On the Edge

Andrew first spotted her in the beginning of September. Frustrated once again after a sleepless night followed by a full morning of not writing a word, he decided to take a walk on the beach. A rickety wooden fence, made of weather-washed gray planks, surrounded his yard. He was just about to open the beachside gate at the back corner, under the biggest tree on his lot, when movement caught his eye. He paused, looking over the chest-high fence.

She came from the north, from the direction of the only other cabin in the area. It belonged to old Gloria and had been empty so long Andrew almost forgot it was there. He felt possessive of the beach, this narrow strip between the land and the sea, this wind-blown sand stretch filled with pebbles and whatever drifted in with the tide. It was almost always windy, the currents made it treacherous to swim, and since there were more hospitable beaches nearby, it was usually his alone to roam.

His first reaction to seeing her was intense annoyance. He stayed in the tree's shadow and watched. It was a warm day, but she wore rugged jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt. Her long, dark hair was tied in a ponytail, but a few strands had escaped, whipped by the wind. She had her arms crossed tightly over her chest, and she looked down in front of her as she slowly trudged across his field of vision, barefoot.

Andrew waited until she was a tiny figure in the distance, then ventured onto the beach. He eyed the line of her footprints. Most were already swallowed by the drifting sand, and the rising tide would erase the rest. Bristling with indignation, he stiffly turned to walk the other way.

His route took him by the other cabin. It looked as empty as ever, but there was a car in the yard. He walked by, glaring at the evidence of the intruder. A few hundred meters further the beach ended, and he climbed up the slope to the wind-swept forest to walk onwards along the shoreline. He came back along a path following the coastline further inland, hoping not to run into his new neighbor.

She didn't seem to have a steady schedule. Andrew saw glimpses of her on most days, either walking past his cabin or returning to hers. Even more often he saw her footprints, following an almost identical trail each day. It irked him to be reminded he wasn't alone in the world.

Andrew had withdrawn to this remote, windy beach a little over a year before, soon after his wife had lost her fight with cancer. The cabin technically belonged to him and his sister, but Emma lived overseas with her family, and was more than pleased Andrew wanted to live in it and maintain it. It had been their father's pet project, and they'd spent all their childhood holidays there. Emma wanted to keep it in the family, even when she didn't have many opportunities to visit herself.

Andrew had written three successful novels before Lina had first become sick. After that, their life had been a deepening spiral of treatments and rebounds, cancer beaten then recurring, sprouting anew like a weed no matter how dutifully it was ripped out. Round by round, Lina had weakened, her belief in survival deteriorating, until finally she was gone. It had been a losing battle, but knowing it hadn't made any difference; it wasn't possible not to fight.

For a while after Lina's diagnosis, Andrew had been able to write: articles, short stories for anthologies, even poems, although those he had never even considered publishing. As Lina got worse, so did his creativity, and he thought he'd buried it with her. After the funeral, he sold their home in the city, packed the barest essentials, and moved to the remote coastal village. He had brought a small box of memorabilia, but stuffed it at the back of a closet and tried to forget it was there.

He still could not write, but sat in front of his laptop every day. Sometimes he wondered why he kept torturing himself when it was clear he had become a literary castrate. Financially, his late parents had left him well off so he didn't need to write to sustain himself. He didn't have any other occupation, and no ambition for anything else, and out of sheer stubborn habit he sat down after breakfast and stared at the blank screen for a few hours. He did some fishing, a lot of reading, took walks along the beach, and that was about it. His life was a limbo of pain, dulled by time but always present.

On his next supply run to the village, he asked the shopkeeper, Martha, about the mystery woman. Martha was a good-natured woman and looked old even when Andrew was a child. To his eyes, she still looked almost exactly the same. She would have been an awful gossip, if she wasn't so nice. As it was, it didn't feel like gossiping, even when she knew everyone's business.

"Gloria's cabin?" she asked, while ringing in his purchases. "I heard it was rented. Didn't hear to whom."

"Oh?" said Andrew. He spread his canvas bag and started packing his groceries. "It's a woman, I've seen her on the beach a few times. I haven't seen anyone else. But she must come here for groceries."

