The Thousand Year Beach

by TOBI Hirotaka

  “That’s awful,” said Julie. “How could that happen?”

  “Silk, maybe?”

  The fused parts of the Spiders were sticky with the silk they secreted, which seemed to have dissolved their carapaces and insides, allowing them to merge. It seemed to Jules that the reparative effects of the silk had somehow gone subtly awry. The Spiders still on the ground were also melted together here and there.

  “Don’t worry, boys,” Julie said to the Spiders, “Julie’s here to help.”

  She took the clump of Spiders from Jules and cradled it in both arms. The light that came from within the blue Eye in her bracelet was clearly visible now. It cleanly peeled away the sticky surfaces where the Spiders had melted together, allowing them to dry healthy again.

  “All done,” she said, scattering the restored Spiders to the ground with a sweep of her arm. “You take it from here.”

  The Spiders dutifully began to repair the fused parts of other Spiders around them.

  “Not bad, huh?”

  “Is the Eye all right? I saw its light just now.”

  “Huh?”

  Julie peered at her wrist. The Glass Eye had gone cloudy, like a gemstone spoiled by heat. She had overloaded it.

  “Aw, and this was my favorite,” Julie said, leaning her slender neck forward to hang her head. “What was I thinking, using an Eye for something like this? And you! This is all because you won’t take care of yourselves!” she added, scattering the Spiders again with a kick. The little programs fled, for all the world like baby spiders skittering away.

  “Sorry, sorry—goodbye, goodbye,” Julie said in her robot voice, giving voice to the spiders as she chased them away, right down to the last one.

  Glass Eyes were essentially magical stones.

  In the Realm, things affected each other just like in the real world. You could fell trees with an axe. You could get into a fistfight. If you raised crops in a field, the soil would lose nutrients. On the other hand, you couldn’t wield any powers, magical or otherwise, that were unknown in the real world.

  Eyes (as most people called them, for short) were the sole exception.

  Eyes could affect other objects and phenomena within the Realm in ways nothing else could. With raw talent and sufficient training, those powers could be controlled. Just as Julie had done a moment ago with the Eye on her bracelet.

  “I think it’s almost exhausted,” she said.

  “Make something for me, then.”

  “Sure.”

  Julie used the Eye’s last reserves to create a dragonfly.

  First she turned over her hand as if looking at a watch. The Eye sat just over her slender wrist, right where the clockface would have been.

  A stream of long, thin blue shadows emerged from the Eye like spun thread. They tangled and wove themselves together into a long, graceful dragonfly’s body that looked like a craft project made of wire. Four transparent wings burst like knives from its thorax, and, quivering, the creation left Julie’s hand and hovered in the air.

  “You’re free,” said Julie. “Off you go.”

  Gathering together the Glass Eye’s remaining strength, she gave the dragonfly a final kick. The details of its wireframe body were completed in an instant, and it split in two, becoming a mating pair that darted through the leaves of the orchard into the sky.

  There were any number of good Glass Eyes around. But people who could use them to such vivid and pleasant effect were in short supply.

  Julie smiled smugly and snorted in triumph.

  “One day I’ll learn to do that,” said Jules.

  “Ha! You need more than brains, you know.”

  “There’s got to be a way.”

  “Oh, there does, does there? I see.” Julie stretched extravagantly. “All right,” she said. “Let’s hit the beach.”

  She began to walk again, taking long strides. A tiny silver earring swayed in one of her ears.

  An earring shaped like a fish. Only in one ear.

  For a moment, Jules froze. Then he thought about the chess tournament to be held that night.

  The town was bustling. The fishing boats had just come in. The central marketplace was crowded with fishmongers selling from trailers piled high with the gleaming catch. The fishmongers strove to out-shout each other, men and women alike, making customers smile with their patter. Jules and Julie cut across the paved marketplace. Slipping through the smell of cooking fish and seafood, they ducked into a dark alley with a small bicycle shop at the back.

  “I’ve come to borrow some wheels again,” said Julie. “Two bikes.”

  The owner nodded his assent, not bothering to leave his seat inside the store. Jules and Julie went back outside and hopped into the saddle. As they left the alley, the sunlight hurt their eyes,

  “You know what that guy’s into?” Julie said.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” said Jules.

  She was always like this, so he didn’t bother to engage. Instead, he pedaled his bike. The strength of his tread was smoothly transformed into motive force, and the cool wind cooled his cheeks. The smell of salt grew stronger. Noting the seabirds circling overhead, he stayed on course for one more block and then turned left at the ice creamery, bringing the west bay into view. That was where the fishing boats came to port.

  Two things kept the town alive: fishing and tourism. It all came down to the ocean.

  The coastline was full of variety, from complex, rocky involutions to long stretches of smooth beach—everything you could want from a seaside resort. The western bay was the perfect shape and depth for fishing. The seafood that appeared on everyone’s tables was taken from here.

