I sit on the bench and gaze out at the violet-gray sea. High above me the seagulls caw their lonely cries to the white sky, hanging in the wind that is beginning to whip up tiny white tops on the waves outside the harbor.
Below where I sit, the masts of the yachts in the marina sway in the swell, the sail pulleys clanking in the wind.
It was a ridiculous idea.
But now I have ruined it, and there is no way that I can do what I have waited hundreds of years to do.
To grow up.
To have a twelfth birthday. A real one.
To have friends that grow up with me, and then to fall in love, and marry, and have children, and watch them grow up and have children…
And to feel that life is valuable, precious. To yearn for each day to be longer, because I do not have an endless number of them…
Because I understand, by now, one thing more than anyone else on earth: without death, life is just existence.
And, for what seems like the millionth time since Mam died, the tears stream down my face, chilling on my cheeks in the cold breeze. At first, I do not even notice that Aidan and Roxy have sat down on either side of me. Aidan puts his arm round my shoulders and squeezes, and Roxy rests her head on my arm, like I used to do with Mam.
We stay there for a long time, I think.
Then, from behind us, I hear someone say, “Wow! Look!” I turn, and they are pointing out to sea, where a flock of birds are diving repeatedly into the sea and coming up again.
“Are they seagulls?” the little girl asks her mum.
“I don’t know, pet.”
The girl giggles. “They look like…like flying footballs!”
Their voices act like a winch, dragging me from my despair.
“They are puffins,” I say to her. “You do not often see them this close to land. There must be a shoal of mackerel running, or sprats. Sprats are their favorite.”
The mum smiles. “You know a lot.”
I shrug. Modestly, I hope. Then Roxy pipes up.
“How cold do you reckon that water is, Alfie?”
Aidan scoffs. “It’s the North Sea, Roxy. It’s freezing.”
“But it’s nearly June.”
“So?”
“So I’ve got an idea.”