Page 10 of Carousel

He opens the ball again at his side.

I blink. “How many things exactly do you have in there?”

Out comes a small, blocky wooden device with a retractable antenna I immediately recognise as a radio. We often used them in the Palace.

His thin, pale lip curves up an inch.

“I wasn’t planning on walking at all.”

“Good. That’s great. But you’ll need somewhere safe to wait.”

“I was going to take my chances by that outcrop,” he says, pointing with his thumb at the rounded shape of it in the distance. “But, by all means, if you have a better idea.”

I smile. “I always have a better idea.”

It’s about a mile’s walk to the ship. It washed up about a year ago and still hasn’t been removed. Only parts of its rounded hull and nose and exposed jagged, rusting frame are remaining, giving it the look of a broken lobster trap. It’s wedged firmly in the sludgy wet sand.

“You’ll be safe here,” I promise. “No one comes up this far.”

“What would you suggest I say if someone does come?”

“Travelling holymen are allowed to move freely through villages. You could try to pass yourself off as one.”

He indicates his clearly Rhavnan face. “Do I look like a holyman to you?” Then, his torn shirt. “Or even, holy?”

“No,” I admit. “But it’s worth a try. If it’s that or death.”

He stares at me with those dark eyes like he thinks I’m an idiot.

But then his face settles, as if reconsidering, and he climbs in.

It’s a wilderness in there. Clumps of seaweed have gathered anywhere they could. Anything loose has been scavenged, but rubber tubes leading nowhere shoot up from everywhere, and a few copper pipes jut out from the remaining walls. The control table has a crack running through the middle of it, and most of the gauges are smashed.

He runs his hand over the rotting wood. “I wasn’t expecting this. Thank you.”

“Now he thanks me.”

“Really,” he says. “I am in your debt.”

I take a long look around the beach, before I say, hesitantly, “Do you want me to wait with you?”

“You… could,” he says, stiffly.

Seeing no one – and deciding that maybe bad decisions come in threes – I step inside and drop down beside him on the damp sand.

He adjusts a dial on the radio before bringing it to his mouth. He says, over the sound of static, “Your gift is ready to collect at eleven past the hour, in the flightless damselfly,” before returning the radio to the ball.

“Did you just call yourself a gift?”

“I couldn’t exactly say come and collect me, I am on a Hevallan beach.”

No humour. Got it.

“I suppose now you just have to wait.”

“Yes.”

He’s staring out at the sea, to the far right. The glassy, domed top of the submerged ship is just about visible where the shoreline curves. It comes back to me, how it sank beneath the waves, so quickly, so easily. If there was anyone inside, they didn’t have a chance.