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  hawked a coin-sized glob. It touched down centimeters

  from Clayton’s toes.

  “Hey!”

  Blythe and Clayton turned toward the voice. Ash

  emerged from under the dimly lit canopy of a nearby

  cigar store. “Walk away,” she said.

  Blythe grinned and hiked a thumb over her shoulder.

  “You heard her, boy.”

  “I wasn’t talking to Clayton, Mum.”

  “What?”

  “I was talking to you. Walk away now. Or there’s no

  swim.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Try me.”

  “Ash—”

  “I dare you.”

  A rogue wave pounded the Malecón seawall, sending

  a primal thump through the pavement and a slingshot of

  brine toward the last of the night stars. Blythe stiffened, lifted her chin and clawed at her neck, like a dog straining against its leash.

  “This is ridiculous,” she muttered.

  She strode over to her daughter, grasped the armrests

  of her chair and leaned forward, hoping to touch forehead to forehead. Ash rebuffed the advance by moving back,

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  the sudden movement yanking the armrests from Blythe’s

  grasp and causing her to stumble. Blythe straightened

  and flicked the hair out of her eyes.

  “You don’t get to do this,” she said, zipping the

  sponsor’s jacket all the way to her throat. “I am your

  mother! I made you. Everything you were, everything

  you are, and everything you ever will be is my doing.

  You understand that?”

  Ash nodded. “I do.”

  “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  Ash shook her head. “I won’t.”

  Blythe gave a satisfied grunt, threw one last kill-shot

  glare in Clayton’s direction and stormed off to prepare

  for the day she so richly deserved.

  Ash crossed the dock to where Clayton still stood.

  She gestured for him to lean down, then held a hand to

  the back of his head as she kissed him.

  “You couldn’t let go,” she said once they had released.

  “I just want to be here.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  “Am I?”

  “I love you.”

  “I know.”

  Ash watched the first sunlight breach the horizon.

  “Let’s go down to the water.”

  166

  Thirty-Two

  The early-morning procession—dog-walkers, joggers,

  happy-snapping tourists—moved in both directions

  along the Malecón. Few gave a second glance to the

  couple in among the coral outcrops—a lovers’ embrace

  was hardly an oddity on the famed seven-kilometer

  stretch. Those who did look were drawn to the scene by

  the wheelchair, a rare sight amid the buskers and fish-

  ermen and 1950s cars, let alone at the water’s edge.

  Ash sat on a small flat shelf, legs dangling in the

  Atlantic. Clayton knelt beside her, then eased into a

  seated position. Ash slipped her arms around his waist,

  rested her head on his shoulder. The sunrise nestled at

  eyeline, orange and bleeding.

  “Will you remember me?” asked Clayton.

  Ash smiled. “Of course.”

  “How do you know?”

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  “Because we’re forever.”

  A puff of spray leaped out of the ocean and fell upon

  the pair. Ash felt the mist enter her pores. It trickled through her, seeping, soaking in. She drew Clayton close and pressed her damp cheek against his. She touched him, savoring every nuance, casting a net over her memories.

  Clayton looked down at the water. Ash’s feet were fluid, refracting in the shallows.

  “Are you scared?” he asked.

  Ash buried her face into his shoulder. “Yes,” she said,

  her voice small and strained.

  “Don’t be,” he replied.

  168

  Thirty-Three

  Later that morning, when Ash entered the shark-proof

  cage and performed the first of 100,000 strokes that

  would carry her to the United States, Clayton was below

  decks. He ignored the excitement of the handlers, their

  cheers and whistles and the odd “Come on!” as Wake the

  World got underway. He disregarded the sights swirling

  past the porthole: the news helicopter in the sky, the

  honking flotilla chaperoning his beloved’s journey to

  the open sea. When Coach Dwyer sat down beside him

  and attempted to make conversation, he said he wasn’t

  feeling well.

  A half hour after launch, the commotion died away.

  Clayton closed his eyes and began to draw.

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  Q

  Open.

  He exhaled.

  Open eyes.

  His lids flickered.

  Open eyes like Mummu said.

  Fighting instinct, Clayton took a peek at his work.

  It was the familiar landscape. Peace reigned. The ocean

  was a crystal plain. The colossal wave had withdrawn,

  leaving the beach alone.

  And Ash?

  She was gone. A memory. Seamless with the sea.

  At one with her sacred medium.

  Clayton powered down the tablet.

  It would remain down for 180 kilometers.

