Chapter 3: Driftwood and Tide
By the time morning broke over Ravenswood, the town had begun to settle into a restless, suspicious quiet—the kind that always followed a storm. Not the howling, wind-torn kind, but the type that broke between people: words that couldn't be unsaid, truths that couldn't be buried again.
Marlowe sat alone on the end of the Waverly dock, her legs curled beneath her, her gaze tracing the horizon. Mist rose from the sea in low, sleepy coils, and the tide slapped gently against the barnacled posts. Behind her, the Waverly house loomed silent. Her father hadn't spoken to her since the festival.
Not that she was surprised.
After her mother's warning, she'd known there would be consequences—but silence, somehow, cut deeper than yelling. It made everything feel brittle, like the whole world could snap under her feet and tumble her into the waves.
She heard the scrape of boots on wood before she turned. Caspian's silhouette emerged through the fog, hair damp from the morning dew, hands in his jacket pockets.
"You look like something out of an old painting," he said with a crooked smile.
She tried to return it. "A tragic one?"
"A beautiful one. Maybe a little tragic."
He sat beside her, legs stretching long in front of him, one foot tapping the edge of the tide. For a long while, neither of them said anything.
Finally, she asked, "Do you think I ruined everything?"
"No," he said without hesitation. "I think you cracked it open."
"But what if it doesn't heal?"
"Then we build something better."
She looked at him, struck again by how steady he seemed, even in the face of everything. Caspian had been the outsider here—an interloper with a strange past and a quiet mother who carried too many stories in her eyes—and yet somehow, he felt like the only one not pretending.
She drew a long breath, letting the briney air settle in her chest.
"They're going to come after your mom," she said. "Harder than before."
"I know." He leaned back on his elbows. "The council's already talking about reviewing her lease. Ophelia overheard her dad on the phone with Mayor Quill."
Marlowe winced. "God. She's been here less than a year, and they treat her like she's poison."
"It's not about her," he said. "It's about what she reminds them of."
"What's that?"
"That the sea doesn't belong to them. That people don't belong to them."
He said it so simply, and yet the words struck something deep in Marlowe's ribs. In Ravenswood, everyone belonged to something—their name, their family, their trade, their past. Even the sea was carved up, each dock and channel claimed by generations-old grudges.
"They think she's a witch, don't they?" she asked, quieter now.
Caspian gave her a small, tired smile. "Some of them."
"But she's not."
"Does it matter?"
Marlowe thought about that. The answer should've been yes. But in a place like Ravenswood, truth didn't always win. Fear did.
And fear, she realized, was exactly what was creeping back into her house—under doorways, through dinner conversations that never quite started, into the way her father refused to meet her eyes.
"Do you ever wish we could just leave?" she asked.
"Sometimes." He tilted his head toward the horizon. "But this place... it doesn't let go easy. Even if you do leave, it drags part of you with it."
She didn't say it aloud, but she knew he was speaking from experience. His mom had returned to Ravenswood after being gone for decades—and now here they were, caught in the same net.
A gull cried above them, wheeling through the mist. Downshore, bells rang from the marina as the morning boats pushed out into deeper waters.
"I think I want to know what really happened," Marlowe said suddenly.
Caspian turned to her. "With?"
"Your mom. Why she left. Why she came back. Why the town hates her so much." She hesitated. "And maybe... about your father?"
He stiffened slightly, a shadow crossing his face.
"I don't mean to pry," she said quickly. "You don't have to tell me. I just—there's something here, Caspian. Something everyone's afraid of, and I'm tired of walking around it like it's invisible."
He was silent for a long time. Then he nodded.
"Come by the house tonight," he said. "I'll talk to her. Maybe she'll finally tell the full story."
---
That night, Marlowe made her way along the back road behind the old lighthouse, her flashlight flickering weakly as the wind picked up off the water. The Thompson house stood tucked against the bluff, partially hidden by wild rose bushes and leaning spruce trees. The path was overgrown, the garden wild, but the windows glowed warm and inviting.
Caspian opened the door before she knocked. "She's in the study," he said.
Marlowe stepped inside and was struck again by how strange and comforting the house felt—like a place that had weathered things, not untouched by time but shaped by it.
Caspian's mother, Elise, stood by the hearth, a book in one hand and a steaming cup in the other. She looked up when Marlowe entered, her expression unreadable.
"You came," she said.
"I want to understand," Marlowe said. "If you're willing to tell me."
Elise studied her for a moment, then gestured to the sofa. She took a seat opposite Marlowe, folding her hands over her knees.
"I suppose I always knew the day would come," she said. "I only hoped it would be on your terms, not theirs."
Marlowe blinked. "Mine?"
"You're your father's daughter, but not like him. You ask questions. You don't settle for the script. That's rare here."
She sipped her tea, then set it down.
"I left Ravenswood when I was seventeen," she began. "After something happened at the summer festival. Something that turned the town against my family. They said my mother cursed the sea. That she brought the storms that sank the Granger boat."
Marlowe felt a chill run through her. She'd heard the Granger story before—one of the worst maritime disasters in the town's history. Four lives lost, a boat shattered on the rocks.
"My mother didn't curse anyone," Elise continued. "But she was strange. She spoke to the wind like it could answer. She taught me things that most people forgot—old things. About the sea, about the tides, about what we owe to the deep."
"To the deep?"
"There are rules," Elise said softly. "Old ones. The town used to know them. Used to respect them. But somewhere along the way, they started breaking them. Greed does that. They built over sacred spaces. Ignored the seasons. Took more than the sea gave."
"And the sea took back," Marlowe said, barely breathing.
Elise nodded. "After the Granger boat went down, they needed someone to blame. And they chose my mother. Said she was a sea witch. Said she called the storm."
"And your father?" Marlowe asked Caspian.
He sat down beside his mother, his face solemn. "He was one of the crew on the Granger. One of the only survivors."
Elise added quietly, "He defended us, at first. Said it wasn't our fault. But when the pressure came—when the whole town turned—he turned too."
Caspian's jaw tightened. "He left. Disappeared. We never heard from him again."
Marlowe swallowed hard. "So why come back?"
Elise met her gaze. "Because something's stirring again. The same signs. The shifting tides. The dying fish. The broken wind. And because I believe you—Marlowe—might be the key to setting it right."
Marlowe blinked. "Me?"
"You carry both legacies," Elise said. "The Waverly name. And a heart open to the truth."
Marlowe stood slowly, her pulse quickening. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying," Elise replied, "that if the town keeps ignoring the sea's warnings, it won't just be a storm this time. It will be something worse. And you might be the only one who can convince them to see it."
Outside, the wind howled louder. The sea, in the distance, churned against the rocks.
And Marlowe realized that her coming-out speech at the festival had only been the beginning.
The real storm hadn't even begun.