Rumor of Blood

With towels at their necks the boys came down out of the woods and crossed toward the dock in a ragged dark line. Below them the sea lay flat and black-green, the surface darkly dimpled by the breeze. Gulls rode gusts against the sky, wheeling, their wings arcing over striated sections of varying blue. In that vast and empty space the boys’ voices carried with strange clarity, like voices in the very next room.