Secrets of Bloodhaven Cove (Bloodhaven Cove #1)

PROLOGUE

The fog comes in low and thick, like it knows the old New England island better than the people who live on it. The moon is full but drifts in and out of the foggy night sky.

Silas has seen it all his life. The way the fog creeps across the harbor first, swallowing the pilings one by one, then drifting up the narrow road toward the trees. Most days, he keeps to the docks, mends nets, keeps his head down, and lets the bell tell him when to go inside.

Tonight, he doesn’t.

Two of his boat lines are damaged and he needs to get to his storage shed for new ones. On the edge of town, by the woods. The same storage shed he’s owned for forty years.

I should wait ‘til morning is what he thinks as he pulls his coat tighter and steps past the last working light at the edge of Hunt’s Harbor. “But I’ll never make my morning fishing times if I wait,” he mutters, like anyone’s there to hear him. “Can’t afford a day’s lost wages...”

The wind off the water is wrong this evening. Not strong and not exactly cold. Just … off. It presses against him in uneven breaths, as if the island itself is exhaling. Or warning him.

He glances back once.

The harbor is a scatter of yellow lights behind him. Molly’s coffee shop is closed but the lights are still glowing at the corner, the medical clinic house is dark and empty, and the old bell tower is a black silhouette against the sky.

He turns away before he can change his mind.

The path to The Wilds and his storage shed isn’t marked. It never was. You either know where it is, or you don’t. Silas has known since his father built it. He also remembers his father telling him, you don’t go out after sunset, boy. Every parent in Bloodhaven Cove said this.

He steps off the road and into the trees.

The fog thickens immediately. It clings to his coat, seeps into his sleeves, dampens his white hair at the back of his neck.

The sounds of the harbor drop away behind him like someone shut a door.

No gulls. No water. No voices. Just the crunch of his boots on old leaves and the steady, soft beat of his own pulse in his ears.

He doesn’t go far. Fifty yards, maybe, where the old shed sits. He unlocks the worn door. The rope is there, looped twice on a weathered wooden shelf, just where he left it.

He takes it quickly and then locks the shed door. But he hears a noise nearby.

That’s not right.

Silas straightens slowly, the rope coiled in his hand. He peers into the fog, trying to make out where the noise has come from, the shape of it. He hears nothing but dead silence.

“Wind shifted,” he says to no one. “That’s all.”

The words hang there, thin and unconvincing.

Behind him, deeper in The Wilds, something moves again, a subtle displacement. Like someone stepping from one shadow into another.

Silas freezes. He feels it more than he sees it.

He doesn’t turn around. Not yet. His father’s voice is suddenly in his head, clear as if he were standing right behind him.

If you hear it, boy, you don’t look at it. You just go.

Silas swallows. His throat is dry.

“Wind,” he says again, louder this time, as if saying it might make it true. He doesn’t look for the sound any longer and starts to walk away quickly. The fog curls tighter around him, brushing his cheek like a cold hand.

Something moves again. Closer.

He turns. He shouldn’t. He knows that. But he turns anyway, slow and stubborn and human.

For a second, there’s nothing there. Just the empty, breathing quiet of The Wilds.

Then a figure appears between the trunks.

Not a man. Not quite a beast. Too still. Too tall with long limbs. The outline wrong in ways his eyes can’t quite fix. It stands just beyond where the fog should thin, as if it’s choosing where it can be seen.

Silas’s grip tightens on the rope.

“Evenin’,” he calls out, because that’s what you do when you see someone on the island, no matter where you are. “Didn’t hear you come up.”

The figure doesn’t answer.

It tilts its head, just slightly, like it’s listening to something he can’t hear.

Silas takes a step back. Then another.

“Not much out here tonight,” he adds, forcing a rough laugh. “Fog’ll turn you around if you’re not careful.”

The figure moves. One moment it’s over there. The next it’s closer, the distance between them folding in on itself without sound.

Silas’s breath catches. The rope slips from his hand.

“Now hold on—” he starts, and that’s as far as he gets.

It’s on him in a blur—cold and fast and wrong. A hand—too strong, too sure—clamps around the back of his neck and drives him down. His knees hit the damp ground hard enough to jar his teeth.

There’s a flash of something pale. A scent—metallic, sharp.

Pain spikes along his throat, sudden and blinding. The thing is taking some of his blood. Silas feels a bruise on his cheekbone that hit the ground after his knees. He wonders if his teeth are loose.

Silas cries out as the thing continues to tear at his neck, the sound from him more a stutter of fear and confusion. He struggles, tries to twist free, but it’s like fighting the tide with his bare hands.

“Stop—” he chokes, his voice breaking. “Stop, I—”

The pressure shifts. That’s worse. The thing holding him pauses, as if considering him. As if deciding.

Silas’s vision swims. The fog presses in, thick and close, swallowing the edges of everything. His heartbeat roars in his ears, fast and panicked.

Then, abruptly, the grip loosens.

Silas gasps, clutching at his neck. His fingers come away slick and bloody.

The figure is already retreating as something else pushes it away. Another presence, hitting it, maybe? The figures slip back into the fog, between the trees.

Suddenly the forest is silent again.

Silas doesn’t wait. He scrambles to his feet and runs as best he can.

Branches catch at his coat, roots snag his boots. The path back to the harbor isn’t far but feels longer now, twisted, wrong, like the island is trying to turn him around.

“Home,” he mutters, half-crazed. “Just get home, to the harbor—”

He stumbles forward.

“Why did I go out after the bell. Damned stupid of me.”

Silas finally bursts out of The Wilds and onto the road, falling again and bruising his knee. He staggers down the road, one hand clamped to his bloody neck, breath tearing out of him. No one is out. No one hears him. Everyone withdraws inside when the bell tolls at sunset.

“Help!” he tries to shout, but it comes out thin, ragged, barely a noise at all. “Help—”

By the time he reaches the edge of town, his legs are shaking.

He reaches his little house on the harbor. His friend Fred opens the door. As it flies open, light spills out onto the street.

“Silas? What the hell—” Fred says, helping his friend in.

Silas sways, blinking hard against the light.

“It’s back,” he manages, the words barely more than a whisper. “Something in the—”

The rest of it is lost as his knees give out.

“Let’s get you inside, now!” Fred murmurs, dragging his friend inside.