  170

  Thirty-Four

  At 7:13 am, approximately 25 hours and 58 minutes after

  commencement, the Wake the World swim ended at Fort

  Zachary Taylor Historic State Park in Key West.

  The first inkling of concern was felt with the opening

  of the shark-proof cage. The team member monitoring

  Ash’s vitals reported several data glitches, though these were disregarded as wireless-equipment failures. A disagreement took place between the two “watchers,” the people charged with observing Ash from the support vessel’s deck. One

  lost sight of her in the water. The other saw what he would later describe as a “shadow” swimming toward the shore.

  Less than a minute after the cage’s opening, the small

  crowd that had gathered on the beach to witness history

  encountered a sight they would spend a lifetime trying

  to explain. A junior reporter from the Miami Herald, standing at the edge of the group, was the first to notice.

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  He dropped his phone, shouting like a banshee, and

  pointed a shaking finger at the shallows. All eyes fell

  upon the impossible spectacle in his crosshairs.

  A translucent female form, seemingly conjured from

  the blue-green depths of the Gulf Stream, crested a wave that carried her out of the surf and onto the sand. Surrounded by tufts of foam and strips of kelp, she paused for a moment, head bowed. Then she lifted herself out of the wash.

  Some of her liquid form was human in shape. Bare, broad

  shoulders. Whorls of dark hair. Long, serpentine arms.

  Her heaving torso was lean, the sculpted abdominal

  muscles rolling like a set of breakers. Other features

  entered the domain of pure imagination. Sprouting from

  her upper back were wings, aqueous folds more delicate

  than a spider’s web. Swathed over her obscured legs was

  a gossamer-thin wrap, dotted wit
h pale blue half circles.

  The morning sun refracted through her. The

  horizon, though distorted, was framed by her rib cage.

  She extended an arm, reaching tentatively toward land.

  Fear and confusion gripped the crowd. Some turned

  to Team Drum for answers. They had none.

  Len looked skyward, reciting his words of refuge:

  “…forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who

  trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” Prayer would be lost to him after that day.

  172

  I N F I N I T E B L U E

  Coach Dwyer watched in stone-faced silence. The

  vision of Fort Zachary Taylor would haunt him until his

  dying day. He never spoke of it though. Not even to the

  hundreds of swimmers he coached in the Paralympics

  and Invictus Games.

  Blythe stood, eyes wide, mouth gaping, fingers poking

  at her shoulders, pained squeaks eking out of her throat.

  Over the next ten years, she would scour every fathom

  of the Gulf Stream for her lost girl. The ten following

  she would unsuccessfully sue everyone and everything

  connected to Wake the World. Her last five would be in

  the care of a mental-health facility.

  Among the shell-shocked group, Clayton was the

  only one to move. He ran to the water’s edge. Heart

  flailing in his chest, he dropped to his knees and threw his arms around her. She was rapidly losing form.

  The wave carrying her had withdrawn, exposing her

  to the light and to the air. He pulled close, shut his

  eyes and kissed her. Tears were swamped in the deluge.

  Water was on his tongue, in his throat. Entering him.

  Filling him. Washing away flesh and bone. He opened

  his eyes. For a fleeting moment he was the ocean.

  An infinite blue.

  Then she was gone, melted, sliding back into the sea.

  Several cameras—video and still—attempted to

  capture the moment. They failed. Ashley Ray Drummond

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  was elusive to the lens, a wrinkle that could easily be

  dismissed as shadow or digital artifact.

  Clayton wiped his face, his eyes. His arms throbbed,

  crying out for a connection lost. He bowed his head.

  Nestling against his right knee was a dash of silver.

  He plucked the object from the sand and held it to

  his lips. The water-lover ring.

  He knew Ash was home now.

  Knew it as true love knows eternity.

  174

  Thirty-Five

  Clayton opened the front door of his townhouse and

  drifted over the threshold. A newspaper wrapped in

  plastic lay beside the tervetuloa mat. On the breakfast bar, a bunch of white roses craned from a crystal vase filled almost to the brim with water. In the living room, the

  tv prattled. Clayton shrugged the bag off his shoulder as familiar aromas from the kitchen teased his red, blotchy nose. Onions and peas, milk and pepper. Kesäkeitto.

  He found Tuula standing in the hallway, her eyes glis-

  tening. She shared no words—just a look that cradled

  his aching heart. After several seconds she opened her

  arms, and he fell into them. Her tears were cool on his

  cheek. He was grateful for them.

