The Rule of Twelfths

THE RULE OF TWELFTHS

From the window of my 3rd floor apartment, I can see both the Tide Clock and the new High Water mark.

The Tide Clock hasn’t worked for months, not since the last High Spring which coincided with an onshore Ventus. The ferocious wind, merciless in its onslaught, had lifted tonnes of seawater into the air and smashed it against the clock mechanism, wrecking its delicate inner workings. Not that this has made much difference to the people of the Front. A clock is about predictability and precision. On the Front, we haven’t known predictability or precision for what must be, in old terms, many years. But the Authorities continue to maintain the Clock, in the same way as they continue to refer to the Calendar, on which is marked, symbolically, our land’s most important event: Dry Day.

Dry Day happens on the lowest Spring Tides of the Expanse, the Equinoctials. Like everything else tide and time, the dates of the Equinoctials, the highest and lowest Spring Tides, were once fixed. But no longer. Now they become apparent shortly before they occur, and those Seers who can predict their happening are highly revered—unless they miscalculate and visitors to the Front are drowned, in which case the Seers face the ultimate punishment. Visitors are mostly nostalgic tourists, thrill seekers or history geeks. The history geeks are the sort who might once have visited places like Pompei. Or Chernobyl. The thrill seekers like to push the envelope, putting their faith in the existence of New Age theories of how time and tide can be predicted.

On the wall above my sleeping bag, I have a copy of a tide table for the month and year of my birth: June 2022. The tide table was framed by my father, a fisherman and volunteer lifeboatman, a memento of the birth of his only child, a daughter. For me, Dry Day is a non-event. I love the water and can barely remember a day when streets existed. I mean, they still exist, but they are way inland and mostly inhabited by those with connections. We are not a flat land, but neither are we blessed with high land. We do have tors, rock formations created by the erosion and weathering of granite. The highest of these, Grey Willy, was once 1,378 feet above sea level. The Authorities refuse to officially revise the data, but locals believe it is almost half that now. We used to go there when I was a child, and the name always made me giggle. But Grey Willy was bought by a billionaire at the start of the Instability and is now fenced off and heavily protected by security guards.

I lean out of my window and look down at the water where soon, it is believed, and briefly, there will be a damp street. By High Sun, the seawater will have turned to steam and risen into the air, but before the temperature becomes unbearable, and before all the tourists arrive, she will be there, as she has been on every Dry Day for as long as I can remember.

I first noticed her on the early Equinoctial of 2035. I was living on the 1st floor then, and my parents were still alive. I was in my bedroom, waxing my surfboard, when a froth of silver hair went past my window. I barely acknowledged it, but then it came back again. And again. Back and forth, back and forth, as if demanding my attention. I stopped what I was doing, moved to the window and opened it to get a better look. And there she was. No more than five feet tall and bent double from the waist, head moving from side to side, her gaze scouring the ground at her feet. She continued her travels along the stretch of ground until the steam began to rise, a sure indication that things were going to get uncomfortable. I shut my window and thought of her no more.

In the space of my 17th birthday, my father was called to an Event out at sea. A cargo ship bringing essential supplies from Other Lands had lost its engine in high seas and foundered on rocks a mile offshore. The reports said that three times his lifeboat attempted to rescue the ship’s crew, against seemingly impossible odds, on two occasions bringing back to shore a total of nine men. But on the third attempt the lifeboat was caught broadside by a massive wave and hurled onto the rocks. None of the lifeboat crew survived. My mother died of a broken heart three Equinoctials later.

As the apartment block began to empty, with those residents who could afford it resettling inland, I moved my possessions to the 2nd floor. And then the 3rd, the view becoming more magnificent with the increased elevation. From my window I could see way out over the water, over what used to be the Bay where my father used to fish. I could watch the sun rise as it always had, and then ponder the Moon that had shifted so unexpectedly into its uncertain orbit.

