The cellist in the group told us not to miss Big Sur, so on our last day before flying home, we rented a car and drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway. For most of the morning, the sun came in and out between clouds, but the rocky seascape was spectacular. Tess had always wanted to see the ocean, so we decided to pull off and relax for a bit at a cove in the Ventana Wilderness. As we hiked to the sand, a light mist rolled in, obscuring the Pacific. Rather than turn back, we decided to picnic on a small crescent beach beside McWay Falls, an eighty-foot straight drop of water that plunges from the granite cliff to the sea. We saw no other cars on the way in and thought the place ours alone. After lunch, Tess and I stretched out on a blanket, and Eddie, all of five years old and full of energy, had the run of the sand. A few seagulls laughed at us from rocks, and in our seclusion, I felt at peace for the first time in ages.
Maybe the rhythm of the tides or the fresh sea air did us in after lunch. Tess and I dozed on the blanket. I had a strange dream, one that had not visited me in a long, long time. I was back among the hobgoblins as we stalked the boy like a pride of lions. I reached into a hollow tree and pulled at his leg until he squirmed out like a breached baby. Terror filled his eyes when he beheld his living reflection. The rest of our wild tribe stood around, watching, chanting an evil song. I was about to take his life and leave him with mine. The boy screamed.
Riding the thermals above us, a gliding gull cried, then flew out over the waves. Tess lay sleeping, gorgeous in repose beside me, and a thread of lust wormed through me. I buried my head at her nape and nuzzled her awake, and she threw her arms around my back almost to protect herself. Wrapping the blanket around us, I lay on top of her, removing her layers. We began laughing and rocking each other through our chuckles. She stopped suddenly and whispered to me, “Henry, do you know where you are?”
“I’m with you.”
“Henry, Henry, stop. Henry, where’s Eddie?”
I rolled off her and situated myself. The fog thickened a bit, blurring the contours of a small rocky peninsula that jutted out into the sea. A hardy patch of conifers clung to its granite skull. Behind us, the waterfall ran down to the sand at low tide. No other noise but the surf against shore.
“Eddie?” She was already standing up. “Eddie!”
I stood beside her. “Edward, where are you? Come here.”
A thin shout from the trees, then an intolerable wait. I was already mourning him when he came clambering down and raced across the sand to us, his clothes and hair wet with salt spray.
“Where have you been?” Tess asked.
“I went out on that island as far as you can go.”
“Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”
“I wanted to see how far you could see. A girl is out there.”
“On that rock?”
“She was sitting and staring at the ocean.”
“All by herself? Where are her parents?”
“For real, Mom. She came a long, long way to get here. Like we did.”
“Edward, you shouldn’t make up stories like that. There’s not a person around for miles.”
“For real, Dad. Come see.”
“I’m not going out to those rocks. It’s cold and wet and slippery.”
“Henry”—Tess pointed out to the fir trees—“look at that.”
Dark hair flying behind her, a young girl emerged from the firs, ran like a goat down the sloping face, as thin and lissome as the breeze. From that distance she looked unreal, as if woven from the mist. She stopped when she saw us standing there, and though she did not come close, she was no stranger. We peered at each other across the water, and the moment lasted as briefly as the snapping of a photograph. There and gone at the same time. She turned toward the waterfall and ran, vanishing beyond in a haze of rock and evergreen.
“Wait,” Tess cried. “Don’t go.” She raced toward the girl.
“Leave her,” I hollered, and chased down my wife. “She’s gone. It looks like she knows her way around this place.”
“That’s a helluva thing, Henry. You let her go, out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Eddie shivered in his damp clothes. I swathed him in the blanket and sat him on the sand. We asked him to tell us all about her, and the words tumbled out as he warmed up.
“I was on an adventure and came to the big rock at the edge. And there she was sitting there. Right behind those trees, looking out at the waves. I said hi, and she said hi. And then she said, ‘Would you like to sit with me?’ ”
“What is her name?” Tess asked.
“Ever heard of a girl called Speck? She likes to come here in winter to watch the whales.”
“Eddie, did she say where her parents were? Or how she got all the way out here by herself?”
“She walked, and it took more than a year. Then she asked where was I from, and I told her. Then she asked me my name, and I said Edward Day.” He suddenly looked away from us and gazed at the rock and the falling tides, as if remembering a hidden sensation.
“Did she say anything else?”
“No.” He gathered the blanket around his shoulders.
“Nothing at all?”
“She said, ‘How is life in the big, big world?’ and I thought that was funny.”
“Did she do anything . . . peculiar?” I asked.
“She can laugh like a seagull. Then I heard you started calling me. And she said, ‘Good-bye Edward Day,’ like that. And I told her to wait right here so I could get my mommy and dad.”
Tess embraced our son and rubbed his bare arms through the blanket. She looked again at the space the girl had run through. “She just slipped away. Like a ghost.”