By sunrise, half the town had already decided what happened aboard Henry Hale’s fishing boat.
Some blamed smugglers. Others said the men had fought among themselves after drinking too much. A few insisted Owen Mercer had imagined everything after being trapped below deck during a storm. The people who had not been at the harbor were the most certain.
Weston Donovan listened to all of it while repairing a warped shutter outside the general store.
“They were attacked by pirates,” Mr. Talbot announced from the bench near the entrance.
Weston drove another nail into the hinge. “Pirates?”
“Coastal thieves, then. Same difference.”
“In a fishing village?”
“Plenty of fish to steal.”
Weston leaned back and examined the shutter. “Must have been desperate pirates.”
Mr. Talbot ignored the remark. He had owned the store for nearly forty years and treated every conversation as though it were a public meeting called for the purpose of hearing his opinion.
“They say the boat was covered in blood,” he continued. “Claw marks on the railing. Two men dead. Owen Mercer near death.”
A woman leaving the store tightened her grip on the basket hanging from her arm. “My sister heard they were drained dry.”
“Your sister also heard the lighthouse keeper married a ghost,” Weston said.
The woman gave him a wounded look. “That was different.”
“How?”
“She heard it from someone reliable.”
Weston smiled and returned to the shutter.
The morning had begun cool and damp, but the clouds were already thinning over the water. Sunlight broke across the roofs and turned every puddle along the road silver. Wagons rolled past carrying crates of fish from boats that had returned safely. Doors opened. Shopkeepers swept their steps. The town carried on because it did not know what else to do.
Weston preferred it that way.
He had grown up hearing stories about strange things in the woods and pale creatures wandering the beaches after dark. Every coastal town had legends. They brought in travelers during the summer and gave old men something to talk about through the winter.
The truth was usually less interesting.
Animals left unusual tracks. Fog distorted shapes. Fear made people remember things that had never happened.
That was all.
Mr. Talbot lowered his voice. “Silas Reed says it was the pale ones.”
Weston glanced over his shoulder. “Of course he does.”
“You know the stories.”
“I know Silas.”
“He says they came out of the sea.”
Weston fitted the shutter back against the window frame and tested the hinge. It opened smoothly now, though the wood still needed sanding.
“People don’t come out of the sea,” he said.
Mr. Talbot raised one eyebrow. “People don’t.”
Weston laughed. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
Before Mr. Talbot could answer, a boy came running down the street with a folded newspaper held above his head.
“Harbor deaths!” he shouted. “Three attacked at sea! Survivor speaks of demons!”
Weston wiped his hands on his trousers and tossed the boy a coin.
The headline took up most of the front page.
TERROR ON THE WATER
Beneath it, a smaller line promised an account of white-eyed attackers rising from the sea. Weston scanned the article, finding very little beyond rumor, frightened witnesses, and several dramatic claims no one had confirmed.
“Demons,” he said. “That didn’t take long.”
Mr. Talbot looked pleased. “You see?”
“I see someone knows how to sell newspapers.”
Weston folded the page and tucked it beneath his arm. He had known Henry Hale well enough to exchange greetings at the harbor and occasionally help unload a catch. Samuel Pike had been quieter, but decent. Their deaths deserved better than gossip shaped into entertainment.
That was what bothered him most.
Two men were dead, and already the town had turned them into a story.
He collected his tools and carried them around the side of the store. Mr. Talbot followed him inside, still debating whether pirates or sea demons were more likely. Weston left him to it.
He had promised to help repair a damaged fence near the church before noon. After that, there was a roof farther inland that needed patching and a boat engine he had agreed to examine despite knowing almost nothing about engines.
Weston had learned that being willing to try was often enough to convince people he knew what he was doing.
Most days, he enjoyed the work. It kept his hands busy and gave him reasons to move through town. He had never wanted to inherit a shop or spend his life on a fishing vessel. Fixing things suited him because every problem had an answer if he was patient enough to find it.
