Mystery
Rain slanted across the window of the Seabrink Post Office, needling the glass like it wanted to write something on the surface. The last ferry horn moaned far out in the bay, its sound swallowed by thunder. Ava Kerr stood behind the counter, flicking through the small stack of undelivered mail that nobody wanted to claim after dark.
The storm had no sound in Nareth Hollow that night—only a terrible stillness, as if even thunder feared to disturb the old workshop at the end of the crooked lane. There, behind warped shutters and smoke-blackened panes, the Clockmaster worked.
The stairs spiraled upward like a question Mara could never answer. One hundred and forty-seven steps, worn smooth by decades of footfalls—hers now, her brother’s before, their father’s before that. Each evening she climbed them, hand trailing the iron rail, gulls crying their accusations beyond the salt-streaked windows. The wind pressed against the tower’s stones, a sound like breathing, like the sea itself had lungs.