She heard a low rumbling as she walked along the cliff top. It sounded like thunder, but came from deep below, a guttural sound, almost like the Earth was groaning. There was a shudder and a loud crack as rock splintered. Grass twisted beneath her feet and the pathway crumbled to nothing. She stepped onto icy air, then she was falling; her backpack scraping against rock, its straps catching on roots and jagged stone. Wind snatched her hair. The sandy shore, littered with clumps of rock and jumbled shells, drew closer. She wondered if it was the last thing she would see.
When she was a child, she collected shells like treasure. She remembered a queen conch that she’d carried from a distant beach. Every time she wanted to hear the waves, she’d held it to her ear, comforted by the gentle swish. Her bedroom held shelves filled with glistening razor clams, ridged limpets, pretty cockleshells and periwinkles in different hues, olive-green, deep red, primrose yellow and delicate pink. Cockleshells were her favourites. She distracted herself from the drop, trying to remember every tiny detail of them; their delicate fan shape, the pattern of fine lines etched in burnt umber on their backs, and the smoothness of the inside where she liked to rub her thumb. If only she was safe in her childhood bedroom now, admiring the cockleshells and conjuring the roar and hiss of the sea with the conch shell.
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