The morning air was sharp and silver with mist, and the fjord was a still sheet of pewter. Beth stepped quietly onto the deck wrapped in Grandma Sophie's old knit cardigan, a mug of tea cradled in her hands. The planks creaked softly underfoot. She expected silence—the hush of Reine at dawn—but instead, she found him.
He stood at the edge of the deck, facing the water, framed by pines and fog.
A boy—no, a young man—unmoving, as if he'd stepped out of a dream half-finished.
His hair was dark blonde, caught between gold and light brown, tousled by the breeze. His face was carved in fine, cold lines: high cheekbones, hollowed cheeks pale as salt, a long, elegant nose with thin nostrils. His lips—bright, wane, full and strangely red—formed the faintest smile, not quite warm but not unkind.
And his eyes—Beth couldn't stop staring—were ocean blue, so deep they tipped toward violet, vast and sorrowful. Not because he was sad. But because they held a melancholy that wasn't his own, like he had inherited it from the sea itself.
He wore a white ermine cloak. An ermine cloak, of all things. It looked impossibly soft, stark against the bleak fjord behind him. Beth blinked, unsure if she was still dreaming.
Then he turned to her.
"I hope I am not interrupting anything," he said, his voice quiet and carefully enunciated, like a violin string tuned a little too tight.
Beth's breath caught. She blushed furiously, suddenly aware of the cardigan, her bed hair, the mug in her hand.
"Of course not!" she blurted, too loud.
He smiled slightly, almost politely, like someone trained in the ways of old courtesies. "My name is Lenored Forchevelle."
"Beth Gibson," she said quickly—then regretted how high her voice went. "Um. Hi."
Lenored nodded with gentle grace, and turned back toward the water, folding his hands behind his back.
She watched him, heart hammering, thoughts racing. Who was he?
He couldn't be the masked boy from yesterday. That one had a cocky slouch and a hidden smirk. He looked like he belonged in a tabloid, in the arms of a girl named Marissa on a rooftop in Madrid.
This one—Lenored—looked like he'd written elegies in his sleep. He looked like something from an old story, from a painting in a museum where no one reads the placard.
Still, something scratched faintly in the back of her mind.
Same height. Same build. Same pale arms.
But it couldn't be.
Just as the quiet between Beth and Lenored settled into something gentle, something almost suspended in the misty cold—Chris appeared.
It was as if his soul had a radar specifically attuned to anything vaguely resembling fame, myth, or magazine covers. He practically slid onto the deck, windbreaker unzipped, hair tousled like he'd run there. His eyes locked onto Lenored and immediately sparked with recognition—of a sort.
"You—you look exactly like Leon Troy," Chris blurted, pointing a little too directly. "You know, the one who starred in Call Me 'Goodbye'—the rom-com every teen's obsessed with right now?"
Beth frowned. "I haven't even heard of it. It's not that famous."
Chris ignored her. He was fully animated now, quoting with flourish:
"'Call me 'Goodbye,' because that's all I'll ever be to you...'"
He let the line hang in the air dramatically, then looked to Lenored expectantly.
Lenored's expression shifted—just slightly. It was impossible to tell whether it was amusement, discomfort, or something more complex.
"Thanks," he said evenly, with a strange flicker in his voice. "I've been told that a lot."
Then, as if switching to a softer, private tone just for Beth, he smiled. "I wish I was Troy though. Must be nice—three million dollars, two films, and the world thinking you're beautiful even when you say terrible lines badly."
Chris was still too delighted to notice the nuance.
Lenored turned slightly toward Beth, his ermine cloak catching the faint morning light. "I need to go," he said, gently. "My mother will worry."
He paused, eyes catching hers for a moment longer than was necessary.
"But I would like to see you around."
Beth nodded quickly—too quickly—and then hated herself for it.
Lenored gave a brief, graceful dip of the head, like something from an old-world court, and stepped back down the stairs and into the fog. His white cloak trailed after him, absurd and regal against the gray stones.
