Martin’s Press Darkness was dense this far from town. There were no cars here, no streetlights, no welcoming homes, and whatever glow had been cast from Nicole’s place was gone. Trees rose on either side, sharing the narrow land flanking the road with strips of field, and beyond the trees was the rocky shore, lost now in the murk. But there was hope. As she walked, she saw proof of a moon behind clouds, etching their edges in silver and spraying more to the side. Those silver beams would hit the ocean in pale swaths, though she could only imagine it from here. But she did hear the surf rolling in, breaking on the rocks, rushing out. When the pavement at the edges of the road grew cracked, she moved to the center. This end had always been neglected, a reminder that Cecily didn’t invite islanders for tea. The fact that no repair work had been done said the son was the same. She passed a string of birches with a ghostly sheen to their bark, but between the sound of the breeze in their leaves and, always, the surf, she was soothed.
