Not loudly. Not all the time. But when the wind dropped and the rain held its breath, you could hear it—a low, steady note, like a cello string plucked in a cathedral. It vibrated in the bones. It made the teeth ache. And it seemed to come from beneath Yarlist’s house.
He tilted his head, as if translating from a language that had no words. “The names of the lost. The ones the sea took and never gave back. The ridge remembers them. And when the sea gets greedy—when it takes too many at once—the ridge calls them home.”
Cora counted thirty-seven.
And sometimes, on quiet nights, Cora swore she could hear Yarlist’s voice among the others, singing the names of the lost, one by one, until the sea had nothing left to steal.
They drifted upward from the sea, slow as bubbles rising through honey. They passed through the cliff face as if it were water. And one by one, they reached the ridge and walked into Yarlist’s house.
Cora stared. “That’s impossible.”