The cottage's walls—thin as parchment, plastered with yellowed maps of forgotten shipping lanes—seemed to lean in, eavesdropping on Nora's ragged breaths. She clutched the poker from the cold hearth, its iron tip pointed at the door like a talisman against the night. The fog outside had thickened to opacity, swallowing the gas lamps' feeble glow, turning the lane into a void where shapes suggested themselves but never resolved. He's gone, she told herself, the rational librarian's voice cutting through the panic. Just the fog playing tricks. Like the book. Like the whispers.
But the book lay open on the floorboards, its pages rustling softly—no wind, no draft—ink-script shifting like sand under tide: He comes tonight. The thief of echoes. Nora's skin prickled, the words pulling at her, a siren's hook in her gut. She edged to the window, poker trembling, peering through the lace curtains that Mama had sewn—delicate stitches, now frayed like her nerves.
The lane was empty. Or should have been. But there—midway to the bend—a silhouette lingered, tall and unmoving, coat flapping in a breeze she couldn't feel. The figure's head tilted, as if listening to the sea's murmur, and for a heartbeat, Nora swore she saw eyes catch the moonlight: reflective, like a cat's, or a drowned man's. Elias? The name from the book lodged in her throat, bitter as bile. Lighthouse keeper, town hermit, the man who'd found Mama's body—or claimed to, washed up on the rocks like driftwood, throat slit clean despite the "fall."
The figure moved—not toward her, but parallel, melting into the fog toward the cliffs. Nora's grip tightened on the poker, pulse syncing to the waves' crash: thump-thump, guilty-guilty. She should call the sheriff—old Harlan, who owed Mama for mending his nets, who'd dismissed the "accident" with a gruff tides take what they will. But Harlan's line rang busy in her mind, a ghost-tone from too many ignored pleas. No. This was hers now—the rift's inheritance, the whispers' demand.
She snatched her coat, the book's twine-lace hastily rebound, stuffing it into her satchel. The door creaked open on protesting hinges, fog rushing in like an uninvited guest, damp and insistent. Nora stepped out, poker in one hand, flashlight in the other—beam slicing the mist in futile cones, illuminating nothing but her own distorted shadow, elongated like a predator's.
The path to the lighthouse wound along the cliffs, a half-mile of gravel and gorse that bit at her ankles through her slippers. She'd walked it a thousand times as a girl, Mama's hand in hers, collecting sea-glass that glinted like captured stars. "The light keeps the echoes at bay, love," Mama would say, her voice a melody against the wind. But tonight, the lighthouse beam—Elias's vigil—swept erratic, stuttering like a faltering heartbeat, casting the fog in staccato shadows that writhed like the book's ink.
Nora's steps quickened, gravel crunching underfoot, the whispers rising: ...thief... silenced... your name, Nora, always your name... They weren't random now—layered, overlapping, as if the town itself confessed. A fisherman's rasp: ...saw him, that night, knife in hand... A child's treble, long silent: ...Mama pushed? No, pulled... Her brother's voice? Lost at five to the same rocks, or so the story went. The rift tugged again, faint but insistent—a thread dangling, begging to be pulled.
She resisted, focusing on the path, the lighthouse growing: squat tower of weathered stone, its lantern room a crown of smeared glass. Elias Crowe had tended it for forty years, since before Nora's birth, a fixture as enduring as the tides. Whispers painted him kindly once—gruff savior, pulling drunks from the surf—but after Mama, he'd withdrawn, shuttering his widow's walk, muttering of "bad airs" to anyone who asked.
The silhouette ahead resolved: not Elias, but something like him—stooped shoulders, frayed coat—but the gait was wrong, loping, as if joints bent backward. Nora's beam caught it full: empty air. Gone. Swallowed by fog, or never there. Hallucination, she chanted, but her hand—free of the poker—brushed her satchel, the book throbbing inside, warm as fevered flesh.
The lighthouse door loomed—splintered oak, salt-eaten iron latch. Nora hesitated, fist raised to knock, but the whispers pushed: Ask him. Pull the thread. She rapped sharp, the sound swallowed, then twisted the latch—unlocked, yielding with a groan like a dying breath.
