The Hollow Tide

She should have bought a third pumpkin.

Growing up, her mother had always said that you buy three pumpkins for carving. One for mistakes, one for precision, and one for pleasure. Naomi could only carry two pumpkins into the house, so two is the number she bought. Plus, she picked up a bag of apples. The plan would be to bake a pie, but plans were often discarded now that October featured eighty degree days. She deposited the pumpkins on the dining room table, and the apples on the small breakfast table in the kitchen. Today would be a beach day, and she’d try not to reflect on the heat for too long. At seventy-six, it didn’t seem likely that she’d be around for the worst of what climate change had planned, but she still felt bad for places like the seaside town where she lived, because one day she knew it would be underwater.

Then again, what wouldn’t be?

It was almost time for the school buses to take over the roads, so she tossed two apples and a book into her shoulder bag, and hopped back in her Toyota.

The beach was busier than she felt it should have been. She had earned the right to visit the ocean on a Tuesday. That was meant to be one of the joys of being retired. When she taught high school chemistry, she would stare out the window on the warmer days that lingered after summer or showed up early in spring, and dream of when she could spend the week finishing books on the sand only a short drive from her house. In her fantasy, she was the only one there. Maybe one or two other retirees, but now it was nearly full anytime the weather was nice. Perhaps it had always been this way, but she told herself it was because of remote workers who sent out two emails and then played hooky the rest of the day. There were even four or five teenagers running in and out of the water while screaming at the top of their lungs, and she was tempted to call the school she used to work at and tell them they needed to do better about absenteeism. Then again, who’s to say what school they went to. She told herself to mind her own business and not be such a Scrooge. There was plenty of beach for everyone. She could always walk further down the sand towards the rocks if she wanted privacy. Nobody ever traveled down that way once summer was done.

Once she’d made it to Lifeguard Chair #1, she set down her standard beach blanket, her two apples, and the book she was nearly halfway through. It was about a woman chasing a serial killer, and it was the type of reading she liked to do in autumn. While she wasn’t a big Christmas person, and while her distaste for fireworks always made 4th of July unappealing, she adored Halloween. Her mother had always decorated for it, and took such joy in passing out candy. Now, you’d be lucky to get more than a handful of children on the big night, but Naomi still made sure to have candy at the ready, and she simply ate whatever was leftover.

“Do you mind if we sit here,” a voice disrupted her inner musings.

She looked over to see two men and a small boy standing to her right. The men appeared to be in their forties, and the boy was around seven. They were dressed too loosely. It was warm, but it wasn’t that warm. They were all in shorts and t-shirts, and the boy’s shirt had a few holes in it. They didn’t appear to be of reasonable means, but Naomi did her best not to be one of those snobby people in town who complained about the “bad element” that was permeating the off-season.

“No,” she said, adding a smile to disguise the lie, “I don’t mind at all.”

The men set down two blankets side-by-side. The boy quickly removed his t-shirt and went running into the water. She waited for one of the men to advise the boy not to go out too far, but neither seemed preoccupied with him. Naomi wondered where his mother was, and then entertained the thought that he might not have a mother. Families looked all kinds of ways lately, and she remembered her brother talking about adopting with his partner before he became ill. All her siblings were gone now, as well as her mother. She had spent a sizable amount of her life dancing with grief, but now she felt as though she could see over it. There was something beyond the crest, and she’d see it eventually. In the meantime, there were activities to keep her active like carving pumpkins and reading large books about murder and volunteering for the election board and the preservation society.

“I loved that book,” one of the men said, the one with a beard. The other was already laying facedown on the blanket. The boy was up to his waist in the ocean, and she felt a pang of panic grip her before she recalled that children were more resilient than one would think.

“I’m enjoying it so far,” she replied, “But the violence is a little much. I don’t know if it was necessary.”

“I agree,” the man nodded, “It felt like it was all for shock value.”

He introduced himself as Daniel, then introduced his companion--who didn’t stir a bit--as Brian, and then motioned to the water.

“That’s Tate,” he said, with less emotion than he’d used to speak about the book they were discussing, “He’s ours for the day.”

Something about those words. “For the day.” Naomi decided she wanted to end the conversation, but she wasn’t sure how to do it. She coughed a bit, and took a drink of water from a thermos she’d brought with her. The water tasted bitter for some reason. Maybe she was getting sick. When she looked back out at the water, the boy was gone.

“Where did--uh, where did he go,” she asked, not sure what to call the boy. Your son? She didn’t want to assume, but--

“Oh, he disappears,” said Daniel, “That’s what he does.”

The boy wasn’t anywhere on the beach. She could see that. Naomi stood up and looked further down towards Surfer’s End.

“I don’t see him,” she said.

“I told you,” Daniel said, a retail smile pulled tight, “He disappears.”

Why wasn’t he upset? Did he want to lose the boy? Was this some kind of scheme or scam? Let a child go by themselves into the water, and when they turn up missing, pretend that you had only turned away for a moment? That you were just having a conversation with the nice woman next to you, and suddenly your child was gone? Was she meant to provide support for them when the police showed up?

“There’s no reason to be upset,” said Daniel, “Little boys are sometimes meant to go into the water. It’s what they do. But, you know, I always say--What do I always say, Brian?”

Brian hadn’t moved an inch. His face was still down on the blanket. He might have been asleep for all Naomi knew. Daniel waited a second for his response, but Brian said nothing, so Daniel continued as though he’d known it all along.

