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A young photographer in a fogbound coastal town defies a warning to stay away from the decommissioned lighthouse. Guided by a retired keeper and a watchful spirit, she confronts a ravenous presence woven from lost names and grief. In the storm-lit tower, she must cut the net binding the dead—and refuse the sweetest trap of all.
The bell started up just after midnight, a single hollow note that came through the coffee shop windows like a spoon tapped against a jar. Tessa paused with a cloth in one hand and a lipstick-smeared mug in the other. The fog had thickened so gently over Graymouth that even the streetlights wore halos. Someone laughed near the door; someone else shuffled cards in the corner, hoping the last bus would arrive on time. She waited for another ring and got only the hiss of the espresso machine and the buzz of a neon OPEN that bled pale red onto her forearms.
“You all right, Tess?” Jamal lifted a cup from the warming rack without looking up.
“Just thought I heard… nothing.” She breathed in coffee and bleach and wet wool. The mug slid into the rack with the others. She wiped a ring from the counter, though there was no ring to wipe, and told herself not to think of a bell on the water. Bells meant fog, and fog meant a memory she’d promised not to keep looking at: her brother’s blue boat vanishing in the kind of gray that swallows all the edges.
Between orders she slipped her camera from under the counter and tilted it toward the glass. The lens fogged at once. She rubbed it with the cuff of her flannel and smiled at herself for trying. The long exposure setting clicked anyway, gathering quiet light. Outside, a gull walked like a drunk through the white, then shook its wings and disappeared. The photograph on the screen showed something her eyes had missed: a faint, thin thread, bright as wire, angling toward Breakwater Point. It was probably a trick of the streetlight. It was probably nothing.
A boy came in with a damp hoodie and a folded paper boat in his hand. He pressed the boat onto the counter and asked for a hot chocolate.
“Marshmallows?” she asked.
He nodded like it cost him something to admit it. While she steamed the milk he drew a lighthouse in pencil on a napkin. The lines were sure and quick, the beacon throwing ragged rays. He set the drawing under his cup, then, as if it might get scolded, slid it back to her.
“My mom says the lighthouse is broken,” he said. “It doesn’t work for people who don’t listen.”
“Does she say what to listen for?”
“She says just don’t.” He took the drink and the boat and backed into the fog.
A ring again. Closer. Tessa wiped her hands on a towel and told Jamal she would take her break. Outside the air slid into her lungs like cold milk. The bell did not belong to any church. It came from the direction of the breakwater, a sound that seemed to be wrapped in the fog itself. Her camera strap dug into her shoulder. The harbor lights breathed in and out as the fog thickened and thinned, and the town smell—diesel, fish, fried dough—curled up around her ankles.
When she looked down, there were wet footprints leading from nowhere to nowhere, a chain of ovals beading on dry concrete. They glistened like she could lift them with a spoon. Tessa backed toward the door, bumped it with her hip, and laughed out loud because what else do you do when the impossible walks around like a dog off leash?