When Bracken woke the next morning, the fog was gone. Nets hung drying, the gulls returned, and the lighthouse blinked like nothing had happened at all.
They found Eli’s skiff tied neatly to the dock, deck wet but empty. His boots were there, salt-stiff, lined up side by side. On the seat lay the folder from the library, its pages dry despite the storm.
Miss Kroll found the note inside later that day: *You were right. Some things don’t want lifting. But sometimes, they let go anyway.*
The harbor men said he’d gone north. Others swore they saw his lantern out past the shoals some nights, bobbing steady where no current runs.
On calm mornings, the water near the reef hums faintly, like chain through wood. Divers say there’s nothing there but sand. The old ones just smile and say, “That’s how it starts.”
And when the sea is flat enough to see your own face, some swear the reflection looking back wears a scarf of rust-red light and eyes that know too much.
Eli Moran’s name faded from the boat registry but not from the wind. It still calls across Bracken Cove when the tide is low and the air smells like iron and rain.
Because the sea keeps what it takes—but sometimes, it keeps the man who finally listened.
