September 11, 2008.

It was a long way down.

Katia Yazykova stood at the precipice. The sun, sinking down into the Pacific, cast its rays across the water like scattered diamonds. They glinted enticingly, beckoning. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, and she thought of how nice it would be in the water, how refreshing. She stepped back, and prepared to jump.

"Are you coming down, or what?"

Ethan looked up at her from an outcropping of rock five meters below, hands tapping impatiently over his hips. His eyes narrowed with sudden realization. "You're not seriously considering that, Katia. You can't jump from the Spike."

Beside her foot, a rusted iron spike was plunged into the ground, like a warning. Katia leaned over and considered the distance. Estimating that a fall of thirty feet might split the soles of her feet on the water below, she'd kept her sandals on. The vertical drop would provide the fun; it was the horizontal distance that might prove problematic.

Ethan stood about five meters out from her. Beneath him, the cliff tapered into the sea at an angle, meaning she had to clear an additional three meters in order to reach the water. Eight meters was a fair distance to clear, but hardly impossible.

Not for her, anyway.

Katia licked her index finger and held it up to the sky.

The tailwind roughly negates air resistance, meaning horizontal velocity will remain constant throughout the initial phase of the fall.

She made up her mind. "Don't see why I can't."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't clear that distance," Ethan warned.

Katia looked down, then back up, doing a quick calculation in her head. She determined the force needed to clear the slope of the cliff, and transfer that into velocity.

"Two meters per second," she concluded. "Should be fine."

Ethan rolled his eyes. He was used to her quick math skills. Sometimes they came in handy, so he didn't complain when they were just annoying. "Here's a calculation for you: You. Will. Kill. Yourself."

Katia disagreed. She tensed, took two quick steps, and leapt. The rush of air swallowed up her laughter as she plummeted toward the water, breaking the surface with a joyous shriek.

The water was fearsome cold. Katia floated mindlessly in the deep, sensing with a detached interest the way her veins imploded with chilly shock. A second splash, somewhere near, disturbed the submarine tranquility. She kicked up. Ethan popped up beside her, gasping furiously.

He grabbed her shoulders. "Don't ever do that again!"

A shiver passed through her, and Katia clamped down on a reflex to jerk away from his anger and his clutch. "Come on, Ethan. It was awesome. No one's done it before."

He shook his head, still treading water. His knees knocked against hers. "I don't know about awesome. It was insanely dangerous. No one's done it and survived before."

She grinned. "Before."

With an unwilling smile, he dunked her head underwater. She swam out of his grasp, popping up fifteen meters away, her tongue stuck out in a tease. Too cold to play, Ethan turned back to the shore. Reluctantly, she followed. Emerging onto the beach, sunshine prickled her skin. She lifted her arms, embracing warm air as she shed layers of icy water.

Ethan's lips were already blue as he pressed his arms to his chest, shuddering with cold. Turning away to hide her amusement, she arched her head back and shook out her hair. Just as she did, Katia caught a glimpse of a silhouette atop the cliff. She strained her eyes, wondering who might be watching. The figure turned and retreated abruptly.

*

"You're going to get yourself killed," Ethan scolded as they hiked back up to the top of the cliffs.

"And then who would keep you humble?" Katia teased, her voice thick with false sympathy.

"Not funny." Ethan's voice was taut.

Katia sobered. "Sorry. I promise, I only take calculated risks."

Ethan laughed this time, his hand slapping her shoulder. "You're constantly calculating things."

They walked back to the parking lot where they'd left their cars, and she opened her unlocked door to retrieve her keys from the glove box. She turned around to find Ethan standing a few inches from her. He grabbed her forearm and clutched it tightly.

"I don't understand you, Katia. Sometimes I think you have a death wish."

Warm blood rushed to her cheeks, and she cursed herself, turning her eyes away. They fixed on a young man, sitting on the hood of a black SUV parked twenty meters away, his dark hair not-quite-obscuring the curiosity of his gaze. He wore a sly smile; the curve of his pressed-together lips spoke of stolen secrets. She looked away quickly. Ethan caught the glance, and turned to the boy. "Do you know that guy?"

