Chapter 3: Will

One by one the divers took their turns. The order had been selected at random, and Ewan was sixth, with the girl, whose name apparently was April, was going dead last. If the others took long enough, she might have to dive at dusk, which could be dangerous. And it didn't help that the water lapping against the cliff's wall below was growing increasingly agitated, though Will couldn't feel the wind picking up.

And as each man dove, the possibility that April would have to dive at dusk – and climb in near-darkness – increased. Even though it took much longer, no one was allowed to dive while someone else was climbing back to the top, as a safety precaution, but this meant a lot of waiting around and cheering on the poor sap drenched from the lake, wearing hardly anything, slapped on the side of the cliff for anywhere between ten and forty minutes. By the time it was Ewan's turn, only one of the previous five had made it back to the top at all, and his climb time was a meager 46:37. The record form last year was just under fifteen minutes.

Ewan took his position at the cliff's edge. The cheering died down. The only sound now was the light breeze tickling the trees behind them. Ewan's cliff was a good twenty feet above the one everyone else was on, yet Will would have been nervous jumping from where he was. But Ewan… He often said that being somewhere high was the only place where he could empty his mind and focus. Will watched, amazed as he always was, as Ewan's toes hung over the cliff's edge. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't even trembling as most of the other divers had been. His leap looked as natural as a bird taking flight. He arched, twisting through the air, his body straight until he began to plummet. He adjusted in midair so that now he only somersaulted, which he did three times before disappearing beneath the lake's surface with hardly a splash.

"Damn," muttered Jack.

"Yeah," agreed Will. One of the best he'd ever seen, and Ewan had won championships.