Ella had done it plenty of times, but this time..this time, it was different. This time, everything she believed in, everything she thought she was, all that she thought she knew about the world, would be changed forever.

Why this instance was so different, Ella would never know. She had done it ever since she was a kid. The ocean always fascinated her, and she thought of seashells as gifts from underwater artists. She kept various shells she had collected over the years in baskets scattered throughout her quaint Birmingham loft, and when she became homesick for the salty breezes and blue seas, she would hold a shell to her ear and listen. In those shells, Ella would hear the rolling of the waves, the laughing of the gulls, the rustling of the palms..and everything seemed right.

But not this time. As Ella cupped the large shell over her ear as she had done so many times before, she heard something that would shift her life’s path and everything she had come to know about the world…