The Day After the Solstice

THE FISHING BOAT GOES OUT just before dawn, wake shining silver in the halogen lamps. The fishermen are heading for the deep water, tracking a wide berth around The Giant's Hand, five limestone stacks that stick out beyond the line of the cliffs like four huge fingers and a thumb. It's a little before five in the morning. This is almost the earliest the sun will rise all year: the day after midsummer, the longest day.

Already the sky is pinkening from violet to mauve. Something strange this morning, though. A second streak of color has appeared, like a duplicate sunrise but in the opposite direction, over the land. A paint spatter of livid scarlet.

Later, they will say they could actually feel the heat of it. Even there, all the way out to sea. The hot breath of it on the backs of their necks like the warmth of a second sun.

"What's that light?" The first to notice points it out to the guy next to him.

"What, mate?"

"There: right there above the cliffs."

Now the other guys turn to look, too. "That's not a light. That's... what is that? Oh. Shit."

"That's a fire."

"Something's burning. Right on the coastline."

As the wind shifts they smell the smoke, too. Flecks of ash appear in the air, dancing around them, settling upon the deck, the waves.

"Jesus. It's a building."

"It's that place. The hotel that just opened... The Manor."

They cut the engine. Stop and watch. All of them fall silent for a moment. Staring. Horrified. Thrilled.

One guy takes out a pair of binoculars. Another takes out his phone. "Can't feel all that bad," he says, snapping a few shots. "The shit they've been up to. Feels like just deserts."

A third man snatches at the phone. "Nah—that's not on, mate. People could be dead in there. Innocent people... members of staff... locals."

All of them fall silent as this possibility sinks in. They watch the smoke, which is beginning to billow in huge ashen clouds. They can smell it now, acrid, scoring the back of the nostrils.

One of the guys gets on the phone to the police.

The light changes again. The smoke spreads like ink in water, spilling fast across the blue-white of early morning, blocking out the newly risen sun. It's as though the darkness of night is returning, a shroud being drawn across the sky. It is as though whatever is happening back there on the cliffs has canceled the dawn.