Poetry Stories: The Novelist

Chapter 19. Such a dangerous gamble.

Turning the shell, she raised it to her cheek and felt the coolness against her skin. The sea. It was there, wasn’t it? Somewhere in the remnant. She tipped the shell to her ear, but it had been broken open so far that all she could hear was the sound of crickets rising everywhere around her.

—L.L. Barkat, from chapter 19 of The Novelist