Mara has left her boots beside the stove, one upright and one fallen against it. A bowl of soup stands on the table with a skin across its surface. The cottage smells of coal smoke, orange peel, and the particular lavender soap your mother used to send in parcels. Nobody has searched this room. That troubles you more than a broken window would have. On the mantel is a photograph taken when you were children. Mara is laughing at something outside the frame. You have been folded out of the picture, then carefully unfolded again. You set it down before the gesture can become an accusation. Her desk holds a harbour map, a stack of unpaid electricity bills, and two scraps of tracing paper. Someone has drawn the same three marks on both scraps: a circle, a line, and a small bell. Beneath them is the beginning of a sentence. The first lie was not about the ship. A noise comes from the lane. Through the curtain you see a boy trying the door of the old boat shed. He has no coat, and his sweater is dark with rain. He knocks once, waits, then knocks twice more. At the same moment, the desk telephone begins to ring. You answer. An elderly woman speaks without introducing herself. If you want to understand your sister, she says, ask to see the harbour ledger before Elias gets there. Then she hangs up. The archive closes at dusk. Outside, the boy looks back toward the cottage, hoping someone has noticed him.
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.