There were few enough clams to be had this far up the beach. In a week the afternoon tide would be lower and the harvest would be better, but autumn storms might come too, and make digging impossible. Grace looked along to where a heron stood watchfully on the rocks. Gulls swooped low overhead, hoping to snatch a savory treat from one of the clam-baskets, where the fat, anatomically evocative bivalves were gathered.

As Grace looked around she heard Hope muttering, “I hate this place. I wish I could die.”

Grace shook her head. It was bleak and barren, but beautiful in its way. If life was just a little less hard she might come to love it. If only a ship would come, a great stately castle of the sea, moving gracefully under sail… much like that one now drawing in close along the shore, in fact.

She let out a scream of panic and delight, bringing all the other women’s heads around in time to see a sailor lose his grip on the ratlines to be left dangling by one foot over the deck, while a brightly dressed woman amidships waved and called to them, her words unintelligable through the damp distance.