Sandcastles

-:- Sandcastles -:-

It was August and I was nine years old.

I was down near the water, digging sand and shaping it as I needed it. I was content, in my element, my only concern the critically important engineering job I'd undertaken.

A shadow fell over me.

"Hello!" said a breathy little voice.

I blew my dark curls out of my eyes with a frustrated puff and squinted up at the newcomer.

She smiled shyly down at me, hands clasped behind her, twisting slightly from side to side as she waited for my answer.

"Hello," I responded. I smiled, despite myself.

"What are you doing?"

I looked down at my construction site.

"I'm building a castle," I explained. "For the fish."

"Oh," she said. She contemplated that morsel for a bit as I dug in the sand with my bright green spade.

"Can I help?" she asked me.

"But I've only got one spade."

"I've got a spade and a bucket. I'll go get them!"

She dashed off, pale blonde ponytail flapping behind her. I watched her for a moment, then went back to my construction. I was digging a hole, but it kept filling with water. So frustrating! But maybe the fish would enjoy it...

"I'm back!" she announced, and she dropped to her knees next to me, clutching her neon pink shovel and matching bucket. "See?"

She grinned at me, and just like that we were friends.

"We need to build a wall," I told her. "To keep the bad fish out. And this water."

"I'll do it!"

She started digging.

"Gonna build a wall, build a wall," she sang softly.

"Gonna build a wall," I joined in.

She laughed.

And that was how we spent our first day together, on that sandy beach alongside the warm, friendly blue expanse of water that I would only later learn was the Aegean.

Charlotte - that was her name, though she insisted on Charley - became my partner in crime for the next five days.

We'd find one another first thing at the breakfast buffet and breathlessly discuss our plans to repair and extend our growing fortress.

And for those all-too-brief five days I had the best friend ever, the twin sister I'd never known I was missing until she'd barged into my life.

She was there to say goodbye as my family boarded our bus to the airport; she hugged me and pushed a folded piece of paper into my hand.

"Bye Ari!" she said.

"Bye Charley!" I answered.

"Come on Ari," my daddy said. "Time to go. Wave goodbye to your friend now."

So I did.

And once I was on the bus, I unfolded the paper, and looked at the drawing of two girls holding hands in front of curling blue waves with a bright yellow sun overhead.

It was very nice, and I decided to draw one for her when I got home.

.:.

It was August and I was ten, busy with my thoughts and blithely ignoring my parents' desperate entreaties that I do something - anything - other than build sandcastles all day.

I stood on the beach; slightly taller and a bit more tanned than the year before. I tucked my dark curls back behind my ear as I squinted at the footprints that marred the flat plain that I planned to fortify.

Then I took my spade and dragged it through the sand, laying out the schematic for this year's opus.

( I was different even back then - fascinated by castles rather than princesses, by cataphracts rather than ponies, and more likely to spend a day buried in Lego than even one minute with a doll. )

I started my bailey. Bailey, I repeated the word, remembering the BBC Bitesize video I'd watched the night before about a type of early fortification that I'd really rather liked.

A bit of my encircling wall fell down.

I glared at it, and sighed in frustration. I carried some wetter sand from nearer the gently-rippling waves and moulded it into the gap, then glared at my repairs with intense suspicion, waiting for them to fail.

A shadow fell over me.

I looked up.

A thin blonde girl smiled down at me from under her pink sun-hat.

"Hello Ari!"

I grinned, elated to see her again.

"Hello Charley!"

"What are we building? A fortress?"

"Yup. I've drawn the plans. Look!"

"Oh, it's enormous! Awesome. I'll find a spade!"

And for the next five perfect days I had my twin again.

.:.

It was August, and I was eleven.

The small waves of the wide bay curled in and out, endlessly counting out the passing seconds.

The sun was hot overhead; I pushed the straw hat I'd stolen from Mummy's bag back on my head to better shade my shoulders. I blew out a breath to kick some vexing curls of hair away from my mouth, and scratched at my hip where the fabric of my swimsuit was irritating me.

The moat was proving harder this year. I was stronger, so I could dig deeper, and as a result I kept hitting small pebbles along the way. I was pulling each one out, stacking them up to use as lining for my keep's walls, grumbling to myself, when a shadow fell over me.

I looked up, shielded my eyes with my hand.

