- Home
- Natalia Macias Lucia
Girls of Salt and Sea (Halcyon Bay Book 1)
Girls of Salt and Sea (Halcyon Bay Book 1) Read online
Table of Contents
Title Page
Praise for | Girls of Salt and Sea
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for
Girls of Salt and Sea
“Lucia’s mesmerizing prose creates a vibrant world you’ll never want to leave. Her characters leap off the page and dive right into your heart, tugging you along through every clue uncovered, fight endured, and kiss savored. A magical debut which is sure to be the first of many enchanting works from this author.”
—Vanessa Rasanen, author of On These Black Sands
“Set in an atmospheric world of ghost stories, folklore, and quirky characters, Lucia's debut is immersive and addictive from page one. If you love Agatha Christie...or any stories full of mystery and touched by the supernatural and eerie, this book is absolutely for you.”
—Rachel L. Schade, author of the Cursed Empire series
“All the stars. I loved every part of this book. Lucia’s writing is beautiful, and her words just jumped off the page. From the very first chapter I was hooked and couldn't put it down!”
—Emily Schneider, author of Scales of Ash & Smoke
“An atmospheric debut that kept me guessing at every turn, Girls of Salt and Sea is the perfect summer read for anyone looking for a seaside, small town ghost story. One of my favorite reads of the year...I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!”
—Emily VanderBent, author of the Crimson Time series
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Natalia Macias Lucia
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without express written permission from the copyright owner.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Lightkeeper Press LLC
www.nataliamlucia.com
Cover Design by Maria Spada
HB: 979-8-9863441-8-8
PB: 979-8-9863441-7-1
eBook: 979-8-9863441-2-6
LCCN: 2022910938
First Edition: August 2022
Dedication
To those who look out at the sea and wonder.
Chapter One
The swirling waters of Halcyon Bay greet me like a monster roused from a long sleep. An angry rush of waves surge atop a frothy sea, licking up the sides of the old ferryboat, tossing it up and back. Each swell threatens to drag it down to a sunken graveyard, to that final port of call reserved for wrecks and cursed sailors.
I press my palm to the salt-drenched glass, gulping down a breath as a spit of land comes into view...a distant island shrouded in mist, rising ghost-like from the sea.
The sky above the island is alight with electricity. Crackling yellow veins weave through the clouds, chased by low rumblings of thunder. The wind whirrs and whooshes in frustrated spurts as a starless night devours the last morsel of sunlight. Mom’s words drift to the surface of my mind—
“Don’t go back to Halcyon Bay.”
I shiver against the tense edges of her warning, pushing it down to a quieter place. Try as I may to silence the noise, to ignore her words and the threat of the howling storm, it all feels like a menacing omen as I blow into town.
The passenger cabin is packed with other anxious commuters like me, sardined into tight benches in tight rows behind the captain’s bridge. The air in the space is dank, oozing with the unmistakable punch of brine and armpit. My bench mate—a gangly man who’s spent the last hour puking into a paper bag—doubles over again, this time missing his target and dousing the crotch of his gym shorts instead, along with the seat, his feet, and, most regrettably, me.
The spatter of vomit hits my right calf, and I nearly lose my shit.
Gritting my teeth, I inch as far from the man as possible, curling my body into the crevice of the window. I swipe at my leg with the sole of my sneaker and suck in a sharp, revolted breath. Going nuclear on his swampy ass won’t help my situation any, but I’d still like to hollow out his eyeballs with a spork.
The ferry is rocked by a massive wave that strikes out like a fist. We veer rightward and I brace myself, determined not to slide into upchuck territory, my nails digging little half moons into the underside of the wooden bench. The world outside our confines is a dizzying, blue-black whirlwind, but I swallow down my nausea and fix my gaze on that widening strip of land ahead.
Halcyon Bay.
Something unusual seizes my attention, fluttering in my periphery along the fringes of the island. Amid the tendrils of lightning, a streak of pale white shoots across the landscape. It’s a milky blur, nearly translucent, like a phantom born of storms, nightmares, and darkness. A night like this begs for a ghost, I think. If only I believed in such ridiculous things. Even still, the sight of it sends an icy drip coursing through me, despite the trickle of summer-sweat slipping down my spine.
As the ferry staggers closer, I find—to my relief and subsequent horror—that the figure is not a ghost at all, but a girl in a white nightgown. She sprints across a dilapidated pier perched high above the sea, jutting from the island like a gnarled arm before reaching an abrupt, crumbling end. The nightgown clings to the girl’s tiny body, as sopping wet as the hair plastered to her cheeks. Its sweeping train trails her like an eager spectator, urging
her away from the safety of land and into the intensifying storm. Though she isn’t wearing any shoes, she moves with alarming precision, her steps confident and unhesitating, as if she’s rehearsed every single one.
