By dawn, the feast had begun to die.

Not dramatically.

Nobody declared it finished. There was no final song. People simply began to run out of night.

A sailor slept beneath a table with one boot missing. Two women sat against the mast sharing a cup neither had drunk from for half an hour. Someone had covered Sean with a coat.

Someone else had put the ridiculous red hat back on his head.

Eljara had noticed.

She had left it there.

The fiddle was silent.

So was the flute.

But every now and then somebody still tapped three beats against the deck without seeming to know they were doing it.

Three beats.

Pause.

Three beats.

Pause.

The sea answered against the hull.

Or didn’t.

Stacy had become careful about that distinction.

She stood at the rail with Caelwyn.

The eastern horizon was turning grey.

STACY:
“I can explain last night.”

CAELWYN:
“I know.”

STACY:
“You could at least pretend to be interested.”

CAELWYN:
“I’ve heard you explain it three times.”

STACY:
“I was refining the explanation.”

CAELWYN:
“You were arguing with yourself.”

STACY:
“That too.”

She drank some water.

STACY:
“Alcohol lowers inhibition. Sleep deprivation affects perception. Repetitive rhythm changes attention. Synchronised movement increases social bonding. Expectation influences interpretation. Grief can produce a sense of presence. Music retrieves autobiographical memory.”

Caelwyn nodded.

CAELWYN:
“All reasonable.”

STACY:
“All demonstrable.”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

She waited.

CAELWYN:
“What?”

STACY:
“You’re supposed to disagree.”

CAELWYN:
“Why?”

STACY:
“Because otherwise I don’t know who I’m arguing with.”

CAELWYN:
“Still yourself, apparently.”

Stacy gave him a look.

Behind them, the remnants of the crew slept, whispered and held one another.

The woman who had called for her dead mother during the dance sat alone near the bow.

Peaceful.

STACY:
“She said her mother was there.”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

STACY:
“That isn’t evidence that her mother was there.”

CAELWYN:
“No.”

STACY:
“You’re being irritating.”

CAELWYN:
“I agree with you.”

STACY:
“That’s the irritating part.”

The woman stood.

She turned towards an empty place beside her.

And smiled.

She whispered something neither of them could hear.

Then walked away.

STACY:
“Grief.”

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps.”

STACY:
“Memory.”

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps.”

STACY:
“Expectation.”

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps.”

Stacy narrowed her eyes.

STACY:
“You’ve been talking to Chibi.”

CAELWYN:
“He makes a compelling argument.”

For a while they watched the sea.

Then Stacy said:

STACY:
“I heard another voice last night.”

Caelwyn waited.

STACY:
“It might have been an echo. Or someone below deck. Or auditory pattern completion.”

CAELWYN:
“What is that?”

STACY:
“The brain completes incomplete information. If you expect a voice, sometimes noise becomes one.”

CAELWYN:
“So you heard something.”

STACY:
“I perceived something.”

CAELWYN:
“Did the better word help?”

Stacy frowned.

STACY:
“With what?”

CAELWYN:
“Whatever is bothering you.”

She looked down into the water.

STACY:
“It said my name.”

Caelwyn stopped smiling.

CAELWYN:
“Once?”

STACY:
“Twice.”

CAELWYN:
“Did you recognise the voice?”

“No.”

She seemed annoyed by that.

STACY:
“If I’d recognised it, I could explain it as memory.”

CAELWYN:
“And because you didn’t?”

STACY:
“I don’t know what to explain.”

Caelwyn rested his arms on the rail.

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps your brain found your name inside noise.”

STACY:
“Yes.”

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps someone actually called you.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you misremember it.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps there’s an explanation we haven’t thought of.”

“Obviously.”

Caelwyn paused.

CAELWYN:
“Perhaps something called your name.”

Stacy looked at him.

STACY:
“That isn’t the same kind of hypothesis.”

CAELWYN:
“No.”

STACY:
“It isn’t testable.”

CAELWYN:
“Not yet.”

STACY:
“That doesn’t make it equally likely.”

CAELWYN:
“No.”

That stopped her.

CAELWYN:
“Possible and probable aren’t the same thing.”

STACY:
“Exactly.”

CAELWYN:
“And unexplained doesn’t mean supernatural.”

STACY:
“Exactly.”

CAELWYN:
“But explained doesn’t always mean meaningless.”

Stacy went quiet.

Then somebody screamed.

Not loudly.

A short, involuntary sound.

A sailor stood near the gangway, staring at empty deck.

His cup lay at his feet.

CAELWYN:
“What did you see?”

“A man.”

STACY:
“Who?”

The sailor had gone pale.

“My father.”

He backed away.

“My father is dead.”

The woman who had called for her mother approached.

The sailor pointed towards the empty gangway.

“He was there.”

She looked.

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

Relief crossed his face.

“Good.”

The woman tilted her head.

“Why?”

“Because he’s dead.”

She nodded.

“Yes.”

“He can’t be here.”

She looked towards the empty gangway.

Then back at him.

“Why?”

The sailor stared at her.

Apparently he had expected death to settle the argument.

It didn’t.

Stacy questioned him carefully.

Had he slept?

No.

Had he been drinking?

Yes.

Had he been thinking about his father?