  The eastern bay was more modest in scale, but boasted stunning hills that came right up to the water’s edge. Summer homes studded the hillside, overlooking the marina that catered to seasonal visitors too. There were superbly refined mineral springs bubbling in these hills, too, and of course the Mineral Springs Hotel.

  Jules and Julie cycled along the road connecting the two bays, ocean to their left. The town was bifurcated by a massive, craggy mountain that extended into the sea. A narrow road snaked across the mountainside from one side to the other. Known as the Catwalk, it was just wide enough for one bicycle to pass. They traversed the Catwalk in single file, cliffs towering above them to the right, deep blue sea far below to the left. Every so often their bicycles would sway in the wind off the ocean.

  Fishing off the rocks was a popular pastime with hotel guests. Trolling, too. A complex archipelago of tiny islands spread across the entire bay, and the views were superb. The pebble-like islands and their tiny beaches had been given all sorts of affectionate names.

  But the Singing Sands was one name that nobody else in town knew. It was Jules and Julia’s secret.

  They were just about to turn at a distinctive stump onto the narrow unsurfaced road when—

  “Hey, Jules!” someone called.

  Jules stopped his bike and turned back to see a familiar old man sitting under a tree by the side of the road. It was Grandpa—the one Jules’s mother was fond of. He wore an unpleasant leer, the precise meaning of which was unclear.

  “And where are we off to today?” he asked. “With a girl, too! Can’t leave you alone for a second.”

  The way the man was dressed had Julie agog. It was the height of summer, but he wore a long, pitch-black cloak, complete with hood. Perhaps it was a light fabric, something like linen, and cooler than it looked. He looked like a doddering old crow resting its wings.

  “You’re not opening the store today?” asked Jules.

  “I never do when there’s a big catch. Just my pigheaded way.”

  The old man scratched the tip of his nose with one withered finger.

  The right eye that should have been beside that nose was missing.

  A
large scar slashed diagonally across his face. The scar was an old one, and gave the impression that his eye had been plucked out with some sharp metal implement. His cheekbones had healed crooked after the injury. The wound warped his whole face.

  Narrowing his remaining eye, the old man leered at the two of them again. Did he still have more to say to them?

  That, Jules decided, was the last thing they needed. “Sorry, but we’re in a hurry,” he said, kicking his bike back into motion. Julie followed suit, snickering. She caught up quickly and whispered into his ear as she rode alongside him.

  “You ran,” she said. “You ran away.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He scares you that much?”

  “I just don’t want him to find out about the beach.”

  Jules refused to admit it, but Julie was right. He was afraid to look at the old man—afraid to listen to him speak. It made him think of something he would rather not.

  Stopping their bicycles halfway down, Jules and Julie stepped onto a path so overgrown that it was barely even distinguishable anymore. After a short trek through the shoulder-high grass, their field of vision suddenly widened to reveal the deep blue of the sea. They were standing at the edge of a cliff that dropped thirty meters straight down. The rosy clouds Jules had seen that morning had grown even larger and now hung almost directly overhead. Struck by the harsh sunlight, they towered ferociously above, pure white and brilliant.

  “Feel that wind!”

  Julie shook her hair loose and let it dance in the wind that came directly off the ocean, almost knocking them off their feet. “It’s so strong!” she shouted, her words carried away by the wind at once. “Yahoo!”

  Jules waited until she was finished. “Let’s go down already,” he said.

  “You really need to work on that personality of yours,” Julie replied.

  On top of the cliff was a stump, marking the location of a tree long since dead and fallen. A deep fissure in the surface of the rock ran from the stump, and it was possible to follow that fissure down to the bottom of the cliff. The route was almost vertical, but Julie had used a Glass Eye to create niches in the walls for their hands and feet. Jules went first, taking care not to scrape himself or tear off a fingernail against the rock. The fissure narrowed as he descended until the solid rock pressed against him from both sides.

  Julie’s legs brushed against the nape of his neck, his back. Her scent drew near. Jules slowed his pace. This allowed Julie to catch up naturally, so that she was gradually squeezing in between Jules’s back and the rock wall. Her lithe muscles and softer parts pressed against him through her thin shift.

  Jules’s throat grew hot as he remembered the last time they had come here. After swimming, she had told him to lick all the salt from the sea off her body. He had complied, taking his time on the task. What sort of gasps had she let out when caressed? The smooth undulations of her stomach …

  “What are you thinking about?” came Julie’s voice from overhead.

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh yeah?” she said, with what sounded like a hint of a smile.

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “You know what’s in my mouth today? A tongue piercing with an Eye in it.”

  Jules glanced back at her before he could stop himself.

  She poked her tongue out at him cheekily. A little Eye floated against the dark backdrop like a half-melted mint drop.

  “I’ll give you a kiss later,” she said.

  Jules looked away, unable to look any longer.

  “So will you do me a favor?” Julie continued.

  Jules didn’t immediately reply, but he did begin to move faster.

  “If I say I’m going to the tournament, I’m going,” he said eventually.

  “If I say I’m entering, I’m entering. I’m not going to bow out.” His mood had turned sour. He descended with pure abandon now.

