Page 3 of The Space Traveller's Lover

BEST FRIENDS’ SECRETS

No one will believe us, you know … it’s better if we don’t say anything.

Erin walks into the spacious control room and sits in front of the tracking monitors. Today is her sixteenth birthday, and she’s looking forward to the evening. Sam promised he had a surprise for her.

She touches the flashing green button from the computer menu. The whole map of the tuna farm’s maintenance plant fills the screen with its crisscrossing, distinctly coloured lines.

A flashing green dot over a five-digit number marks each worker’s position. The markers move along the lines, updating each point’s time and coordinates.

At a glance, Erin checks the position of each marker and its ID number. She knows by heart the expected time and location of everyone.

She notices that one marker starts flashing in red, but she hears Sam’s voice through the intercom before she has time to worry.

“Sam Sheppard … signing in. Checking Level D.”

“Sam! Just in time,” she gently reprimands him.

“Erin, you shouldn’t worry about that. We all know we have to keep to the schedule or else,” Sam replies calmly. “I’m on level D, section A4 now.”

“That’s better!” Erin says while verifying the red flashing dot changing into green .

Sam and Erin have been close friends since they met on her first day at school on the island. She was sitting alone in the canteen when a cheerful boy with curly brown hair and a cheeky smile sat beside her and asked her name. As she turned around to look at him, he jumped up from his seat.

“Yours are the biggest, bluest eyes I have ever seen!” he exclaimed.

“They’re not blue … they’re purple, horrible.” She lowered her eyelids, unable to hide her blushing.

“They’re beautiful,” he countered.

“Well, everyone makes fun of me because of my eyes. They even call me ‘Big Eyes’.” She sighed, clutching her hands nervously but daring to stare back at him regardless.

His broad friendly smile made her feel more confident almost instantly.

He regularly invited her to go for horse rides by the sandy beaches not far from the Lobarts’ ranch. Erin would accept sometimes. As their friendship blossomed, she even offered to help him study for the exams, something that turned Sam into a very keen student.

When she announced she was leaving for Los Angeles to start university, his heart was broken. He thought about telling her before she left, but his mind froze, and his mouth dried at the thought that she would reject him. She would never give him any clues; she never flirted with him.

But when she came back, Sam started to think that he may have got it all wrong. Of course, she’s coming back because she misses me , he thought. I must tell her how I feel, but I’ll find the right place, the right time.

That same summer, they had gone horse riding to the northernmost part of the island, into the narrowing curved peninsula known as El Cuchillo, stretching out into the rough ocean for two and a half kilometres.

They were enjoying the magnificent views of the radiant sunset before they were due to start their summer jobs at the tuna farm.

Erin loved to ride her horse to the end of El Cuchillo to enjoy the view of the impressive black cliffs, especially around the area known as Diablo’s Point, where the power of the waves had carved jagged stone arches and pillars around the sprawling coastal caves.

The cliffs’ rocky crevices led into a maze of underground tunnels and high chambers, forming a unique, intricate cave system that attracted the most daring explorers.

But everyone knew there were some routes they must avoid—the deep waterlogged passages leading towards Diablo’s cave’s gorge, where an underground waterfall kept plunging through a vast chasm and into an underground river.

They trotted carefully on the stony path as the waves kept crashing on each side of the narrow peninsula, squirting random water jets through the blowholes. They enjoyed the refreshing splashes on their bodies, laughing at each other whenever they were showered by the sudden sprays.

The cries of the nesting seabirds and the hissing of the water jets combined into a unique rhythmic sound.

Although it was very cloudy, the Sun had managed to come through a small opening, unveiling its reddened edge and bathing the ocean surface with its fiery shafts of light.

The wind was playing on Erin’s long blonde hair, weaving it in thick strands in front of her face that she kept pulling apart as she admired the breathtaking view. Sam couldn’t keep his eyes off Erin. Deep in thought, he struggled to arrange his words into a sentence, but only silence prevailed.

“One day, I’d like to have a peek inside Diablo’s cave,” Erin said as if talking to herself.

“That’s something I’ve been practising … I tried it once with my father and we made it into the second lake … But after that—”

“What did you do?”

“Well, we immediately turned back,” he replied in a self-deprecating tone, bursting into laughter that she promptly joined.

Erin kept looking towards the cave’s entrance as a fluttery feeling of anticipation revolved in her stomach. Her heart missed a beat when she noticed the shimmering object once again—that same object that sometimes appeared out of nowhere while she had been swimming in the ocean.

“Sam, look!” She eagerly pointed in the direction of Diablo’s cave.

Sam stared, completely bewildered, as a shiny metallic sphere emerged right at the entrance of the cave, getting wider and brighter as it rose gradually out of the water.

“What is it?” Sam yelled while trying to keep his horse still.

“I’ve no idea ...” Erin kept gazing at the luminous sphere, her heart pounding ever faster, but she didn’t feel in the least frightened. Instead, she was utterly spellbound .

By now, the object had started to shine so brightly that they had to look away. A warm air current surrounded them while a low booming sound pounded in their ears. They tried hard to contain their nervous horses, tightly clutching their reins for a long tense minute.

As the humming sound and the bright light dwindled, a cool breeze coming from the sea refreshed their sweaty skin. Relieved, they opened their eyes and looked back towards the cave. By then, the shiny object had disappeared.

Only the agitated waves crashing against the dark entrance gave a hint that something had been there and suddenly had plunged into the water.

A wide-eyed Sam looked back at Erin, trying hard to open his stiffened mouth. “Wh-wh-what was th-th-at?” he stuttered.

“I wish I knew,” she mumbled. “It seems like it’s following me—”