Page 27 of The Key to the Last House Before the Sea

NESSA

Nessa hurried down the track to the Ghost Village and picked her way through the ruins to her grandmother’s old home.

She couldn’t be long. Rosie had offered to look after Lily while she visited Jackson, but she couldn’t take advantage of her friend’s good nature. And Valerie was expecting Lily in a couple of hours for an overnight stay.

Lily was excited at the thought of seeing her father after all this time. Nessa was less so, but she’d grin and bear it for her daughter’s sake because family was important.That was one reason why this cottage, standing amid the ruins, felt so significant.

Nessa stood in the doorway, gazing across the ocean, the lease stuffed into the bag over her shoulder. Clouds scudded across the sky as she imagined her grandmother standing in this very spot, watching as her mother was swallowed by the sea.

Sorrel Cove should be a sad place. A place of pain and sorrow. But, over the years, it had mellowed into a place of comfort and remembrance as its tragedy had faded – for Nessa at least, though not for her grandmother.

How sad then that the Ghost Village now faced a new tragedy. The sea hadn’t destroyed it completely, but Gabriel and his family business would. Was Nessa brave enough to stop that from happening? Jackson was right that she would need the very best of luck.

Nessa drew back her shoulders and pulled the key from her pocket. It felt heavy in her hand as she pushed it into the lock on the front door. And she felt a sense of excitement as the key slid perfectly into place.

She twisted it impatiently, desperate to open the door after all these years. But the key stopped halfway round, the lock damaged by decades of sea spray and rust.

Nessa used her shoulder to push the heavy wooden door, but it remained wedged shut.

So that’s that,said the little voice in her head. The little voice that sometimes told her she hadn’t been good enough for Jake, and she wasn’t good enough for Lily.

Nessa ran her hand across the stone wall of the cottage. ‘I’m not giving up so easily, Gran,’ she muttered, before pushing the key back into her pocket.

She circled the building, knowing there were chinks in the boards covering the ground-floor windows, and she found one at the back of the cottage that might do.

With a look round to make sure no one was in sight, she pushed her fingers into the gap in the wood and began to pull. Splinters speared the flesh under her nails but she kept on pulling until the rotting board gave way and fell onto the grass at her feet.

She smelled damp earth and dust as she pushed her face closer to the window. A small pane of glass was missing and she managed to open the window after sliding her hand inside and unfastening the metal clasp.

‘This is not sensible,’ she told herself. Did it amount to breaking and entering? But she knew she couldn’t stop now. She clambered inside, swearing as her arm scraped across the stone windowsill, and looked around her.

The room was grubby and there were signs of squatters over the years – an old mattress in one corner, rusting empty cans of soup, and ashes in the brick fireplace.

But the room seemed fairly watertight and there were few signs of damp on the plastered walls.

This was where her family had lived and talked and argued and loved. Nessa swallowed, feeling prickles of the past settle on her shoulders. And then she saw it.

Something was embedded in the wall above the mantelpiece. Sunlight was falling on the plaster and an indentation was casting a faint shadow.

When Nessa got closer, she could see a rectangular shape covered in a layer of dirt and dust. She rubbed at it, firstly with a tissue and then with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. There was definitely something beneath the grime. It was a collage, she realised, made of stone and glass.

As Nessa continued cleaning, nuggets of ruby and emerald sea glass began to glow in the light from the board-free window. And tiny squares of coloured stone – orange, yellow, black and cream – became more vivid as years of dirt were rubbed away.

Nessa stepped back, hardly able to believe what was in front of her. This was her great-grandmother’s artwork. It was unmistakeably the same abstract, intricate pattern that her grandmother had drawn and placed in her leather box of treasures – the artwork, according to her gran’s poignant poem, that her family had had to leave behind when they fled.

The beautiful richness of it hinted at the vibrancy of the woman lost in the storm. Her great-grandmother, for so long merely a ghost in her grandmother’s stories, became more real with every glint of light on stone and glass. It was beautiful.

A gust of wind sighed around the cottage and brought Nessa back to the present. She didn’t have much time.

Quickly, she climbed the stairs to the first floor of the building. The stairs were made of stone and seemed safe, though the handrail attached to the wall was rotten. Huge flakes of desiccated wood rained down onto the steps as she climbed.

At the top, Nessa stepped onto the landing and stood still. Everywhere was silent, save for a faint wash of the sea in the distance.

She inched forward carefully over the dark floorboards, which looked sound enough. Some of the windows up here weren’t covered so at least she could see where she was going.

Nessa poked her head into a bedroom and jumped back in alarm when a large bird flew at her.

‘Woah!’

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