The compass needle spun like it had forgotten its job. Eli throttled down, but the skiff drifted in slow circles, the fog pressing close until even the gunwales looked borrowed.
He shouted once—just his name, the way sailors used to announce themselves to gods that didn’t bother answering. The sound came back warped, slower, like someone else was using his voice.
The glow below the hull pulsed again, steady this time, and with each flash the water looked shallower though the sounder was dead. Something below wanted him to see.
He peered overboard. The chain ran down and away, disappearing into the shimmer where shapes hinted—a curve of metal, a disc, carvings that looked more like veins than craft. It wasn’t wreckage; it was waiting.
He reached for the rope instinctively, maybe to cut, maybe to tie, maybe to hold. But his fingers brushed the surface, and cold leapt up his arm like lightning with memory.
The fog thinned for a heartbeat, enough to show Bracken’s cliffs far behind him—and then gone again, replaced by nothing but gray and the taste of salt that felt too new.
Eli gritted his teeth, started the engine, and turned it toward where home should be. The motor coughed, caught, and died without reason. The chain below tugged once, gentle as a reminder.
He whispered, “All right then, show me,” and the sea obliged.
