Couples sat on the ruined beach front. All along the cliff top, lights twinkled in the balmy evening darkness, but no one waved at the drowning man. His long farewell was swallowed by the still-hungry sea, settling in its vast stomach on top of sand and stone. The storm had been ravenous, chewing our island away, mouthful by mouthful. I stood alone in my room, high above the beach, watching the pairs of blond heads lean into each other in comfort, blind to the drowning man's distress. I pressed my palm to the glass. My hand dwarfed him. I imagined scooping him out of the water and dropping him safely onto the broken beach. His head danced and bobbed like a buoy on the stirring sea. Salt speckled the window, misting my view of the drowning man as he slipped between my outspread fingers.

His body washed up two days later, bloated and bruised. I saw him from my room as the sun rose. Smudges darkened the white sand, the battered remnants of the huts which had lined the shore. The sun explored the debris, its long fingers crawling over the splinters to the curves of his body. I fled down the cliff steps, my bare soles leaving shallow dips in the soft ground. I picked my way through the dead marlin littering the beach, flung ashore by the ocean. People had begun to gather round the man. I crept towards the barrier of their backs, watching their uniform heads nod, hearing their voices murmur. I squirmed through the line, scrunching my toes so as not to nudge the man's greenish side.

The drowned man's feet lay half-buried in the sinking sand, the sea still sucking between his toes. A spider crab picked daintily across his ankle. Gritty ribbons trailed up his shins, gluing together the hairs on his legs in matted clumps. The waves had tugged his shorts low on his blackening belly and the line of fuzz linking his waistband to his bellybutton was encrusted with the sea's white tears. His arms were bleeding where the water had scraped him across the reef. His palms were bleached white, his fingerprints wrinkled as if he had just climbed out of a long bath. More couples drifted towards us, tripping over the rubble. I squinted at them against the sun, waiting for the drowned man's Other to come forward and claim him. The adults stood softly next to the man, whispering to each other, holding hands. I felt their stares, their eyes shifting from my face to the drowned man and back again. As a Special One, I was used to the sly glances, but I itched with discomfort. They raised their hands as if by reflex, running their fingers through their hair, bleached by the relentless sun. I pulled at the bottom of my tunic, wrapping a loose thread tight round my finger so that the end grew as white as the drowned man's hands. As the group shuffled and shifted, I was shunted up the man's ribs. A bluebottle crawled from his armpit and buzzed drowsily towards the cliffs. I tiptoed round the man's outstretched arm, still reaching for rescue, moving closer and closer to his head.

Bubbles of bladder wrack burst under my heel with a wet pop. More seaweed knotted round the drowned man's neck and chin, trailing its slime towards his cracked lips. The youngest children gawped, their wide mouths mimicking the man's stiff yawn. His eyes were completely white, bulging so far out of his head that I couldn't see his eyelids. I stood next to Mrs Lek and returned the drowned man's glassy gaze, waiting for him to blink. Sighing as if defeated, Mrs Lek moved away from the man's head. Light rushed in to fill the space left by her retreating shadow. The scene overexposed in the sudden flood of sun, but there was no mistaking the colour of the drowned man's hair.

I looked at the drowned man as if through a kaleidoscope, his face shattering into pieces. I knelt by him, my tears falling onto his wet hair, mingling with the sea water in salty union. Thick eels of seaweed encircled his head like a dark halo. The sun had already begun their decay, and I longed to hold my nose against the stink. I tugged at my ponytail and, cheek-to-cheek with the man, I pinched my strange curls against his sea-chewed mane. The drowned man's hair was the colour of pumpkins, of carrots, of oranges. I was looking in a mirror for the first time.

I was the only Special One on the island. There had been others before me, but now they were gone. I had been created through necessity, to maintain the balance. Men from the island had visited the convent women until I was conceived. When I was born, my parents formed a family around me. They draped me in their love, but I quickly noticed I looked different. Everyone else on the island had hair the colour of straw, of sunlight. As soon as I could read, I searched the Teachings for tales of others like me, but there was no record of any Special Ones with hair like mine. My parents told me it was a gift from God, to mark me out, but people could not hide their wonder or their fear when they looked at me. Now they saw my reflection in the drowned man and I felt their fear swell.

The sticky wheeze of Pasi, one of the island's elders, pushed through the air. His acrid breath snaked towards me, as I stifled my sobs. Leaning on his stick, his head at permanent right angles to his body, Pasi peered at the drowned man.

'Has anybody claimed this man?'� he rasped.

There were mumbles, shaken heads.

'He has no Other?'�

No one spoke.

'Then the man is a sinner,'� Pasi breathed. 'The sea knows this. It has begun to transform him into salt, as God transformed Lot's wife when she dwelt on sin.'�

The others nodded. I knew all about Lot from Bible class, but Pasi's words made me uneasy. He didn't even know who this man was. I had begun to weave my hair into the hair of the drowned man in an indistinguishable weft and warp. I felt Pasi's frosty blue glare, but my head was weighed down by the water in my eyes and I couldn't look up. I guessed he, too, was marvelling at the drowned man's hair. He stood as I blinked away the seconds, his stare denting the crown of my head, but he left without speaking another word.

'Vin,'� Mrs Lek whispered close to my ear.

I half-turned my face towards her, careful not to pull the drowned man's hair. She tucked her blonde fringe behind her ear, revealing her crinkled forehead.

'Perhaps it's time you went home,'� she said.

I began to unravel the hair, strand by strand, letting the drowned man's orange locks drift back onto the sand. I was nearly free when I pulled too hard and the hair tangled together. Panicking, I tried to stand up, but the knot snagged me, the man's leaden head jerking me back towards him. I cried out as my temple thudded against his clammy forehead. Hands grabbed my arms. More hands gripped my head. Fingers teased the knot apart as the drowned man stared into my eyes. I was hauled to my feet, but my legs were limp. The hands dragged me towards the rocks, catching my heel on a murex shell. I scrabbled for my feet at the pain, trailing red smudges along the beach. The hands lowered me onto a smooth stone. Silhouetted against the brightness, two heads slid into my gaze, their hair shining halos. My parents had pulled me away from the drowned man. Their mouths clamped shut. Murmurs floated towards us from where the drowned man lay, and my mum and dad turned to look. I saw my dad reach out for my mum's hand, threading his fingers through hers. I wrapped my arms around my knees and peered towards the crowd.

I watched the doctors come and load the drowned man's body onto a wooden stretcher, then onto a long cart pulled by black horses. My parents' silence rippled through the air, suffocating me. They wished that I hadn't seen the drowned man who had my hair.

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