“No.” The word is blunt and immediate. “I need to go see.”
Clay helps me stand up, and although my feet are soaked, my skin chilled, there is a sudden urgency to reach her house.
I push my way up the beach while Clay stays behind. He senses that I need to do this alone.
Several yards from her house, my legs feel weighted again. The curtains are pulled tight against the windows—something she never did.“Let in the moonlight,”she would say.“Otherwise it might forget us.”
I can hear the sound of a TV from inside, but I can’t clearly make it out. On the front porch sit two flowerpots, but no blooms. The whole place feels colder than I remember, sterile—it doesn’t feel like her.
Not her home anymore.
I swallow, certain she’s not inside. Certain some stranger lives here now. But my eyes find something familiar: a small ceramic plaque mounted on the wall beside the front door. It depicts a painted lighthouse, a beam of yellow light shining out over a calm sea. At the bottom it reads:SANDY FEET WELCOME. She bought the plaque at a local Saturday market the first summer I lived with her. She thought it was unnecessary, but I loved it, insisted we get it, and she relented. Even agreed to mount it beside the front door. I think I just liked the idea of tracking sand into the house—messy and carefree. Without repercussions.
Seeing it now feels like a tide swelling in my chest.
If she had moved away, she would have taken it with her. And if she had passed, certainly a new owner would have taken it down.
I hurry up to the front porch, rapping my knuckles against the door quickly. I wait. The sound of the TV vanishes—put on mute. And then footsteps cross the old wood floor, slowly, unhurried.
I hold in my breath.
I try to slow my heart rate.
The door swings open, and my eyes widen. I nearly drop to my knees.
It’s not Nana. It’s a man. A stranger—someone I don’t recognize. Bald head, graying scruff of a beard, and he holds the door with one hand, towering over me.
“I—” I stammer, taking a step back. “So sorry. I was looking for someone else. I must have—I wasn’t…” I glance over my shoulder, where I can see Clay down at the shore, waiting. I swallow, swinging my eyes back to the man. “My nana used to live here. A long time ago—” I wonder how long it’s actually been, how many years have passed? “Her name was June, maybe you knew her?”
If I’m lucky, maybe this man is local, has lived here his whole life, and he knows where she is, how I can find her.
But the stranger just blinks at me, like I’ve lost my mind. Like I’m some wandering madwoman. I have no idea what I must look like, how wild and rough—skin a deep copper, hair turned light from the sun. A year spent at sea will change a person.
Make them feral and uncivilized and free.
“I grew up in this house,” I add, hoping to validate myself. Hoping he’ll see I’m not trying to talk my way into his house to steal something. “But it’s been a while since… since I was last here.”
Still, the man doesn’t speak. His eyes only narrow on me, and now I’m worried he’s going to slam the door in my face and call the police.
“Sorry,” I add, realizing that this stranger won’t be any help, realizing how unstable I sound, and I backstep down the stairs. “Sorry to bother you so late. I—uh—hope you have a nice night.”
I reach the sand, blink up at him—at the plaque still mounted on the wall—then turn and start down the beach.Don’t look back, I tell myself.You’ll only make it worse. Keep moving, get to the raft, get back to the island.But I only make it a few paces when I hear the man’s footsteps on the porch. Shit, he’s coming after me. I think of yelling to Clay, shouting for him to get the raft in the water.
But the man speaks from behind me. “Ellie?”
My legs seize beneath me.
“Ellie… Mills?”
The air stiffens in my lungs, and I consider darting into a run. But I let my body turn. I’m afraid to speak, to admit who I am. “Do I know you?” I ask.
He descends the porch steps, moves toward me, and I flinch. He sees the motion, and he stops short before getting any closer.
“I don’t understand…” he says now, swallowing. “How are you here?”
Did he used to be a neighbor, someone I should know? A friend of Nana’s?
“Ellie,” he says again, eyes reddening at the corners.
