The Rock Pool

She found herself back on the beach, kneeling and staring into a rock pool. She did not know how she had got there. The Last thing Bella could remember was getting into bed and turning the light off, too tired to even read. She did remember, before she fell asleep, wondering what she was doing there at the holiday cottage on her own.

She had expected a troubled, disturbed night without the familiar presence of Richard in the bed beside her, but here she was with the whole night past and the dawn creeping up, turning the grey sky orange behind her.

Bella looked down at herself, glad to see she was dressed, but not knowing how she had managed it. She always slept naked. She did not know, either, how she had apparently opened the tricky cottage door that had given her so much trouble when she’d arrived the afternoon before. She felt the back pocket of her jeans and was reassured the cottage key was there. She could feel the hard outline of the big old-fashioned key, its solidity reassuring.

She looked up; the beach was deserted, the tide almost in… or on the way out, she was not sure which, with only a distant early morning solitary dog walker far over the other side of the beach.

Bella got to her feet, suddenly crying out in shock and pain, as she stood on her bare feet, one of which – the left – leaving a damp and bloody print on the rock where she’d tried to put her weight on it.