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a slight incline to a stand of willows. She touched her hair. Even though it was dry there was a slight sticky sensation. When she examined her fingers she could see no trace of liquid or matter. But the stickiness remained. Puzzled, she looked up at the sun. But the light blazing in the sky wasn't the sun.
        April squinted against its brightness, even raising her hand to protect her eyes. 'The moon?' She shook her head. What had happened to her? How did she get here? Why is the moon so impossibly bright? She didn't recollect being on a boat… or even wandering here across dry land. After a wobbly false start she managed to climb to her feet. She looked back down at the coin lying in the shingle. It blazed there with a silvery light. That's the key that unlocked your memory, she told herself. It's your lucky charm. Take it. Still shaky on her feet, she managed to pick it up. In the process she noticed one foot was clad in a sandal, while the other was bare.
        Unsteadily, she moved along the shingle beach. If the stones pricked her feet she didn't notice them. After walking through that weirdly bright moonlight for barely more than a minute she found another beach run in from her right to meet her stretch of stones. Seconds later she stood on a spit of shingle that jutted out into gleaming water. The moon was duplicated there so it appeared as if a vast chrome disk floated on the sea. From this vantage point she could look back at both sides of the land on which she found herself.
        She explained to herself, 'This is an island.' To her ears her strange respiration sounded louder. 'April Connor, you know what's happened to you, don't you?' The reeds rustled their own cryptic reply. April, however, furnished an intelligible answer: 'You've been shipwrecked. You're marooned here.'
        Now that she could move her limbs and remember her name she at least remained calm. Even when she noticed that her dress had been torn open at the hip it didn't seem so bad. For some reason seeing the wounds in her bare skin through the torn material didn't form connections in her mind, so there was a sense of unreality. As if the breaks in her flesh that exposed the red, raw lips of a wound didn't relate to the process of washing up here on the island.
        The reeds rustled; a dry sound like whispers from the mouths of ancient Egyptian mummies. She stared at the head on the coin in the moonlight and confessed, 'I'm lucky to be alive, aren't I?' The moment she uttered the words she shuddered as other possibilities rose in her mind. What if she hadn't survived? What if this was heaven? Or hell? Or some eternal state of limbo? With an effort she repressed those disturbing thoughts. What she must do is explore this place, then - and only then - draw her conclusions.
        April walked slowly toward the other end of the island. The reeds waved at one side of her, while a light breeze sent shivers through the branches of the willow trees. An animal scuttled away under her feet. A rat? She couldn't tell. What if it returned with more of its kind? Further along the beach she came across the ribs of a small boat. The timber had been gnawed away by the elements, until it resembled the skeleton of a dinosaur. She couldn't have arrived on that, it must have lain here for years. Besides, she had no recollection of being on board any kind of ship.
         If I'm marooned here, what's going to happen to me? This question provoked a sense of unease. She found herself touching her hair on the side of her head. The strands were sticky. Once more she realized her respiration was arrhythmic. Two or three sharp intakes of breath followed by a long exhale. When she breathed out she whispered words. But what was she whispering? She couldn't understand them. But there was an urgency there; some unconscious element inside of her hissed a warning.
        All of a sudden she was aware of the wound in her side. It didn't hurt. Instead a