The World to Come
by Eildon Rhymer
What if the Dark had won at the end of Silver on the Tree? The world is sliding into darkness, and only tattered remnants of the Light remain. Will, Bran and the Drews grow to adulthood, and each to their own destiny in this World to Come.
Part one: chapter thirteen
What might have beenTwo boys are on the beach. They have stolen from their beds, and come together to this place, to play among the waves.
It is midsummer, and the western ocean takes the sun to its bosom, and does not ever truly let it go. There is still light beyond the ocean, of lingering sunset. In the east, beyond the ancient hills, the pale light of dawn is already gathering. It is never fully dark here. It will never be fully dark again.
One, a pale boy, stoops to cup some sand in his hands, and he flings it at the other boy, laughing. The other boy could have evaded it if he had wanted to, but he lets it strike him, and he smiles as sand trickles through his hair, tickling the back of his neck.
"Got you!" the pale boy cries.
The other boy shakes the last of the sand from his straight brown hair. "Yes, you've got me."
"Enough of that," says the pale boy. "Let's go swimming."
"Paddling," the other boy says, correcting him.
"Paddling?" his companion hoots. "Paddling's for babies and tourists and English men with hankies knotted on their heads. Are you one of those, Stanton?"
"No." The English boy smiles to himself. "But the sea is cold, and it's almost dark, and there's no-one around to keep an eye on us."
"All the better, then." Some devil seems to have seized the pale boy. He is stripping off his clothes down to his underpants, and runs whooping into the sea. He cannot entirely suppress the cry that the coldness forces from his lips, but he follows it with words that tell the lie. "It's wonderful. Come on in, Stanton, or are you a girl?"
His friend has never been one to rise to a dare, but the last dregs of sunlight are on the ocean like a pathway to something beautiful. Specks of light dance on the water, and the wind is whispering in the dunes, speaking of hope and promises. There are too many people on the land, all of them jabbering with expectations. The sea is freedom, and he will be swimming with a friend at his side.
"Alright, then," he says. "I will."
He pulls off his own clothes and walks into the sea. He does not realise how he is walking until the pale boy asks, "Why are you walking like that? It's not a procession."
He has been moving like someone walking to their execution, or a supplicant approaching some initiation. He tries to laugh, but the sunset is calling him. The world and all its pressures is a fading memory. The sea is darkness and light mingled for all eternity, and the two of them are side by side, the only people in the ocean along the whole coast of Wales.
"Let's see how far we can swim out," the pale boy says, his tawny eyes sparkling with more joy than the other boy has ever seen in them.
That is reason enough. "Yes," Will says, and sees his own smile reflected in Bran's eyes. "Let's swim to the sun. Let's swim until we can't even remember what land looks like."
Bran laughs, and together they surrender to the current.
No living creature sees either of them ever again.
And in the world that truly was, the two boys, grown almost to men, stand in separate windows, and gaze at the night-time, alone.
End of chapter thirteen
End of part one
Part two will resume some six years later