The girl pauses near the end of the pier and glances back to land. I sense a flicker of panic in her, a split second of indecision, and she begins to sway. One little foot slips from the slick beams, the gown’s train dripping treacherously from the railing, and a bolt of terror scorches up my neck. I must be dreaming this.
I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again, snap the hairband at my wrist, rub my cheeks raw, anything to try to wake myself up. But then—
“Oh my God. There’s a girl on that pier!”
The shriek comes from a woman on the bench in front of mine. She whips her head around, eyes bulging, startling the newborn nuzzled into her chest. “Look!” she screams again. “She’s going to jump!”
Confusion swoops through the cabin as the other passengers scramble to see. They press close together, craning their necks, tension packing the air. A loud groan explodes from Swamp Ass’ lips as he spews a fresh puddle of chunks over the floor.
The girl on the pier spreads her skinny arms wide, stretching out into the shape of a cross. She leans her body to the wind like a fledgling bird readying for flight...and the clouds yawn open as if by command. Rivers of rain gush over the ferry windows, obscuring the island, the girl, and the pier, until all of it is swallowed up in chaos.
A cacophony of cries erupt within the cabin, the growl of our captain rising above the rest. “Where is she?” he yells, knuckles white on the wheel as he battles the twisting, seething tides.
“She was right there!” The woman in front of me raps her finger on the glass while her newborn wails at an earsplitting pitch.
Pops of lightning flicker across the sky once more, and I’m just able to make out the pier through the deluge. We’re almost beneath the monstrous structure now, and I scan the length of it, desperate, needing to lay eyes on her again. But there are no signs of life, no streaks of white. The pier stands alone in the darkness, the girl gone. Nothing more than a haunting memory.
The cabin breaks into utter pandemonium, one terrified scream clambering over the next.
“She jumped!”
“Check the water!”
“I can’t see anything!”
“Call nine-one-one!”
“Someone save her!”
“Someone save us!”
Frantic, I search the sea for a bobbing head or hand, but there’s only the crashing foam of waves, the endless, brutal downpour, and the lingering echoes of my mother’s grim warning—
“Don’t go back to Halcyon Bay.”
“Mayday, mayday!” the captain spits into his radio. “This is Captain Dave McCormick for the Coast Guard. Can anybody hear me?” His panicked voice sounds miles away and gravelly, like I’m hearing it from somewhere deep below ground. “Mayday, mayday! Captain Dave McCormick here, of Cyprus Ferry Four. Can anybody hear me—”
His voice is extinguished by a roaring thunderclap that makes the whole world shudder. I duck instinctively, squinting up at the roof, half expecting to see a smoking hole ripped through the fiberglass. The other passengers are equally distraught, dropping to their knees in fear, heads bowed under arms for shelter. Someone recites an anguished prayer. The newborn’s face goes purple as he tests his baby lungs. Swamp Ass—with nothing left in him to regurgitate—resorts to weeping into his lap.
The captain presses the radio to his mouth again. “Mayday, mayday! This is Captain Dave McCormick of Cyprus Ferry Four. We’ve lost global positioning due to the storm, but our vessel’s approximately two nautical miles from Halcyon Seaport.” His breath catches, all color draining from his face. He grits his teeth. “And we’ve...spotted a jumper...off old Prospero Pier.”
The only response to his distress call is the deafening hum of static.
Seconds tick painfully by as the captain wipes the sheen of sweat from his lip. “Can anybody hear me? I repeat, there is a girl in the water in Halcyon Bay, somewhere beneath Prospero Pier. Send a rescue crew! Mayday, mayday!”
A bitter feeling nips at my limbs like frostbite. I squeeze my eyes tight, imagining the girl’s slender body slamming against a blanket of unyielding water and rock, her ribs shattered, organs punctured, choking on her own blood.
“Don’t go back to Halcyon Bay.”
The ferry nosedives and the captain grips the wheel, spinning it sharply to the right. My temple collides against the window—an instant, jarring crack that reverberates to my toes. My vision explodes in inky black spots as something warm and wet flows down my face.
I collapse onto the vomit-pooled floor.
As everything dims to black, I think only of the girl in the pale nightgown, falling ever to strange, unknown depths.
Chapter Two
“Name?”
I swallow hard before answering, my mouth as dry as the trickle of blood caked to my neck. “My name’s Dell Costa.”
