The cold October air is sharp against Holly’s cheeks as she paces across the sand, staring dully out into the night. The sun, which disappeared hours ago, took any warmth or comfort with it, and the few people who had been in the area had similarly left not long afterwards.

Holly is as cold and alone as she has felt all day.

No, that’s not right. She is as cold and alone now, on this deserted beach far from her home, as she has felt all year.

For a long time now, she has been oscillating between feeling deeply empty and being consumed by a sense of hopelessness. It feels as if there's no life left inside her. She doesn’t really see a way forward anymore. All the ambitions she used to have seem laughably pointless now, and if she happens to glance in the mirror these days, the person who stares back from within the glass is strange and unfamiliar.

She feels, sometimes, like how she imagines it might feel to be in purgatory – existing joylessly; not quite dead, but not alive either. Waiting for the next stage, without any knowledge of what that might be or when it might come. Being…apart, from everyone else, like there is a veil separating her from the people who are really Living, who are able to participate fully in life. From the people who don’t need a mask in order to walk and talk and smile and act normally.

It hasn’t been easy to live like this. But she is beginning to see now that the solution to the end of what she is experiencing is right there, in her own hands: dark and tempting, and waiting for her to notice it.

Holly moves closer to the water bordering the sandy beach, watching as it moves back and forth against the shore.

It looks gentle. It looks like it would caress her skin if she decided to step into it.

Mesmerised by its motions, Holly walks closer still, wet sand crunching under her toes. A cool breeze ripples over her, tossing her hair over her shoulders, and Holly shuts her eyes.

“It’s a little bit cold for a swim, don’t you think?”

It’s a quiet, yet firm, voice, and quite out of place. Holly opens her eyes and looks around, startled. She hadn’t noticed anyone else on the shoreline – but there, to her right, is a girl not much older than her, gazing at her with wide eyes and a solemn expression.

“I can understand why you’d want to, though. It is lovely to be in the water late at night, with the moon shining down and turning everything silver…”

The girl takes a few steps closer to Holly and smiles at her.

Holly steps back, feeling uncertain. She is slightly confused as to how she missed the stranger’s approach…but then again, she hadn’t exactly been fully present.

“My name’s Luna, by the way.” The girl says in a soft voice. She seems to be carefully examining Holly’s face, inch by inch. Holly wonders, distantly, what she is seeing.

“Do you come here often?” the girl – Luna – asks, after a few moments have passed and Holly still hasn’t said anything. Holly says nothing, and Luna continues speaking after a short pause, undeterred.

“I come here every once in a while myself. It’s very special to me, this beach. I used to visit here when I was very young, with my mother.” Luna turns her face towards the sea and stares out towards the horizon. “I miss her more than anything when I come here,” she says quietly. “But it’s the place where I feel closest to her.”

She falls silent. Holly watches her, momentarily transported away from her own thoughts. Her grey eyes shine in the little light that surrounds them, a faraway look within them which seems somehow familiar to Holly.

She looks away when Luna turns those eyes on her again, wishing not to be scrutinised again. Already she feels...caught out, somehow. Not that it really matters. But she has never liked the feeling of being burdened with attention, and Luna does not appear to want to leave anytime soon.

Holly hears clinking coming from her right, then the stranger’s voice again.

“Would you like some hot chocolate?” Luna asks. Holly steals a glance at what she is doing, in spite of herself. She sees that the girl has produced a flask and two cups from somewhere and has sat down right there beside the lapping water, cross legged on the wet sand. Long tendrils of steam curl up from the flask as she opens it, interrupting the cool air around them. A wonderful scent reaches Holly’s nose. She becomes aware suddenly of just how chilly is, and for the first time in a while, notices as well the gnawing emptiness in her stomach.

She finds herself reaching for the cup that Luna is stretching out towards her. Then it is tucked between her icy hands, the warmth of it seeping through her skin and to her bones.

“There.” Luna says softly. “That feels better already, doesn’t it?”

Holly finds herself nodding. There is a drop of water making its way down the side of her face without her permission. She blinks rapidly, surprised at herself.

“It’s a very special recipe. One of my teachers taught it to me, a long time ago now.” Luna brings her own cup up to her mouth and takes a sip. “I’ve never found a recipe better than this one.”

Holly holds the cup up to her face and allows it to thaw her frozen cheeks. The scent of the hot drink is unlike anything she has smelled before. The fog which is ever-present in her mind seems to be responding to it somehow, and Holly senses the murky clouds begin to shrink, just a little. She drinks from the cup, unable to resist. She wonders whether she is dreaming.

The drink is very hot, and Holly feels it scald her tongue as she sips it. She can’t be dreaming – the pain is too real. Besides, she feels cold. Really, really cold now that she has noticed it properly – in a way that can’t just be a product of her imagination. The thin sweater which she had carelessly thrown on earlier that day is clearly ill-suited to the task of battling with the October chill.

Luna is saying something to her. “I’m sorry?” Holly says. Her voice comes out as a hoarse and unsteady croak.

“Please, take my cloak.” Luna says, smiling sweetly at her. She is holding out a thick, woollen thing; deep purple and deliciously warm-looking.

Holly takes it from her. She is feeling an emotion which takes her a minute to name. Gratitude. “Thank you.” She whispers. She places the cup of hot chocolate on the ground beside her and wraps the thick material around herself. It smells like herbs of some kind, or perhaps flowers. The smell is comforting. It reminds Holly of her grandmother and the garden she owns out in the countryside. Cocooned within the cloak, she feels as if she is being given a warm hug, of the sort she hasn’t experienced in a long while.

“That’s okay,” Luna says. “You look very blue. You need it more than me, I think.” She picks up Holly’s cup and gives it back to her. “Have some more. You’ll feel a lot better in a little while.”

The hot chocolate is almost unbearably good. Holly finishes the cupful in her hands, then has a second, and a third, too. (Luna’s flask must be a very good one, to fit that much of the beverage within it, and to keep it warm for so long.) And she does feel better – a lot better - just as Luna promised.

She’s not sure how or why, but the overwhelming despair which had brought her to the beach again that day feels somehow more bearable, the worst of it no longer so lethal, no longer so poisonous.

***

When the sun rises and touches her skin the next morning, Holly opens her eyes to find herself back in her room, safe and warm. How she got home, or when she parted ways with the strange girl, she has no knowledge of. She thinks that perhaps the gap in her memory should frighten her. She can’t really bring herself to care though. Not when something inside her feels a little less broken than it did yesterday. Not when she has in her hands again that precious thing which had slipped away from her so long ago. Hope.

She tries countless times to find the strange, kind girl again, but she never does. Still, she thinks of her from time to time - even dreams about her occasionally. Sometimes Holly wonders if she dreamt her up; if, in a fugue state, her mind had produced a hallucination as a survival mechanism of some kind.

She hopes that wasn’t the case. She hopes the girl is alive and well somewhere in the wide world, and that she doesn’t miss her mother too much.

The world needs her out there, after all.