The rain smells different by the sea. Petrichor with a salt-tinged stench. I didn’t used to think about the rain, or how it smelt. Nor stand beneath a cloud, imagining what it would feel like if the skies suddenly opened above. I yearn for the touch of water, even if it would likely be the last thing I felt.
In reality, when the rains come, we hide. Boards over windows, leaving barely a thin gap to peer through. Stormguards over doors in case tendrils of the rain and rising seas try to break inside. Ma makes hot tea and soup on the stove, while I light candles and stock the fire. When night falls, I sit in the dim light and pick at the dry skin around my fingers and cheeks while we wait for the storms to pass.
Issue 10
LOST SHOAL
Lyndsey Croal is an Edinburgh-based author. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, former Hawthornden Fellow, and a LOHF Writers Grant Recipient. Her novelette Have You Decided on Your Question was published in 2023 by Shortwave Publishing.