The bird was wild with fear. Entangled in the fishing-rod line—wings awkwardly stretched, feet dangling mid-air—it leaped and bounced and swayed, a puppet on a string dancing a macabre pas de deux over the wordless song of the waves.
More frightened than the bird, the boy was dancing too—a step to the side, one forward, two back—gripping the rod for dear life, and glancing, glancing around. Mud-brown and pebbled, Thornton Bay stretched long and empty. The tide was already slicing the beach into a dark crescent.
As though called by the sea, the woman with the red beanie strode onto the sand, her bare feet drawn to some urgent, faithful place. She saw the boy, the dance. Stopped. Understood. The day was running out of light; time was running out. Then she was running.
“Hold tight, you hear?” she yelled.
The boy turned to her, his face—a grimace that could be hope.
“Got a knife?” The waves, crushing the skull of the rocks, blew her voice into pieces.
With the white of his eyes, the boy pointed at his bag. An empty can, a crumpled
packet of chips, a multitool knife. She flicked the blade open.
The bird hung there, exhausted, motionless. Yet, the shadow of the woman and her hands reaching out ignited a fury—yellow beak darting like a steel arrow going for blood.
“Yes, my darling, fight, fight!” the woman whispered.
She took her beanie off—an old, hand-knitted child’s hat—but dropped it, and the waves hurried to claim the crimson shape, to carry it away into the deep. The woman grabbed it back, shook off the wet, the salt. Another step, and she slipped the beanie over the bird. A light, insubstantial body, but a pulse so wild it could propel a whole new life into being.
“Let go, my little one,” the woman murmured. “You just let go. It’ll be dark at first, but then it’ll be all right.”
She sat and placed the trembling creature in her lap; the waves surrounded her, curious to see. She freed the feet, the tail feathers one by one. There was blood on the body, garnet shards amidst the plumage. The line sprang away from the neck, from the wings, the hook snagged loose from the tip of a feather. Finally, the woman took the red beanie off.
The bird didn’t hesitate. It didn’t glance back for a thank you or goodbye. Feet stretched, wings flapping the rhythm of flight, its shape melted over the darkening skin of the ocean.
The woman got up, jeans soaked, the beanie too. The boy—Andrew would’ve been his age—dropped on the sand, the rod clenched in his hands.
“You did good,” she said. “We did good.”
The boy said nothing. The waves rippled the remains of daylight and chased them towards Ngarimu Bay.