Chapter 1 — The Felt Sense

Molly went to her grandfather’s place whenever her mum needed a break or when school finished for the holidays. The house sat back from the road and smelled like old timber and salt with a side of whatever he had cooked last. Nothing in it matched properly but she liked that because nothing felt precious.

“Eclectically cozy,” Grandad always used to say.

He had an odd way about him and she was only his Molly. You see, he called her Molly the first time she stayed over. Her name was Leila then. He said it once without asking and it stayed that way.

“Mollymook with her little books dancing around like an old chook,” Grandad would sing.

“Hey!” Molly would protest with a laugh.

Make no mistake about it, she answered to it straight away.

They got up early because he always did. There was no alarm, but he was up with the sunrise. He moved around the kitchen slowly and she followed him without speaking. She liked that he didn’t fill the silence with questions. Instead, he just made tea and handed her a mug that was far too hot for her tiny hands. She held it anyway.

They walked down the track to the beach while the light was still teasing at the horizon. Grandad carried the towel and Molly carried nothing because she didn’t need anything. The sea was enough for her. The sand was cold and damp but it felt better on her feet than the carpet at home.

They sat without talking for a minute. He watched the water and Molly watched birds fly around where the waves came in. She felt so calm in a way that didn’t ask her to try to be anyone or anything other than who she was. Her body felt like it fitted itself properly into the morning.

“It’ll be a good day,” Grandad said.

“How do you know?” Molly asked.

“You can feel it in your bones, can’t you?”

Molly looked down at her arms and half-expected her bones to glow from beneath the surface or something. Nothing happened, so they stayed like that for a long time. They sat long enough that she stopped thinking about when they would leave. To be fair, it was long enough that time had altogether stopped behaving the way it normally did.

Molly wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when other people arrived. She saw walkers with dogs and heard their voices. She got up and looked around at them. The beach didn’t feel the same all of a sudden. It wasn’t bad at all, but it was notably different.

“Still alright, Molly?” Grandad asked.

“Yup,” she replied without thinking.

“Come,” he said as he got up. “I know a place.”

Molly and Grandad walked a little further along the beach than they usually did. Her grandfather said the tide was different and Molly accepted that as a reason. He liked walking until there was nothing in particular to walk towards and no people around.

There were much fewer people down that end. It was mostly just rocks as well as patches of wet sand and birds that were a little less wary of people. Molly walked ahead and stopped when she saw another girl crouched near the water. The girl was watching something very closely and didn’t look up straight away.

Molly waited.

The girl eventually looked up. She had dark hair pulled back in a very ramshackle way and sand stuck to her legs. It reminded Molly of her own hair, especially whilst she was with Grandad.

“Hi,” the girl said.

“Hi,” Molly said.

They stood there for a moment and eyed each other.

“I’m Sosta,” the girl said.

“I’m Molly,” Molly said.

Sosta smiled like that was enough of an introduction to set them up as besties for life. She pointed at the rock near the water.

“Look.”

They watched together as a hawk circled overhead and landed awkwardly for a second before lifting again and disappearing inland. Molly felt as if she were right where she was meant to be. It was hard to describe it.

“What’s that?” Sosta asked as she pointed to something floating haplessly.

When they walked over to the rock, there was a feather lying there. It was long and pale at the edges but pristinely clean.

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

“Good timing,” Sosta said as she handed the feather to Molly.

They walked together after that without planning to, sometimes talking but mostly not. When they did talk, it was about small things like where they lived and how long they stayed. They talked about which shells were good and which ones broke too easily.

“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.

“That’s cool,” Molly said.

Eventually, Sosta’s mum called out from further up the beach. Grandad lifted a hand in return.

“See you,” Sosta said.

“Yeah,” Molly said as she handed the feather back to Sosta. Sosta put the feather back on the rock before she left as if she were returning it. Molly thought that a bit odd, but she somehow felt that it looked like the normal thing to do.