The beach was loud. Not with music blaring from phone speakers, people having picnics, children squealing with laughter, or any of that kind of thing. It wasn’t that sort of beach. Not today. Today the sky was grey, and so was the sea. The waves were loud, and the wind, and the seagulls.
Will staggered along the grey sand, half blown by the wind at his back, half dragged by the dog at the other end of the lead he held in his hand. Bobby was a shaggy, toffee-coloured mongrel, who stood almost as tall as him when she reared up on her back legs to lick his face. Will was under strict instructions from Gran not to let Bobby off her lead or else the dog would be straight into the sea and stinking up their caravan when they got back. Bobby strained, but it was only in eagerness to snuffle at the next pile of whatever had been stranded when the sea last retreated.
A shadow of a great black cloud raced along the beach, turning the grey day instantly to twilight. A sudden furious gust shoved Will to his knees. The waves seemed to roar now, screaming gulls dragged sideways through the air. Sand stung Will’s eyes as the raging wind changed direction. He threw up his arm to cover his face. Bobby’s lead slipped from his hand.
A high whistling tone rang painfully in Will’s ears. The wind was gone. Uncovering his face, he saw Bobby standing still as a statue just ahead of him. Her ears pricked, listening intently. The leads handle was only a few feet away. Will reached for it. The whistling stopped. The lead was dragged from reach as Bobby took off at a gallop. Not towards the sea as Will had feared, but towards the sand-dunes which lay between the beach and the caravan park.
The dunes were hard to climb. There were a few well-trodden sandy paths through their valleys but, if you wanted to get up higher, there were spiky grasses and brambles to contend with, not to mention the gnarled, half-buried fences which were supposed to stop people straying from the path. For every step Will took he seemed to slide backwards half a stride. Eventually, sweat running down his neck, he reached the summit of the highest dune he could manage.
The air felt strange now that the wind was gone. It made Will think of the way things felt and sounded in an empty school hall. He shouted for Bobby, but his voice didn’t seem to carry as far as it should. He called again, and again. There was no sign of the dog, but something else caught his attention. Something which shone ever so brightly in the dull afternoon.
The twisted tree grew deep down in a perfectly circular bowl of sand, surrounded by high dunes. It must have been there for centuries, Will thought. The strange wind which had come and gone so suddenly must have somehow reached this long-sheltered spot because the tree had been wrenched violently to one side. Sand trickled down its newly exposed roots and over the mouth of the hollow which had opened up beneath. Something golden shone within. Treasure.
Without any thought as to how to get back up, Will was about to begin his slide towards the treasure when something made him hesitate. A low, menacing growl. Will turned and Bobby stood behind him, her teeth bared in a snarl which he’d never seen before. The dog wasn’t looking at him though, she was glaring past him at the opposite dune. A second later Bobby’s growl was answered with a sound which Will felt in the pit of his stomach. A low, bass rumble like an approaching underground train.
The thing which made that sound was as black as a shadow. Later, Gran would try to convince him it had been a shadow. A trick of the light, caused by the weird weather. Bobby was a big dog. A shaggy dog. So, naturally, her shadow would look even bigger and shaggier. Yes, even as big as a horse.
Will didn’t tell Gran that the black dog had spoken. Still, he did as it told him. Will never went looking for the tree again, and he never told a soul about the treasure.
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