Soul Fire

through with deep pink stripes, like memories
of sun rays. In the last week, I’ve got used to arriving later than this, once the place is in darkness and the only light is from Chinese lanterns and the beach bar. But this time I’ve
made it just in time for sunset.
    I spot them almost immediately. Gretchen is sitting on the sand with Javier. She’s got a pen and is drawing patterns on his hand, the way junior school kids do. Suns, moons, stars. His
skin is dark next to hers.
    ‘Hi, guys,’ I say, sitting down.
    I half expect them to scowl at the interruption, but instead Gretchen leans over to kiss me on both cheeks, her lips skimming my face. Her skin feels feverish. ‘How is Planet Earth,
Alice?’
    ‘Complicated,’ I say.
    ‘You should never leave Soul Beach,’ Javier says. ‘Things are always so simple here.’ Whereas when you are living, well, whatever you do, there are always
consequences.
    Gretchen smiles at me. ‘Ignore Mr Sharp. You seem weary, Alice. But now you’re here, you have nothing to worry about. I insist you relax with us. Watch the sun go down.’
    There’s something odd about her voice. Can she sense what’s going to happen?
    ‘The view of the sunset is best from the chiringuito bar, of course,’ Javier says, ‘and even better with a drink.’
    We scramble up from the sand, which is gritty between my toes. How come it feels so much more real than the stripped floorboards that are actually under my feet? Gretchen and Javier pull me up,
taking one hand each, and again, I notice that she seems to be burning up. Is this what it’s like when a Guest is about to leave?
    No sign of Meggie or Danny tonight. But that’s OK. I must focus on Gretchen.
    The bar is quiet, though the handful of Guests still nudge each other when they see me, perhaps hoping I might be able to help them. Weird. Since Triti went, I’ve almost come to believe my
own publicity – that I’m all-powerful. Yet if Gretchen goes tonight, it will have been nothing to do with me.
    We sit at the table nearest the sea. Within seconds, Sam has brought a tray over with three deep-orange tequila sunrises. ‘I know you can’t drink it,’ she says putting one in
front of me, ‘but you can enjoy the view, and I’m sure they’ll finish it for you.’
    I wonder, does she know that soon she might have one less customer to serve? Maybe everyone knows, and the joke’s on me.
    ‘To sunset,’ says Gretchen, holding up her cocktail glass for a toast.
    ‘Except it’s a tequila sun rise, ’ Javier points out.
    She laughs. ‘OK, then. To . . . endless horizons.’
    When we do clink glasses, it triggers a sunrise, as blood-red grenadine at the bottom of the cocktail spreads upwards, like scarlet mist.
    Gretchen takes the first sip. ‘It tastes of sunshine.’
    Javier sips his. ‘But not of alcohol. Sam is giving short measures again.’
    ‘You’re just used to Barcelona measures, Javier,’ Gretchen says.
    He smiles. ‘Maybe. I had connections, it’s true. I always got the best service, the catch of the day, the cutest waiters . . .’
    I gaze out at the shore. The apricot glow has gone from the sky now. It’s cherry red, deeper than any sky I’ve seen in real life. But then again, I’ve never been further than
Greece. Perhaps in Thailand or India or the South Pacific, sunsets are this fiery.
    Is the Beach modelled on a real place? Perhaps each wave and each grain of sand has a twin on earth.
    ‘Alice?’
    ‘Sorry, Gretchen, I was miles away.’
    ‘I was saying that on nights like tonight, the thought of being here for eternity seems less frightening,’ Gretchen says. ‘Hearing my little song thrushes preparing for bed.
Watching something so magnificent, with my friends.’
    ‘Lately Gretchen has been hearing things,’ Javier says, laughing.
    ‘What things?’ I ask. Any change on the Beach interests me.
    ‘It sounds ridiculous, maybe, but yesterday I heard something familiar that I had never heard here before: birdsong.’
    Javier shakes his head. ‘Catch up, Gretchen. We’ve had birds here ever since Alice helped Triti get away. It was one of her extra special gifts to us.’
    ‘Not those screeching gulls, Javier. Beautiful melodies. The birds who sing best are drab little things. I used to go to the park, on my way home from school. It was where they took me
– the kidnappers. But that sound kept me going. It was the last lovely thing I ever heard.’
    ‘I can’t hear anything,’