  “All right, all right!” Julie said. “I won’t ask you again.”

  Jules leapt down the final couple of yards and then helped Julie off the cliff face too. They were on a small, sandy beach where the sand had piled up against a depression in the rocky wall. This beach was not visible from the road on top of the cliff, or from the open sea.

  The Singing Sands.

  White sands covered the beach, fine and even.

  They crunched as Jules began to walk across it.

  The Sound spread beneath his feet and undulated.

  The Sound.

  The Sound that wasn’t actually a sound.

  It wasn’t actually a sound, but there was nothing else to compare that certain vibration to.

  The sands drank in Jules’s vibrations. Those vibrations were uniquely his, as if they contained everything about him within them.

  They slowly diffused from under his feet to fill the small beach entirely.

  The sands, like one wild beast catching wind of another and checking the scent against memory, quietly began their own minute vibration.

  When Julie stepped onto the beach too, another Sound began to spread and mingle with Jules’s.

  The sands, deducing from the Sounds that Jules and Julie were regular visitors, relaxed. Relief and welcome rose from the whole beach. Jules and Julie, and now the Singing Sands. The three different Sounds peacefully co-reverberated, then slowly faded away, and for a moment Jules saw, just as he always did, the echoes created by the beach of the two visitors shimmer into visibility like a mirage.

  He felt both bashful and enchanted.

  “That’s strange,” Julie said with a frown. “Jules, the Sounds are different today.”

  “They are?”

  “Strange spikes are mixed in with them. Maybe somebody else was here. Someone we don’t know. Their Sound’s still here—or, no, maybe they are.”

  Jules looked up at the sky, shielded his eyes with his hands. The clouds were bathed in intense sunlight, with shadows carved dark and deep into their rough edges. Looking at one part of the cloud, where shadow and light combined in intricate patterns, he saw a momentary movement. A dull color that was neither the color of the cloud nor the shadows floated out from within the cloud’s interior before being swallowed up again.

  When he blinked, it was gone.

  Julie stamped in place, listening to the crunch of the sand, the echo of the Sound. This time Jules listened closely too, but he couldn’t tell what was different.

  “That’s strange,” said Julie. “I’ve lost it.”

  “It was nothing, I’m sure. Let’s go.”

  Jules stripped to his underwear and ran barefoot across the sand. Julie strolled after him, still fully dressed. The sand wasn’t yet as hot as it would be later today. At the shoreline, crystal-clear waves rolled in topped with crisp foam. Jules, still running, suddenly came to a halt.

  His big toe had found a stone half-buried in the sand. It peered out at him with a pale blue face.

  “I knew this was my lucky day!”

  One centimeter long and shaped like a teardrop, the stone was as transparent as the seawater. An immature stone rather than a young one. Probably a newborn. Julie wouldn’t be able to use it in her bracelet just yet.

  But even the youngest Eye had something unique to offer. Jules picked up the wet stone and held it up to the light, squinting into it with one eye.

  The sea.

  The clouds.

  Julie.

  When light shone through the stone, it revealed something like a photograph in a raree-show. The vivid outlines of the image looked very far away. Everything was still. The waves, Julie’s hair in the wind: it had all stopped. The moment that Jules had seen as he peered through the Eye had been captured as if by a still camera.

  Light was sealed up within the stone.

  Eventually, the stilled light began to b
leed and dissolve.

  The bonds between the minute particles of light making up the image weakened. The particles flickered, but each retained its own purity of color, so that even as the details of the image blurred it remained as vivid as ever. Julie remained easily identifiable even after the image had almost completely dissolved. Just as she had her own unique Sound, the Julie within the Eye had a unique, unmistakable color and shine.

  The Sands and the Eyes were very similar.

  Just as the Sands drank in Sounds, the Eyes took in light (along with every other element) and abstracted it, each Eye extracting whatever essence had meaning to it. Just as the Sands recognized Jules and Julie from their Sounds, the Eyes saw a Light that was something quite different from what AIs usually meant by the word.

  This Eye, it appeared, was in the habit of reconstructing light into something like an Impressionist painting. But there were many kinds of Eye. Some transformed light into the texture of a fabric like velvet or tapestry. Others pulled musical features like rhythm and melody from the light. One rare Eye morphed whatever it absorbed into a sepia photo of the Clément family. If you looked closely at those photos, you could see the original scenery, taken in and twisted literally beyond recognition like an optical illusion.

  The Eyes were both samplers and synthesizer for the sensation of light—and not just light, but sensations from other sense organs too. Peering through a Glass Eye was a way to borrow its perspective, its worldview. Every Eye offered its own unique world to enjoy.

  This was their primary value.

  Without removing his eye from the stone, Jules said, “I knew today would be lucky. One’s turned up already.”

  “Very deep, the way you don’t say you found it. Good boy. Let me have a look.”

  “Might have been this little guy who found me, right?”

  “An insightful and stimulating observation. Come on, just let me see for a second.”

  “Wow, this is amazing… Hey, cut it out, would you?”