The ferry captain sets your suitcase on the jetty and pushes off before you can ask about your sister. Mara's letter is damp in your pocket. Come before Friday. Something is wrong with the lighthouse. Do not telephone the keeper. It is Friday. You have ignored her last three letters. Above Greyhaven, the beam swings across the harbor, stops, then reverses toward a strip of water no ship should enter. You spent childhood summers here. The light never used to hesitate. A receipt flutters from the suitcase handle. Someone has written on its back: Her room is still warm. You call after the captain. He keeps his face toward the mist. The return sailing is canceled, he shouts. Weather. Yet the sea inside the harbor is almost flat. From a boat beyond the breakwater, a small lamp flashes twice. The lighthouse answers. You pocket the receipt and head for the cottage, where Mara's kitchen window is the only one still lit.
A missing sister. A falsified signal. One storm to decide what the truth will cost Greyhaven.
Listen closely. Choose carefully. Carry the consequences.
Every path leaves a different story.