Morning brought fog thick enough to erase the horizon. The gulls kept inland, their cries smothered like gossip under snow. Bracken smelled of wet rope and unease.
Eli walked the pier and counted the boats still moored. Half had stayed docked, their owners claiming bad luck, bad weather, bad dreams—whatever name felt safest.
The sea was flat, untrustworthy. No wind, yet ripples ran counter to tide, a heartbeat beneath glass.
When he reached his skiff, a new mark waited at the bow—rust streaks shaped like fingerprints, as if someone had climbed aboard while the world slept. He scraped at them with his knife; they didn’t come off.
At the fuel shack, Hank shook his head. “Told you to leave it.” His voice carried that mix of pity and anger men reserve for the living who bother ghosts.
“It’s down,” Eli said. “I cut the rope.” Hank spat. “Rope don’t mean cut when the chain wants up.”
The fog thickened until even the lighthouse blink felt foreign. Somewhere offshore, metal groaned—the same sound as before, but closer.
Eli looked out toward nothing and whispered, “All right, then.” Because when the sea calls you twice, you stop pretending you don’t speak her language.