"Hello, Ari," she said softly.

I smiled.

"Hello, Charley." I answered. "I'm glad you're here this year. Are you here to help?"

"For a bit," she answered. She knelt down by me, and I grinned at the neon unicorn cap she was wearing. "I'm going sailing in a little bit though."

"Oh. That sounds... nice..."

"Meh," she said, sticking out her tongue. "I'd far rather stay here with you, but we didn't know you were here. So my mum decided to book things for me. I was on my way down when I saw you and came to say hi."

"Oh well. I'm sure you'll have fun," I smiled. "Come on, then, lets get building while you're free!"

She slotted in next to me and we started working like we'd never stopped.

I saw her intermittently at first over the next few days, but what time she could beg or steal she'd spend with me. And for once I put aside my single-minded pursuit of the perfect sandcastle so that I could swim with her, and play ping-pong with her, and honestly just spend time with her, because I loved the sound of her voice so much that I didn't want us to be apart for even one unnecessary second.

She smiled shyly at me when I boarded the bus to leave, then her grin burst forth like sunrise.

"Take care, Ari. See you next year!"

And I smiled and waved.

.:.

It was August and I was twelve.

I roamed the beach, the pool, the games arcade and all the various hidden nooks and crannies that she and I had found and catalogued for later chaos.

But I didn't find her that year.

All the colour leached out of the world, leaving everything a little greyer and sadder and less enticing, and as I sat on the bus to the airport at the end of the endless, horrid, awful, lonely week away, I cried silently but no less bitterly for the silence.

"I'm sorry, Ari, love," my dad said to me as he gently rubbed my back and tried as best he could to comfort me. "I know it hurts. I guess they went somewhere else this year."

I turned my face to the window,

and watched the world glide by,

and grieved.

.:.

It was August and I was fifteen.

I'd discovered windsurfing two years before, and now no longer deigned to spend my entire week at the resort up to my elbows in the sand when the wind and sun whispered their siren song to me.

I was on my knees - fighting a dogged but doomed battle with my rented board's outhaul - when a shadow fell over me.

I paused for a moment, breathed slowly in and out, then carried on working, parking the bitter heartbreak of my childhood twin's shade for later, for when I had time and privacy to face it and the tears it could still bring...

"Ariadne?" said a soft, hesitant voice.

I froze.

"Ari... is that you?"

I turned slowly, heart hammering, squinting upwards into the glare...

"Charley?" I breathed, far too scared to hope.

"It is you! Hey!" she said, and grinned like sunrise. "Oh my goodness, Ari, you look so different to how I remember you. It's just... it was your hair that gave me the clue."

I stood, shook the sand off my hands and stepped closer to her.

I took her hands in mine and looked her up and down.

She smiled artlessly up at me.

"You look the same," I said as joy's incandescence roared through me. "Just... well, more grown up, but the same. What are you doing here?"

She gestured vaguely towards a small scarlet and white dinghy that was beached on the sand nearby. "I'm finally back. Here, I mean. And as for today... I was... I was going to tack and go back out, but... but I saw you and I thought that it might just be you, so I beached the Laser and came... well... to see."

"Where have you been?" I scolded her. "I looked for you every year. I'd just finally made peace with you being gone..."

Her smile faded.

"I know. I guessed you would. Dad changed jobs and it was... well, it was hard for him to take leave. And then... well... stuff happened. But... I begged and begged and eventually we were able to come back here. I always loved it here," she said. "It's always been my favourite place."

"It's mine too."

"Are you going out or coming in?" she asked me, as she tucked her glory of sun-bleached blonde hair back out of her warm brown eyes and pulled her cap down to lock everything in place.

"I was about to go out if I can sort this... this bloody sail out. Whoever last used it really didn't have a clue, they've tied such terrible knots. I can't get them loose. I'm not strong enough."

"Can I help?"

"Yes, please!"

So she squatted down in the sand beside me, and between the two of us we finally managed to get the knots undone and corrected.

I spent the rest of the day chasing her back and forward through the gentle rolling waves.

And for the next five days I had my partner back as we swam, ate, laughed, joked, talked until late at night, and in many ways behaved like girls several years younger than we actually were.

She hugged me so hard that I squeaked when it was time for me to board the bus, and pushed a piece of paper with some numbers scrawled across it into my hand.

