Episode 5: The Saltwater Symphony

Scene 1: Storm's Embrace

The lighthouse looms like a bone-white sentinel against the bruised dawn sky. Clara wades through the harbor's shallows, the pendant seared into her sternum throbbing in time with the waves. Behind her, Marisol clutches Eli's tackle box, the severed finger inside tapping against the lid. Aisha scans the beach with Eli's shotgun.

"EMP blast probably fried the security cameras," Aisha says, kicking a beached jellyfish. "But if the Committee's got plague doctor goons on payroll…"

A guttural wail cuts through the fog. The water ahead churns as four spectral women rise, their hair made of eelgrass, eyes glowing like bioluminescent plankton. They circle Clara, singing in a language of whale calls and breaking glass.

Marisol gasps. "The Drowned Choir. Grandma Annette used to warn us—they drag oath-breakers to the trench."

Clara steps forward, the pendant's light casting prismatic shards across the mist. "We're not breaking oaths. We're keeping them."

The lead spirit drifts closer, her brine-ravaged face inches from Clara's. "The Voss line ends tonight. The tide demands its queen."

"Wrong." Clara presses her glowing palm to the spirit's chest. "The tide's about to get a mutiny."

The choir shrieks as the pendant's energy engulfs them, dissolving their forms into seafoam.

Aisha cocks the shotgun. "Remind me to never piss you off."

Scene 2: Flashback — The Keeper's Lie, 1977

Liesl Voss claws at the lighthouse's brick walls, her fingernails splintering. The Committee had sealed her in a lead-lined room on the third floor, its single window barred with driftwood iron.

"Eli!" she screams hoarsely. "I'm here!"

The door creaks open. Not Eli—Mrs. Hayes, 25 years younger, her blonde bob immaculate. She sets a tray of broth on the floor. "You need to stop. My husband's company can't afford another scandal."

Liesl lunges, chains yanking her back. "You stole my niece! You took Marisol's baby!"

Mrs. Hayes adjusts her pearl necklace. "Clara's better off with us. The Committee agreed to… modify her records. A Hayes heir can't have a madwoman's blood."

"She's a Voss! She'll burn your empire to the—"

A syringe glints. "Sleep, Miss Voss. The tide will have you soon enough."

Scene 3: The Lighthouse Labyrinth

The lighthouse door groans open, revealing a spiral staircase choked with barnacles. Clara's phone light catches words carved into the steps:

Turn back (1942)

They're watching (1955)

She's in the walls (1977)

Aisha traces the 1977 carving. "Liesl."

They ascend to a room strewn with rotting canvases. Clara freezes. The paintings—all of her. Clara at five, chasing seagulls. Clara at sixteen, vomiting champagne at her debutante ball. Clara last month, asleep in her Brooklyn studio.

Marisol picks up a half-finished portrait. "Liesl's been watching you. Through the Committee's eyes."

A metallic click echoes. The floor tiles shift, rearranging into a mosaic of the Voss women's names. Clara's thumbprint, still stained indigo from the cave, fits into the blank space where Liesl's name should be.

The wall splits open.

Scene 4: The Ribbon Room

Thousands of red satin ribbons hang from the ceiling, each tied to a Polaroid. Clara flips the nearest photo: her mother at 22, signing documents in a boardroom. The ribbon's inscription: Hayes-Covenant Pact: 10M annual donation for Clara's custody.

Marisol unties a ribbon marked Naomi's "accident." The attached photo shows Naomi Voss, Clara's biological mother, handcuffed to a cinder block.

"They sold me," Clara whispers. "Before I was born."

Aisha pulls a ribbon labeled Final Disposition. The Polaroid: a newborn Clara in an incubator, Mrs. Hayes smiling beside a man in a plague doctor mask. The ribbon's edge is singed.

"Fire cleanses all sins," Marisol reads. "That's the Committee's motto. They planned to kill you in a hospital 'accident,' but Liesl…"

"Liesl what?"

The door slams. A familiar voice purrs: "Liesl made a deal."

Clara turns. Mrs. Hayes stands in the doorway, a pearl-handled revolver aimed at Marisol's chest.

Scene 5: Mother's Truth

"You were supposed to die the night of the gallery fire," Mrs. Hayes says, circling them. "But Liesl promised the Committee something more valuable than your life."

Clara's pendant flares. "What?"

"Her voice." Mrs. Hayes tosses a Dictaphone onto the floor. Liesl's voice crackles:

"I'll stop painting. I'll stop breathing if I have to. Just let Clara live."

A man's voice replies: "The child becomes ours. Her art, her loves, her death—all ours to design."

Mrs. Hayes smiles. "Your Instagram stunt? The grief TikTok? All part of the narrative. Mental decline, spontaneous suicide… predictable tragedy for a Voss."

Clara lunges. The gun fires.

Scene 6: The Breath Between Waves

Marisol falls, crimson blossoming across her overalls. Aisha catches her, pressing a wad of ribbons to the wound.

Clara roars, the pendant burning white-hot. The lighthouse quakes as seawater bursts through cracks, forming a liquid vise around Mrs. Hayes.

"You want a Voss death?" Clara hisses. "Let's drown."

The water drags Mrs. Hayes toward the window. She claws at the floor, pearls scattering. "You need me! The ritual requires three generations—"

A shadow darts across the room. Eli, bloodied but alive, tackles Mrs. Hayes. They crash through the glass.

"ELI!" Clara screams.

He grins up at her as they fall. "Tell Liesl… I kept my oath."

The rocks below claim them both.

Scene 7: The Tide Queen's Rise

The lighthouse beacon ignites, its light now the same cerulean as Clara's pendant. The surviving Voss women stagger to the lantern room.

Liesl Voss waits.

Not a ghost. Not alive. Her body is a collage of seaglass and shipwreck timber, her eyes whirlpools. She presses a barnacle-encrusted hand to Clara's cheek.

"You broke the contract, little tide. Now we rise."

Outside, the harbor boils. Every woman lost to the Committee breaches the surface, their combined voices a tsunami of rage.

Clara grips Liesl's hand. "We rise together."

Cliffhanger: The Covenant's Crown

In Manhattan, Mr. Hayes watches the Storm's Hollow news coverage on his penthouse TV. A knock startles him.

The Committee's leader removes his plague doctor mask, revealing a face identical to Clara's.

"Hello, Father," the man says. "Ready to pay your dues?"

The screen cuts to static.