Read Soul Fire for Free Online Page B

has gone since I logged in last, and Tim with her?
    I focus on what I’m doing, trying to ignore the fear. I do what I’ve done a hundred times before: log into my email, find the one with the link, click. Hope.
    I’m there. In the bar. The detail on Lewis’s screens is breathtaking. The whorled knots on the bamboo struts, the tiny red bug climbing up the stem of a flower on the table.
    Even though I hate being here – it means I’m about to be lectured, or worse – I am momentarily stunned by how real it feels.
    Sam sits down next to me, loosening her grubby apron. Her tattoos look almost raw, and there’s a livid reddening around her eyebrow piercing. I wonder if she ever minds being the only one
on the Beach who doesn’t glow with inner beauty. She’s neither a Guest like them, nor a Visitor like me. Who knows what she is? Angel? Prison guard?
    ‘How’s tricks, sunshine?’ She’s smiling. Does that mean everything’s OK?
    ‘I . . . I don’t know. You tell me. Do you have some news? Bad news?’ I can’t bring myself to say the words, to askif Meggie’s gone.
    As Sam shakes her head, her dreadlocks thump against her skinny shoulders. ‘Nothing bad that I know of. What’s rattled your cage?’
    ‘Your new . . . Guest.’
    ‘Ah! Ah . . .’ She lights a cigarette with dirty fingers and I smell the nicotine: the only nasty thing I’ve ever smelled on the Beach, where everything else is as fragrant as
a designer perfume. ‘He’s the one they arrested, isn’t he? The one everyone but you thinks killed Meggie.’
    ‘Tim. Yes, he is.’ Sam’s the only one on the Beach I can talk to about the forbidden stuff.
    ‘Topped himself, did he?’ In her Liverpool accent, everything sounds like a joke, even when it’s not.
    I look at her. ‘Aren’t you meant to know that?’
    Sam sniffs. ‘Come on, Alice. You know the Management like to keep everyone in the dark. Even me.’
    ‘In the dark. You said it. Nothing’s making sense, Sam.’
    ‘When you’re lost, stick to what you can be sure of, Alice. Your sister needs you, especially now. She needs to know you love her, so tell her.’
    ‘She’s going to disappear, isn’t she? You do know something. Tell me.’
    ‘I don’t know anything. I promise. But, yes, she might go. It used to be rare, but since you arrived on the Beach, things seem more . . . unpredictable.’
    ‘Did none of the other Visitors manage what I did, then? To set anyone free?’
    Sam stubs out her cigarette. ‘There’s no point looking backwards, mate. Make the most of what you’ve got, while it’s still here.’
    It’s still morning here on the Beach. The sky is a soft baby blue and the sun isn’t fierce yet. The shore is quiet, too, as the Guests stay in their bamboo huts,
dozing or making love.
    There are no deadlines here. Nothing much to get up for.
    As I walk along the sand, the Guests who are out already wave or smile at me. Most of the faces are familiar now, though I’ve lost track of who was famous in the ‘real’ world
and who I’ve only seen here. The guy over there made the news as a freedom campaigner who was gunned down during protests in Burma; the girl lying with her head in his lap drowned off a Greek
island after the ferry she was travelling on was sabotaged. Knowing there is happiness to be had on the Beach makes their short lives feel a little less pointless.
    ‘Alice!’ I hear a whisper behind me.
    ‘Javier?’
    ‘Over here.’
    I don’t see him at first, but then I notice something move under one of the palm trees. A boy and a girl, their backs leaning against the trunk, playing cards.
    I walk across the hot sand. Javier grins at me – that’s not like him – and the girl smiles shyly. She looks younger than many of the Guests. Still pretty, of course, but the
dusting of freckles over her cheeks makes her seem like a schoolgirl, rather than a supermodel.
    ‘Good day, Alice.’ Javier says, kissing me on both cheeks. ‘If you’re