"Haven't seen her," Martha said. She seemed displeased by the fact. "How's writing going?"

"Oh, splendidly, as always," Andrew said. This was a return to their usual small talk. "Want me to write you into the book as a cameo?"

Martha laughed and waved him away. Andrew suspected she knew he was lying, but she never challenged him, never asked when he was publishing his next book.

Outside, Andrew ran into Martha's husband, George. He was a scrawny and wrinkly man, wind-beaten like everything else on the coast. He helped maintain several cabins for those who didn't visit regularly and had kept up Andrew's and Emma's cabin for years.

"Fixed that roof, have you?" George asked. "You'd better, it's gonna be a snowy winter, mark my words."

"Snow?" Andrew asked, incredulous, while loading his bags into his car. "You're thinking about snow?"

That autumn had been unusually warm, and even in mid-September the sun was still shining warm. George smiled, cocked his hat and went inside.

George usually knew what he was talking about, and he knew Andrew's cabin. A few days later, Andrew took his advice and climbed up on the roof to check a few places near the chimney where George had said it needed patching. He didn't find them at first but, of course, the old geezer was right. He was an excellent caretaker.

Andrew straightened his back. He wasn't built for physical labor. He chopped his own firewood, but that was about the limit of his physical prowess. It was a warm day, sunny once again, and windy as always. He stretched and let his gaze sweep along the beach.

He spotted a pile of things on the beach. Someone's clothes, maybe? He scanned up and down the beach but saw nothing. He let his eyes search the waves. Surely it wasn't warm enough for swimming? Wind was strong that day and the waves hindered visibility. The beach had a strong current to the right side of it, drawing strongly towards the rocky cliffs a little further away. There was a hill at that end of the beach, with perpendicular fall down to the ragged boulders lining the shore. Current ran strong there, and if one washed up against the rocks, it wouldn't be easy to get out unharmed.

He thought he'd been mistaken. Maybe the pile was just something waves had washed up on the beach. It was far from the water, though. He also didn't think it had been there when he had gone for a walk earlier.

No, there was a head. Someone was floating in the water. He craned his neck. Why weren't they moving? Andrew stood up, holding onto the chimney. There was no doubt; it was a person in the water surrounded by the deep metallic blue of early autumn ocean, bobbing in and out of sight with the waves.

Just as he was about to climb down and run to the shore, the head shifted, the body turned, and started swimming to the shore. He watched the swimmer get close enough to wade instead of swim. Waves nearly washed over their head, white foam flying with the wind, but steadily the figure rose from the sea.

It was his mystery neighbor, and she was naked. She strode out of the water, her dark hair clinging to her shoulders and back. Andrew took in her slim figure and pale complexion and had a fleeting thought of how her nipples had to be puckered up with cold.

He suddenly realized he was standing on his roof, in plain sight from the shore, ogling his skinny-dipping neighbor. He fought a momentary panic and urge to sit, afraid the sudden movement would catch her attention. She could see him whether he was sitting or standing.

The woman walked up to her clothes. Gathering her hair in her hands, she wrung it dry with well established routine. She stood, looking at her clothes while tying her hair into a ponytail. She looked skinny. Her shape was womanly, but somehow she looked like she should be a bit plumper. It was difficult to define, and Andrew was so far away he couldn't pin down exactly why he thought that.

The woman gathered her clothes, her breasts hanging in a most enticing way when she bent over. She turned to walk towards her cabin, still naked. Andrew followed her with his eyes for as long as he could. When he sat to continue fixing the roof, it surprised him to realize he had developed an erection without noticing.

The next morning, after an usual sleepless night and too much coffee, he sat staring at his laptop again. He tapped the tabletop with his fingers, hummed tunelessly to himself, and let his eyes wander outside. He couldn't see the beach from his study, and for the first time, found it irked him. He wanted to see the beach.

He switched positions in his chair, annoyed with himself. He felt like a creep, drooling over his mystery neighbor.

