Captain Caspian Marlowe ( FIFTY YEAR'S LATER)
Fifty years.
I dipped the quill in ink and added another tally mark to the page. The number stared back at me, black and damning: 247.
Two hundred and forty-seven souls. Two hundred and forty-seven people who heard my voice and walked into the sea. Two hundred and forty-seven deaths written in my hand because I couldn't trust my cursed mouth to form the words.
The logbook was ancient, salvaged from a shipwreck decades ago. Its pages were filled now, front to back, with names when I knew them, descriptions when I didn't. The sailor on the beach. The village on the cliffs. The fishing crew who came too close. The merchant who thought the lighthouse was abandoned. Every single one.
I set the quill down and looked around my prison. The Widow's Lighthouse had been abandoned long before I claimed it, its keeper lost to a storm that had shattered the lens and left the tower dark. Now it suited me perfectly, a tomb for a monster who couldn't die.
The circular room was bare except for the essentials. A sleeping mat. A table. The logbook. Rainwater collected in barrels because I couldn't risk going to the mainland. Fish I caught with my hands in the shallows when the hunger became too much. And the ghosts.
They stood along the walls, translucent and silent. The young sailor from the beach. The mother clutching her infant. The old fisherman with kind eyes. All of them watching me with expressions that held no anger, no accusation, just an awful, endless sadness.
They'd appeared one by one over the years, each new ghost taking their place in my gallery of shame. They never spoke. Never moved. They just... watched.
"Good morning," I whispered to them, my voice barely a breath.
Even a whisper was dangerous. I'd learned that the hard way, when a seabird had landed on my windowsill and I'd thoughtlessly greeted the dawn. The bird had flown straight into the rocks below, over and over, until there was nothing left but feathers and blood.
The ghosts didn't respond. They never did.
I stood, my joints creaking. Fifty years, and my body hadn't aged a day past thirty. The curse saw to that, preserving me in my prime like a fly in amber. My hair was still dark, my face still unlined. Only my eyes had changed, still that faint, unnatural blue that glowed in the darkness.
And the gills. Always the gills. The scars on my neck that split open whenever I entered the water, allowing me to breathe beneath the waves. I tried to use them to end this. God knows I'd tried.
The first time was a week after the village. I'd tied stones to my feet and thrown myself from the highest cliff I could find. I'd sunk into the darkness, waiting for my lungs to burst, for the pressure to crush me. But the gills had opened. And I'd breathe.
I'd tried again and again over the years. Drowning. Starvation. Even throwing myself onto rocks from the lighthouse's highest point. Each time, my body had healed. Each time, the curse had dragged me back from death's door.
Thalassa wanted me to live. To suffer. To remember everything, all the furking pain I had caused her.. Thunder rumbled in the distance, pulling me from my thoughts. I moved to the broken window, looking out at the churning sea. Dark clouds massed on the horizon, and the wind had that sharp, electric smell that promised a bad storm.
My chest tightened. Storms meant ships driven off course. Ships meant sailors. Sailors meant..
No. I pressed my forehead against the cold stone. Please, not again. But the sea didn't care about my prayers. It never had.
The storm hit at sunset, turning the world into a maelstrom of wind and water. I huddled in the lighthouse, hands clamped over my ears, trying to block out the thunder that sounded too much like cannon fire. Then I heard it. The crack of wood. The screams.
I ran to the window. Through the sheets of rain, I could see it, a merchant vessel, broken against the rocks below the lighthouse. Its mast was snapped, its hull split open. Men struggled in the water, clinging to debris, crying for help.
My heart lurched. Without thinking, I grabbed a coil of rope and ran for the door. I had to help them. I had to—
The young sailor's ghost stood in my path, blocking the door. He shook his head slowly, his dead eyes pleading.
"Move!" I tried to push past him, but my hands passed through his form like smoke. "They're dying!"
He didn't move. Behind him, the other ghosts had gathered, forming a wall of the dead. All of them shaking their heads. All of them begging me to stop.
"I won't speak!" The words burst from me in desperation. "I swear, I won't make a sound! Just let me help them!"
Another scream from outside. Fainter now. Weaker. I shoved through the ghosts, feeling their cold wash over me like a wave. I burst from the lighthouse into the storm, rope clutched in my hands, and scrambled down the rocky path to the shore.