Chris exhaled like he'd just met a Beatle. "Okay, who was that angel of indie cinema?!"
Beth didn't answer. She was still watching the mist where Lenored had vanished.
Amanda stepped out onto the deck with the easy confidence of someone who always knew where she was going, even if she didn't. She was tugging on a wool cap, coffee in hand. Jefrey followed just behind her, hoodie zipped up, hair still damp from the quick morning shower he'd taken with military precision.
"Beth," Amanda called lightly, "grab your boots. We're walking."
Beth, still lingering at the railing where Lenored had disappeared, blinked and turned. "Oh. Right."
Amanda raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Jefrey noticed too—he had that quiet, observant way about him, especially where Beth was concerned. But he kept it to himself.
"Chris!" Amanda shouted toward the open window of the living room, where the flicker of a screen was visible.
"Nope!" came his muffled reply, immediately. "Paris is about to meet Helen. This is sacred ground."
"You've watched Troy eighty-six times, you madman!" Jefrey called.
"Eighty-seven now!" Chris yelled, proud. "Orlando dies beautifully. It's a masterclass in tragic pouting!"
Amanda rolled her eyes. "God help whoever ends up marrying that man."
"Someone who's very good at quoting IMDb," Jefrey muttered.
They set off without him, the three of them walking the winding path that led out of Reine and toward the neighboring islands of Hamnøy and Sakrisøy, where bridges stretched like delicate arms across the still waters. It was a short route, but the views were beyond words—dark, jagged mountains rose like ink-strokes from the sea, red fishermen's cabins dotted the shore, and the air smelled of salt, woodsmoke, and something ancient.
Beth walked in the middle, Amanda to her right, Jefrey to her left. The chill bit at their cheeks, but the silence between them was warm.
"You okay?" Amanda asked finally, bumping her shoulder gently against Beth's.
"Yeah," Beth said, then, softer, "just… thinking."
Jefrey glanced at her but didn't press.
They walked on, footsteps soft on the gravel, the sea lapping below the bridge beside them. Reine remained behind them, sleepy and golden, but in Beth's mind, a name echoed like a soft ripple:
Lenored.
They were halfway between Reine and Hamnøy now, walking the weathered path where the sea shimmered to one side and wildflowers clung stubbornly to the rocky edge. The cold was refreshing, not biting, and the clouds were parted just enough for shafts of pale morning sun to streak the water.
Amanda had wandered a few steps ahead, crouching near a patch of mossy stone, fiddling with her camera to get a shot of a gull perched just so. Beth and Jefrey walked side by side, slower.
Jefrey kicked a loose pebble and said, with studied casualness,
"So… is there anyone in school that you like?"
Beth looked up, surprised. "What?"
He shrugged, hands in his pockets, eyes straight ahead. "You know. Anyone back in Oxford. Someone who makes you write weird poetry or stay up too late 'accidentally.'"
She gave a nervous laugh, not sure if he was teasing or sincerely asking. "No, not really. I mean… maybe. I don't know."
Jefrey glanced at her briefly, his expression unreadable. "That's a lot of answers in one sentence."
Beth tucked her hair behind her ear, cheeks coloring. "Well, it's kind of complicated. I think I liked someone. But not really enough. Or maybe just the idea of them. You ever get that?"
Jefrey nodded slowly. "Yeah. Sometimes it's not the person. Just what they fill in your head."
They walked a few more steps in silence. The sound of the sea brushing the rocks below filled the pause.
Then Beth said, quieter, "What about you?"
Jefrey's smile was faint and crooked. "There's someone. But I think she's got her head full of ghosts and mystery boys in cloaks."
Beth blinked, then turned to look at him. "What?"
He didn't meet her eyes, just kept walking, face calm but his ears slightly pink. "Never mind. Just trying to be poetic like Chris. Don't worry—I won't be quoting Call Me 'Goodbye.'"
Beth let out a quiet breath of laughter, but her heart was thudding a little harder than before.
