Wren found the first shell three miles from the water. It sat in the middle of the road, white as a tooth.

They put it in their coat pocket. The radio was in the other one. It had been silent for nine days.

Their shoes made a small, ugly sound on the salt. Wren kept walking so there would be something to hear.

Wren stopped. They took the radio out carefully, as if a sudden movement might frighten the voice away.

The road rose onto a causeway. Below it, the seabed held the things people had dropped, thrown away, or tried to forget.

Wren kept looking for the shape of their old street. From this distance, every line in the salt looked possible.

Wren rubbed the edge of the shell through their pocket. They had spent so long rehearsing what they would say at the door that they had forgotten there might not be a door.

The station door was swollen shut. Wren put a shoulder to it, then their whole weight. It opened all at once and they fell inside.

The radio made a concerned noise.

There was a crate beneath the desk. Keys, photographs, a chipped bowl. A toy horse with one wheel. Somebody had wrapped the breakable things in weather reports.

Wren recognized the handwriting before they finished the first line. The narrow letters. The way every full stop looked cross.

They sat down on the floor.

From the station roof, the road inland was a thin grey line between the hills. Wren had been walking the wrong way for most of the morning.

They tried to be annoyed about it. They couldn’t quite manage.

Wren checked their pockets. One shell. One note. The key they had brought for a door that wasn’t there.

They almost left the key on the desk. Then they took it anyway. It was small. There was room.