Galveston

 

The Gulf waves lap at the shore, tickling the toes of seagulls screaming at each other over nothing at all, stepping lightly around the iridescent jellyfish.

In the scruffy reeds between sand and grass, unblinking rattlesnakes watch families building sandcastles, no thoughts of danger in their heads.

On the bay side, alligators and egrets vie for the small fishes in the marsh.

At night, the spirits of those long-dead turned to ash by fire, washed to sea by hurricanes or victims of a flamboyantly sordid history whisper through the island, floating companionably beside the silent paws of the red wolves.