The blank white face of the screen stared at him with its blinking black enemy upon it. He stretched his fingers. He tapped the floor with his foot. And then, to his amazement, he wrote:

"She emerged from the sea, naked, like a goddess born again."

Andrew stared at the words. It was a cliche and creepy in a way. It was also the first sentence he'd written since Lina's death. He breathed out, as slowly as he could manage, and let his fingers move on the keyboard. He worked almost unconsciously, afraid the stream of words would run dry at any disturbance. He didn't even consider the form, or any kind of direction, he just wrote. He kept writing for nearly two hours.

—#—#—#—#—#—

At the beginning of October, Andrew walked down to the beach for his usual walk. His beach was a stretch of pristine, undisturbed, wind-smoothed sand, a few reeds and pieces of driftwood along the slowly rising waterline. The only mark of human presence was his small fishing boat on its trailer. There was no sign of his neighbor.

Andrew ambled along the shore. Where the beach started its fast rise to the stony cliff, he stopped and looked back to see his footprints disturbing the peace of the otherwise untouched terrain. He had thought it would relieve him when she went away, but now that it happened he felt lonely. He wondered if she had left for good. He had planned to climb the hill that afternoon but instead, he walked back following his own traces, so he could walk past her cottage.

The cabin looked the same as before, but her car was gone. He didn't understand why he felt loss rippling inside him. It had appalled him that someone disturbed his solitude, and he didn't know when that had changed. But he had to admit that it had.

Her absence caused his writing to falter again. He had been writing every morning since his dam had burst, mostly nonsense, but producing text at least. Without her, his pauses became longer and his thoughts got interrupted easier than before.

A week later, she returned. Andrew was in his yard preparing it for winter, when he noticed her walking down the beach. His heart jumped, and he felt silly. They had never even introduced themselves. What reason was there to get so excited? And yet, as he watched her meander, pausing often to look out at the horizon, he felt his face contort into something resembling a smile.

—#—#—#—#—#—

In November the winds became stronger. Andrew followed the weather forecasts carefully and took care to keep his year clean of debris. A storm was gathering, and the forecast said it could cause considerable havoc. The trees on Andrew's lot were old and battered, and he had no way of knowing whether they would hold up. He had weathered storms in the cabin before, but it seemed this was going to be a big one.

From his upstairs bedroom he could see the beach. He opened a bottle of whiskey and settled in to watch. Wind howled under the roof, and the sky darkened with stormy clouds of dark violet, ashen gray, and inky black. He could see lightning flashing out over the ocean, still far away.

The beach and the ocean were a palette of dark colors, contrasted with the pale of the sand and white of the sea foam cresting the crashing waves. A flash of red caught his eye. He squinted to see better.

It was the neighbor. She wore red rubber boots with long shafts coming up almost to her knees. Her jacket was a long, black parka, far too big, coming down almost to the top of her boots. Her legs clad in tight black jeans seemed scrawny under the baggy coat, giving her the appearance of a child dressed in adult clothes. She stumbled along the shoreline, wrapping the coat around herself for protection from the wind, hood fastened tightly. The wind was so powerful she swayed when gusts hit her.

He watched her walk towards the cliff, and when she moved out of sight he hastened to search for a woolly sweater to put under his own long, weatherproof parka. The coast wasn't a place for umbrellas; it was a place for waterproof overclothes and wool under them. He dressed as quickly as he could and ran out to the yard. He didn't stop to think where this feeling of urgency came from, he just knew he needed to follow her.

The first raindrops tapped on his hood, playing an irregular, pattering soundtrack to his scrambling half-jog down the beach. He fastened his hood tight to keep out the wind. Rain was soon running down his face and he wished he had thought to wear a baseball cap: the visor would have helped keep the water out of his eyes.

When he reached the path that veered away from the beach and up to the cliff, he looked up to see the woman standing at the top, just as he had predicted she would be. She stood facing the ocean, the hem of her coat flapping around her skinny legs. She had her arms open to her sides, almost vertical, and it looked like her hands were squeezed into fists.

