The Last Year on Avila Road

The List was published on a Tuesday in March.

It was, technically, called the Coastal Relocation Allocation and it had been four years coming. The country had been, in those four years, slowly preparing. The maps had been redrawn three times. The science had been republished, with steadily fewer caveats. The coastal towns had been told, very quietly at first and then less quietly, that some of them would not exist in ten years.

Avila Road was in one of those towns.

The town — Saltgate, on the south coast — had been sinking, technically, for two decades. The sea had been creeping. The dunes had gone in 2031. The first row of coastal houses had gone in 2034. The school had been moved inland in 2036. The pace had picked up since 2038. By 2041, when the List was published, the town had visibly shrunk. Half the streets were empty. The harbour was, twice a month, completely under water.

The List was the country's plan to relocate roughly two-thirds of the town's remaining residents to a new district built inland. It was a long, careful, controversial document. It listed names — who would be relocated, who would receive a new home in the inland district, what the timetable would be.

The List did not include Pia's family.

Pia was fourteen. She had been born in Saltgate. She had lived her whole life on Avila Road. Her grandmother, eighty-one, lived two doors down. Her best friendMarek lived across the street.

Marek's family was on the List.

Pia's family was not.

There was no obvious explanation. The country had said the List was based on a combination of vulnerability metrics, but those metrics had not been published. There was an appeals process. Pia's parents had filed an appeal in March. The appeal had been denied in May. The appeal had been re-filed in June. The second denial had come in July.

By late July, the family had — quietly — accepted that they would not be moving inland with the rest of the town.

There was an alternative. Families not on the List were eligible for the boat package — a sum of money, the right to keep their belongings, and assistance with relocating to one of the inland regions on their own. The catch was that on their own was, in fact, on their own. They would not be settled together. They would be scattered.

Pia's family would, as far as they could tell, be moving in October. To one of three small inland cities. They had been told they would have a choice between the three; they had not yet been told which. They would be leaving the town. They would be leaving Marek. They would be leaving Pia's grandmother, who had — astonishingly, and very firmly — refused either option.

Her grandmother had said, to Pia, on a Sunday in early August: "I am eighty-one. I have been in this house for fifty-three years. I am not going to a new house. The sea is welcome to come. I will be here when it does."

Pia had cried at this. Her grandmother had not.

"Pia. I will not be here forever anyway. I have a few years. I would rather spend them in my house, in my street, in my town. The sea may come, the sea may not. I will not run."

Her grandmother had also said, more quietly: "But you must, Pia. You are fourteen. You have a long