Selsey looks like it should be louder than it is.
The sea comes in gently here, almost cautiously, as if unsure whether it has permission.
We came ashore late afternoon, the light already turning soft and uncertain. The others wandered ahead, but I stayed near the waterline.
That’s where I noticed the footprints.
They were not human.
They weren’t bird tracks either.
Too deliberate. Too evenly spaced.
As if something had been pacing the edge of the tide for a very long time, returning to the exact same thoughts over and over.
Twinkles joined me quietly.
“They go both ways,” she said.
She was right. The prints faced out to sea and back again, as though the walker had been in conversation with the horizon.
Pedro appeared behind us at some point, though I hadn’t heard him approach.
He studied the tracks with unusual restraint.
“It is thinking,” he said.
Jack laughed. “The beach?”
Pedro shook his head.
“The boundary.”
That evening we did not camp far from the shore.
In the night, I woke once and thought I heard someone walking slowly between the sea and land, never committing fully to either direction.
In the morning, the prints were gone.
Only the tide remained, pretending nothing had happened.
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