PodCastle

* Author : Eleanor R. Wood
* Narrator : Summer Fletcher
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
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Previously published in Diabolical Plots, and The Best of British Fantasy 2019, edited by Jared Shurin and NewCon Press.


What the Sea Reaps, We Must Provide
by Eleanor R. Wood
The ball bounces off the tide-packed sand and Bailey leaps to catch it with lithe grace and accuracy. He returns to deposit it at my feet for another go. It’s nearly dusk; the beach is ours on this January evening. It stretches ahead, the rising tide low enough to give us ample time to reach the sea wall.
Bailey’s devotion to his ball is second only to his pack. He is never careless with it, relinquishing it only at my command or to give Bernie the occasional chase. Bernie brings up the rear, my shaggy bear, staying close but lacking Bailey’s fierce duty to his ball.

The town belongs to us now, half a year from holidaymakers, the beach winter-rough and devoid of summer’s candy-brightness. It will return soon enough, buckets and spades hanging from shop awnings, a time for ice cream and fish and chips eaten from the paper as gulls watch for their opportunity. A time when locals lend our beach to the tourists and day-trippers, avoiding the bustle and crowds, longing for autumn’s return. It is a town of two seasons, of excitement and peace, of light and dark.
The dark is buried deep.
We don’t discuss it. That yearly sacrifice to keep the summer safe, to protect our town’s lifeblood. But winter’s rawness reveals the primal undertow, much as we pretend otherwise.
It awes me.
It terrifies me. The town’s need. The sea’s power.
We reach the end of the beach and head up the ramped walkway to the sea wall. The tide is too high to return along the beach, but the wall’s safe height gives us passage. A moment of doubt nags me as we ascend. Darkness is falling, a light rain with it. The sea wall’s sheer drop one side and railway line on the other has always unnerved me. The waist-high wall to separate pedestrian from train has never seemed enough. A woman was hit and killed one year trying to retrieve her dog who’d gone over. I clip leads onto Bailey and Bernie. That year’s sacrifice was a harsh one.
Gazing toward the distant harbour mouth, I’m reminded of the ill-prepared yachtsman who bargained his livelihood on a madcap voyage but ultimately gave himself to the sea to save his family’s shame and destitution. He never sailed home to the town whose balance he reset.
Not every balance tips so heavily, though. The far end of the sea wall now has a gate, erected a few years ago when some fool drove their car along the wall, crashing over the edge onto the beach. They sacrificed only pride and a vehicle, although the council takes no further chances.
We walk, the rain increasing, the sea rising, the occasional train thundering between us and the cliffs that loom above all. Halfway to the promenade, I glance left and freeze. The tide is far higher than it should be, all trace of beach gone, water lapping the wall’s base. I increase my pace. So does the sea. A sudden wave crashes over the wall ahead of us, stopping me dead. Bernie tries to drag me back the other way.
But this is the only way.
The tide shouldn’t be this high.