The holidays were over. Outside the window of the cottage, the winter dawn was cold and gray. The bare tips of the straggling rosebushes in Frankie’s garden were nipped by frost. Tomorrow I wouldn’t wake up in this familiar room, to the cry of seagulls wheeling out over the bay. Tomorrow everything would be different. I was going back to school. I was going back to Wyldcliffe.

My suitcase was stuffed with presents that Dad had awkwardly, tenderly forced on me. I hadn’t wanted anything, but he had insisted. And so, apart from my school uniform and my textbooks and gym clothes, my luggage also contained a new camera and a whole lot of expensive gear for the riding lessons he had persuaded me to take when I got back to school.

It was as though he had been trying to make up for the pain of the first Christmas without Frankie. The only mother I had ever known, Frankie had been my darling grandmother, who had looked after me since I was a baby. Now she was gone, and Dad was trying to buy me some comfort to cushion the loss. Only a year ago, Frankie’s death would have been overwhelming. But Wyldcliffe had changed me. I was stronger now, not simply a schoolkid anymore. Wyldcliffe had taught me about fear and danger and death.

It had taught me about love.

Frankie’s funeral had been a few days before Christmas, in the church on the headland, with the sound of the sea sighing below the cliffs. I didn’t cry. I just felt quieter than I ever had before, cut off in a circle of silence, as though the little gathering of well-wishers and neighbors, and the vicar and the hymns and the flowers, were nothing to do with me or Frankie. She had gone, like a bird flying into the dawn, and all the rest was a soothing ritual for the people left behind. But Dad was really upset. Afterward, when everyone had drifted away murmuring clichés and condolences, he blew his nose and wiped his red eyes like the gruff soldier he pretended to be, and said, “Sorry, Evie, it brought back everything about Clara…your mom…sorry…”

He was remembering my mother’s funeral, fifteen years ago. I had no memory of it, of course. I was only a baby when she died. Sorry, Dad said, so sorry, and loaded me up with presents that I didn’t really want. Then the days had slipped past, tender with grief, until it was time for me to return to school and leave the gulls and the cliffs and the sea behind me once again.

Now my bags were packed and ready, and the holidays were over. I was going back.

I glanced at my little clock near the bed. The day was only just beginning, but I could already hear that Dad was up, getting ready to start the long journey to London. It was time for me to get up too, though there was someone I had to talk to before I did anything else. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater and crept out of the cottage, heading down the rocky path to the beach.

As I hurried along, the pale sun rose from behind the clouds, spilling a wash of light on the waves. I took a deep breath. Those powerful waters gave me strength. Well, she’s always loved the sea, poor girl, the kind neighbors had said when they saw me hanging about the beach every morning, but they couldn’t guess the truth. I actually needed to be near the water, like I needed to breathe. Waking or sleeping, I heard its voice calling me, I felt it quicken my body, and I felt its restless pull. Water for Evie, Helen had said. I thought it would be like that.

I went down to the edge of the sea and closed my eyes, giving my mind to my mystical, beautiful element. I reached out for its power, asking for what I wanted most in the whole world. The waves beating on the shore echoed in my heart and pulsed through my veins. And then he was there.

Sebastian walked over the pebbles and came up behind me, dropping a kiss onto the back of my neck.

“Poor Evie,” he said. “You’re sad today, my girl from the sea.”

“Not when I’m with you.” I sighed and leaned back against his chest and nestled in his arms. Just to be close to Sebastian was happiness itself, enough to wipe out every other sorrow. “Don’t move,” I said. “I want to watch the sun on the waves.”

We stood and watched together as the light grew stronger and the gulls swooped low.

“I shall always think of you at sunrise after this,” Sebastian said. “You’re my sunrise, Evie, my new beginning. My life was nothing before I found you. And it would be worth nothing if I ever lost you.”

“You’ll never lose me, Sebastian,” I replied, and for some reason I shivered. “Don’t even say it. We’ll always be together.”

“Always,” he said quietly. “Forever.”

I wanted to stay like that, not moving, overwhelmed by the miracle of finding each other in all the million chances of the world. But Sebastian’s mood changed in an instant and he laughed teasingly. “Aren’t you going to swim?” he asked. “I’ve heard that mermaids swim in all weather.”

“Only if you’ll swim with me.” I laughed in reply, knowing that the water was freezing and all we could do on a cold January morning was skim stones and scramble over the rocks and hold each other for warmth, clinging together like the roses clung to the old walls of the cottage.

“We’ll come back here in the summer to swim, Evie. And we’ll feel the sun on our faces all day long, then stay up late and make a campfire on the beach, and watch the stars wheel across the sky.”

“It sounds perfect.”

“Everything’s going to be perfect for us. You can tell me stories about when you were a child, and I’ll make up bad poems in praise of your beauty, and we’ll talk and wonder and laugh and put the whole world right. We’ll have this summer together, and the next, and the next…a thousand golden days, just you and me.” He held me close, and the sound of the sea seemed to hypnotize me. I no longer felt cold.

A gull cried harshly in the white winter sky. “Come on. Let’s walk to the headland,” Sebastian said. “I want to tell you something. Something important.” He pulled my hand gently to follow him, but as I started to walk by his side, he was gone. I was alone.

Had it been a dream, a fantasy, or a vision? I didn’t know. I only knew the pain when the dream ended, and I had to face the truth. Sebastian wasn’t there. Oh, he came to me in snatches like this, but it wasn’t enough. Before I could stop myself, I cried out, “Come back…where are you…where are you?” But there was no reply.

I was alone, and the wind was icy, like tears falling on snow. Sebastian was far away and I didn’t know whether I would ever see him again.