Chapter 1 — The Felt Sense

Molly went to her Grandad’s place whenever her mum needed a break or when school finished for the holidays. Her Grandad’s house sat back from the road and smelled of old timber and salt, with a hint of whatever he had cooked most recently. Nothing in the house matched properly and Molly liked that. She liked the way nothing felt precious.

“It’s eclectically cosy,” Grandad always used to say.

To her Grandad, she was his one and only ever Molly. He had called her that the first time she came to stay, even though her real name was Leila. He had called her Molly without asking and once he had said it, it stuck. Sometimes he would sing and sometimes even do a little dance.

“Mollymook with her little book / dancing around like a lost old chook.”

“Hey!” Molly would protest, laughing.

When she stayed with her Grandad, Molly got up early but he was always up ahead of her. He never used an alarm. He just rose like the sun. Molly would find him pottering quietly about the kitchen and would follow him here and there without speaking. She liked that he didn’t fill the silence with questions. He would simply make toast and tea, handing Molly a mug that was far too hot for her small hands.

One morning, light just teasing the horizon, Molly and her Grandad trudged down the track to Narrawallee Beach as they always did. Her Grandad carried a towel. Molly carried nothing. She didn’t need anything. The sea and the sand were enough.

The pair sat on the beach without talking. Grandad watched the water. Molly watched the birds swoop and circle above the waves. Molly was full of the feeling she loved best: calm, no need to try, her body settled and waiting for nothing.

“This’ll be a good day,” Grandad said.

“How do you know?” Molly asked.

“You can feel it in your bones.” He gave her a grin. “Can’t you?”

Molly looked down at her arms, half-expecting her bones to be glowing beneath her skin. They weren’t.

The sun had climbed higher into the sky before Molly noticed walkers and dogs, their sounds drifting lazily across the sand. She stood and looked around. Everything felt different. Molly felt it like a kind of fuzz in her belly and chest. It wasn’t too bad, just…

“Still alright, Molly?” Grandad asked.

“Yup,” she replied without thinking.

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I know a place.”

They walked further along the beach than they usually did, leaving the people and dogs far behind them. They came to a rocky part of the beach where little pools and patches of wet sand were being visited by birds unbothered by their presence.

Molly walked ahead and stopped when she noticed another girl crouched by one of the rock pools. Eventually, the girl glanced up. She had sand stuck to her legs and dark hair pulled back in a ramshackle bun, just like the one Molly wore when she was at her Grandad’s.

“Hi,” the girl said.

“Hi,” Molly replied.

“I’m Sosta,” the girl said.

“I’m Molly.”

Sosta smiled and pointed down at the pool where she was crouching.

“Look.”

Molly saw a sand-coloured crab at the bottom of the pool. It scuttled away upon her arrival.

“Hey, look,” said Molly, staring out and up at the sky.

Molly and Sosta watched a hawk circle overhead. It landed a little awkwardly on a branch, before taking flight again and disappearing inland. Molly barely noticed that the fuzzy feeling had left her.

“What’s that?” Sosta asked, pointing to something floating and whirling on a nearby wisp of wind.

As they walked towards it, it dropped and settled on a rock. It was a feather; long and pale at the edges, perfectly crisp and new.

Sosta picked it up and turned it once between her fingers.

“Good timing,” she said, handing it to Molly.

They began walking here and there, between rocks, seagrass and the water’s edge. Sometimes they talked, but mostly they didn’t.

“I’m actually half Italian, you know,” Sosta said, as if she’d been asked.

“What does that mean?” Molly asked.

“It means my other half is Ngunnawal,” Sosta replied.

“What’s that mean?” Molly said. Sosta looked up and chewed her lip.

“It means I half come from here.”

“Hmmm… cool,” said Molly thoughtfully.

Sosta raised her head when she heard her mum call out from further up the beach. Molly’s Grandad lifted a hand in reply.

“See you,” Sosta said.

Molly handed the feather back to her, and Sosta ran and pressed it into the bark of a nearby tree. Molly looked at Sosta and scrunched up her nose.

“To mark the moment!” Sosta giggled.

They stared at each other.

“Wanna come over for tea?” said Sosta.