It arrived in the post on Wednesday. Mum was too afraid to touch I turned over the dull cream envelope when sifting through the usual bills and garish junk flyers. The paper was thick and fibrous with a watermark embossed in the bottom corner. No stamp. I held it out to her but mum didn’t take it. Her fingers clenched against the waistband of her apron, like she was trying to press painful memories back into her stomach. Her gaze was edged by anger. The pots begin to boil. She turned back to the stove, tucked a strand of grey back into her bun, and poured her feelings into the food. The stew would taste bitter. I set the letter down on the kitchen table and stared at it, palms clenched, as the light changed beyond the panes and slid down the plaster walls. The tide turned. The bus chugged down the hill to take to coastal road to the quay. Seagulls called insults to one another and fought over stolen chips. I stood with my back to the world and waited. It’s no trouble to wait. I’m good at it, practiced. When the north wind batters our salt-licked cottage I often stand in the upstairs bedroom watching the fishing boats heaving with the swell or cutting for the harbour. I remember how quiet it is be beneath the maelstrom at the surface – kelp forests haunted by grey seals, long banks of ashen sand melting away into the depths and jagged peaks of rock jutting high to send six grown men to their graves. The same rocks ensnared Toby’s little boat the day he took me out on the water. The sirens found us clinging to a buoy, our thin faces hollowed by terror. I remember the brackish green of their skin, hair like weeds in the water, pebble eyes. I remember the teeth. The oldest amongst them had a voice of liquid copper. Her molten words teased and taunted us. The sea will claim you, she whispered, the sea will make ghosts of you both, unless you strike a bargain. When my sister came home from the fish market she also ignored the letter. It stayed on the table until Pa got home. Seven years. Seven letters.