    ‘But that’s not the main thing. What really makes things better is that now we know that any of us might be able to escape one day. It makes all this,’ she gestures at the Beach, ‘well, I guess it makes paradise bearable. Even somewhere we can enjoy while it lasts.’
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ I say.
    ‘Thank you so much, Florrie. I think you might just have saved all of us from a fate worse than death.’
    Her hair is blowing behind her in the breeze and her eyes match the water: clear, blue, alive.
    I’m ecstatic that I’ve made my sister so happy. For a split second, I forget we’re on the Beach, and I step forward to hug her. But I stop myself before she notices: I can’t bear to spoil the moment by reminding us both that however close we feel, we are really light years apart.
    ‘It was nothing,’ I say.
    ‘You and I both know that’s not true. What you’ve done is . . . well, it’s almost a miracle.’
    I feel myself blushing. I want to stay with her, and yet I also want someone else to know what I’ve done. ‘Meggie?’
    ‘Mmm?’ she looks up and then her face changes as she senses what’s coming. ‘You still feel that way about him?’
    ‘I do. I feel even more strongly that he . . . well, he might be the One.’
    She stares at me: now she has her back to the sea, it’s almost as though she’s translucent and the seawater and sky are shining through, giving her light.
    ‘Go to him, Florrie.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Go on. If there’s ever a time when you deserve not to get a lecture from me on being silly, I think it might be now.’

60
    I run towards our rock. The slap of my feet against the sand is painful, and although I know it’s not possible, I swear that some of the Guests are turning round, hearing my steps.
    Even seeing me too?
    They’re smiling at me.
    But I don’t care about them. I care about the boy I can see in the distance, his back to me as he stares out to sea. His head bobs as he follows the path of a group of seabirds swooping through the sky.
    Sea birds? There are no animals on Soul Beach, surely.
    I want to call out to him, but instead I decide to tiptoe the last few metres, to surprise him.
    Then, right at the very last moment, I am afraid. What if waiting has changed his mind? What if, when I catch him unawares, I’ll see in his face that he doesn’t feel what I want him to feel? That he’s just been playing with me, to pass the time in eternity?
    I have to keep going, but just before I reach him, he turns around.
    ‘ALICE!’ He calls out, even though we’re close enough now to whisper.
    ‘Danny.’ Speaking his name is like reciting the world’s shortest, most beautiful piece of poetry.
    ‘You did it, didn’t you? You helped Triti escape.’
    I nod. He looks so wonderful, now, at least a thousand times better than I remembered. Almost real . . .
    ‘You look different,’ he murmurs. ‘Just as perfect, but, well, almost real.’
    ‘So do you,’ I tell him.
    We stand so close that in the real world a sigh or a breath or a word would be enough to bring us together physically. If only . . .
    ‘Alice, I—’
    I jump back, as though I’ve been electrocuted. His eyes widen, as though he has been, too.
    ‘Was that . . . ?’
    ‘It can’t have been,’ he says, his voice high-pitched.
    Our hands rise at the same moment – my right hand, his left – as though we’re looking in the mirror at ourselves. It’s not true. It can’t be.
    Sam’s words echo in my head. There will be . . . rewards.
    Danny and I watch each other’s hands as they move, so slowly, so tentatively, wanting to prolong the delicious possibility for as