And in this way, from time to time, there would be a girl or a woman who looked human, and who sounded human, but whose blood was saltier than human blood, and whose innermost heart would always belong to the ocean.

Most of the time – so the blind old man said – these daughters of mermaids would live their lives almost like everyone else. But when times were hard, the mermaids’ daughters would go down to the shore and stare longingly out to sea. And sometimes, when one mermaid’s daughter met another, they would dive into the water together and swim and swim and swim, summoning each other one with their fierce cries, never glancing back to shore, no matter how hard their loved ones called to them.

Chapter Thirteen: Now

Alicia shivered and pulled her hands inside her sleeves. She’d had gloves last winter, but of course they’d vanished now. In the shoe cupboard, in a drawer, in the pocket of the coat that didn’t fit her any more but which was somehow still in the house, in a pair of wellies, down the back of the sofa. Possibly separated, possibly wrapped tightly together. When she lived in the beach hut, she wouldn’t lose anything because there was nowhere to lose it. When she lived in the beach hut – if she could move in right now – if she could get down there and find they’d moved on…

She pictured them not being there, and was surprised to find the image hurt her heart.

They’d go soon anyway. It was nearly Halloween already. The gales were beginning to blow in from the top of the world. Two months left. When she was little, a year was an impossible journey. Now every time she looked up, another week was gone. Her dad always said time got faster with age, although maybe that was because he lived such a boring life anyway. Someone had been this way before her. She followed their footprints as they turned towards the dunes. Another ten weeks until Ava flew south chasing the sunshine like a bright bird, and Finn went… somewhere… and the hut would be hers.

Something was happening. The beach hut’s slender possessions were spread across the sand – a tea-chest, two suitcases, a miscellaneous pile. The reed screens that shielded the chemical toilet, and which she secretly hated (when it was her beach hut, she vowed, she would build another hut, a hut with soundproofing. Either that, or she’d live entirely alone and never allow anyone to visit for longer than thirty minutes) were weighed down by the folding chairs. The clean water-tank gurgled quietly and emptied its precious cargo into the sand. Worst of all, George, standing on a wooden work-bench, had pried off the ridge-pole and was taking off the roof, while Finn stacked the pieces in a neat pile.

“What’s happening?” Finn gave her a friendly wave. Her throat was almost too tight to speak. “Why are you breaking the beach hut?”