'Rip Tide' by G K Wood

Salt left its tang on her lips and the sea roared while the wind gusted, whisking sand at her legs, her face, keen stings from wet grains scouring naked. This way she would be lacerated. She wished she'd worn trousers and not a pair of shorts and sandals; she wished she'd seen the squall coming and hadn't ignored the signs. The sudden shifts from gentle blue to howling demon, the vicious rip tides. Such treachery sickened her.

Rain beat at the silly plastic rain bonnet she'd found rammed into the pocket of her jacket, along with dog poop bags and assorted pieces of old string, wood, shells and pebbles. One of them caught her eye. Smooth and black, the rain made its surface glitter with hidden lights. They shone like tiny stars in a miniature galaxy.

It rested in her palm, and she remembered that day. Long ago. A hot, lazy, beach day, when her world ran riot and threw buckets of seawater at her and each other. Hyperactive, kids, dogs and husband, all crashing into the sea and back out to eat sandwiches filled with tuna, cucumber, luncheon meat and sand. They'd kicked it all over the towels and into the thermos and beakers, making everything crunchy and bit into fruit smeared by dirty fingers. It hadn't mattered one bit. Bill had dropped it in her hand, wrapped his fingers round hers as she grasped it, still warm.

“A token,” he said, laughing. She'd laughed too.

She stared at it until ghosts raced towards her, their voices a melody she wished she could forget, and she let it fall. The sound of it landing lay hidden in the drumbeat of waves and the slap of the lead on her thigh when she whistled for the dog.