The survivors had made it to the beach. Three of them, collapsed on the sand, coughing up seawater. A fourth was still in the water, struggling to reach land.
I ran into the waves, my gills splitting open as the water touched my neck. The transition was instant, air to water, lungs to gills. I swam out to the drowning man, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him toward shore.
He fought me weakly, half-conscious. I pulled him onto the sand beside his crewmates and stepped back, breathing hard through my nose.
They were alive. All four of them. I could save them. I could actually save someone for once. The closest man stirred. His eyes fluttered open, focusing on me with difficulty. Blood ran from a gash on his temple.
"Thank... God..." His voice was barely audible over the storm. "Thank you... who...?"
I opened my mouth to tell him not to speak, to warn him to cover his ears.
But how could I warn him without speaking?
I gestured frantically, pointing to my mouth, shaking my head. The man frowned, confused. His companions were stirring now, too, groaning as they regained consciousness.
"Are you... mute?" the first man asked. "Can't you…."
"Run." The word slipped out before I could stop it. Barely a whisper, but it was enough.
The man's eyes glazed over. That terrible, empty smile spread across his face. He stood, swaying, and began walking toward the water.
"No, no, no!" I clamped both hands over my mouth, but the other three had heard. They rose like puppets on strings, following their companion toward the waves.
I grabbed the nearest one, tried to pull him back, but he was stronger than he looked. They all were, the curse gave them unnatural strength in their compulsion. He shoved me aside and kept walking.
I could only watch as they entered the sea. As they waded deeper, the storm pulling them under one by one. The water took them all.
I fell to my knees in the sand, rain streaming down my face, mixing with tears I didn't remember starting. My hands were still clamped over my mouth, as if that could take back what I had done. The ghosts appeared on the beach around me. Four new faces, watching with that same unbearable sadness.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into my palms, the words muffled and broken. "I'm so sorry. I was trying to help. I was trying..."
But trying meant nothing. Intentions meant nothing. I was death, and death didn't care about remorse.
I don't know how long I knelt there. Long enough for the storm to pass. Long enough for the rain to stop and the moon to break through the clouds, painting the beach in silver.
When I finally stood, my legs were numb. I walked along the shore like a ghost myself, looking at the wreckage the sea had returned. Broken planks. Torn canvas. A ship's wheel, split in half. And something else.
A leather satchel, sealed with wax and wrapped in oilcloth. The kind of protection someone used when they absolutely couldn't afford to lose something to the water.
I picked it up carefully, my hands shaking. I shouldn't look. I should throw it back into the sea and return to my lighthouse and add four more tallies to my logbook. But I opened it anyway. Inside was a journal, bound in waterproof canvas. The first page bore an inscription in careful handwriting:
'Property of Theron Ashford
If found, please return to the Ashford Estate, Portsmouth'
I turned the page, and more words leapt out at me:
Day 47 of my search. Still no sign of Marcus. The locals speak of cursed waters near the Widow's Lighthouse, of ships that vanish and sailors who walk into the sea. They say a monster lives in the old tower, a creature that lures men to their deaths with a siren's song.
They beg me to turn back. To accept that my brother is lost.
But I cannot. I will not. Marcus is alive. I know it. I feel it. And I will search every cursed inch of this damned coast until I find him.
Tomorrow, I sail for the lighthouse.
My hands clenched on the journal, the leather creaking under my grip.
The man I'd just killed, one of them had been Theron Ashford. He'd been searching for his brother in these waters. He'd come here looking for answers, for hope. And I sent him to the same death I'd given to 246 others.
I looked up at the four new ghosts standing at the water's edge. One of them had to be Theron. Which one? The tall one with the kind face? The young one with determined eyes?
It didn't matter. They were all dead because of me. I clutched the journal to my chest and walked back toward the lighthouse, my new ghosts following behind. The moon lit my path, cold and indifferent.
Inside, I sat at my table and opened the logbook. Dipped my quill in ink. Added four more tally marks.
248. 249. 250. 251.
Then I set Theron Ashford's journal beside it and read his words by candlelight, the story of a man who'd loved his brother enough to sail into cursed waters, searching for a hope that would never come.
And I wondered, not for the first time, which of us was the real monster. The sea outside my window whispered its answer, but I'd stopped listening to the sea fifty years ago…..