She shook her head.

"Then why is he staring at you?"

She couldn't say.

A warm arm tightened around her shoulder, pulling her close.

"Creep," Ethan called.

The boy's smile faded as he flicked his gaze to Ethan. He appeared neither shamed by the insult nor persuaded to stop staring. Even from the distance, Katia could tell that he was sizing Ethan up. He looked about the same age as Ethan, with a slighter build, but from his expression, the boy saw no threat. If anything, he looked bored. He returned to staring at Katia.

There was something disconcerting in his eyes – beyond the fact that they were unabashedly trained on her – that she could not quite make out. Then he picked up a thick textbook and began to read.

Katia forced herself to turn away, and saw a pretty girl with glossy brown hair and oversized sunglasses walking towards them, flanked by two identically accessorized girlfriends. All three glared at Katia. She pulled out from under Ethan's arm, realizing why the girls might be unfriendly. "Sorry. I'm going to get you in trouble."

Ethan glanced up at his approaching girlfriend and rolled his eyes. "I'm not too worried."

"Is everything okay?" Katia questioned carefully.

"It's okay, I guess. Mia's no swimsuit model."

"Aren't you hilarious."

She hated him bringing up the article. Katia had won a surfing competition that spring. It was only afterwards, when the reporter accosted her with cameras, that she realized Ethan had entered them both in the pro category. Even worse, two full months later, when Ethan handed her a copy of the magazine with tears of laughter running down his face, she realized she'd posed for the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. In a bikini. It was humiliating. Her father had been less than amused, to say the least. In fact, he'd been uncharacteristically furious. Ethan, however, thought it was hilarious.

"I've had four surf teams call me about you since the Cold Water classic. Do you know how annoying that is?" Ethan didn't sound annoyed. Katia knew that the teams were courting him as well.

"Don't change the subject. We were discussing your commitment issues, not mine." Ethan was forever dating girls and breaking up with them after a couple of weeks, a month at most, because he was bored. "You shouldn't play with girls like that. You'll get a reputation."

"I already have a reputation," he declared. But his shoulders dropped, and he sighed, "I'm sure she'll get over it. She's – "

"Right behind you," Katia cut him off.

Ethan twisted, flustered, to see Mia smiling up at him. "Hi – "

"Hi baby." Mia threw her arms around him and pulled him into an unnecessarily long kiss.

The other girls greeted Ethan, pointedly neglecting Katia. Ethan tossed her a rueful glance. She forced a reassuring smile. He had nothing to apologize for.

Catching the look, Mia immediately threw herself into the fold. Her arms still around Ethan's neck, she craned her neck to glare sweetly at Katia. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

A deluge of abusive retorts sprang to mind, but Katia knew that not a single one would be helpful. Besides which, she should have been in class – Professor Zegelski hated her guts after she corrected his math... numerous times.

Swallowing her vexation, she ignored the comment.

She opened the car door and slid into the front seat. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ethan twist to wave good-bye, and it seemed he had possibly pulled a muscle in his back with the sudden motion. Katia chuckled, but as Ethan turned back to his girlfriend, a battering ram of dejection slammed the humor out of her. Reversing out of the parking lot, she caught sight of the strange boy in the rear view mirror; he hadn't so much as glanced up from his book.

*

Katia stepped into the kitchen, always the first place she headed after a day of surfing. Valentina Yazykova was standing over the stove, stirring something delicious and mildly spiced, a bead of sweat glistening against her temple.

"Hey, Mum."

"Katia," Valentina looked up at her daughter, and Katia took a step back. Katia towered eight inches above her mother, but that cool, regal tone always made Valentina seem much taller. "Did you even go to class today?"

Katia turned her back to pull a carton of apple juice from the fridge. "Not like I missed anything," she mumbled.

"It's only September, and you're already skipping. This isn't high school, no one's going to call and make sure you've passed your classes. Get serious. Sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do. That includes attending class. It's character-building."

Katia poured herself a glass of juice. She could think of any number of other ways to build character than community college. Her mother wouldn't appreciate that response, though. She drained her cup, and set it down with a clink on the counter. "Sorry."

