Page 92 of The Edge of Always

‘We need to get as close to shore as we can.’

They ran even faster. Luna thought half hysterically that she’d rather run than swim. Where on earth was Earl?

Up ahead, the sound of an engine. Luna looked up, sure that it must be Earl. Except it wasn’t, it was her… dad.

They stopped running, confused about why Luna’s dad had come for them. She felt sick from the running but also from the worry that something might have happened to Earl.

‘Dad, what are you doing here?’ she asked as he came to a stop next to them. She and Emmett climbed in, buckling in as her dad did a million-point turn on the small sliver of road that wasn’t taken over by the sea. He sped away, and some insane part of Luna thought how her mum would laugh to see that he could drive fast, he just mostly chose not to.

‘Dad,’ she prompted him again when he didn’t say anything.

‘Earl’s fine,’ he said and Luna deflated like a balloon with all the air let out of it. ‘He had a funny turn and he’s in hospital. He told the paramedics that you were here. But they’re letting him out later. He’ll be home soon.’

‘Can we go to see him?’ ‘What sort of a funny turn?’ Emmett and Luna asked questions at the same time.

Her dad waved his hand. Luna thought for a second he was the one who looked ill.

‘Just old age. He’s fine, though. Said there’s no point in visiting. By the time you got there, he’d be on his way home.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely,’ her dad smiled. ‘Now how was the island? The buttresses on that priory are some of my favourites, I have to say.’ He kept talking, and Emmett linked his little finger over Luna’s in the back of the car. But the little kernel of worry she had about Earl, well… it didn’t completely go away.