was nothing except marsh grass and tidal pools. And the sea. The sea, which, as I now noticed, was getting closer. The tide was coming in.
This whole mudflat must end up underwater when the tide was high. My horse would end up underwater. I searched more desperately for something to pull her out with. And then, when I couldn’t find anything, I began to dig. Maybe I could make a channel through the mud so that she could fight her way back to the surface again.
I used both hands, scooping up the sand through my legs like a dog. There was a frenzy to my digging as I shovelled the mud up and threw it aside, and I flung myself into the task, digging the channel as fast as I could. With every handful of mud that I dug up, more mud oozed in to take its place. All I was doing was making the hole more and more squishy and unstable.
I tried to dig closer to the horse, and felt the mud cave away completely so that I was up to my thighs once more.
It was futile to try and get her out. So instead, I made up my mind that I would stay with her for as long as possible. She struggled less if I stayed close and stroked her, spoke soothing words to her. I could drag myself out when the time came, but until that moment I would not abandon her.
“It’s OK.” I cradled her head. “It’s going to be OK.” But I believed this less and less. She was exhausted and so was I. The sun was right overhead and it was hot, really hot. My head was throbbing, and I felt prickly all over, like my skin had hot needles pressing into it.
I became mesmerised by the lapping of the sea, the way it kept creeping forward, slowly but surely. We had another hour left at most before it reached us.
“I’m sorry,” I kept saying to my horse. Because I knew now that I couldn’t save her. But I couldn’t leave her. Not yet.
Maybe it was the sun that made me dizzy, I don’t know, but at some point I must have begun slipping in and out of consciousness. I would wake up with a jolt and then sink back into a dream.
Get up, I told myself. Things have gone too far now. It was time to get myself out of the mud. It probably sounds weird to say I was freezing, because the sun was right up overhead, but suddenly I felt chilled to the bone.
It was when I realised that I couldn’t move my legs that I truly began to panic. They’d gone completely numb under the mud. I tried to kick and felt myself sink deeper.
I clawed at the mud, driven on by raw adrenaline, but even the fear wasn’t enough to bring the strength back to my exhausted arms. My muscles were jelly.
“Help me!” The words came out weak and strangled. My throat was thick and dry, my tongue swollen. “Help me!”
I swear the parrots laughed at me. I heard them caw-caw. Why were they so horrible?
“Help me…” My words were choked with tears. I was so stupid. I should have left Mom a note. What if she never ever found me? I didn’t want to die out here in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t want to die.
My head was all woozy. I shut my eyes to block out the glare and my world became darkness and sounds. There was the constant lap and swell of the sea as it crept up on me, and the birds calling in the sky above us, the rattle of the horse’s breath and the mud gurgling beneath me. And then, cutting through all of these, I heard a shrill whine, like a mosquito at first, then growing closer and louder until it filled my ears. I opened my eyes and squinted into the sun.
It was a motorbike.
The horse had lost all her fight. She lay submerged in the mud beside me, each rattling, heaving gasp she took seeming like it might be her last. Then the motorbike roared into the silence and brought her violently back to her senses.
She began to thrash about, legs flailing in the mud alongside me. I felt one of her front hooves accidentally glance against the hard bone of my ankle and I swallowed the pain in a wrenching gasp of agony. Trying to get away from her, I uselessly clawed at the mud again. But I had no strength left.
I tried to cry out again, to say, “I’m here!” but my tongue had turned to rubber. The motorbike noise filled my head, piercing my brain.
And then it stopped.
I could see a figure walking towards me. I screwed my face up against the blinding glare. My eyes hurt so much I had to shut them tight. When I opened them there was a shadow looming above me, blocking out the sun.
“My goodness, child! How long is you been like dis?”
I squinted up at the silhouette.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Hours, I guess.” I could barely get the words out of my dry mouth. I was still sun-blind but when the figure bent down really low, putting her face near mine, I could see that it was a woman. She had dark coffee-coloured skin and her hair was matted in dreadlocks, tangled with grey. She had a thick, broad nose, and swollen lips. Her eyes stared into mine with a keen brightness.
“Here.” She held my head by the chin and pushed a water bottle to my lips. “Drink it.”
I took five or six deep gulps. I had to fight with my own tongue to get the water down. It felt amazing.
I drank again and the woman grunted her approval, then put the empty bottle back in the bag she’d slung over her shoulder. She stood up and her shadow, which had mercifully blocked out the sun, was gone. I shut my eyes against the sun’s glare and when I opened them again I could see her walking away.
“No! Don’t leave! No!”
The motorbike engine cranked back to life. She was driving away!
I shouted until my throat was raw. But she didn’t come back. Soon, I couldn’t even hear the bike any more.
I willed the old woman to return. But there was no sound except the lapping of the waves growing nearer and the cries of the seabirds spiralling in the sky. In my mind the birds became vultures, circling above, waiting for the life to ebb out of us. When a gull landed right in front of me I screamed and reeled back in fright.
“Go away!” I shouted, grabbing a handful of mud and throwing it as hard as I could. “Leave us alone!”
That was when I broke down and cried. My breath came in horrible hiccups, as I choked on my sobs.
I washed in and out of consciousness and when I was awake it all felt like a dream. I honestly don’t know how long it was before I heard the sound of an engine again. Not a whine this time, but a full-bodied roar. In the distance something big was rumbling across the mudflats. I shielded my eyes with my hands. It was an old farm tractor, ancient rusty red, but the old woman drove it like it was a racing car, speeding across the mudflats, flinging a sheet of water up in her wake.
When she reached us she swung round wide so she wouldn’t disturb the mud hole. Then the tractor engine went dead and the next thing I knew she was standing right there next to me.
“You got a name, child?”
“Beatriz.” I managed to get the word out through my swollen, sunburnt lips. “My name