He slipped and clambered up the hill, the path already muddy in the rain. Rain and gusts of wind were intensifying and the flashes of lightning over the sea were approaching rapidly. The wind was so strong he had to tilt his head down. The wind carried no scent, not the sea-weedy green decaying scent of sea from warm summer days, nor the clean, salty smell of colder seasons' cool water masses.

He got to the top and stopped. She stood right on the edge, her back to him, and over the relentless wind he could hear her screaming. It was an animal sound, inarticulate feeling articulated, so eerie the hair at the back of his neck and on his arms stood up. Wind shifted and he couldn't hear her over the winds anymore, but could tell from her tense body she hadn't stopped screaming.

She looked small standing at the edge of the stony cliff, the mountains of billowing thunderclouds raising up to the skies in front of her. She was a darker figure against the ominous shades of the storm, then an almost negative-like silhouette when the flash of lightning blinded him momentarily. He thought it was dangerous to stand here, on top of the bare cliff, with the storm coming in. He was rooted in place, unable to move.

Wind was very strong now, and she was leaning into it with all her weight. Andrew tested it himself, and if he could have convinced himself to relax, he could have let himself be suspended totally by this force of nature. He couldn't bring himself to do it, and so he swayed in place, not brave enough to lean sufficiently that he wouldn't have to correct his posture every few seconds.

The woman was close to the edge, too close. She leaned into the wind so completely. If there would be the smallest calm, the smallest torrent swirling the wrong way, she would lose her balance and fall.

The storm was almost directly on top of them, rain coming so heavily it was difficult to see the woman, even when they were only about fifteen steps apart. The clouds were so thick it was dark like in the dead of the night. Andrew's jacket kept him dry, but the outer fabric was wet and heavy and cold water dripped from his nose and chin. He was squinting to keep wind and rain out.

He couldn't estimate how long they stood like that. Time seemed to stop. Storm raged around them, flashes of lightning hitting the sea in front of them, the blinding brightness alternating with the inky darkness. Then, suddenly as it had approached, the storm passed them, heading inland towards the village. Rain and wind continued, but there was the first feeling of release, the first whisper of calm in the middle of the furious gale.

Andrew stood, his gaze fixed upon the woman. She corrected her posture so gradually it was almost indiscernible, but his feeling of doom eased with it. Finally, she was standing firmly upright. He thought he should say something, that it was creepy to just loom behind her. He had built his life upon words, but at that moment couldn't find a single one to say.

She turned her back to the sea and looked at him. She didn't look surprised, though he was sure she didn't know he had been there. They looked at each other, their faces washed with the storm and strands of hair plastered to their foreheads. It was still so gloomy he couldn't see the color of her eyes, but they looked very large and dark. She didn't speak, she just walked past him and started down the hill. He followed, unnerved by the strangeness of the encounter, how she hadn't acknowledged him at all.

She trudged ahead, splashing straight through every puddle, and he followed in the same fashion. He remembered what she had looked like, on her way towards the cliff, how there had been some kind of ominous energy upon her. Whatever it had been, it had now left her, and she proceeded slowly and half-heartedly. Trailing a few steps behind her he followed her past his own cabin and all the way to hers.

When she turned inland towards her cabin, he watched until she disappeared. He stood for a moment, then shook himself free from the enchantment and walked home.

He couldn't sleep. That wasn't unusual, for him sleeping soundly was the exception and not the rule, but now his insomnia felt more acute. He kept remembering the events of the storm; what she looked like walking towards the hill, then coming back, and how she had stood leaning into the wind, screaming.

By morning it was still raining, although in a more mellow and almost foggy kind of way. Andrew put on his rain gear from the previous night and checked his property for storm damages. All of his trees were still standing, as was his fence, and the fallen branches hadn't hit anything. He piled them next to the woodshed, biding his time. When he judged it was late enough, he walked over to the woman's cabin.

She opened after the third knock, and once again they stood looking at each other. She was a little shorter than him, and now he could see her eyes were blue. Her hair was dark brown, but up close it had some red hue, giving it a warm shade. She was pale, with faint shadows under her eyes. He recognized that look: it was the same unhealthy complexion he got when he slept too little, ate nothing and drank too much coffee.