Waiting for Magic by Susan Squires Page B

for a while, trying to count intervals and the number of waves between the biggest rollers. They were long and getting longer. This storm was still growing.
    He trailed a hand in the black water, mottled with the splatter of rain as the swells rolled under him, lifting him high and then sinking him into the trough where the walls of water towered above him. Damn. The Humboldt Current made the water cold, even though southern California had a Mediterranean climate. He should have brought his wetsuit.
    Or maybe it didn’t matter. Life stretched ahead, bleak without the possibility of ever telling Kee how he really felt about her. He’d never act on his desire. How could he? But the very thought shamed him. If Brina knew, or worse, Brian.… They’d be as filled with disgust for him as he was himself. Even if she wasn’t his sister, he could never deserve a girl like Kee. She was a bright flower floating through life. He wasn’t. Inarticulate, studious, obsessed with the sea—not exactly qualities high on a girl’s wish list. Or a family’s wish list for their daughter.
    Maybe he’d just stay out here until he froze or drowned. That might be better for everyone. The longing for Kee was so sharp in his gut he squeezed his eyes shut, put his arms around himself, and leaned over his board, shoulders shaking. A keening sound was lost in the roar of rain and waves. He realized he was crying only because the tears were warm.
    So were his feet.
    He opened his eyes. All around him the water was glowing. And it was warm.
    What the hell? The Pacific was way too cold for phosphorescent fish.
    The ocean whispered inside him. He floated on a bright, warm circle in the black water. It didn’t move as the midnight waves rolled under him. It stayed right around his surfboard. He could feel the energy in the ocean as though it were his own. He was lightheaded, almost as if he were drunk.
    Then the whisper turned into a roar. He looked behind him, out to sea. A huge wall of water rose above him. It had broken farther out. The crest was coming. He wouldn’t survive those tons of water crashing down on him. Now or never. He started to paddle as fast as he could go toward shore. The wave lifted him into the night. The crest was forming just behind him, the wall almost vertical below him. The power of the wave took over, sweeping him in front of it as he scrambled up to crouch on the board.
    He skidded along the face of the wave. The whole power of the ocean was behind that one huge swell. It surged under his board.
    And then something very curious happened. It was as if he went to a place that was suddenly quiet. He felt everything: how the crest would break, how fast the wave was moving, the churning blackness at its root. He saw with exquisite clarity the faint gradations of gray and black in the night around him, but all he heard was the singing of the ocean. He was powerful. The ocean was part of him and he was part of it.
    The crest curled over him, a black tunnel closing in on all sides as he screamed diagonally down the wall of wave. The small circle of grayer darkness at the end of the pipeline was collapsing. He put out a hand to the wall of water and it arched over his head again. He had no time to think what that meant. The gray patch grew larger and he shot out into the open.
    The wave filled his senses to overflowing. He was connected to it, and together they were rushing toward the shore.
    The rocks loomed out of the rain and the night ahead. His diagonal path down the wave put them straight in his path. Strength surged up through the wave as it began to break over him again. He’d either hit those rocks at high speed, or get crushed by the crest slamming into the shore. All problems solved. All troubles melted into H 2 O.
    His chest was full, his heart near to bursting. He could no longer see the rocks for the water curling over him. And then he felt a huge heaving thrust, almost like an animal beneath him. The ocean sang