“Every bloody day.”

What had the man said?

The sailor swallowed.

“He called me by the name he used when I was little.”

STACY:
“Could anyone here know that name?”

“No.”

Then, more carefully:

“I don’t think so.”

Stacy nodded.

There were explanations.

Exhaustion.

Alcohol.

Grief.

Expectation.

A night filled with songs about the dead and people calling their names.

The sailor looked at her.

“So I imagined him.”

STACY:
“I didn’t say that.”

“You were going to.”

STACY:
“No.”

Caelwyn stepped closer.

CAELWYN:
“What did you feel when you saw him?”

“Fear.”

CAELWYN:
“Before that.”

The sailor opened his mouth.

Stopped.

Then something in his face changed.

“Home.”

The word was almost a whisper.

The woman beside him smiled sadly.

The sailor saw her expression.

His fear returned.

“No.”

He stepped backwards.

“He’s dead.”

The woman did not follow him.

Later, Stacy and Caelwyn returned to the rail.

STACY:
“We don’t know what he saw.”

CAELWYN:
“No.”

STACY:
“We don’t even know whether he saw anything.”

“No.”

“He was exhausted.”

“Yes.”

“Intoxicated.”

“Yes.”

“Emotionally primed.”

“Yes.”

“Grieving.”

“Yes.”

STACY:
“So there are ordinary mechanisms that could produce the experience.”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

Stacy waited.

CAELWYN:
“You’re doing it again.”

STACY:
“What?”

CAELWYN:
“Waiting for me to disagree.”

STACY:
“Somebody has to.”

CAELWYN:
“Why?”

STACY:
“Because otherwise this becomes too easy.”

“What does?”

“Believing whatever we want.”

Caelwyn nodded.

CAELWYN:
“Then don’t.”

Stacy looked at him.

CAELWYN:
“Keep every ordinary explanation. Test the ones you can. Reject the ones that fail.”

STACY:
“And if something remains?”

CAELWYN:
“Keep looking.”

That surprised her.

STACY:
“You’re surprisingly sensible this morning.”

CAELWYN:
“It’s upsetting.”

The sea struck the hull.

STACY:
“But you still think the door opened.”

CAELWYN:
“I think people opened.”

STACY:
“That’s different.”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

He looked across the remains of the feast.

CAELWYN:
“Last night they opened themselves to one another.”

“Yes.”

“They loosened the boundary between themselves and the group.”

“Yes.”

“Between memory and the present.”

Stacy hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Between grief and joy.”

“Yes.”

“Between prayer and song.”

“Yes.”

Caelwyn looked towards the brightening horizon.

CAELWYN:
“If you spend an entire night opening doors, perhaps eventually you begin wondering what else has a key.”

STACY:
“That’s poetry.”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

STACY:
“Not evidence.”

CAELWYN:
“No.”

STACY:
“Good.”

Morning finally touched the sails.

STACY:
“Much better.”

CAELWYN:
“Everything behaving again?”

Stacy looked across the wreckage of the night.

Sean was still wearing the ridiculous hat.

Mara’s foot protruded from beneath a blanket.

Chibi’s foot rested directly on Mara’s face.

STACY:
“Relatively.”

Then she stopped.

Someone stood on the quay.

A woman.

Still.

Watching the ship.

STACY:
“Caelwyn.”

He followed her gaze.

STACY:
“Do you see her?”

CAELWYN:
“Yes.”

Stacy straightened.

STACY:
“Good.”

CAELWYN:
“Why?”

STACY:
“Shared observation is useful.”

They watched.

The woman did not wave.

Did not call.

Did not move.

STACY:
“She could be waiting for someone.”

“Yes.”

“Could live here.”

“Yes.”

“Could have been at the feast.”

“Yes.”

“Could be anyone.”

“Yes.”

Then a voice behind them said:

“No.”

The captain stood several paces away.

His face had lost all colour.

His daughter stepped around him.

She saw the woman.

Her cup fell from her hand.

The woman on the quay smiled.

Nothing monstrous.

Nothing threatening.

A familiar smile.

The captain whispered:

“No.”

His daughter stared.

“Mama?”

Stacy looked at Caelwyn.

Then back towards the quay.

STACY:
“She could be—”

The captain interrupted her.

“She died twelve years ago.”

For once, Stacy had no immediate answer.

Not because there couldn’t be one.

Mistaken identity.

A relative.

Memory.

Exhaustion.

Coincidence.

A lie.

A trick.

Something they had not yet discovered.

Every explanation remained on the table.

But the question had changed.

It was no longer:

Why do people sometimes feel that the dead are near?

The woman raised one hand.

The daughter began to cry.

Not with fear.

With recognition.

The captain whispered:

“That isn’t possible.”

The woman waited.

Morning spread across the harbour.

And after a night spent learning how to open themselves to one another, the living stood before the possibility that they might not have been the only ones who had entered.

The door had opened.

Now they had to discover whether it only opened one way.

What would convince you that the impossible had happened — and what would you need to rule out first?

If you remember what this felt like…

Join Black Flags, Deep Waters:
https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmdjv8r4p00adji04l6v8h4x7

For the stories, research and deeper worlds behind Mythveil Chronicles:
https://www.patreon.com/MythveilChronicles