Dusk

14 Jul, 2026

Dusk in Wrenfell is a quiet negotiation between the fog and the last of the light, and the fog always wins on points.

Then the lighthouse wakes.

The beam swings out over the water — once — a clean white blade through the grey, exactly as a lighthouse should. The fishermen do not look up.

Then it turns a second time. And this second turn is wrong in a way your eyes report and your mind declines to process: the beam sweeps not over the sea but over the town, low and slow, like a hand feeling along a shelf — and where it passes, the fog swirls inward, carrying something with it, glinting, streaming toward the light. It might be dust. It might be moths.

It might be hours.

The beam completes its circuit and goes dark, and every fisherman on the harbour exhales at once.

• Take the cliff path. Now, while you still have the nerve.
• Not yet. Back to the harbour.