There is a boulder thick with moss along the beach that looks like one man leaning over another’s back. It’s an easy thing to climb if you are young and don’t mind scraping your knees the way Hazel doesn’t. She is already watching the ocean with the wind licking her neck – the way you can’t when you’re on the ground like Ray is – when Ezrah catches up to him.
“Want to go up, bud?” Ray shakes his head.
“No,” he says. But he watches Hazel with frustrated jealousy, scared to say that he’s scared of climbing up. Ros walks up slowly from behind.
“Really?” she asks, sounding surprised. “Because there are sirens up there. They’ll listen to you when you’re feeling sad.” Ray looks back up at Hazel on the top of the rock.
“Sirens? Really?”
Ros nods. The air of gravity she always keeps around her makes her easy for a kid to believe as Ray does now. He looks at Ros. She doesn’t make him ask her for help.
“Go on up. I’ll make sure you don’t fall.” Ray’s mouth parts in an uncertain smile, and he starts up the mossy foot of the first man. Ezrah tries to pierce Ros’s silence with his eyes.
“We used to think there were sirens up there,” he smiled.
“There are,” Ros answers. Her face remained sharp sea-broken rock.
Nihilistic Porcupine 