Boulders, scaled with broken shells and furred green, angled steeply to moonlit surf. The old house appeared empty, and a ship on the weathervane slued inland as the current that carried it shrilled across the chimney. The house seemed to lean against the wind, and a shutter banged at a gabled dormer. Front windows boldly faced the sea, but thick draperies hung behind the shutters so that no lights showed at all. In the front parlor, a deeper shadow swayed. One shaking hand clutched at the curtain. “I have seen you,” the old woman whispered dryly. “And I know you wait there still.” She stared down the beach to where the black sea writhed. “By the rocks at night, I have seen you.” All her life, she’d hated the sea. Bit by bit, it had taken from her everything she had ever cared for. She lived by it now in a state of conscious challenge and had come to believe without hesitation that it was equally aware of her. Sometimes she felt their enmity was all that remained of her life, all that animated her.
