Begin Again | on hold

eleven

After the third time Sunny changes, she's finally comfortable. It looks like it's going to be a warm day so she changes into frayed denim shorts and a tank top, a thin flannel shirt stuffed into the bag over her shoulder in case the clouds come out, and the moment she steps onto the street, the bus is coming towards her. It hisses to a stop when she holds out her hand, and she's prepared this time, 70p in her hand. The number 19 always seems to turn up right when Sunny needs it.

The journey is one she has taken hundreds of times before, the same route to and from work five days a week, and yet this time there's a bud of anxiety waiting to blossom in the pit of her belly, its petals slowly unfurling the closer they get to the centre of Black Sands – the closer they get to the place where it all happened. Sunny hasn't been back since and when she's two stops away, she starts to wonder if this is actually a terrible idea, if she should stay on the bus until it circles back to Jupiter Court and she can get stuck into tidying.

But then she spots the line of grand terraced townhouses, each set back from the pavement with a railed-off rectangle of garden. Most have laid down slabs and use the space for storing their wheelie bins and bikes. Some grow flowers, a burst of brightness amidst the browns and greys. Only one of these rectangles has a well, the exact kind of wishing well that crops up in fairytales: old bricks arranged in a two-foot-high circle, wildflower weeds sprouting between each one, and a little moss-spotted tiled roof sitting atop wooden beams that would have once held a bucket.

The bud of anxiety is now a flower in full bloom, its stamen and stigma scratching Sunny's stomach as she trips off the bus and slows her pace as she nears the house. The house looks different to all the others. It isn't so neatly kempt and yet it looks so much more inviting. The wooden window frames are a little scuffed, the paint peeling, and the front gate doesn't latch properly. The hinges squeak on Sunny's approach as though welcoming her, and the anxious bouquet in her gut disintegrates in a flood of acid that tears the petals to shreds and sends a rush of regret shooting up to her throat.

A hard swallow does little to alleviate the feeling. Her footsteps waver when she's close enough that she could reach over the rusted iron fence and touch the cursed well that has given her so much grief. But she can't bring herself to do it. Even though there's a handful of coins weighing down the pocket of her shorts, she doesn't reach for them, telling herself that she can't bear the disappointment.

Bypassing the well, she heads straight for the door and she doesn't let her brain engage when her hand raises and her fingers grab the knocker, a moon-shaped crescent that hangs from a flaming sun. The sharp rap of metal on metal is louder than Sunny expects it to be and she jumps at her own noise, and instant regret joins the churning nerves to concoct a powerful potion roiling in her gut as she stands in the dip of the doorstep where so many have stood before.

It takes her a moment to register the quiet. It isn't for a lack of noise, because cars and buses were rumbling past her mere feet away when she walked from the bus stop, but in this spot, staring straight into the mystical face of the sun on the door, every noise is dampened so hard it sounds like it's coming from worlds away.

It makes her shiver. Every hair on her arms stands on end. But she doesn't move. Her feet stay rooted to the spot and she isn't sure if it's because she wants to stay, or if the universe has taken that choice away from her. When it comes to this slice of land, Sunny doesn't know what to think. Her entire belief system has already been turned on its head – never before did she think it was possible to jump time and mess with the physics of the world, but here she is. So, whatever goes, really. It's not so much that she's prepared to believe more easily now, but that she is more reluctant to be sure about anything she thinks she knows.

Time yawns. She teeters on its lip and almost tips into its maw as she waits for the door to open, seconds and minutes and hours stretching ahead of her like piano keys, and yet when she twists her neck to look over her shoulder, the number 19 is only just going past. Which means she has been here no longer than a handful of seconds. Barely long enough for sand to slip through a timer.