“What day of the week is it, Dell?”
“It’s Thursday...Thursday night.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“H-halcyon Bay.”
“Good. Now follow the light with your eyes, please.”
Wrapped in a thermal blanket, I lie board-stiff on an ambulance gurney, a harsh beam of fluorescent light aimed at my face. A team of industrious EMTs hover above me, fussing over the state of my brain, poking and prodding my skull for fractures. I insist that I’m fine, but they don’t spare a moment to listen. They have tests to conduct, procedures to execute, so I’m left with no choice but to lie still and wait.
My surroundings slowly come into focus. I see all sorts of boats littering a buzzing marina. A cheesy welcome sign anointing Halcyon Bay as Florida’s Last Unspoiled Paradise! Swarms of police officers, Coast Guard, and divers flitting from emergency vehicles to the docks and back. There’s a sinister haze in the post-storm atmosphere, flashing blue and red lights, the scramble and rush of people. A horrible sense of doom, thick as molasses, clinging to the sultry air.
I knew that coming back to Halcyon Bay—dipping my toes in the murky pool of my past—would be unpleasant, but never in my most dismal thoughts could I have predicted this. When we received that bit of unexpected correspondence, when Mom got sicker and I made the choice to return to this godforsaken place, how in the world was I to know what was to come?
Would knowing have changed anything at all?
* * *
When the letter arrived last week announcing the death of Virginia Klyne, I felt nothing. Not because I’m insensitive to death, or to grandmothers for that matter, but because my mother’s mother was hardly a grandmother to me.
Grandmothers are known for being familial, warm, and welcoming. They knit cable sweaters, bake pastries, attend church three times a week, and sneak candies into your pockets. At least that’s what I hear. It all sounds quite nice, objectively, but I can’t attest to any of it myself. I don’t know what kind of grandmother mine was, other than the absent kind.
To me, Virginia Klyne was more of a myth than a flesh-and-blood person, a vague and indistinct figure from my memories, like a fairytale character from an old storybook. And since Mom didn’t shed a single tear upon receiving word of her passing, I couldn’t feel too guilty for my own lack of emotion.
Still, it was a veritable surprise that Virginia had included us both in her will, despite having spent two decades apart with endless miles to separate us.
When I was four, my parents moved us away from Halcyon Bay, a small island off the west coast of Florida, and the place where I was born. I grew up instead in a log cabin nestled into the highlands of Woodbridge, Maine, about as far as you can get from Halcyon Bay without crossing the Canadian border. My parents never spoke of our island home again, and what little I knew of my time there retreated to the depths of my soupy memory pot. It all turned flavorless in my mind, utterly distant and un
recognizable. And that’s exactly how they wanted it.
Woodbridge was a sort of promised land for my parents, free from whatever troubles we’d endured on the island—troubles that were never revealed to me, no matter how often or passionately I asked.
As a kid, I tried to remember the grandparents I’d left behind, to picture their aging faces or the glint of silver in their hair. But they always evaded me, fleeting as the caress of wind on my cheek, a game of slippery elusion I was destined to lose.
I heard their names uttered once, one bitterly cold Christmas Eve. I’d been startled awake by the drumming of rain on the roof, and, when I heard my parents arguing, crept from my bedroom. An orange glow emanated from beneath their door, the troubled pacing of feet breaking the light with a rhythm of shadows. Rain consumed much of their conversation, but when I dared to sneak closer, ear pressed to the door, I heard my father whisper their names at long last.
Ambrose and Virginia.
The recognition was immediate, like someone had wrenched open a curtain on my past, spilling daylight over every forgotten corner. I remember the sinking weight of my body that night, how I clung to the wall for support, as if my whole world momentarily teetered off its axis.
They had offered to send us money, and plenty of it, from what I could gather. Mom had had a difficult year—the first of many, we’d come to find—and their charity was meant to alleviate her mounting pile of medical bills. Dad wanted to accept my grandparents’ help, if only while we got our finances in order, but Mom quickly shut him down.
“Over my dead body,” she whispered in the night. “And even then, I’d roll over from the grave to stop you.”
Just like that, their light went out, case unequivocally closed, and I remember tiptoeing back to bed feeling innately robbed of something, wondering what could’ve caused such an irrevocable fracture in our family.
More of my questions went unanswered over time, and I grew tired of waiting for reasons that never seemed to materialize. Life did its job of steering me forward, and Halcyon Bay eroded from my thoughts like a closed box I shoved to the back of my mind’s attic. I let the dust settle over it, let the years pile up, and moved along.