Up ahead, Amanda shouted, "You two gonna keep gossiping or help me with this seagull who clearly wants to be scouted for Vogue?"
They picked up the pace, but the air between them now felt subtly different—charged, uncertain, real.
When they returned to Grandma Sophie's house, cheeks flushed from the wind and hands chilled despite their gloves, the warm scent of something baking drifted from the kitchen. But the house itself was too quiet.
"Where's Chris?" Amanda asked as she hung her coat by the door.
Beth shrugged. "Still mourning Paris?"
But then a note caught Beth's eye—pinned to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a codfish.
Gone to help Uncle Henry — don't wait for me. Bring gloves. It's wet.
Amanda blinked. "Uncle who?"
Jefrey groaned. "Oh no. He found another 'uncle.'"
They all knew Uncle Henry wasn't related to anyone. He was a wiry old fisherman who lived a few docks down and liked to complain about everything from boat engines to the state of modern yogurt. He wasn't unfriendly, just… suspicious of everyone under 60. But Chris, in all his confusing charm, had somehow adopted him—or been adopted. It was never clear.
"Let me get this straight," Amanda said, taking off her boots. "Chris—the same man who cries when Orlando gets an arrow to the heel—has volunteered to gut fish or haul soggy nets for an old man who smells like mackerel and smokes indoors?"
"Yep," Jefrey muttered, grabbing an apple from the bowl. "He's charity-obsessed. Can't help himself. If someone has more wrinkles than IMDb credits, he feels spiritually responsible."
Beth smirked, slipping into the kitchen. "He probably sees it as a sacred duty. Help the elderly, honor Bloom, resist shampoo marketing..."
"Yeah," Amanda said, flopping onto the sofa. "And he'll come back with fish scales in his eyebrows and a dramatic speech about the 'salted poetry of honest labor.'"
Jefrey chuckled. "And probably smelling like the bottom of a boat."
They all laughed, but the image warmed them somehow—Chris, ridiculous and big-hearted, elbows deep in fish guts, arguing with a man who didn't believe in Wi-Fi.
Beth glanced toward the dock through the window, where faint figures moved on the water's edge.
"I kind of love that he's like that," she said softly.
Jefrey looked at her. And though she hadn't meant it as anything more than affection, not longing, he couldn't help the faint pang he felt.
He looked away quickly, toward the sea.
"Yeah," he said. "He's one of a kind."
That evening, just after dinner—cod with potatoes and caramelized onions, followed by cardamom buns still warm from the oven—Grandma Sophie beckoned Beth to the kitchen with her usual quiet authority.
Her lined hands held a small, folded piece of paper. The parchment was heavier than the kind found in notebooks, almost like it had been carefully chosen from a drawer that rarely opened.
"This came for you," Grandma Sophie said in her soft, lilting Norwegian accent. "A boy brought it. Said to give it to you when you returned."
Beth took it carefully, fingertips tingling. Her eyes flicked up, uncertain. "Did he say who he was?"
Grandma Sophie smiled with that knowing look she wore whenever something a little old-fashioned unfolded in her house. "He didn't need to."
Beth stepped out onto the back steps, unfolded the note, and read:
Would you like to come on a short walk with me up a hill tomorrow?
L. A. Forchevelle
Her heart gave an odd little jolt. The handwriting was precise, elegant. Not rushed. Every letter balanced, like he'd written it seated straight at a desk, not hunched over a phone or texting with thumbs.
She read it twice. Then a third time.
Lenored A. Forchevelle. Even his name read like a footnote in a nineteenth-century novel.
Behind her, Amanda called, "Who's writing you sonnets now?"
Beth quickly folded the note and slipped it into her cardigan pocket.
"No one," she said lightly, but her cheeks were warm, and her hand stayed over the note for a long moment.
Up above Reine, the mountains loomed like patient sentinels. Tomorrow, she thought. A hill. A walk. A question quietly unfolding.
And somehow, impossibly, she said to herself:
I hope he's wearing that ridiculous ermine cloak again.