Soul Fire

mermaid
music, the kind that brings sailors crashing onto the rocks.
    I walk along the water’s edge, trying to pick out the shape of my sister or Danny from the strange silhouettes, but not daring to go closer to the Guests. Apparently they’re growing
restless because I haven’t responded to their notes and appeals. I want to, but events in real life seem more urgent right now.
    It feels like a clock is ticking . . .
    Then I spot the person I really need to speak to, on the pier.
    ‘Javier!’
    He waves me over.
    ‘ Hola , Alice. If you’re looking for Meggie, she’s in one of the huts with Tim.’
    ‘Actually, I’d like to talk to you.’ I sit down next to him. ‘You’ve been avoiding me. I’m worried.’
    Javier kicks gently at the water. ‘Perhaps I enjoy being melancholy. It’s a Catalan thing.’
    ‘Catalan?’
    ‘Where I come from, we have our dark side.’
    ‘Ah. Is everyone in Barcelona like that then?’
    ‘The stories I could tell you, Alice. It is a place of high emotion.’
    ‘I’ll find out for myself, soon. Very soon. Tomorrow. Well, later today, really.’
    He turns round to look at me. ‘That’s not a very funny joke.’
    ‘It’s not a joke. I’m going to Barcelona. That’s why I’m here now. I wanted to make sure I’m doing the right thing.’
    Javier stares at the water. ‘Ha! The right thing? How would I know?’
    I say nothing.
    ‘You are doing this for me, Alice?’
    ‘Mainly. I mean, my friends were going anyway. But I hadn’t decided, until Gretchen left and I saw how sad it made you. It’s a coincidence, but a good one.’
    ‘Coincidence? Or perhaps everything is connected, but we’re too blind to see. But Barcelona . . .’ He whistles. ‘It’s a beautiful city, Alice. I miss her. The beach
. . . well, it’s not like Soul Beach. Not Paradise. More raw, but more real. Well, it could hardly be less real than here, right?’
    ‘Tell me what I should do, Javier. Where I should go.’
    There’s a long pause; all I can hear is fluttering like paper wings, as the breeze blows through the Chinese lanterns. ‘There is someone . . .’
    I wait, but then he shakes his head. ‘Except, maybe it is better not to haunt the living.’
    Perhaps I got it completely wrong, and he doesn’t want to leave the Beach at all. But the force field of sadness that surrounds him is so powerful.
    ‘It is up to you, Javier. I’m not pushing. It’s just that you’ve seemed so lonely and so hopeless, but perhaps things are better now.’
    ‘Better?’ He laughs. ‘I wish it were so. I fear making things worse, that’s all. I have no idea of what I left behind at home. Maybe it will pain me more to
know.’
    ‘It’s your choice.’
    A lime green parakeet flies past us, screeching; in the lantern light, its feathers shimmer. ‘You know, sometimes I think that might be Gretchen,’ Javier murmurs. ‘Or
more likely Triti. She loved bling and bright colours. But then I think I am stupid because surely after this there is nothingness . It would be even more of a punishment to be here as a bird
than to be here as a Guest, right?’
    He’s not expecting an answer. He follows the bird with his eyes, then looks back at me. ‘And then sometimes I am afraid of nothingness and sometimes I think it would be the best
thing ever. So I am trapped in my indecision. If I had a coin to flip, I could choose.’
    ‘I have a coin,’ I say, reaching behind me to the box where my father dumps his change every night after work. ‘Would you prefer to leave it to chance?’
    A twisted smile appears on Javier’s face. ‘I think I do like that idea. Que será , será . It’s appropriate for a world where nothing is under our
control.’
    ‘Heads or tails?’
    ‘In Spain, we say cara o cruz . Face or cross. So let me see. Face, you do nothing. Cross, you do what I ask.’
    It occurs to me that I could lie. Make it cross anyway, because I believe it’s the right thing for Javier.
    I throw.
    The coin lands on the table.
    ‘It’s tails . . . cross.’
    Javier throws his head back and laughs. ‘Ah. There it is. And now I realise it is the right thing for me, Alice. Because if it had not been the cross, the tails, I would have asked
you to throw again until it was.’
    I don’t have much time left before I have to leave this Beach for the one in Barcelona. ‘So what now?’
    He smiles at me. ‘Let me see. I cannot send you to my city without some . . . traveller tips, right? The