  Like wounded soldiers, they leaned against each

  other, shuffling down the hallway. The tv grew louder at the end of the passage. The news was on.

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  “… The whereabouts of swimming champion Ashley

  Drummond remains a mystery seventy-two hours after her dramatic disappearance at Key West in Florida. An extensive search-and-rescue operation has found no trace of the former world-record holder, leading to theories that she may have been attacked by a shark close to shore. Local author-ities are still reaching out to eyewitnesses to try and provide some clue as to what happened—firsthand accounts to this point have been, according to police chief Pedro Mosqueda,

  ‘unusual and erratic’…”

  “Ay, lapsi,” said Tuula. “Stay here.”

  She patted Clayton’s hand and, with a spryness

  not ordinarily associated with seventy-three-year-old,

  chain-smoking grandmothers, scampered into the living

  area to snatch up the remote control from the coffee

  table. She stabbed button after button, then hurled the

  remote at the nearby bookshelf. The screen went blank.

  “Agh,” she said. “That show is shit. Not the shit. Just

  shit. You okay?”

  “I’m good,” replied Clayton.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Actually,” added Clayton, “I have a story like that

  one on the tv. Have I told it to you before, Mummu?”

  “Ay, you have.”

  176

  I N F I N I T E B L U E

  “How many times?”

  “Heaps.”

  “How many?”

  Tuula closed one eye and counted the nico-

  tine-stained fingers on her right hand. “One hundred and twenty-seven times.”

  Clayton nodded. “Not enough.”

  Tuula laughed. “Come,” she said, taking hold of his

  elbow. “Tell me after you rest.”

  Inside his room, Clayton sat down on the bed. Tuula

  asked if he would like to cover up—he declined.

  “I need to check on the soup,” she said. “But I will

  be back minuutissa.” She squeezed his shoulder and

  retreated. At the door she paused. “I like the beautiful new ring on your thumb, lapsi.”

  Tuula exited, quietly singing a tune: “I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair…I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair…”

  Q

  Prior to sleep Clayton opened his tablet and drew. No

  semiconsciousness needed for this piece, no whimsical

  artistry required. It was focused, intended.

  The canvas was layered in rich watercolor textures

  of deep blue and green, the hues of a forbidding wave

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  D A R R E N G R O T H & S I M O N G R O T H

  caught at its peak. The figure in the center was little more than a delicate outline. Her back was turned and she

  faced outward, directly into the blue. She wore a racing swimsuit cut low on her back. Arms extended. Feet apart

  and planted. Her hair flowed like faint, thin tentacles, more ocean than human. She was translucent, at one

  with the water.

  More subtle, though, was the second presence—a

  boy, looking on from a rocky outcrop in the distance,

  barely there. One hand on his heart. The other waving

  goodbye.

  The image had a title, applied by the app, though

  there’d been a glitch in its standard numbering system.

  The filename read Source__.

  Clayton smiled. It wasn’t something missing, that tiny

  open space. It was a presence, constant and connected.

  A marker of infinite possibility.

  178

  Acknowledgments

  We’d like to infinitely thank our mighty editor, Sarah

  Harvey, and the wonderful team at Orca; our agents

  on both sides of the Pacific blue, Tara Wynne and John

  Pearce; our mates and colleagues at Queensland Writers

  Centre, past and present; our families, friends and

  supporters of the Brothers Groth;
Petra Talvio; Cheryl

  Whiting; Susie Maroney; and the island of Cuba.

  D A R R E N G R O T H is the author of six novels, including the acclaimed ya works Are You Seeing Me?

  and Munro vs. the Coyote. He was the winner of the 2016

  Adelaide Festival Award for Young Adult Literature

  and has been a finalist in numerous other prestigious

  prizes, including the Governor General’s Literary

  Awards, the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

  and the cbca Book of the Year. Darren is a former

  special-education teacher and the proud father of a

  son with autism spectrum disorder (asd). He lives in

  Delta, British Columbia.

  S I M O N G R O T H is a writer and editor whose books include Off The Record: 25 Years of Music Street Press and Hunted Down and Other Tales. Simon’s work and reporting on the future of the book with Queensland

  Writers Centre has seen him travel the globe to discuss

  and explore the challenges and opportunities for writers and readers in a digital world. He lives in Brisbane,

  Australia.

  For more information, visit darrengroth.com and

  simongroth.com. Follow them on Instagram

  @thebrothersgroth.

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