THE sea is a shapeshifter.

You never know what it has up its sleeves. When will it strike or how? This general incomprehensibility scared Ríone all the time when she was a child - it still did, but not as much as before. Or so she liked to think.

The gravelly pathway of Loutham emitted a merry crunch underneath the wheels of her white sedan, as she drove through the little seaside town. Thick thickets of trees grew all along the roads. So dense were their foliage that the dull winter sunshine didn't even touch the ground. From her car window, she could see the sea.

It lay flat and grey, an ugly blight in contrast to the blue of the skies. Mist hung above the waves, a kissing distance away from touching each other. Ríone shook her head. Some things never change. Especially if that something is a place called Loutham. It was just the same as it was when she had left this place for good with her mother.

She could not fathom that she was really here after all these years. It felt quite like a fever dream. The continuous rows of trees, the brightly painted houses that littered the town, the tiny shops and the misty sea - she felt that she had time travelled twenty-two years into the past.

Ríone sucked in a deep breath. A wave of nostalgia suddenly choked her throat. She never got the chance to bid this place goodbye properly. Maybe that's why it haunted her in her dreams and sometimes even in her waking hours. Maybe Timothee was right after all.

"You gotta understand this, Ríone," he had said in their last session. "Your move from Loutham was hasty. You never bid that place goodbye. Maybe it's time that you do so."

"What do you mean?" She had asked.

Timothee gave her one of his rare full-toothed smiles. "Go there. Stay for a while and then come back."

So here she was, driving down to her childhood home with a bag full of clothes and an unfinished manuscript, which was due in just another six months. She hoped to finish that thing in her stay in Loutham. It was high time she did it.

Her phone beeped with a message from her husband, Derek. It illuminated the lock screen which was a picture of her, him and their eight-year-old twin daughters from their vacation to Italy last year. A smile crept on her lips. The girls looked gorgeous in that picture.

Using her left hand, she typed an answer: Will call you after I reach home. Tell the girls that I miss them.

Ríone hit send when the ground beneath her bumped before declining into a low. She pulled over and turned to the left. The visage of the sea grew closer, its greyness even more vivid. She could swear that even from her car she saw the seaweeds poking their spiky heads up the surface of the water. Any moment now she would be greeted by the sight of her old house.

The sea was just one of the many things that pulled her parents towards each other. But it was their joint love for the sea that brought them to Loutham. It was supposed to be their ideal home - she still did not know what went wrong.

Sometimes things do not just work out, she guessed. All you can do is just accept and move on.

The silhouette of an off-white house loomed in her rearview. She revved up the car and in a long stride she pulled up on the front porch. Her car came to a halt. For a few moments the engine throbbed, before dying out. Ríone took her phone perched on the holder atop the dashboard, turned around, opened the door and climbed on the sandy beach.

For a moment she felt disbalanced. She held onto the handle of her car door. The salty tang of the sea overpowered her nostrils. In fact the air was thick with it. She felt sick. It took every ounce of her willpower to not give in to the urge to puke all over her car.

It has been a long time since she had been so close to the sea.

Ríone closed her eyes, took in deep breaths and stood up straight. She wiped the sweat beads on her forehead. It was a blessing that it was still early morning and no one was there on the beach. She unbolted the trunk of her car, retrieved her bag and slung it over her shoulder, before trudging down the worn-out trail.

The walnut of her skin emitted a warm glow in the sunlight. Tendrils of her hair flew in the morning breeze. Her cardigan, a light yellow colour, matched well with the hue of the sand.

Like most of the other houses in Loutham, theirs were a quaint two-storey as well. It was painted in a shade that was not quite white, not quite grey matching with the colour of the sea that lay right in front of it. The dark windows were a stark contrast to the house's colour. On the whitewashed front door hung a lone seashell, yellowed by age.

Tears stung her eyes.

Memories of her childhood flashed in her mind. The times she ran around the house with her friends, when her mother would come out of the door dressed in a pink apron and summon them to lunch. She remembered when she was a wee child and her parents would take her to the seashore to play. When she was not so afraid of the sea. Back before everything went downhill.

This house has been the testimony to it all. The highs, the lows, the best and the worst - it witnessed each moment their family spent in Loutham. And even the way it broke apart. Her writer's mind could not help but wonder, what did the house think about them in this long absence?

Ríone wished that her mother was here with her. She knew how attached she was to this house, to this town. Or why else did she not sell the house, despite what happened here? Even in her last moments, she reminisced about it. If this was not attachment, then what was it?

She sighed. Some things you can't let go of effortless ease. It was not just her mother. She too had not let go, if Timothee was to be trusted. Maybe this trip would do what all these years could not do.

"Here goes nothing." She muttered under her breath. Her sneakers rapped against the porch boards as she walked to the front door.

Waves crashed gently against the shoreline. Winds susurrated in her ears. Sunrays danced upon her skin. The silence was serene.

Ríone had come back home.