Threads of the Past

The cemetery clung to the edge of Blackthorn Cove like a barnacle on a rotting hull. Evelyn picked her way through crooked headstones, her boots sinking into moss that swallowed the dates of the dead. Meredith Hart, 1985–2012. The dates were wrong. Her sister had vanished in 2012, but the body was never found. The tombstone was a placeholder for grief, as hollow as the lighthouse.

Fresh white lilies lay against the granite.

Evelyn knelt, fingertips brushing petals still dewy with salt spray. "Who visits a ghost?" she murmured. The flowers weren't local—Blackthorn's soil was too acidic for lilies. These had been imported, arranged with clinical precision.

A shadow fell across the grave.

"Grief makes fools of us all," said a voice behind her. Ronan Voss stood with his hands in his coat pockets, the wind tugging at his dark hair. "Your sister's memorial draws more pilgrims than the lighthouse."

Evelyn rose, wiping grave dirt onto her jeans. "Pilgrims don't leave $50 bouquets."

"Ah, but martyrs do." He crouched to examine the lilies, his cufflink glinting—a silver needle piercing a crescent moon. "Symbols matter here. White for purity, lilies for resurrection. Someone wants you to believe she's at peace."

"Or that she's watching." Evelyn's throat tightened. "Why are you here?"

"Research." Ronan produced a leather-bound journal from his satchel, its pages bristling with tabs. "The Cove Sisters buried their leaders in unmarked graves. I've always found that… poetic. Power hidden in plain sight."

A gust ripped through the cemetery, scattering lily petals. One clung to Ronan's sleeve, stark white against black wool.

"You're obsessed with them," Evelyn said.

"Obsession implies bias. I prefer curator of truths." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Tell me, Ms. Hart—when you found your sister's journal, did you notice the women in the sketches?"

"The ones with the cloaks?"

"Look closer. Their stances, their hands." He flipped to a journal page showing hooded figures circling a bonfire. "They're not mourning. They're measuring. Every stitch a covenant, every quilt a contract."

Evelyn's pulse quickened. The same coven of women appeared in her sister's journal. "Contracts for what?"

Ronan snapped the journal shut. "Survival. But you didn't come here for history lectures." He nodded toward the path. "Walk with me."

They descended the cliffside trail, the sea roaring below. Ronan paused where the gravel gave way to jagged rock. "This is where they found the first victim. Clara Voss. My great-aunt."

Evelyn froze. "The woman in the quilt?"

"The very one. Her body washed up in 1983, hair braided with Hart thread." His gaze pinned her. "Your grandmother ran the mill then."

The implication hung between them, venomous as a spider. You're not the first Hart they've blamed.

"Why tell me this?" Evelyn asked.

"Because you're digging up graves, and I dislike wasted effort." He plucked a thread from her sleeve—navy blue, torn from the lighthouse quilt. "Your sister left breadcrumbs, not a map. Follow them, and you'll starve."

"And you have a better compass?"

Ronan's gloved hand brushed hers as he pressed a slip of paper into her palm. Coordinates. "The Cove answers in tides and whispers. Learn its language."

He left her standing at the cliff's edge, the coordinates burning her skin. When she unfolded the paper, a single red thread coiled inside—Hart madder root dye, unmistakable.