Episode 6: The Saltwater Symphony

Scene 1: The Crown's Whisper

The lighthouse beacon dims as Liesl's seaglass form begins to crack. Clara clutches her aunt's disintegrating hand, saltwater stinging her eyes. "You can't leave now—not when we're so close!"

Liesl's voice echoes like a tidepool vortex. "The Covenant's Crown anchors them. Find it beneath the Founder's Maw… and shatter our chains." Her body collapses into a heap of kelp and shattered glass.

Marisol limps forward, her bandaged shoulder seeping. "The Founder's Maw—that cave where they drowned Grandma Annette. It's a slaughterhouse."

Aisha reloads Eli's shotgun. "Cool. Let's turn it into a grave."

Scene 2: Flashback — The First Drowning, 1923

Annette Voss, 24, kneels in the surf, her wrists bound with sailor's rope. The Committee's forebear—a man with Clara's eyes—presses a rusted crown to her brow. "Your daughters will serve the tide until a Voss heir wears this crown willingly."

Annette spits in his face. "My blood will boil your bones."

He shoves her underwater. Bubbles rise as she convulses. When the crown resurfaces, it glows with stolen light.

Scene 3: The Fractured Alliance

Storm's Hollow's streets teem with panicked tourists. News choppers buzz overhead, filming the spectral army of Voss women haunting the harbor. Aisha hacks into the town's emergency broadcast system:

"ATTENTION DICKHEADS. The Committee's got a pedophile bunker under the old yacht club. Bring molotovs."

Marisol pulls Clara aside. "The Maw's guarded by more than men. The crown… it warps minds. My mother tried to reach it in '68. Came back chewing her own fingers."

Clara unearths Liesl's final gift—a conch shell filled with indigo dye. "Then we rewrite the rules."

Scene 4: The Maw's Lament

The cave entrance yawns like a rotten mouth. Inside, tidal pools pulse with bioluminescent parasites. Clara's pendant darkens as they wade deeper.

"Stop." Aisha points her phone light at the walls. Hundreds of preserved tongues hang on fishing lines, each labeled: Margaux Voss, 1941. Naomi Voss, 2002. Liesl Voss, 1977.

Marisol retches. "They stole their voices. Stole their truth."

A granite pedestal rises from the water, the crown floating above it—a circlet of black coral and infant teeth. Clara reaches out.

"Don't!" The Committee leader steps from the shadows, plague doctor mask off. Clara's mirror image smirks. "Put it on, daughter. See what we've built for you."

Scene 5: Bloodline's Bargain

Clara freezes. "You're not my father."

"No," the man croons. "I'm every father. Every husband who ever silenced a Voss." His skin ripples, morphing—now Mr. Hayes, now Eli, now a hundred dead Committee men. "The crown needs a queen. Your mother begged to wear it, but her blood was too… common."

Marisol lunges with a harpoon. The leader backhands her into the water. Aisha fires—the shotgun clicks, jammed with kelp.

Clara grips the conch. "You want a queen? Let's dance."

She crushes the shell, spilling indigo dye into the tide. The cave erupts.

Scene 6: Coronation at Knife-Point

The spectral Voss women surge into the Maw, their ghostly hands fusing with Clara's. She seizes the crown.

"It's not a tool—it's a collar," Annette's voice hisses. "Break it!"

The Committee leader laughs. "You'll doom them. No crown, no anchor—their souls scatter to the void."

Clara studies the circlet. "Liesl figured it out. The crown doesn't bind us. It binds you." She rams it onto the leader's head.

He shrieks as the coral digs into his skull. The cave quakes, tongues raining down as the preserved voices return to their owners' ghosts.

Marisol rises, saltwater swirling around her. "Rot in hell, you bastard."

The Voss women chant. The crown explodes.

Scene 7: Ebb and Flow

Sunrise stains the harbor crimson. Clara washes ashore beside the crumbled Maw, the Committee's leader reduced to a barnacle-crusted skeleton. Aisha drags Marisol onto the sand, both coughing up seawater.

The town is eerily quiet. Tourists and Committee lackeys flee as the Voss ghosts patrol the streets.

At the lighthouse, Liesl's voice whispers from the beacon: "The tide recedes… but never disappears."

Marisol grips Clara's shoulder. "They're free. You're free."

Clara stares at the horizon. "Not yet."

Epilogue: The First Breath

One year later.

The Storm's Hollow Gazette headlines:

CORRUPTION TRIALS CONCLUDE: HAYES EMPIRE DISSOLVED

ART INSTALLATION "SALTWATER SANCTUARY" DRAWS THOUSANDS

LOCALS REPORT "FRIENDLY GHOSTS" PATROLLING BEACHES

Clara sands driftwood in her rebuilt cannery studio. Aisha's voice crackles over a walkie-talkie: "Heads up—your fanclub's here."

Three teen girls peer through the window, clutching Silent Wife reproductions. Clara invites them in, showing them how to weave kelp into canvases.

Marisol tends the tidepool cave, repainting faded names. She adds two new entries:

Liesl Voss, 1977—Burned the Sea

Eli Sanderson, 2023—Kept His Oath

As dusk falls, Clara wades into the surf. The water glows where the crown sank. A familiar hand—half flesh, half seaglass—briefly grasps hers.

Somewhere, a woman laughs. Somewhere, a fire is lit.

the end...