Episode 4: The Saltwater Symphony
Scene 1: The Red Shoe Revelation
The red patent leather heel glistens under the moon, seawater pooling around its stiletto like a liquid grave. Clara crouches in the sand, Liesl's pendant pulsing warm against her collarbone. Marisol sucks air through her teeth. "That's the pair she wore the night of her 'suicide.' I watched her toss the left one into the bonfire."
Aisha prods the shoe with a driftwood stick. "So either the ocean's a drama queen, or your ghost aunt's got a killer eBay account."
Clara flips the shoe over. Etched into the sole in faded ink: LV → ES, 9/16/76. "Eli Sanderson," she breathes. "They knew each other a year before she died."
Marisol pales. "Eli never mentioned that."
Scene 2: Flashback — Liesl's Last Dance, 1976
Liesl Voss dances barefoot on Widow's Point, a bottle of absinthe in one hand, the other clutching Eli's flannel shirt. The fisherman's son—now a broad-shouldered 24-year-old—tries to steady her. "They're saying you're cursed," he murmurs. "The gallery fire, the mayor's son going missing after he grabbed you—"
She spins away, her crimson dress whipping like a flag. "Let them talk! I'll paint the whole town red with their lies." Her laughter dies as headlights crest the cliff road. "Shit. The Committee's early."
Eli grips her waist. "The what?"
Three Cadillacs roll to a stop. Men in charcoal suits emerge, their faces blurred in the fog. The tallest tosses a burlap sack at Liesl's feet. Inside: charred canvas scraps and a photo of her sister Marisol walking home from school.
"Last warning, Miss Voss," the man says. "The women of Storm's Hollow belong to the tide. Paint their truth again, and we'll anchor your sister to the seabed."
Scene 3: The Committee's Web
Clara slaps the red shoe onto Eli's bait shop counter. "Start talking."
The old fisherman freezes, a squid half-cleaned in his hands. "She made me swear. The night they threatened Marisol, Liesl came to me with a plan. Said she'd fake her death, disappear until the Committee fell. I was supposed to be her alibi—we'd meet at midnight to stage the suicide. But she never showed."
Aisha holds up the shoe's inscription. "ES. That's you. Why'd she carve your initials?"
Eli's knife slips, nicking his thumb. "We were… involved. After Naomi died. It wasn't—"
Marisol slams her palms on the counter. "You let me mourn her for 45 years! You watched me blame myself!"
"I tried to find her!" Eli's voice cracks. "The next morning, the Committee left this on my boat." He rummages under rotting nets to produce a rusted tackle box. Inside: a severed finger wearing Liesl's opal ring.
Clara recoils. "But the call last night—"
"Was either a cruel joke," Eli says, "or the start of a game that's already killed three generations of Voss women."
Scene 4: The Instagram Trap
Clara's phone buzzes incessantly in her back pocket. Her mother has posted a TikTok slideshow: #FamilyHeartbreak, featuring childhood photos of Clara set to a maudlin piano cover of "Mad World." The caption: Our daughter is mentally ill and missing. Help us bring her home.
Comments pour in:
@SunshineGirlFan93: OMG I knew her "art" was a cry for help!
@CorporateBarbie: That cottage is a crack den. I've reported it to the police.
Aisha snatches the phone. "Time to weaponize your trauma, Hayes." She live-streams Clara standing before Liesl's recovered paintings, the pendant glowing.
"Meet Liesl Voss," Clara declares, zooming in on the Silent Wife ashes in Liesl's journal. "My parents paid the gallery to burn her work. Just like they're trying to burn me." She pans to her sculpture from the bonfire—the unbroken sea glass figure. "I'm not missing. I'm the first thing that's ever been found in this town."
The video trends in 12 minutes.
Scene 5: The Tide Pool Ritual
Marisol leads them to a sea cave at low tide, its walls etched with generations of women's names. "Liesl's great-grandmother started this. Every Voss woman adds her mark before her 25th birthday." She points to crude carvings:
Annette Voss, 1923 — Drowned by husband
Margaux Voss, 1941 — Silenced by Committee
Clara runs her fingers over the blank spot where Liesl's name should be. "Why's hers missing?"
"She refused." Marisol unearths a tin of indigo pigment. "Said she'd rather be a rumor than a epitaph. Your turn."
Clara dips her thumb in the dye. As she presses it to the stone, the cave thrums. Saltwater rises, swirling into phantom shapes—women weaving kelp into nooses, mothers force-feeding daughters lies. The visions crescendo until Clara's pendant lasers a beam onto the cave's ceiling, revealing a hidden map painted in luminescent plankton.
Aisha snaps photos. "It's the harbor! That X is under the old cannery."
Scene 6: The Cannery's Secret
The abandoned cannery reeks of rotting fish and gasoline. Clara's flashlight catches on fresh footprints in the mold. "Someone's been here."
They follow the prints to a rusted vault door. Aisha jimmies the lock with a hairpin. Inside: a studio frozen in time. Half-finished canvases show women with tidal wave hair, their mouths stitched with fishing line. On the easel—a portrait of Clara's mother at 20, holding a baby swaddled in hundred-dollar bills.
Marisol chokes. "Liesl knew the Hayes family. Before your parents moved to New York."
Clara opens a moth-eaten ledger. Page after page documents offshore transfers from "Hayes Holdings" to the Storm's Hollow Committee. The last entry: Payment for Clara Margaret Hayes, delivery and disposition. Dated the day she was born.
"Disposition," Aisha reads. "Like… arranging a funeral?"
The vault door slams shut.
Scene 7: The Breath Hold
Darkness. The sound of seawater gushing through pipes.
"They're flooding the room!" Marisol screams.
Clara's phone floats in the rising water. 3% battery. She dials Eli.
"Kid? Where are you—?"
"Cannery vault! The Committee's—" Saltwater engulfs her.
Eli's voice dims. "Hold your breath. I'm coming."
The women stack paintings to reach a ceiling vent. Aisha boosts Clara up. "Go! We'll tread water."
Clara wriggles through the vent, rust slicing her palms. She emerges onto the cannery roof as Eli's truck plows through the gates.
Three Committee SUVs corner him. Men in plague doctor masks drag Eli out.
"Run, Clara!" he roars.
She doesn't. Drawing Liesl's pendant from her shirt, Clara presses it to the roof's weathervane. Lightning forks from the storm clouds, striking the metal rod. The resulting EMP blast fries the vault's electronic lock.
Marisol and Aisha burst out as the Committee advances. Clara stands her ground, the pendant now fused to her skin. "You took Liesl. You took Naomi. You won't take us."
The men laugh. Then scream.
The harbor erupts. A tsunami of women's ghosts rises, their skeletal hands dragging the Committee into the depths.
Cliffhanger: The Lighthouse
At dawn, Clara finds Eli's boat adrift, his phone taped to the helm. A voicemail plays:
"If you're hearing this, they got me. Check the lighthouse. Liesl's there… and God help you, so is your—"
Gunfire cuts him off.
The camera pans to Storm's Hollow Lighthouse, abandoned since 1976. In its highest window, a shadow moves—a woman dancing in a crimson dress, one foot bare, the other clad in red patent leather.