Free The Intruders by Michael Marshall Page A

You had to tune yourself first. The dune was in the way, and depending on the tides the water could be quite a distance down the beach. You had to let your breathing settle, lie flat and very still on your back with both ears open, and just wait…and gradually you would begin to hear the distant rustle and thump that said tonight you were sleeping near the edge of the world. And you certainly would sleep, as the waves seemed to get closer and closer, tugging gently at your feet, pulling you into friendly warmth and darkness and rest.
    If you woke up in the night, you heard them, too. It was even better then, as they were the only sound anywhere. Back in Portland there was always other noise—cars, dogs, people walking by. Not here. Sometimes the waves would be very quiet, barely audible above the ringing of your ears, but if there was heavy weather, they could sound very loud. Madison could remember one time being really scared in the night when there had been a storm and it sounded like the waves were chaotic right into the next room. They hadn’t been, of course, and Dad said the dune would protect them and they never would, so now when she heard them in the night, she enjoyed it, feeling adventurous and safe, knowing that there was a vigorous, crashing universe out there but that it could never harm her.
    So when Madison realized that she was awake, the first thing she noticed was the waves. Then that it was raining, and beginning to rain harder, drumming onto the roof of the cottage. The storm she’d seen heading down the beach earlier had arrived. Tomorrow the sand would be pocked and gray and probably strewn with seaweed. It got thrown up onto the beach in bad weather, and it felt weird and squishy underfoot. Assuming they even went for a walk tomorrow at all, which—
    Suddenly she sat up.
     
    She stayed absolutely still for a moment, staring straight ahead. The rain on the roof above her was so loud it sounded like hail. Madison looked at her bedside table. The clock said 1:12. So why was she awake? Sometimes she had to go to the bathroom. She didn’t now, though, and usually when she woke in the night, it was a vague and fuzzy kind of awake. Now she felt like she’d never been asleep. Ever. There was a question going around in her head, urgently.
    What was she doing here?
    Next to the clock was a small, round shape. She picked it up. A sand dollar, small. She remembered finding it that afternoon, but that felt like it was something that had happened a while ago, like last time they’d come here, or the summer before. She brought it up to her nose and sniffed. It still smelled like the sea.
    She could remember being on the beach as the storm headed south toward her. Sitting there knowing she’d have to go in the cottage soon. Then…she just couldn’t quite…It was like sometimes when you were in the car on a long drive and suddenly you realized that a chunk of time had passed. One minute you were twenty minutes from home, and then suddenly you were pulling into the driveway. It wasn’t like you’d been asleep, more like you hadn’t been paying attention, daydreaming, and the world had gone on regardless. The world, including your own body. You must have been awake, because you’d done stuff, but it had happened without your thinking or noticing. Like putting a car on cruise, as Daddy did on the freeway. Then, boom—you reached an interchange and there you were, noticing things again, taking back control.
    Though…now she could remember being in the cottage afterward. When she’d come in from the beach, Mom had been sitting in her chair without a book and without the TV on. Doing that looking-at-her-hands thing. She said hi when Madison came in, but nothing else—which was weird, because Maddy was late. At least a half hour. In fact…now she even remembered looking at the clock in the kitchen and realizing it was seven o’clock—which was a whole hour later than she was supposed to come