“I always say,” he pronounced, “That there are always more little boys. Little girls, now, that’s another story, but little boys? Please. They’re everywhere you look. Don’t you find that to be true?”

Naomi was off the blanket now. Whoever this man was, he was certainly unwell. His partner probably too. She was also certain that they were not any sort of couple. He was nothing like her brother, who had been a lovely man. When he was around his boyfriend, you could sense the tenderness in him. There was none of that here. Something cold was present instead. She felt a stinging underneath her right eye, and an itchiness on her legs.

“I’m going to see if I can find him,” she said, not worried about whether or not it sounded strange for her to take more of an interest than they were.

“Suit yourself,” Daniel said, “I’m going to see if I can scare up an autumn tan.”

He lay down face-up, the opposite of Brian. Naomi went running towards the water. It hadn’t been long. If the boy was drowning, surely he would flail or at least still be alive. Did she remember how to give mouth-to-mouth? The ocean temperature was penetrating. Unseasonably warm day or no, water always knew what day it was.

She tried to ignore her own impulse to run back to her blanket as she looked around for any sign of the child. There was no disturbance other than the one she was making. The nearest other person was all the way down the beach. It was one of the teenagers with a girl on his back. She was screaming for him not to drop her, but it didn’t look like he was going to have any choice. They were swaying back and forth. Naomi thought about yelling out to them to come help her find the boy, but she knew they wouldn’t hear her so far away.

It was pointless. A current might have carried--What was his name? Tate. It might have carried Tate away. He wasn’t close enough for her to see, and if he was out deep, then she wouldn’t be able to go get him. She needed to go back to her bag, find her phone, and call the authorities. The sand stuck to her ankles as she made her way to the blanket. When she got there, Daniel was gone, and so was everything he and Brian had brought with them. In place of their setup, there was a progressively larger hole being dug by Brian. He was using nothing but his hands, but he was already down to his navel. How had he dug so far down so fast? She had only been down in the water for a few minutes.

“I can’t find him,” she yelled to Brian, not sure he could even speak.

As if to prove her right, he said nothing--only continued digging. She began looking through her bag for her phone, but couldn’t find it. Had it fallen out somewhere? She was sure she packed it. And where were her apples? There was nothing in the bag at all, except for the thermos and that stupid book. Where was everything?

She didn’t notice the water until it touched the edge of her blanket. A wave had come up all the way up to where she was sitting even though she was halfway up the sand. Why was the water arriving so quickly, she thought, it wasn’t late enough for that yet. Still, the sand had now solidified. Naomi determined it must be some kind of strange weather event. She turned to say something to Brian, and saw that the hole he created was now so deep she could no longer see him without walking over to it. Looking down, it seemed as though he was a good seven or eight feet below the surface. How was that possible? And where was Daniel?

“You need to get out of there,” she yelled down to him, “Your little boy is missing and I don’t see--I don’t see Daniel anywhere. Did he leave?”

Brian was leaning against the side of the trench. His arms were stretched out and his eyes were closed. He was murmuring something, but she couldn’t hear what it was. Naomi knew, however, from the way his lips were moving, that it was a poem or a prayer. She could see on his face that expression one makes when reciting. He was repeating something. He was saying a short phrase over and over. Was he having some kind of breakdown? Was she?

“I can’t find my phone,” she said, “I’m going to go get help. There are some people further down the beach. I’ll get them to help us, all right?”

He didn’t open his eyes. The water reached the edge of his creation. A few drops fell and landed on his forehead. She knew the next time the bottom of the trench would be covered in an instant. Two more, and Brian would be underwater.

She ran down the beach to where the teenagers were earlier, but now it appeared deserted. No piercing adolescent rollicking. No photographers taking photos of the bluffs off in the distance. Suddenly, she was the only one there. When she turned to look back, the stinging under her eye spread across her face. Daniel was a few feet away holding the boy in his arms. He looked unconscious, but his color was fine. She ran to them, then stopped. The expression on Daniel’s face told her not to come any closer.

“I told him not to come with us today,” Daniel said, without looking down at Tate, “But it was so nice out. He insisted. What can you do when they insist?”

The water kept rushing between her ankles. Behind Daniel, Naomi could see the water assaulting the hole Brian had carved out with his bare hands. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, because it looked as though the ocean was pulling something out of the crevice, but it wasn’t Brian. It looked thick and vibrant. The color mixed with the water creating a citrus hue. It looked like some kind of pump, and for a moment, she thought she saw a hand reaching out from it. Could it be Brian tangled up amongst all that fibrous mass? Was it some kind of seaweed, or--?

“Next time,” Daniel interrupted her thoughts, “I’d like a little boy with longer eyelashes. Tate’s are too small. And his hands. Very small hands. They never could have dug deep enough. I knew that the day they gave him to us. It wouldn’t be efficient.”

“Who is that child to you,” Naomi asked, her voice cratering at the end of every word, “Is he meant to be your son?”

Daniel placed the boy down on the wet sand. The water seemed to almost go around him before covering him completely.

“Of course not,” Daniel said, “I would never have a boy like that as a son.”

Naomi felt something brush up against her leg. She looked down and saw marigold and rust. Something felt pliable yet sticky. The little boy was being pulled into the ocean the same way Brian was all wrapped up in an apricot bundle. Daniel, however, didn’t move. Nothing seemed to pull him. Nothing took him in.

“I love that book you’re reading,” he said, “You’ll never guess how it ends.”