"Our phone number at home. Call me sometime... please? And see you next year... I hope," she said.

I smiled at her. "I hope so too," I answered her. "Take care, Charley!"

"You too! Love you!"

But a strange gloom dropped down over me as I rode the bus back to the airport.

And that evening, at home, I realised I'd lost the priceless piece of paper that contained my only way to reach her.

I cried more on than off for weeks.

.:.

And it was August.

And I was sixteen; bereaved and bitter, staring out at the uncaring waves on my final evening in the islands.

She wasn't there.

And from now on, my parents had announced, we wouldn't be either. There were other places to be, they'd declared. Other parts of the world to explore.

I didn't give a sewer rat's tattered arsehole.

This was where I needed to be.

This was the only place in the entire world that mattered.

Our place.

But it wasn't my choice to make.

So I swore I would be back, some day.

No matter how long it might take me.

.:.

It was August, and I was twenty five.

I tugged at the neck of my horrible rash vest and fiddled with my board-shorts so they sat more comfortably on what hips Mum's genes had granted me. I fastened the impossible and maddening umber mess of my hair up behind me into an apology of a tail, then reached down and grunted as I took the weight of board and sail. The sun was dropping low in the south west and I didn't want to have to pack up in the gloomy murk of evening.

I wrestled my board up to the gutted and rusting shipping container that served as a boathouse, where I handed it off to the awkward young man who was handling collections and who always seemed so hopelessly tongue-tied and flustered around me.

I turned and stared out to sea.

My sea, I thought.

On a whim, I loped back down to the water. I stepped out beyond the tiny line of thigh-high waves and fell forwards into the comforting embrace of the Mediterranean, taking a couple of relaxed strokes out towards the lavender line of the horizon. Then I rolled onto my back and lay there, bobbing gently as the waves serenaded me.

It was years since I'd last been to the resort. Little had changed; there were some new private-hire all-inclusive mansions on the bluff to the north, a fresh coat of paint here and there, more greenery, some resurfaced tennis courts... but everything else remained the same. The same lines of white plastic sun-chairs and their accompanying umbrellas and lobster-pink occupants, the same sprinkling of middle-aged tourists and their children, the same gentle sandy beach leading to the same postcard-blue water, everything aswim in the heat-haze shriek of the cicadas.

I breathed in, then exhaled.

I'd booked a one-bedroom chalet for myself as a treat - not my first overseas holiday since I'd left home, but the first funded entirely by me to a destination solely of my own choosing.

I could have gone anywhere, but I'd always loved Greece and the Cyclades, where the turquoise and azure of the sea surrounded the dry, arid land so perfectly.

And... to be honest... I knew the resort, and knew that I'd enjoy my time here. It was a good place to be - alone, but with enough people around to watch to prevent me falling entirely into my own thoughts for too long a time.

There would be enough noise and life around me to keep Charley's phantasm at bay.

Somewhat, anyway. She never ever truly left me.

I sighed again, rolled over, and swam for shore.

I had wine chilling in the fridge, and a selection of movies I'd downloaded before my flight, and several books I'd not had time to start.

For once I had the time to try to enjoy them all.

I put my feet down and staggered my way to the shore. I tucked my soaked curls back out of my face and glanced idly left and right...

And froze.

A slender blonde woman was kneeling in the sand some distance away. She was sheathed in a tight pink tee shirt and white linen shorts.

She was building a sandcastle.

I snatched a shaky breath as I caught myself wondering if she were some strange hallucination born of the many bitter regrets I still carried.

I shook my head, looked deliberately away and then snuck a quick, superstitious glance back.

She was still there.

Without even thinking about it I turned towards her.

She looked my age.

She looked about the height I'd have expected her to be.

Before her was her construction - a motte, with a keep on the top - a siege-engineer's shibboleth in a world where any normal person would far more likely ape Walt Disney's perversion of Neuschwanstein...

My heart began to thump painfully in my chest as I approached her.

I took a breath to prepare the Question as I closed the final few yards...

And then she brushed her fringe out of her eyes in a gesture long ago etched onto my soul.

"Oh!" I exclaimed.

She glanced up in surprise... and froze, staring up at me.

Her mouth opened; no words came out.

"Charlotte?" I added, hardly daring to hope. "Charley Collins? Oh God, please be you."

