IT had happened before on the day when they had found the corpse.

Ríone was with her mother in the cafe downtown, finishing her school assignments. Summer vacation had just fallen in Loutham Middle School, so she had accompanied her mother to work. Feet dangling from the high stools of the cafe, dressed in yellow shorts and a floral shirt, she was enjoying the sultry summer weather and watching the people come and go.

The skies were a brilliant forget-me-not blue shade that day. There were zero clouds, and the sunshine was perfect - a soft golden hue and the right amount of warmth. Coupled with the soft tinkle of the wind chimes at the entrance of the cafe, the day could not have been any better, any prettier. But that was until Jake came to meet her.

Jake Simmons was Ríone's best friend and partner in crime. He had a baby face with big green eyes and a headful of auburn curls. There would always be a merry twinkle in his eyes. But that day when he entered the cafe, that twinkle was missing. His face was pallid.

"Río," he said, tugging at her shirt sleeve. "Come with me. I have got something to show you."

"What?" she had asked. "Where are we going to go?"

"To the beach. Come with me. Now."

She protested a little. Bidding her mother goodbye, she and Jake boarded his new cycle and drove towards the beach. Ríone could see the outline of her home's roof when Jake made a u-turn and pedalled to the other side. By the time she realised what was happening, they were on the other side of the beach. The forbidden side.

No one went there. It was of a Loutham superstition. Parents would warn their children to avoid that side of the beach, scaring them with tales of ghosts roaming among the jagged rocks which protruded from its sandy chest and of sand devils enchanted with dark magic which liked to swallow up children.

On that bright summer day when her best friend took Ríone there and hid themselves amongst the alleged haunted rocks, she was very confused. She did not know what to think of the situation or its consequences. One thing was sure, though; she would never tell her parents about this rendezvous. However, the day had some other surprises for her. Nasty ones at that.

Because, from the rocks, they witnessed a group of police officers hauling the body of a woman out of the seawater. Her breath hitched in her throat. That was Miss Eloise Meyers, their social science teacher! When she turned to her side to seek some support from her friend, she found Jake stare at the corpse with a blank expression on his face. It was enough to kill what was forming at the tip of her tongue.

So, not knowing any better, she too averted her gaze towards the body.

Miss Eloise had gone all white, like some kind of deep sea fish. Her hair, which in life was a vibrant red, looked like a crow's nest. Tufts of her wavy locks were missing. Her mouth was open as if in a silent scream. But what chilled Ríone to the bones was her empty eye sockets. It was like staring into two black holes.

Ríone's mouth went dry. Her breath came out in rapid gusts. Her head spun like a frisbee in mid-air. She shook so violently that Jake had to whisk her away from the scene. She regained control only after they were halfway through the cafe.

She thought that the day's ordeals were over. But when that night she went to wash her face, the incident with the hair strand happened for the first time. Each detail was the same - the colour of the strand, her initial feeling over it and its never-ending length. She had come out of the bathroom yelling and in tears. The dread she felt was much greater back than when she was just twelve.

But instead of being consoled, she got a tight smack on her shoulder from her father who was drunk as a lord. A bruise bloomed there in an instant, as blue as an exotic flower. It made her cry even more.

"Stop being a sniffling brat," he said. "Go to sleep and do not disturb me. Or else I'll smack you again. "

Afraid, she went to bed but could not sleep. She kept having nightmares about Miss Eloise's corpse and of the hair strand that kept on coming out of her mouth.

All of that happened over two decades ago. It happened again after so many years, that too, on her first day back in Loutham. What was this town trying to do? Was this its attempt to drive her away?

That was all Ríone could think at the moment. She was still swathed in a towel, her body still wet from the shower. For all her life, she tried to escape from these memories. Tried to find solace in writing. But someway or the other, they always popped up and prevented her from enjoying her life.

She was scared of the sea. She never swum. She avoided having long hair just because of this. Although she pretended that had forgotten it all, deep down her subconscious had kept the fear, the unpleasantness of her childhood experiences. No matter what she did, she could never force them away.

If she never faced them head-on.

Ríone wiped the warm stream of tears which trickled down her cheeks. No, she had enough of escaping. She would face whatever came her way and emerge stronger than ever. If not for herself, she would do it for her family. Plus, it was something she would do for the first time. She had seen the rock bottom, experienced its lows and rose to the top. And she would do it again.

That session with Timothee where she decided to come to Loutham, a coin had been flipped. She had two choices - to live with her fears all her life or defeat them once and for all. And she had made the choice. There was no going back from it.

Ríone was ready to face all the challenges that Loutham had in store for her.