Inside, the spiral stairwell exhaled damp rot, lantern light filtering down in oily shafts. "Mr. Crowe?" Nora's voice cracked, echoing up the stone throat. No answer, but footsteps—soft, shuffling—from above. She climbed, poker leading, each step coiling tighter in her chest. The air thickened, laced with brine and something fouler: decay, like low-tide kelp-beds unearthing bones.
The lantern room creaked open at her push, wind howling through cracked panes, the great Fresnel lens spinning lazy on its gears—Elias's mechanism, hand-cranked since the grid failed last storm. He stood at the rail, back to her, silhouette etched against the beam's sweep: wiry frame hunched, white hair wild as sea-foam, coat crusted with gull-droppings and salt.
"Elias?" Nora ventured, beam playing over his shoulders. He didn't turn, but his hands—gnarled, liver-spotted—clutched the rail, knuckles white as bone.
The thief, the whispers chorused, now from the walls themselves, stone murmuring like a congregation. He silenced her. Stole the echo.
Elias shuddered, a low moan escaping— not pain, but recognition. "Girl," he rasped, voice gravel ground under boot. "Hale's girl. Should've known the fog'd bring you sniffin'." He turned then, slow, face folding into creases deep as cliff-fissures: eyes milky, but sharp, pinning her like a specimen. "Whispers got your tongue, eh? Or your ma's?"
Nora's throat closed, the poker dipping. "The book," she managed, fumbling it from her satchel, pages fluttering open to bleeding script. "It... it said you watched. That night. Not an accident. What did she know, Elias? What did you take?"
His laugh was a wheeze, fog-bound cough. "Book? Ah, the echoes play tricks, love. Like your ma—always listenin' too close to the sea's lies." But his eyes darted—to the lens, to the shadows pooling in corners. The beam swept, illuminating more: faint outlines in the glass's curve, faces pressed close—drowned eyes staring, mouths agape in silent screams. Echoes? Or reflections of the town's guilty dead?
The rift yanked—harder this time, no warning. Nora staggered, vision splintering: the lantern room overlaying the pier, Elias's face morphing to the shadow-man's, knife glinting in his grip. Pull, the ghost clawed, spectral fingers in her hair. Rewrite: Push him. See him fall. An alternate Nora lunged in the vision—tiny hands shoving, Elias tumbling with a yelp, rocks claiming him in crimson foam. But another thread rebelled: No—ask. He hides more.
She fought it, poker clattering to the floor, hands clawing air. "Stop—show me!" The words tore free, a command born of desperation, and the rift obeyed—not reliving, but revealing: fragments unspooling like film in a broken projector. Elias, younger, on the pier—arguing with Mama, voices low: "...the cult, Nora's blood—can't let them take her... echoes prove it..." A glint—his knife, not slashing but offered, Mama refusing, turning away. Then he—another shadow, hooded, emerging from fog: "Silenced, keeper. Or join her." The blade turned—on Mama, Elias frozen, watching as ordered, the hooded thief vanishing into mist.
The vision snapped, Nora retching dry over the rail, Elias's hand—real, trembling—on her shoulder. "Saw it, didn't ya? The thief's mark. Your ma... she knew the old rites, the bindings. Echo Bay's built on 'em—graves under the foundations, whispers from the abyss below. Tried to warn her off, but the thief... he steals 'em. Deaths, echoes—stitches 'em into his web."
Nora whirled, gripping his coat, eyes wild. "Who? Show me the face!"
Elias's milky gaze unfocused, the whispers amplifying through him: ...town elder... smiles by day... A face flickered in the lens—Harlan, the sheriff, grinning at a council meeting, but twisted, mouth a slash of shadow.
The beam stuttered—gears grinding—and the room plunged dark. Footsteps on the stairs below: heavy, deliberate. Not wind. He comes.
Elias shoved her toward the hatch. "Run, girl. Pull your threads—fight with 'em. The thief's hungrier now. Your ma's echo... it's loose."
Nora fled down the spiral, heart a drum in the dark, the book in her satchel screaming silent ink: Harlan. The lane. Tonight.
Behind, Elias's voice faded into whispers: "...sorry, love. Watched... always watched..."
The fog waited below, and in its folds, two silhouettes converged: one loping, one hooded. Harlan's bulk, unmistakable. And the thief—them—closing the web.
Nora ran, threads unraveling in her wake, the abyss yawning wide.
To be continued...
End of Chapter 2