"Ariadne?" she squeaked.

My legs went out from under me and I sat down in the sand with a grunt.

She scrambled forwards to me, trampling her work in passing.

"Ari? Ari! Shit! Hey! Are you okay?"

"I'm... fine. It's just... I wasn't expecting..."

She got her arm around me and propped me up.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," I said. "Sorry. I'm okay. Don't stress. It's a stupid physical reaction I get when I get a big shock. My blood pressure drops and over I go - one hundred percent fainting goat. I'm okay. Really. I'm... okay," I babbled, staring up at her utterly wonderful, almost forgotten eyes...

She let out a shaky breath and squatted back on her haunches; gaze flitting over my face as she no doubt catalogued the differences time had written.

"Wow. Oh wow, Ari. Wow, you... you've changed so much, and so little..."

I grinned daftly. "Ditto. Wow is right. Holy shit, Charley, you grew up. What... what on earth are you doing here? Not that I'm complaining... but... but what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Um... well..."

"What?"

"It's going to sound insanely, monstrously creepy," she said.

"So tell me, I always been a fan of your creepy."

She grinned sheepishly. "Well... I've... kind of been coming here for years now. In... well, in the hope of finding... well, you."

"... What?" I breathed, feeling the impact of her words deep in my chest.

"I was robbed," she declared. "Robbed of at least three more holidays with you, and I refused to let that stand. And you never phoned, you tart! So..."

She shrugged helplessly.

"This was the only method left to me," she finished with a strange, hurt note in her voice.

Shame seared through me.

"I lost your number. That day. That same sodding day you gave it to me; I must have somehow dropped it on the bus. I was so angry and so enraged that my parents wouldn't take me back to look for it..."

"I guessed it was something like that. I should have given you another copy. I should have scrawled it all over you in permanent ink. I was... furious. So... as soon as I could, I started coming back here. First week of August every year."

"You're crazy. Every year, Charley?"

"Every year," she echoed me. "You never gave me any other way to contact you, so what else was I supposed to do?" she added, with a choking little laugh. "I needed my annual dose of mayhem. And anyway, it's not like coming here is a hardship. I scrimped and saved and worked part-time jobs... and every August I'd come here. And wait for a week. And sit by the water's edge and just... hope," she breathed.

She knelt there, grinning at me.

"Oh wow. Oh, oh it's so special to see you again. I was last here when I was sixteen. And... you weren't, and I guessed that was it. I'd given up hope of ever running into you again. I thought I'd... never see you again," I managed against the sudden lump in my throat.

"Yeah," she said. "Our stars aligned at fucking last, right? So. Ariadne Taylor, now that I've swept you off your feet... do you need a hand up?"

"Please," I laughed through the threatening tears.

She got to her feet and offered me her hand, then levered me to my feet with a grunt.

"God almighty, Ari, you got so tall. Where are you staying?" she asked.

"Chalet number twenty three. You?"

"Oh, I've got a room in the main building. Cheap and cheerful, just like me."

"Have you eaten?"

"Nope," she said. She tucked her hair back again and smiled up at me. "The dinner buffet is open for quite a while, so I was just amusing myself down here on the beach before I headed back up. Reliving old memories, so to speak. Are you here with anyone, Ari?"

"No. I'm solo. Just me and my books and my regrets..."

"Got any plans for tonight?"

"No," I answered softly. "Well... other than getting out of this frankly bloody awful rash vest and then quite possibly setting it on fire."

"How about dinner? With me? A start of a catch-up?" she suggested hopefully.

"Tell you what. I've got a small bit of decking and some candles and wine and more than enough food for us to make something nice to share. So... want to come live it up a bit in a chalet for the evening?"

She snorted.

"Yeah, all right," she said. "But only if you let me bring something."

"Bring yourself," I answered. "And tomorrow, we can do it again, and you can supply the wine."

"You've got yourself a deal."

She linked arms with me and for the first time in as long as I could remember my heart felt as light as air.

.:.

"I'm just going to rinse the salt off. Pour us some booze, will you?"

"Sure thing," she answered. "You want ice with yours?"

"You know, it's warm enough that that sounds like a grand idea."

"On it."

I stripped out of my rash vest and board shorts, and hung them over a section of railing by the sliding glass door. I made my way back through the small chalet towards the bathroom.