I have no idea what made me shift in my orbit on this particular Equinoctial, to go down into the street and speak to her as she trod her bi-annual route. Maybe it was the heat that caused my irritability and I felt territorial, resentful of the freedom of the Incomers who seemingly took over the world on Dry Day. Or maybe I needed some human contact. Whatever it was, impulse grasped me and urged me down the two flights of stairs onto the street and into her path, stopping her in her tracks.

She raised her head as best the curvature of her spine would allow and looked me straight in the eye.

‘Have you seen a locket?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘On a necklace. I lost it. Have you seen it? It’s in the shape of a heart.’

‘When did you lose it?’ I asked, imagining she had dropped it recently.

‘When I was seven. I lost it on the way to school.’

She pointed down the now dried out street.

‘It was a gift from my grandfather. It had a space for a photograph, but I hadn’t put one in. I did mean to. And then it was too late. Have you seen it?’

‘You lost it when you were seven?’ I said, the disbelief colouring my tone. I couldn’t tell you for sure how old she was, but if she were younger than ninety I would have been very surprised.

‘Yes,’ she said, staring back at the ground. ‘Somewhere between my home and my school. Will you help me look?’

I shook my head vehemently.

‘The waters are coming.’

‘We have a little time yet.’

I started to feel nervous.

‘They will come quickly.’

‘They will come as expected,’ she said. ‘By the Rule of Twelfths.’

I looked at her, uncomprehending. Patiently she explained, counting on her fingers as she did so.

‘In the first hour after low water, the tide rises one twelfth of its range. In the second hour after low water, the tide rises two twelfths of its range. In the third hour after low water, the tide rises three twelfths of its range. In the third hour before high water, the tide rises three twelfths of its range. In the second hour before high water, the tide rises two twelfths of its range. And in the last hour before high water, the tide rises one twelfth of its range. There, you see? The Rule of Twelfths. As we've always known it.

‘But …’ I stammered.

‘And as it’s always been,’ she said certainly. ‘Will you help me look? We have maybe another twenty minutes before the turn begins.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I blurted out. ‘You can’t predict that. Nothing can be predicted anymore. Not time, not the tides. I’ve lived here my whole life. I watch the water. It comes and goes when it wants.’

She smiled.

‘Well, I’ve been coming here twice a year to search for my locket, and I haven’t drowned yet.’

‘But you lost it when you were seven!’

‘I did,’ she agreed.

‘Before the Instability! There were entire buildings, communities, your school, your home … everything, washed away and gone. Thousands of people drowned. What makes you think you will find it?’

‘Because this is where I dropped it. On my way to school. Will you help me or not?’

‘No way! Not!’ I held back from adding ‘you’re insane’.

‘Well, if you do see it, please hold onto it for me. I will be back next Equinoctial.’

And with that, she walked away, head bent in her search, leaving me open-mouthed on the hot pavement. In the distance, I could hear the sea start to rumble.

Only the old still talk in terms of time. 'We have twenty minutes', she had said. Like I know what twenty minutes feels like. I only know the Expanse, and how I fill it. With food. With sleep. With surfing.

I went back to my apartment, more disgruntled than I had been when I went down to the street. Back at my window, I sat on the sill and watched as the tide began its turn. As if it couldn’t help itself, my mind’s eye began to divide up the debris of my hometown into twelfths. And I began to count, drumming my hand on the sill in a regular rhythm.

I watched as the waters moved closer, eating up each line I had drawn in my imagination. Thrum, thrum, thrum. I could hear my own pulse. I could hear the roar of the sea. Thrum, thrum. Another twelfth higher. Or was it? Am I so impressionable that I believe the rantings of an old woman who searches for a necklace she lost on her way to school in another century?

The beat of my hand was now backgrounded against the roar of the incoming sea. Thrum, thrum. Now it’s nearly at the next street, and I have almost lost track of my twelfths, the tide is moving so fast. Not by the old way of time as it once did, but in breaths and heartbeats. But I think she was right. I really think it is moving in a pattern. Next time I see her, I’ll tell her: ‘You were right. You were right about the Twelfths.’ Then, as the tide reached its final measure, and was almost at my building, I heard her voice.

‘Look,’ she cried from the street, ‘Look. I’ve found it.’