I held the necklace up to my mouth. “Hello. Open up.”
Nothing.
“I doubt it’ll be a common phrase; otherwise, people would accidentally open it. No, the words will be something most people don’t say.”
“Okay. Here.” I handed him the necklace. “You’re so smart. You try.”
He held the necklace close to his face. “All right. Death will die again.” He remembered what I had said at the professor’s.
Nothing.
“Here, your turn.”
I held the necklace to my lips. “Open sesame.”
“Haha. Do you mean sesame seed? Where did you come up with that one?”
“It’s from One Thousand and One Nights. You know, Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves.”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “No clue. Give it.”
I handed the necklace back. “It’s a very famous book, you know.”
“Well, not in this world.” He held the necklace again. “Shuttle down perrigoat.”
I laughed. “What is that?”
“It’s a famous line from the poem, ‘The Cornerstone’s Dilemma’.”
“Oh, come on! What is a perrigoat?”
“You don’t have perrigoats in your world?”
“No.” I laughed again, and the idea of a famous poem with that line was so absurd, this time I snorted.
Greer laughed. “You snort?”
I held my hand in front of my face, embarrassed. “No.”
“Okay. Whatever you say. Here.” He handed me back the necklace. “Your turn.”
“Out, out, brief candle.”
“Life’s but a walking shadow.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “You know Shakespeare?”
“We had him here. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
“Hamlet,” I said. “I read it in AP English.”
“Yes. The best of the best. I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”
That one made me look at him with warm hopefulness until he said, “The Tempest.”
“Oh.” I had never read it. “So you know Shakespeare well.”
“My father used to read me his plays to get me to fall asleep as a kid. Well, after he got sick of Where Aspens Fall and Other Tales of Woe. That one is a great book. It was my favorite when I was a kid.”
“Really?” I thought of the book I’d read in the library and kind of wished I hadn’t given up on it so quickly.
“Yeah. "Where Aspens Fall" is my all-time favorite story.”
“I never read it.” I handed him the necklace back. “Here. Your turn.”
“Okay. Where does happiness dwell?”
“That one I know,” I told him.
“How does a person so inexperienced with drinking know that one?”
“I heard it in the kitchen.” That night came back to mind, and I shivered. Greer took a towel and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“We should get to bed. I’m sorry we don’t have a tent. It will be a cool night,” he said.
I sighed as Greer took his spot on the other side of the fire.
“Are we safe sleeping out here like this?”
“No. I have a perimeter set up, so we’ll have warning if anyone approaches.”
“Wish we had our impenetrable tent.”
“Only impenetrable for animals, but our technology is plenty good enough to handle two people sleeping in a tent.”
Greer laid out two towels, each separated by a few inches of sand.
I lay down on one towel and pulled another towel on top of me. The ocean’s high tide roiled to the shore. The stars were so close, so big and full, it was as if I could reach out and touch them. It was beautiful, but there was something I had to know. I turned toward Greer. “Greer, what’s your real name?”
He didn’t answer; he was already asleep.
~*~
I woke up to Greer lightly shaking my shoulder. “Waverly, it’s time to get up.”
I sat, wiping sleepers from my eyes. “Morning already?”
“Come on. Meet me by the water.”
“Huh?”
“Throw on something to swim in and meet me by the water.”
Under my towel, I squirmed into my black bra and underwear, which I guessed worked for a bathing suit. The sun, bright in pinks and oranges, was barely breaking over the horizon. Greer stood in his boxers at the water’s edge, waiting for me.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going for a swim. You can swim, can’t you?”
I smiled. I’d wanted to swim the whole time. “Yes.”
“I wasn’t so sure after the river.”
With the sun this bright, I wondered if we even had time to waste on a swim. “Are you sure?”
“It’s your first time at the beach. You’ve got to at least go in.”
“And the Merrics haven’t released water lions that can breathe underwater and prowl the shore waiting for unlucky swimmers?”
“Ha!” Greer ran into the water.
The chilly water collided with my legs, and I stifled a scream. Greer dove under a rather rough looking wave about ten feet ahead. The same wave crashed, caught me, and I tripped, falling to my knees. The ocean spitted me back to shore. I caught myself in time to regain my footing.
I stood up and righted myself, stepping slowly and methodically forward, only for the next wave to hit me.
After another wave toppled me, Greer came back and took my hand and pulled me up. “Here, we’ve got to get you past the breaker.”
He ran us through the break line and right to the calm middle.
“Thank you.”
He nodded and let go.
“Wait down like this.” Greer crouched in the water. “You jump when the wave comes. You ready?”
I watched him jump and then I leapt up, but it was a second too late and somehow, I got caught in the surf. It turned and yanked me upside down just to release me at the shoreline yet again.
“You okay?” Greer yelled.
After checking to make sure my makeshift bathing suit was still in place, I raised my hands like a champ and gave him a hoot in time for the next wave to knock me straight on my