People were more difficult.
He crossed the street and nearly collided with Mara Bell as she hurried out of the bakery carrying a tray of wrapped loaves.
“Careful,” she said.
“You walked into me.”
“I was carrying bread.”
“I can see that.”
“That means I had the right of way.”
Weston took two loaves before they slid from the tray. “Is that a law?”
“It should be.”
Mara was Daniel Bell’s cousin and had known Weston since they were children. She had once broken his nose with a wooden sword and still claimed it had improved his appearance.
She nodded toward the newspaper under his arm. “You heard?”
“Everyone’s heard.”
“Daniel was there when the boat came in.”
Weston’s humor faded. “How is he?”
“Pretending he’s fine.”
“That sounds like Daniel.”
“He said Owen Mercer kept talking about eyes in the water.” Mara lowered her voice. “And something climbing over the side of the boat.”
“Shock does strange things to people.”
“So does terror.”
Weston studied her face. She did not look excited by the story the way others did. She looked worried.
“Did Daniel see anything himself?” he asked.
“Only the bodies.”
“That’s enough to give anyone nightmares.”
Mara reclaimed the loaves. “You always have an explanation.”
“Most things have one.”
“And the things that don’t?”
“We haven’t found it yet.”
She shook her head, though there was the beginning of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “One day, something impossible is going to stand directly in front of you, and you’ll still try to explain it.”
“If it’s standing in front of me, it probably isn’t impossible.”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
She continued toward the bakery door, then stopped.
“Are you going near the western beach tonight?”
Weston hesitated only briefly. “Maybe.”
“That’s where Silas says those creatures come ashore.”
“Silas says creatures come ashore everywhere.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. He once told me a dead sailor lived inside the lighthouse bell.”
“He may have been drunk.”
“He was definitely drunk.”
Mara sighed. “Just be careful.”
Weston gave her a small salute and headed toward the church.
He did not tell her why he sometimes walked the western beach after dark. He had not told anyone.
There was nothing unusual about wanting solitude, especially after spending all day answering questions and repairing things other people had broken. The western shore was quieter than the harbor side, separated from town by a wooded ridge and a narrow trail few people bothered to use.
That was the explanation he gave himself.
It had been enough until three nights earlier, when he had seen movement beyond the rocks.
At first, he thought it was a seal caught in the shallows. Then the moonlight shifted, and something lifted its head above the water.
A woman’s face.
He had seen her only for a moment before she disappeared beneath the surface.
Weston had returned the following night and seen nothing. He had told himself the moon had played tricks on him. A swimmer, perhaps. A traveler from one of the islands.
Anything but the impossible.
Even so, he planned to return again.
By late afternoon, the story of the fishing boat had grown worse. Four men had died instead of two. Owen had supposedly risen from his bed speaking a language no one recognized. Someone claimed the bodies had vanished from the undertaker’s rooms.
None of it was true.
Weston heard every version while finishing the church fence, and each one made him less willing to believe the original account. Stories changed too quickly once enough people began repeating them.
When the sun started sinking toward the water, he packed his tools and walked home.
He lived alone in a narrow cottage near the edge of town. The place had belonged to his mother, and though the roof needed replacing and one side leaned slightly toward the sea, Weston had never considered leaving it.
He washed, changed his shirt, and ate bread with a piece of smoked fish while the newspaper lay open on the table.
The drawing beneath the headline showed a pale creature rising from black waves with claws spread wide. It looked more like a demon from a church mural than anything that could exist in the real world.
Weston shook his head.
“Just old stories.”
Outside, evening settled over the town. Harbor bells sounded in the distance, followed by the faint voices of fishermen securing their boats before nightfall.
Weston folded the newspaper and left it on the table.
Then he took his coat from the peg beside the door and started toward the western beach.
He told himself he wanted to prove that the face in the water had been nothing more than moonlight and imagination.
He did not question why he hoped he was wrong.