Read Chapter 13: The Phantom Ship

The voice came again, closer this time—not from the fog rolling off the sea, but from the water itself. Isabelle turned toward the sound, her boots sinking into the wet sand of the chapel floor where the tide had crept in while they sheltered. The locket in her palm had gone so cold it felt like a chip of ice against her skin.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Yann was already on his feet, his jaw tight. “Hear what?”

“A woman’s voice. Calling my name.”

He listened, head tilted, but the only sound was the groan of the ruined chapel’s timbers and the relentless suck of the tide pulling at the shore. “There’s nothing out there, Isabelle. Just the wind.”

But she knew what she’d heard. It wasn’t the first time. And as she stepped through the broken archway of the chapel door, she saw it.

A ship.

It emerged from the fog like a figure stepping out of shadow—a tall, three-masted sailing vessel with sails the color of bone, hanging slack at first, then filling with a wind that didn’t stir the air around her. The hull was dark, almost black, slick with brine as if it had just surfaced from the deep. It moved without sound, cutting through the water with an unnatural grace, its bow aimed directly at the island’s only natural harbor.

“Yann,” she breathed. “Tell me you see it.”

He came up behind her, and she felt his hand close on her shoulder—a steadying grip that tightened when he saw the ship. “That’s not possible,” he said. “No vessel that size could navigate these rocks. Not in this weather. Not ever.”

The ship drifted closer, and Isabelle saw the figures on deck. They stood motionless along the railing—tall shapes in dark oilskins, faces obscured by shadow, none of them moving. None of them seemed to breathe. At the helm, a single figure stood apart from the others, smaller, draped in white that caught the faint moonlight filtering through the fog.

“We should hide,” Yann said, pulling at her arm.

But Isabelle couldn’t move. Her legs felt rooted, her gaze locked on the figure in white. The woman—if it was a woman—seemed to look directly at her across the stretching water. And though the distance was too great for any expression to be visible, Isabelle felt the weight of a stare that cut through her like a blade.

Yann dragged her behind a crumbling wall of the chapel. She stumbled, her knees hitting the damp stone, and the contact broke the spell. She could hear the ship now—the whisper of water against its hull, the creak of timbers that sounded like the groan of something old and tired.

“Isabelle.” His voice was low, urgent. “What is that thing?”

“I think it’s the first lady’s ship,” she said, the words coming out before she could think them. “The one that carried her here. When she made the covenant.”

He stared at her. “She drowned. Three hundred years ago. Ships don’t come back.”

“This one just did.”

The ship eased into the shallows, its hull grinding against the rocks with a scrape that sounded almost like a sigh. No anchor was dropped. No ropes were thrown. The crew stood frozen at the rails as a gangplank extended of its own accord, reaching toward the shore like a tongue tasting the air.

A figure descended. The woman in white.

She walked as if the air itself supported her, her feet barely disturbing the sand. Her dress was the color of moonlight on water, layered and flowing, though no breeze stirred it. Her face was beautiful and terrible—ageless, sharp-boned, with eyes as dark as the sea at midnight. Isabelle knew her instantly. She had seen that face in the vision beneath the castle, the woman who had walked willingly into the water with a stone in her skirt pocket.

“Isabelle Marchand.” The voice was not loud, but it filled the air, weaving through the fog like a current. “You have been marked. You have been chosen.”

Yann moved to step in front of Isabelle, but she caught his arm. “No. Let me.”

She rose, brushing the grit from her palms, and walked out from behind the wall to face the figure standing at the waterline. The woman’s eyes tracked her approach—dark, hungry, patient.

“Chosen for what?” Isabelle asked. Her voice was steadier than she felt.

The spirit smiled. It was not a kind expression. It was the smile of a trap closing. “You know what you are. You have felt it—the pull of the water, the voice in the dark, the way your blood quickens when the moon climbs high. It is in you, child. Just as it was in her.”

“Yvonne,” Isabelle whispered.

“Yvonne Marchand. My descendant. My vessel.” The spirit took a step closer, and the air grew colder. “She made the choice willingly. As did the others who came before you. As will you.”

“I won’t,” Isabelle said. “I’ll break it. Whatever covenant you made, I’ll undo it.”

The spirit laughed—a sound like shells grinding beneath a heel. “Break it? You cannot break what was freely given. The covenant is not a chain around your neck. It is a channel in your blood. You feel it already, don’t you? That longing. That voice. It has been calling to you since the moment you set foot on this coast. And it grows stronger every night the moon waxes.”

Isabelle’s hand closed over the locket at her throat. It pulsed weakly against her fingers, a faint tremor of warmth in the cold.

“You have until the next full moon,” the spirit said. “When it rises, the tide will turn, the gates will open, and you will come to me. Willingly. Unwillingly. It matters not.” She tilted her head, her dark eyes glinting. “But if you do not, the covenant will take you as it took the others—not gently, not quickly. The sea will claim you in pieces, and your name will join the ones carved into that chapel floor.”

Isabelle glanced back at the inscriptions she’d read only hours ago. Every woman, every Marchand, every date of death. The list that ended not with an answer but with a scratched-out year.

“They tried to break it,” Isabelle said. “The women who came before me. They all tried.”

“Yes,” the spirit said. There was something almost like pride in her voice. “They tried. Some in fire. Some in salt. Some in blood. They drowned, child. All of them. Some took longer to understand they were already dead the moment they challenged me.”

“Not all of them drowned.” The words came out before Isabelle could stop them. “My mother’s sister didn’t drown. The sea took her, but she didn’t go willingly.”

The spirit’s smile vanished. For a moment, her face flickered—an expression of fury so swift and black that Isabelle took an involuntary step back.

“Adèle,” the spirit hissed. “She tried to return what was mine. Her offering was rejected. The sea does not forgive theft.”

“What theft?” Isabelle pressed. “What did she try to return?”

The spirit was silent. The fog swirled around her, thickening, and for a moment she seemed to dissolve into it, her silhouette becoming translucent before solidifying again. When she spoke, her voice had changed—colder, like the depths where no light reached.

“You are clever, Isabelle. But cleverness will not save you. Not from me. Not from the blood.”

She turned and walked back toward the ship, her feet leaving no prints on the sand. As she reached the gangplank, she paused and looked back over her shoulder.

“The next full moon. Find the truth beneath the turning waters, or be claimed by them. It is the only choice you have left.”

She stepped onto the ship, and as she did, the crew came alive—not with motion, but with dissolution. Their bodies frayed at the edges, unraveling into sea mist, until nothing remained of them but the faint suggestion of men against the ship’s dark hull. The vessel itself began to recede, sliding backward into the fog as if the sea were pulling it home.

Isabelle stood at the waterline, shivering, until the ship had vanished entirely. The fog thinned, revealing the open water and the faint first light of dawn on the horizon.

Yann came up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, her body shaking.

“A month,” she said. “She gave me a month.”

“She gave you a threat,” Yann said. “Not a deadline. Tomorrow night is the lowest tide. We have the keys. We can still break this before the next moon even rises.”

Isabelle looked at him, at the stubborn set of his jaw, and she felt the ghost of warmth return to the locket against her chest.

“She said Adèle was trying to steal something. ‘What was mine.’” Isabelle’s mind raced. “The seawater she tried to return—that was part of it, wasn’t it? But there was something else. Something Amélie hid beneath the pool. She said she wasn’t strong enough. The spirit called it theft.”

Yann watched her, waiting.

“Tomorrow night,” Isabelle said slowly, “we find out what Yvonne kept that she was supposed to give up. And we give it back.”