Soul Fire

of who was famous in the ‘real’ world
and who I’ve only seen here. The guy over there made the news as a freedom campaigner who was gunned down during protests in Burma; the girl lying with her head in his lap drowned off a Greek
island after the ferry she was travelling on was sabotaged. Knowing there is happiness to be had on the Beach makes their short lives feel a little less pointless.
    ‘Alice!’ I hear a whisper behind me.
    ‘Javier?’
    ‘Over here.’
    I don’t see him at first, but then I notice something move under one of the palm trees. A boy and a girl, their backs leaning against the trunk, playing cards.
    I walk across the hot sand. Javier grins at me – that’s not like him – and the girl smiles shyly. She looks younger than many of the Guests. Still pretty, of course, but the
dusting of freckles over her cheeks makes her seem like a schoolgirl, rather than a supermodel.
    ‘Good day, Alice.’ Javier says, kissing me on both cheeks. ‘If you’re looking for your big sister, she’s with the new guy.’
    I hold my breath. ‘You’ve seen her? Today?’
    He nods. ‘They appear to be inseparable . So sweet!’
    She’s still here . I feel my eyes blurring with tears of relief. Though the relief is mixed with anxiety; her killer is still free too.
    I blink hard. On the sand, I see piles of pinkand white shells on top of the cards.
    ‘Gambling, Javier?’
    ‘To make it more interesting. Obviously we Guests are like royalty. We do not carry cash, so I had to improvise. But it was Gretchen who invented the currency. The whites are worth five,
the pinks ten and the ones with the . . . madreperla . . .’ he picks one up and I see the shimmering inside.
    ‘Mother of pearl,’ I say.
    ‘The same as Spanish! The ones with the mother of pearl inside, are worth fifty.’
    ‘In German, is the same too. Perlmutt,’ Gretchen says. She holds out her hand. ‘Hello, Alice. It is very nice to meet you properly, at last. You are very popular, here,
since . . .’
    ‘Nice to meet you too, Gretchen.’ I interrupt her, to stop her mentioning Triti’s name. Triti and Javier were so close, and I can’t bear to remind Javier of what
he’s lost.
    Though perhaps that’s less of an issue since he’s found Gretchen. I recognised her vaguely when I first arrived here, remembered something about a kidnapping that went wrong. Then,
after I noticed Javier hanging out with her a few days ago, I Googled her. The details of what the kidnappers did to her were too painful to read.
    Javier sniggers as I shake hands with Gretchen. ‘So English. And so Germanic. Now that you two have been formally introduced, would you like to play, Alice? Or we can see if Sam will
rustle us up some tea and scones and cucumber sandwiches for you.’
    I should be finding Meggie and Tim, but if Gretchen is going to be the newest member of the gang, it’d be rude to rush off this minute. ‘I’m useless at cards, but I’ll
sit down for a bit. So, are you keeping this boy under control, Gretchen? He can be quite a handful.’
    ‘I had a baby brother,’ she says. ‘I know how to handle any tantrums.’
    She sounds serious, but her eyes are smiling. I can imagine her as a head girl when she was alive. Serious on the surface, but with a wicked sense of humour once you got to know her.
    ‘What you cold-blooded northern Europeans see as tantrums, we Latinos know as being passionate,’ Javier says. He’s teasing, yes, but he sounds so much less savage than he did
immediately after Triti died. And I wonder if Gretchen is a better match: poor Triti was so full of anguish, while Gretchen seems grounded.
    They’re chattering away in Spanish now – so, Gretchen is multi-lingual as well as funny. I don’t understand the words, but I hear the unfamiliar lightness in Javier’s
voice. Yes. She is going to be good for him. And he could be good for her too. He’s a sweet guy, once you can get past the sarcasm. And it’s so rare to find a Guest who says he doesn’t want to escape.
    Javier’s hinted at the truth a few times: Soul Beach is way, way better than his real life ever was. Occasionally he tells sweet stories about his mother, his little sisters, but never his
father. His death seems particularly pointless: he fell from an unfenced roof during a festival. There was a suggestion he might have taken drugs, but no evidence. Of course there must have been
more to it, or he wouldn’t be here. But as long as he