The cave is a whispering grave.

It waits by the edge of the sea, where the beach gives way to the rocks where seagulls clamour beneath a sky as grey as the waves that roll off the shore. At low tide, a path emerges from the depths, snaking its way out of the cave and between the rocks, up to the sandbank at the edge of the beach where there is only the village and its open fields beyond.

A girl lives in this village, a dirt road of ramshackle houses that sway in the winds that come off the sea. She is older than she looks, still a nimble little thing of bones and angles.

Every day, she comes with her mother to the beach at low tide, both carrying baskets. They clamour over the rocks, calloused hands searching for the seaweed that in the shadows.

 On this day, like every other, she hears the wind blowing out of the cave before she sees it. It lies there, a ragged hole in the side of the cliff. No one has ever told her not to go into it – it is just a fact of life. The sky is up, the wind is cold, and the cave is empty and off-limits.

So when she hears the voice murmuring in the wind, on that one day just like any other, she leaves her mother behind, and the dunes, the village, the open air.

She makes her way towards the cave. The sand here is cold and wet, rising up around her feet as she walks slowly into the darkness. Her basket and all it contains drops out of her hand when she hears the voice talking again. It is a low whisper that reaches around her neck to caress the side of her face, its soft nothings rising into her ear as she hears another sound, the roar of water rushing in-

She gasps, and turns around. She locks eyes with her murder.