Linksshifter II

A Path Between The Waves - ~~

The phone buzzed, and Sonali flipped herself over, grabbing for it on the desk. A wave of rain splashed against the windows: if she couldn't be out riding her bike, and had to be cooped up inside, "revising" so she could be in her room instead of down with the others, Naresh had better be responding to her mails, and he better have time to talk.

< all right, seriously, give me a break
< I can talk now but ffs I got work yo
< if i'm not answering its bc someone threw a wrench down a bore or somethin, not cos I hate u

Sonali rolled up, already pummeling the screen keyboard with her thumbs. It had been three days since he'd sent her a proper response – if he had time now, he was going to talk, and even if he didn't have any answers for the problems she thought she had, just talking would be enough.

> do you know a family the conroys?
> they have or I guess had a little blond kid calld liam
> I saw him missing on a poster and I think I ought to care
> but I cant tell why – I asked @school and nobody I knows related
> I thought he might be friends w the twins but they dont know him neither

< uh yuh good, u ot to care
< srsly its a missing kid – u dont care the daily fail gonna find out and make ppl flame u on fb

> yeah I got that
> I got that we all got to like an share or were weird and gonna get it
> but its differnet like
> like its somethin I got to pay attention to – like its a flag that popped

< lolwut
< lol wut u kno bout flags
< thot u did sport lol

Sonali rolled her eyes and dropped her head back onto the pillow. It was him, it was all him; it was Naresh down to the soles of his second-hand trainers that he bought off dodgy websites and bragged about – limited editions wot? – as he ground them into paste and slopped them all over with cable grease. It was like he was back here, like he was right in here with her, in every way but the most important one, the way that she could punch him in the shoulder and get him to be serious for once.

> no come on
> this is srs
> I was out by the sea the othr day and had a well weird feeling
> like I was to go out in it
> and I saw his poster then
> not then but after
> so it wasnt me thinking bout the kid looking out the sea
> but like lookin at the kid and thinkin on the sea aye?
> anyway fked if I unnerstnd it
> you?
> you got to work with all kind s on the rigs – did no one never say nothing
> bout well strange truck the like?

< wat, werid shite and kids missing?
< slenderman anaw?
< sure u no got revision to do?

> afr slenderman gtf
> ffs
> im no a kid
> its no anjali asking you
> be srs
> cos I rly think this matters

< awright
< ok
< I cn see this is important to u
< rite then
< if its weird shite an kids gone in the water I got nothing
< but when I was out in buchan we lost a man on one the shafts in a storm
< and we had this auld boy malcolm wi us out fae the hebredies

Wherever Naresh was about to go with this, it was taking him a while to type it out. There was a lot in there, maybe – or maybe he was just typing half, deleting it back, wondering how to put it right that Sonali would understand – that she could even believe.

< he said he saw it
< what washed kevin under
< when nobody saw nothing, when the most anyone else wid own was a rogue wave
< he calld it a nucklavee, a great pile of muscle like swimming cables, eyes of fire
< said he saw it rise on the wave an catch him in its jaws on the crest
< an that was that, strait down witout a cry
< I didnt believe it not a word, but nobody cd tell him how he wis wrong
< wat he didnt see, an they never did find kevs body
< an we had some real pro old sbs divers out in the field then mind
< an so malcolm didnt never let go his devils
< the nucklavee, that was always watin under the water to strike
< any tiem it smell a man full o sin, up an bang
< and inshore it was the achuskae
< a horse wading in the surf an u go up an pat it
< an u hands sticks to it, an it drags u down the bottom, eats them it drowns