Valentina sighed and turned to the sink to wash her hands. With eyes in the back of her head, she twisted and slapped her daughter's opportunistic fingertips, just as they were about to pick a piece of meat from the pot of stew simmering on the stove. "If you must eat, take an apple. We're waiting for your sister. And put your surfboard away."

Katia obeyed, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter. She stopped at the kitchen door, and glanced over her shoulder. "Where's Irina?"

"Studying with Rachel," Valentina replied as she searched in the pantry. "Ninel's picking her up."

Katia exited the kitchen with a smirk and without another word. Irina never studied at Rachel's. In fact, Irina rarely used the excuse of studying to do anything involving schoolwork.

In the garage, she pulled her board off the roof of the car and put it on its rack beside her father's far less used one, noticing that his needed waxing. So she set to work doing just that. She was replacing it on the rack when her father pulled in.

Irina jumped out of the front seat quickly and half-ran into the house. Katia noticed her sister's flushed cheeks and wondered how her parents could be so naive. It was possible, she considered, that they weren't so oblivious; they simply chose not to acknowledge the obvious.

"Hi Dad," she greeted him as she replaced the board. "Good day?"

"Nobody died. Good day at the beach?" Ninel Yazykova smiled knowingly, his eyes crinkling around the edges. Sometimes Katia forgot that her father was in his mid-forties, but as she inspected him briefly, she could see that the grey streaks in his hair were creeping up from his sideburns, slowly engulfing his brown hair.

"Very good. You should come up soon. Joe keeps asking after you." Joe Castile was Ninel's good friend, and incidentally, Ethan's father.

"Well, I'm almost certainly free the weekend after next. It looks like my board will be nicely waxed up too, thank you. How's Joe? And Ethan, of course."

"Both fine," Katia replied, ignoring the insinuation.

He laughed a hopeless laugh. "Let's go get dinner."

*

"But mama," Irina whined in her practiced pitch, just nasal enough to annoy her parents, not too much for them to discipline. Irina had exacted the science of grating her parents' nerves, ensuring she would always get her way.

Katia looked up from her third bowl of stew, turning her attentions towards the argument.

"What's wrong with living in New York for the year?" Irina demanded.

"Would you like the reasons in order of risk-assessment or financial unfeasibility?" Valentina asked in a tone that made the question not really a question, but an end to the conversation.

"You lived there when you were eighteen," Irina said quietly. Then she shut her mouth as though flicking a switch. She took her plate, put it in the dishwasher, and slipped out of the kitchen.

Valentina was rubbing her temples as if relieving a headache, and Ninel was sliding his hands through his hair, the way he always did when solving a problem or dealing with a stressful situation. Though she was still hungry, Katia decided to forego a fourth serving and leave her parents in peace. She rose quietly, put her dishes away, along with a couple more for good measure, and padded out of the room.

She knocked softly on the door to her sister's room before opening it. Irina was lounging on the bed. From the angle, Katia's sister might have been a porcelain doll thrown across the sheets: freckles and pink cheeks painted over a heart-shaped face, Cupid's bow mouth pouting with concentration as she held a battered novel in her small hands. Irina read for an hour every night, whispering the words as she slid her finger over the page in a stop-go motion as she unraveled the tangles that dyslexia had twisted the words into.

"I thought you wanted to go to art school in Vancouver next year?" Katia asked curiously.

"I do, but I can defer." Irina's eyes were bright with possibility. "I need something different, something... inspiring."

"I think the scenery here is pretty inspiring," Katia said.

"I know you do," Irina sighed at the futility of trying to make a blind person see. "All you need are trees and moss and waves and you're happy as a clam. But who knows if clams are really happy? They're stuck inside that pretty shell." Irina poked her sister in the stomach. "And then they're chowder. Lie down. Let's talk about something else for now."

Irina propped herself up on her elbow, an eager look on her face. Katia didn't even have to ask.

"Matt's totally cute!" Irina's voice was filled with giddy pleasure. She flopped onto her back. "He actually listens to me."

