Stormswept Read Online Free PDF

the smell of the place: fish, and something rotting out of sight.
    “It’s the monster’s lair,” Jenna would whisper, and we’d scream and run out again. There are tunnels at the back, but they don’t lead anywhere. They are just waiting to wrap themselves around you as the tide rises to fill them to the roof.
    I’ll stop soon, and go back home for a while to warm up. No one really believes that we’ll find the missing man alive now. Too many hours have passed. I hope he died quickly. I hope he didn’t struggle too long in the water, hoping for rescue which didn’t come. I hope he wasn’t trapped anywhere. That’s my worst nightmare.
    I rub my hands together to warm them. The sun is out now, sparkling on the waves. It looks so beautiful that it’s hard to believe this is the same sea that drove a cargo ship on to the reef last night. The wind is still cold, though. I shield my eyes and stare down the stretch of pale sand, to the rocks that gash into the water. Porth Gwyn. That’s its proper name but we just call it “the beach” because it’s where we always played when we were little. In the summer people come out here to sunbathe. It’s not a great place to swim because of the rips, but there’s a big natural pool hidden among the rocks, right down at the end of the beach. It’s more than two metres deep at one end. Jen and I call it King Ragworm Pool because we found the biggest King Ragworm we’ve ever seen in it, after a storm. It was half a metre long, and hideous. It put us off swimming there for a long time.
    The pool fills from a channel, because the tide doesn’t come up far enough. It’s quite strange how it happens: there’s another rock pool higher and closer to the sea, which fills with every tide, and then the water runs to King Ragworm Pool. It looks as if someone engineered a channel long ago.
    I search among the rocks, peering down into deep clefts and gullies where the sea thumps in at high tide. While I’m looking, I don’t let myself think about what I’m looking for. I think about Jenna and I searching for lost things that the tide has taken. If you’re patient, and thorough, you often find them. Maybe I should check again along the surf and the shoreline.
    At that moment the church bell rings out from the village. Even at this distance I can hear it clearly. Just one bell, tolling out one slow stroke, and then another, as they do for a funeral. It’s a signal. The wind lifts the sound, carries it towards me and then snatches it away. I know exactly what it means. At times like these the church bells have their own language, and everyone understands it. The lost man has been found, but he is dead. If they’d found him alive, all the bells would have pealed out a clangour like wedding bells. This single bell-note is telling us it’s time to give up, and come home.
    Such a slow, heavy sound. The sea glitters as the sun comes out more strongly, and a gull dives down, screeching. They used to say gulls were soul-birds, and carried the souls of drowned sailors. No one believes that now, but I wish it were true as I watch the gull ride the waves of the air.
    Five men were saved, I remind myself. The lifeboat did everything it could.
    I ought to go back home, but I don’t want to. Everybody will be talking about where the man’s body was found.
    I wander slowly along the strand, still watching the gull which has now soared high into the air. It heads out to sea and soon it is out of sight. Maybe you’ve gone back to Poland, I think, but I can’t really believe it. The bell is still tolling.
    The rocks ahead of me are covered with mussels. Maybe I’ll pick some. Tide’s way out now. The Pascoe boys will be able to get round to the caves at the base of Golant cliffs. Then I remember that there’s no need for them to do that any more.
    Anyway, it was a stupid idea to pick mussels, because I’ve nothing to carry them in. Mum usually has an “in case” bag in her coat