The List In March
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