He pretends to listen to you, Katia thought cynically. Like I do, she considered with a twinge of guilt. "Where did you go?"

"He took me to the beach, instead of his place, which really just means that the guy wants to fool around – " Katia swallowed her impulse to gag. Resigning herself to at least ten minutes of auditory torture, Katia lay down beside her sister and feigned interest.

"– seeing him again next Sunday. Can I take the car? I'll drop you off at the beach."

Katia studied the pleading face Irina was making, and she understood why everyone had trouble with saying no to her. Katia couldn't say no, either. "It's your car, too."

"Thank you!" Irina sang, throwing her arms around Katia.

Katia untangled herself and picked up Irina's book, skimming over the back cover. "Any good?"

Irina cocked her brow. "Probably better than the Goetz' Textbook of Clinical Neurology."

Katia shrugged and handed her back the book. Novels, like art, were unnecessary, thereby uninteresting. "There's enough dystopia in reality, I guess. Night, Irina."

"Night," Irina called as Katia shut the door to her sister's orderly, beautifully decorated room.

Katia's bedroom was an unconcerned mess. The bed was swathed in the faded blue bedding she'd slept under since childhood; a desk was piled haphazardly with books; a matching seat was tented by dirty shirts; and a small bamboo plant died slowly on the windowsill. The only decoration was a single poem, which Ninel had framed and hung above her bed. Having remained there for Katia's entire life, the verses were etched into her mind, but remained utterly meaningless.

Changing into her pyjamas, dropping her clothes onto the ever-growing pile on the floor, she caught her reflection in the mirror. The physical differences between herself and Irina were as vast as their personalities. Brown eyes and red hair, Irina was a young replica of her mother. Katia didn't look like either of her parents.

Our genetic anomaly, Ninel called her, always with a smile. Unlike Valentina's fair skin, Katia was permanently painted with a golden tan, no matter what season. The dark tone contrasted her hair, the colour of hay. After a day of surfing, the strands hung in salt-tightened ropes. However, the greatest departure from her parents' appearance, from anyone's in fact, was her eyes. The irises were wide and darker than lavender. Katia Yazykova had purple eyes. No one had purple eyes.

Her peculiar looks garnered no affection. Even so, she loved this body that moved quickly and stayed warm, and would prefer no other. The problem of her strange exterior was not the appearance itself, but that it reflected an even stranger personality.

Admonishing herself for sliding into self-pity, she turned away from the mirror towards the open window. Katia stared over the high white wall separating the Yazykova property from the empty Woodford mansion. From the angle, she could only see a corner of the great lawn that surrounded the property, not the house itself. For a short moment, Katia thought she heard footsteps on the other side of the wall, and she leaned further out, straining. As she did, her elbow bumped the long-neglected bamboo plant, and it fell from the sill, landing with a dull thunk on the grass below. She yanked herself back into her room in surprise, banging the back of her head on the window. She cried out, more in frustration than pain. Rubbing her head, she swore she heard the ghost of a chuckle.

Her eyes swept over the property, but there was no sound or sight of anyone. She glanced at Irina's window. It was dark but for the blue light of her computer; Irina was probably chatting with her boyfriend – Mike or Matt or Mark - Katia had forgotten his name. To her left, her parents' room was dark. Assured they were not watching, she swung her legs out the window and vaulted twenty feet to the ground.

She landed lightly on the damp grass, allowing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark before heading over to find the plant. The little red clay pot had landed unbroken on the soft grass. She held it up and inspected the plant, wondering why she even kept it. Katia briefly considered planting it in the garden somewhere her mother might not notice, before reneging the idea. There was nowhere in the garden her mother wouldn't notice something new or different.

Katia had reached that conclusion when she heard a twig snap in the direction of the Woodford wall. She glanced up in the direction the noise had come from, and waited silently for some time. Seeing nothing, Katia shook her head at her own overactive imagination, and turned back to her home.

*

A short while later, the boy loosened his grip from the edge of the wall, and dropped to the ground on the Woodford property. As he turned, a triumphant smile crossed his face, and he jogged back towards the waiting car, anticipation evident in each quiet bound.